BREAKING: The smoking gun
The New York Times just broke the story:
President Donald J. Trump pressed top Justice Department officials late last year to declare that the election was corrupt even though they had found no instances of widespread fraud, so that he and his allies in Congress could use the assertion to try to overturn the results, according to new documents provided to lawmakers and obtained by The New York Times.
The demands were an extraordinary instance of a president interfering with an agency that is typically more independent from the White House to advance his personal agenda. They are also the latest example of Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging campaign during his final weeks in office to delegitimize the election results.
The exchange unfolded during a phone call on Dec. 27 in which Mr. Trump pressed the acting attorney general at the time, Jeffrey A. Rosen, and his deputy, Richard P. Donoghue, on voter fraud claims that the department had disproved. Mr. Donoghue warned that the department had no power to change the outcome of the election. Mr. Trump replied that he did not expect that, according to notes Mr. Donoghue took memorializing the conversation.
“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” and to congressional allies, Mr. Donoghue wrote in summarizing Mr. Trump’s response.
This, my friends, is what is known in political parlance as the "smoking gun".
It's all coming out now. There will be a direct link between these efforts to effectuate a legal coup to the violent coup attempt of January 6, 2021. Trump thought his usual mob tactics would be sufficient to overthrow a two-hundred year old republic. What he's been finding out increasingly since Joe Biden was inaugurated is that this country is stronger than any would-be strongman. Most in positions of responsibility are not going to traduce the state in the service of an orange monster.
In yesterday's piece I said "this is what winning looks like". Then I was speaking about the Democratic Party and its agenda. Now I speak of the country as a whole. Trump and his minions are lined up for the fate of traitors. None shall escape.
This is your open thread.