Category Archives: Trump Chronicles

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 168: No, You Can’t Nationalize The Elections

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It’s no secret that President Trump obsesses over elections and vote counts, and for good reason. He lost the popular vote in the 2016 election and lost both the electoral and popular votes in 2020. Like any bully he refuses to admit defeat and continues to claim he really won but was cheated. In the last few days he’s floated the idea of the federal government take over running elections. He has claimed, all along without any evidence, that “everyone knows” these elections were corrupt. So what’s the problem with this? Why doesn’t the federal government run elections?

Well, there are a few problems. Let’s start with the Constitution: Article 1, Section 4 states that the “Times, places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state.” It doesn’t get much clearer. States run the elections and this can only be changed by amending the Constitution. Not by Congress passing a law. Not by the President issuing an order. And because the states run elections it’s much more difficult to cheat. No one person, no one group, no one state controls all the ballots and no one group can create or eliminate enough ballots to change the result of an election.

This matters more than ever because it’s clear that that’s exactly what Trump wants to do. In 2020 when Georgia voters chose Joe Biden, Trump famously called Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021 to demand that he find 11,000 votes and give Georgia to Trump. Had Trump been in charge the election he certainly could have done that. Only the Constitution prevented this by having the states run elections.

Joseph Stalin famously said that the people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything (I found that quote here). I hope nobody misses the irony that Trump claims the only way to avoid election corruption is to give him all the power.

We will go to the polls in 9 months to choose our legislators and Trump knows his only path to keeping the House (and perhaps the Senate) is to cheat and we cannot allow him to do that.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 167: Our Racist In Chief

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We’ve known for along time that Trump is racist, despite his continual denials. Well, he’s done it again. February is Black History Month and we take this month to reflect not only on the history of slaver and Jim Crow (in the hopes that we’ve learned and won’t keep doing it) but also contributions the black population has given us. Think Katherine Johnson’s work with calculating trajectories in the early space program and George Washington Carver’s work as an agricultural chemist.

But Trump, who famously referred to Haiti and African countries as shithole countries whose people should not be allowed to come to the United States, is at it again. Yesterday he posted on his social media account a video that depicted former President Obama and his wife Michelle as apes. No, I’m not going to post a link and I hope you don’t either.

As you can imagine the reaction was swift. Even Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is black, condemned it and hoped it was fake. At first Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to ridicule the outrage calling it “fake outrage.” The post was eventually taken down and Trump blamed a staffer for posting it, even though it was posted in the middle of the night when Trump often posts and most people who work for him are asleep.

He just doesn’t get it. But then neither do his supporters who don’t believe he’s racist.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 166: Must It Always Be About You Don?

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This week many of us have followed the horrific news that Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC journalist Savannah Guthrie, has gone missing and has likely been kidnapped. When asked, President Trump offered his support and said: “It’s a terrible thing. I always get along well with Savannah. Very unusual situation, but we’re going to find out.”

Even in his words of support he still has to make it about himself. It reminded me of his words when NPR journalist Cokie Roberts died in 2019. Cokie was a pioneering journalist and inspired countless girls and women to follow in her footsteps. Trumps response: “I never met her. She never treated me nicely.” Nothing about her work or her place.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who tires of Trump making everything about himself.

The Election 2024 Chronicles, Volume 12; The Trump Chronicles, Volume 165: April Update

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It’s obvious that I haven’t been attending to this blog. I haven’t posted since January. It’s not for lack of thinking; it’s just that the news these days is hard to read. As I write this Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the presumptive nominees and one of them will be elected President in November. Virtually every election is known as “the most important of your generation/lifetime/country’s history” but this one may well be.

There’s a lot I don’t need to write about (e.g. Trump’s dozens of indictments) but my fears boil down to this: whichever way the election goes the Trump camp will do their best to end our democracy and usher in a new era of fascism.

I’ve been suggesting that as the legal nooses continue to constrict around his neck Trump will not face justice. He will instead flee to Russia and ask Putin for asylum. This would explain Trump’s continuing craving of Putin’s approval. Unfortunately Trump has been successful in delaying justice through a long, strange series of inane legal arguments. I fear that none of his trials will conclude before the election.

So here’s my fear:

Scenario 1: Trump wins the election. This may sound crazy but he did win in 2016 after I had spent months saying this was impossible. We’re too far away from the election to be able to make a prediction. If he returns to office he has already promised to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his enemies. See this article in the Texas Tribune. Ironically this is what he charges the Biden administration of doing: weaponizing the Justice Department against him. He also spends a great deal of time talking about the border with Mexico. He clearly can’t close the border as Mexico is much too important a trading partner. But his threats of mass deportation and increased enforcement will discourage some of this and will be bad for the economy. Most importantly he promises to dismantle the executive branch so that loyalty isn’t to the American people but to him. He perpetuates the lie of the existence of a “deep state” of government employees who wish to take down the government by liberal policies; ironically he will attempt to take down the government through his fascist policies. Trump recognized that many of his goals weren’t achieved because he chose people served the American people over him. He won’t make that mistake again.

Scenario 2: Trump loses the election. Even if Biden wins Trump will (again) refuse to accept the results. When this happened in 2021 he tried to block the peaceful transition of power on January 6th. It was a chaotic day filled with mistakes that he won’t make again.

Trump famously predicted that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose support. I didn’t believe him at the time but I do now. His support base is strong and deep and they have lots of guns. I don’t say this lightly but our only real chance of remaining a democracy lies in some outside factor. Polls show that if Trump is convicted in one of his trials he will lose support but I don’t believe that. He’s gotten too much mileage claiming he’s being persecuted. I do believe he’s running in part to avoid jail time; he has already raised the possibility of pardoning himself.

I can’t promise I’ll get any better at posting to this blog but I’ll try.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 164: Another Day In Court

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Yesterday former President Trump and his legal team were in court yesterday, specifically US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It stems from a criminal case linked to his January 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow the government and remain in power. Trump’s team filed a brief arguing that he is immune from prosecution because he was acting in his role as President. There is reason to argue that a sitting President cannot be charged with a crime but Trump wishes us to believe that he can never be prosecuted, unless his crime causes him to be impeached and removed from office by Congress.

I subscribe to an excellent podcast called Prosecuting Donald Trump and yesterday they gave me access to the recording of the hearing. I listened to it so you don’t have to. Here’s what I learned:

Trump’s legal team argues that if a President breaks the law he cannot be prosecuted, even after he leaves office, unless he was impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office by the Senate. They argued that without this protection Presidents would always have to “look over his shoulder” when making decisions and worry that after they leave office they will be prosecuted. The President needs this protection to govern effectively.

Jack Smith is prosecuting the Trump case and his team responded that this is not sufficient. For example, if a President breaks the law he can then resign and provide no avenue for him to answer to his actions. Additionally they reminded the court that after Trump was impeached for his actions on January 6th several Senators advised against voting to convict. They argued that once Trump left office he would be subject to criminal charges and since he was leaving office on January 20, 2021 there was no point. Now the Trump wants to have it both ways.

It’s no surprise that I disagree with Trump but I just can’t get past the idea that the President can break the law with no fear of consequences. Trump argues that if a President can be prosecuted for actions in office it would open floodgates. One of their examples was President George W. Bush lying to Congress to get their agreement to invade Iraq. There are two problems with this: President Bush honestly believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (because his Vice President and Secretary of Defense told him so). Additionally, it’s not illegal to lie to Congress unless you’re under oath. He never was. President Trump claims he honestly believed the 2020 election was stolen from him but we have tape of him admitting he lost. This just doesn’t work.

The US Court of Appeals will likely render their decision in the next few weeks and it will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court. I can only hope the court rules against Trump.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 163: Looking at January 6th, Three Years Later

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On the morning of January 6, 2021 I didn’t expect the date to be important. But newly defeated President Trump did. He knew that the Senate would convene that day to accept the electoral votes of the 2020 election and preventing that was his last chance to stay in office. He proclaimed, then and now, that he won the election but it was stolen from him by corruption and voter fraud.

Trump was far from the first president to be defeated in his quest for re-election; that goes all the way back to John Adams. But he was the first who fomented violence to keep his job. On December 19, 2020 he tweeted this: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

On that morning he held a rally near the White House and told his followers to march to the Capitol to “take back our country.” In fairness he expected to join the crowd but his Secret Service team refused his request and took him back to the White House.

What happened next shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The crowd marched to the Capitol, broke windows, climbed over barriers, assaulted law enforcement and attempted to prevent Congress from certifying the vote. At first even Republicans saw this for the terrorist act it was. But it didn’t take long for that to change.

Even those who were in harm’s way have now claimed this wasn’t an attempt to overthrow the government but a peaceful protest. Trump now refers to those convicted of crimes related to this are hostages. You can read an excellent article: here.

We can’t let Trump and his minions rewrite history. Our future depends on it.

The Election 2024 Chronicles, Volume 11; The Trump Chronicles, Volume 162: Why I Believe Trump Is Ineligible To Be President Again

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As of a few days ago we are in an election year. This election, alas, has been hard to watch and I wish I had written more. By the election I hope to have written enough to have given a good sense of the year.

This is unusual this early but the nominees are almost certainly set. Once again, presumably, Joe Biden will run against Donald Trump. We’ve had a rematch before. We’ve been this way before. Grover Cleveland served from 1885 and 1889 and lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Cleveland ran again in 1892 and defeated Harrison’s bid for reelection. He served his second term from 1893 to 1897 and retired after that.

But the election of 2024 has a few wrinkles. For the first time in our history in 2020 the loser refused to concede. Trump has spent the time since 2020 successfully convincing a large percentage of Americans that he was fraudulently defeated and the Presidency was stolen from him. Frankly conceding defeat is custom but not a requirement.

But on January 6, 2021, in the waning days of his Presidency Trump planned to overthrow the government and stop the peaceful transfer of power. That was the day the Senate was to gather and accept the electoral votes and vote to name Joe Biden the 46th President. But on that day Trump gathered his supporters at the White House and directed them to march to the Capitol and stop the voting. They almost succeeded. It was only through the heroic actions of Vice President Mike Pence, the Secret Service and the Capitol Police.

So why does that make him ineligible to run again? After the Civil War we passed three Constitutional amendments: 13, 14, and 15. The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to newly freed slaves who were born in the United States but it does several other things. Section 3 says this:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 3 intended that those who betrayed their oaths by fighting for the Confederacy couldn’t come back to government service. But according to my reading Trump’s actions fit this. He took an oath of office at his inauguration in 2017 and called for the violent overthrow of the government in 2021 to stay in office.

Those who support his reelection claim that it should be up to the American people to chose our next President. But if you want someone who is under 35 or was not born in this country to be President, you can’t have what you want. Several years ago when Arnold Schwarzenegger was the wildly popular governor of California there was talk about finding a way to be President. His political star fell soon after that but even if it hadn’t he couldn’t become President. Even a naturalized citizen can’t be President.

Constitutional amendments don’t expire and they don’t become guidelines. They are the law of the land unless they are repealed (as was the 18th Amendment).

More later.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 161: Let The Flipping Begin

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In a post last month I spoke about (among other things) Georgia’s indictments against former President Trump. I suggested that there were so many co-conspirators because the prosecutors hoped one or more of them would “flip,” that is, agree to testify against Trump in hopes of a lighter sentence.

Well it’s happened. Two of those indicted, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, have agreed to testify in return to reduced sentences. This happened as jury selection was beginning for their trial. One of the conditions of the agreements is that they both truthfully testify against Trump and the other conspirators. They both avoided jail time and we have to believe they have pretty devastating testimony against Trump.

In other bad news, Trump’s choice for the next House Speaker was Jim Jordan and his fellow Republicans voted today to remove him from consideration. It appears that Trump’s strategy of bullying and threatening to get his choice is no longer working.

More later.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 160: Let’s Talk Indictments

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In the last few months we’ve been reading about criminal indictments against former President Trump. It can be hard to keep up (unless you’re a news nerd like me). I thought this might be a good time to see if I can boil it all down and make things sensible to the average person. Let me know how I did. By the way I didn’t categorize this under the 2024 election chronicles because it has almost nothing to do with any of the other candidates.

Background: Donald Trump was elected President in 2016; he lost the popular vote but garnered more electors. This also happened in 2000 when George W. Bush beat Al Gore. Trump ran for re-election in 2020 and lost. He didn’t get enough electoral votes and current President Joe Biden won. Trump declined to acknowledge his defeat, and while he did leave the White House on January 21, 2021 he has claimed all along that the election was stolen from him. In the last few years we’ve witnessed several investigations of illegal activity around this and he’s been criminally charged four times in four different places. Since he is running for President in 2024 it’s gotten a little complicated.

New York On April 4, 2023 in New York Trump plead not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records from the 2016 campaign. Of all the charges this is the least worrisome to Trump. During the 2016 campaign an adult film actress whose stage name is “Stormy Daniels” claimed she had an affair with Trump. Since he was married to Melania then and she had just given birth to their son, Trump feared that news of this might hurt his campaign. At Trump’s direction his personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 on the promise that she would not disclose this to anyone. Cohen paid this out of his own pocket and Trump repaid him. But since the purpose of this payment was to avoid bad publicity for his campaign it was seen as an illegal campaign contribution. Trump attempted to portray the $130,000 as legal fees to his attorney but he and Cohen were unable to provide the paperwork to show what legal services Cohen provided to Trump for the $130,000. They falsified business records to hid the payment. Since the funds were drawn off of Trump’s Capital One checking account in New York, he was indicted in New York As I said, this is the least of Trump’s legal woes. These charges were brought by New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the trial is set for March 25, 2024.

Florida On July 27, 2023 the Southern District of Florida filed a 40 count indictment against former President Trump and others accusing him of illegally taking documents from the White House that belonged to the National Archives. Some of them were classified and were found in unsecured areas. When a President leaves the White House it’s a chaotic time because the White House staff has only a few hours to clean and prepare the White House for the new President and family. It can be difficult to determine what belongs to the President and what belongs to the National Archives. Because of the volume of paperwork involved it’s not hard to imagine that sometimes classified documents get misplaced. When this happened with President Biden his staff caught the mistake and returned the documents. But when Trump left the White House he directed that several boxes, some containing classified and highly sensitive information, be taken to his resort and residence in Mar-a-Lago. Since Mar-a-Lago is a public resort it’s impossible to know who had access to these materials; there was no attempt made to secure them. After Trump left the White House he was contacted by the National Archives because they believed he took boxes of documents that should have been sent to the Archives. In May and June of 2021 the National Archives made specific requests for documents. Trump claimed he didn’t have anything classified and as President he had the power to declassify anything. Over the next year the National Archives attempted several times to have Trump turn over documents; he lied, he instructed his employees to lie and he directed employees to move boxes from Mar-a-Lago, Florida to his golf course in New Jersey. Finally, on August 8, 2022 the FBI executed a search warrant to Mar-a-Lago and seized 102 classified documents. Trump and others were indicted on June 8, 2023. The trial is set for May 20, 2024.

Washington D.C. On August 1, 2023 Trump was indicted on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. These indictments focus on the events leading to the insurrection to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to reverse the 2020 Presidential election and keep Trump in office. The Presidential election was held on November 3, 2020 and four days later Vice President Biden was commonly acknowledged as the winner. Trump insisted that he won the election and promised to reveal widespread fraud and cheating. Since most elections results are clear we have certain formalities that don’t normally get much attention. Each state counts the votes and declares a winner. The winning candidate then appoints electors and on December 14, 2020 electors met and awarded 303 votes to Biden and 235 to Trump. Those votes were then sent to the US Senate who was tasked to count the votes and certify the election on January 7, 2021. Almost from the beginning Trump and his allies began speaking with officials in several states that Biden won, arguing that there was fraud and the states had the right to choose electors themselves, regardless of the popular vote. When Trump learned that the Senate will meet on January 6th (with Vice President Pence in his role as presider of the Senate) to certify the election he began to pressure Pence to refuse to accept the electors and proclaim Trump the winner. Pence refused. He then directed his supporters to come to the Capitol on January 6th with the intention of preventing the Senate from accepting the electors and certify the election for Biden. The trial is set to begin on March 25, 2024.

Georgia This may be the indictment that Trump should fear the most. This also point to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and there is some overlap from the Washington D.C. indictment. But here Trump was indicted with 18 others. On January 2, 2021 Trump made a conference call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump insisted he won Georgia’s popular vote and ordered Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes (he lost the state by 11,779 votes). He and his co conspirators targeted Ruby Freeman, an election worker in Fulton County, Georgia. They accused her of election crimes (handling a suitcase of false or stolen ballots); they then harassed and threatened her. Fearing for her life she left her home for a period of time. Additionally, Trump and some of his co conspirators attempted to file “false electors,” that is, electors that would vote for Trump. Their hope was that the US Senate would be given the false set. What makes this indictment different from the others is that this make use of RICO. RICO is an acronym for “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.” Legislation was written to give prosecutors broad ability go after criminal conspiracies. A conspiracy is when two or more people cooperate to commit a crime; as a funny aside, Rudy Giuliani made great use of this when he was a prosecutor in New York. This will allow one or several of Trump’s co conspirators to “flip” or testify against him for a reduced sentence. Nobody has, but his chances of everyone maintaining their silence are remote. That trial is set for March 4, 2024.

Still with me? This turned out to be much harder to write than I expected. I tried to be accurate and concise but I found that those terms are different points on the same continuum. The trial dates look close to each other and Trump is pushing to have them moved after the 2024 election. I see these dates are more as a starting point than fixed points. To the ability I can I’ll keep writing on this.

The Trump Chronicles, Volume 159; The Election 2024 Chronicles, Volume 6: Our First Former President Is Indicted

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Since he first announced his run for President we’ve known that Donald Trump believes that rules and laws apply to other people and nothing he does is wrong. He is the only President to be impeached twice for clear wrongdoing; he successfully hid behind his office. But it appears his hubris may have reached its limit.

In March he was indicted by the state of New York for falsifying business records; a woman named Stephanie Clifford (stage name Stormy Daniels) claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. Trump then directed money to buy her silence and claimed it was money paid to his attorney.

But he has since been indicted on far more serious charges. When a President leaves office virtually all his papers belong to the National Archives and special care is given to memos classified as Confidential, Secret and Top Secret. There’s always a fair amount of chaos when a President leaves office and it’s not unheard of for someone to accidentally remove documents that should have stayed. When President Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021 he directed boxes to be taken to his residence in Florida. When the National Archives noticed documents were missing they asked the Trump team to produce them. Trump refused. Trump was then issued a subpoena demanding those documents. Again he refused. He then directed his lawyers to either deny they exist or hide them to make sure they weren’t found. In August of last year the FBI obtained a search warrant as they believe Trump still has documents that belong to the National Archives; they search his residence and find 102 classified documents.

You can read the full text of the indictment here. It’s remarkably short and readable and I recommend everyone read it. Please note: if you haven’t read it and want to give me your opinion I won’t listen.

So where do we go from here? These are serious charges and he could end up doing serious prison time if he’s convicted. But he has a history of using social pressure and money to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. He’s claiming that he’s being singled out because he’s running for President and the whole thing is unfair. It’s been good for his popularity and fundraising but won’t make any difference as his case goes on.

At this point he has a few choices:

  • He can go to trial and hope to be acquitted. But he runs the risk of being convicted and sentenced. I don’t see him doing this
  • He can instruct his lawyers to bargain for a lighter sentence. In other words he pleads guilty to a lesser charge that will give him a lighter sentence. This would require him to admit guilt. Again, I don’t see him doing this.
  • He can plead “no contest.” This means he avoids admitting guilt but does not fight the charges and he accepts that he will be sentenced. Vice President Spiro Agnew famously used this plea in 1973. To the extent that this does not absolve him of the charges I don’t see him doing this.
  • Similarly a defendant can use the “Alford plea.” Here the defendant also does not admit guilt but recognizes that there is enough evidence to convict him. Once again this does not allow him to avoid being sentenced and I can’t see him agreeing to this.

So what will he do? I’ve been miserably wrong in all my predictions but I think he’ll run. Much like Edward Snowden I believe he’ll find a way to get to Russia and seek asylum from Vladimir Putin. Furthermore I believe that he kept many of those documents as a type of “currency” to get Putin to allow him in.

I know that’s a pretty serious charge but I believe nothing matters to Trump more than saving his own skin. When he was arraigned he wasn’t required to surrender his passport. If that happens you heard it here first.