Surely There is a Crime Here Somewhere –

NAJ Screen Shot

By Glynn Wilson –

It’s the biggest grifter con in history, and it’s still going on. If the public doesn’t get this by now, American democracy is doomed. Maybe that’s Trump’s intent.

Even the most creative writer in the world could not make this stuff up. Only Donald Trump, with a little drunken help from Rudi Giuliani, could.

In the second hearing laying out the case against Trump for his top-level responsibility and leadership of the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, the House Select Committee demonstrated clearly on Monday how Trump had to know he lost the election. Yet it was shown in detailed testimony that he spread the lie of fraud anyway, and how he profited from it by fooling his gullible faithful into sending him millions of dollars, money that was never used in the cause it purported to be for: election defense.

After carefully, calmly laying out the key evidence and testimony, Zoe Lofgren, the Congresswoman from San Jose, California, gave the fraud a name: “The Big Ripoff.”

The committee showed video clips of a number of Trump’s own campaign and White House advisers testifying under oath that they urged Trump not to declare victory on election night and in the days after, reminding us all that it took days for all the mail ballots to be counted and that Trump urged his followers not to vote by mail, a move that in retrospect may have played a role in costing him the election.

See how Trump is not so smart after all? Do you get it now Fox News viewers? (Fox carried this hearing, unlike the first one on Thursday, and Rupert Murdoch’s print publications are now finally turning against Trump for his proven fraud).

Through live witness testimony and recorded depositions, the committee showed how the big lie developed, with key help from a very drunk Giulinani on election night, who advised Trump “to go out there and declare victory” and call his overwhelming defeat fraud. All of Trump’s “Team Normal” staff advised against it.

In his testimony, Trump’s toady attorney general who was brought into the administration after Alabama’s Jeff Sessions was sacked for not lying for Trump in the Mueller Russian meddling investigation, Bill Barr tells how he finally gave up on Trump and quit in December, 2021.

After being relentlessly pressured by the president to investigate and find election fraud to support his wild claims, and after complying and attempting to run down every lead but finding nothing to support any of them, Barr ends up getting one of the last laughs at Trump the loser.

“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” Barr testified, laughing out loud. “There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”

Bill Stepien, Trump’s own campaign chief, testified that the president’s wild election fraud claims had no basis in fact, and that Trump was told this repeatedly but just got madder and madder and continued to spew the nonsense — and raise money doing it.

Jason Miller, a top campaign aide, also confirmed that Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated.” The former New York Mayor has been suspended from practicing law because of his unethical behavior and lying on behalf of Trump, and could soon have his law license permanently revoked because of it.

At the heart of the presentation, the committee kept reminding viewers that it was Trump who lied about the election results and incited followers across the country to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to “stop the steal.”

As it turned out, someone should have come to Washington to stop Trump’s fraud. But of course Black Lives Matter and Antifa stood down that day, aware of advance intelligence that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were going to blame them for any violence — and that Capitol Police and Metro Police would take their side as they had in previous protests.

Even after the hearing, Trump went out again in the media and social media and sent more emails to raise money for an “Official Election Defense Fund” that never legally existed. While the evidence shows that Trump had to know he lost the election, he and other Republicans continued to use claims of a rigged election that they knew were false to mislead small donors and raise as much as $250 million.

“Not only was there the big lie,” Lofgren said. “There was the big rip-off.”

Money ostensibly raised to “stop the steal” instead went to Trump and his GOP allies, including $1 million for a charitable foundation run by Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, who has now been accused of voter fraud himself for not actually having a legal residence in North Carolina where he voted. The committee has so far let him off the hook and not recommended contempt of Congress charges against him, perhaps on the recommendation of Vice Chair Liz Cheney who seems intent on not holding other members of Congress or Capitol Police responsible for their role in the insurrection.

Will Liz Cheney Be the Unlikely Hero Who Saves Democracy One More Time? It Was Trump’s Plot All Along: Will We Hold Him Accountable?

The committee showed evidence that another $1 million went to a political group run by several of Trump’s former staff members, including Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.

More than $200,000 went to Trump hotels, proving that Trump profited from it.

Another $5 million went to Event Strategies Inc., which ran the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot.

This shows that Trump not only incited the insurrection, he directly helped to fund the effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump’s hand picked, paid staff also testified that Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., was paid $60,000 to speak at the event for less than three minutes. So not only did Trump commit fraud and rip off his donors, he used the money for graft to reward his relatives, a clear case of nepotism.

“It is clear that he intentionally misled his donors,” Lofgren said in summarizing the findings, and “asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what he said.”

Surely there is a crime in here somewhere an attorney general and Department of Justice could find a way to prosecute — if they are serious about following the law and not partisan politics.