Tag Archives: insurrection

crime news

AG faces mind-numbing concerns

This is why U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is getting the big bucks, man.

These hearings before the House 1/6 select committee examining the insurrection are producing a mountain of evidence against Donald Trump. What is an attorney general to do about this?

Sigh …

There appears to be a school of thought developing that any decision by Garland to forgo a criminal prosecution of Trump carries at least as much grief for the AG as a prosecution. Indeed, the cost of doing nothing might be greater than the blow back that will come if Garland takes this case to a grand jury, which then could indict Trump.

On what? Seditious conspiracy is possible. Dereliction of duty is another. Interfering with election officials’ conduct, too.

I thought the sedition accusation might be the most difficult to prove. I am not sure about that today. I mean — wow! — the dude and his key staff knew all hell was likely to break loose on 1/6. They did nothing!

Merrick Garland is a man of impeccable character. I am likely to accept whatever he decides, even though a no-go on prosecuting Trump is going to make me grit my teeth real hard.

He said he will follow the law all the way to the top. I will take him at his word. It’s looking more and more to me as though we are going to watch all hell breaking loose once again once the AG examines that mountain of evidence in front of him.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

The hits keep coming

How much more drama can the nation take as the House select 1/6 committee marches on in its quest for the truth behind the insurrection and frontal assault on our nation’s government?

We got a snootful of drama yet again today when two former Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members talked of their former devotion to Donald J. Trump and what they did at the former POTUS’s behest on that terrible day.

Oh, and then we heard from Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who told us that Trump sought to tamper with one of the witnesses who testified before the committee. The witness didn’t accept a phone call from the twice-impeached president and instead made contract with legal counsel. I sense we are going to hear a lot more from and about this individual.

Today was the seventh televised hearing. More of them are coming.

This is strange, man. I am absolutely transfixed by this testimony. It is dramatic in the extreme. Once again, it tells me that we have evidence of crimes committed at the very top of the political chain of command.

I am quite certain U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and his team of legal eagles are taking copious notes.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stand tall, counselor

Pat Cipollone is about to get his 15 minutes of fame, notoriety, infamy … whatever the case may be.

On Friday, the one-time White House counsel during Donald Trump’s term in office, will talk to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. He’ll get a chance to tell the panel what he said to Trump while the then-POTUS was seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election … the one that Trump lost to Joe Biden.

An earlier witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, told the committee about things Cipollone said, warning Trump that the actions he was proposing would end up sending everyone in the White House to prison.

Now the former White House lawyer gets to say it all himself, out loud and on the record.

The walls continue to close in on the former Nitwit in Chief.

This is so much fun to watch!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Graham shows his duplicity … again!

Can there be a more duplicitous hypocrite serving in the U.S. Senate than Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina?

Oh, there likely are a lot of ’em serving alongside Graham, but he’s outdone himself this week.

Graham declared that he won’t comply with a subpoena issued by Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis, who wants to talk to Graham about why he sought to intervene in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election returns.

You know the story. Georgia voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. The ex-president sought to pressure election officials to “find” enough votes to turn the state into a Trump victory. Graham took part in that coercion. Fani Willis wants to talk to him about that.

Hence, the subpoena.

Graham, though, won’t comply with it. He calls it “all politics.”

Here’s an idea. If Graham insists he did nothing wrong and if he also insists that the exercise is a political stunt, why doesn’t he go and “set the record straight”?

I think I know why he won’t comply. It’s because DA Willis has an ironclad case of bullying and coercion on Trump’s part and on Graham.

Let’s remember that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger recorded Trump demanding that Raffensberger “find” enough votes needed to flip Georgia. The ex-POTUS committed an act of tampering with a state electoral process.

For my money, Fani Willis has potentially the most airtight case of all of them proceeding against the former POTUS.

As for Graham, who has been a major Trump suck-up ever since he dropped out of the 2016 GOP presidential primary, he is defying what should be obvious, that no one is above the law. When a duly elected prosecutor summons you to testify before a grand jury, you do what you’re told. Indeed, Graham has served as an Air Force lawyer and no doubt has issued that warning to witnesses summoned during courts martial.

I am heartened only by my belief that the walls are closing in on Donald J. Trump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Sanity must prevail

Those of us who believe the world is full of far more sane people than insane individuals must cling to that notion tightly as we watch the 2024 presidential election field take shape.

Thus, it falls on me to declare once again that I believe sanity is going to win the day. Republicans are not going to commit an act of insanity by allowing a twice-impeached president, a two-time loser of the popular vote and an individual who well might be indicted for seditious conspiracy against the government to carry the party’s banner into the next presidential campaign.

Donald J. Trump cannot possibly believe he can be elected again to the nation’s highest office. Surely there exists a sufficient body of sane Republicans who also can prevent that catastrophe from occurring.

I say this because I have stated already that I do not believe that Trump is going to run for POTUS in two years. This individual has a sh**load of trouble awaiting him.

His business is failing.  He is in debt up to that muskrat-covered skull of his. The 1/6 insurrection probe has revealed to the world that Trump knew in advance that the attack he provoked would bring trouble and that he didn’t give a damn that the traitorous mob was screaming “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed the Capitol Building.

I will not believe that Republicans would dare nominate someone so corrupt, crooked, immoral and indecent as the guy who stumbled and bumbled his way into office, only to be revealed that he, indeed, is every inch the “phony” and the “fraud” that 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney described him.

My eternal hope still burns brightly with the belief that the world has more sane minds than insane minds.

Let it be so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Keeping faith in AG

You have read on this blog that I trust Attorney General Merrick Garland implicitly to carry out his duties as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Now that I have reaffirmed that trust, I feel compelled to say the following: I will place my trust that the AG will follow the law in its strictest sense and will make a determination on whether to prosecute Donald Trump based solely on what the law allows him to do.

Put another way: I will accept, albeit with gritted teeth, a decision to forgo a criminal indictment against the former president.

I happen to believe fully in our federal legal system. It’s not that I don’t recognize flaws in prosecution when I see them. Bear in mind, though, that I am the farthest thing imaginable from a lawyer. My mind isn’t trained in the legal intricacies of criminal or civil investigation.

So, when a top-tier lawyer — such as Merrick Garland — goes through the rigorous process of determining whether a former president of the U.S. should be prosecuted for crimes, I am left only to accept whatever decision the AG has reached.

I suppose I should stipulate that my layman’s noodle has concluded that Trump has committed crimes against the government. He bullied the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to steal the state’s electoral votes from Joe Biden; he knew of plans seat fake electors on 1/6; Trump incited the insurrection that sought to “hang Mike Pence”; Trump knew all that he sought to do was illegal, but he insisted on pursuing The Big Lie.

The question for Merrick Garland, as near as I can tell, is this: Can we convict this guy? The attorney general cannot afford to let Trump slither away should he indict him. Indeed, the nation’s governing process cannot afford to have Trump hanging around out there, sowing discord and distrust in our electoral system.

I believe Donald J. Trump is guilty of high crimes against the government. However, I am not pursuing this. The AG, a learned man of impeccable character, is riding in the hottest seat imaginable.

I hope he reaches the correct conclusion. If he decides to go another way, well, he will put my faith in our federal system to a stern test.

It will remain strong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

AOC offers sound idea

Here’s a thought that comes from a member of Congress but is one I want to present here as food for thought.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the House’s most outspoken progressive members has suggested that any member of Congress who sought a pardon from the president of the United States should be expelled from that body.

Follow me on this.

AOC noted that during the House committee hearings on the 1/6 insurrection we learned that several House members sought a pardon from Donald J. Trump. According to AOC, one who seeks a pardon is admitting his or her guilt in committing a crime.

Hmm. Fascinating, yes?

Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louis Gohmert, Mo Brooks and Marjorie Taylor Greene all were identified by witnesses as House members who sought pardons from Trump. Why? They must have known all hell was going to break loose on 1/6, as did Trump.

They’re all right-wing, wacko Republicans. Thus, you could expect that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — an ardent Democrat — would take a hard line on whether her colleagues should remain as members of the people’s House. However, AOC — with whom I have some problems in the past — makes a valid point about whether these GOP nimrods deserve to keep their seats in the House.

If they have admitted to a crime for which they sought a pardon from the lame-duck POTUS, then they have admitted that they have committed a felony. If that is their admission, do they then deserve to remain in their House offices, drawing pay from taxpayers’ wallets and making public policy decisions that affect every American?

No! They do not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

The Fifth implies guilt

You know what? I am going to agree with an assertion that Donald J. Trump made on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

The Republican Party nominee for president declared that those who use the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination usually have something to hide; they imply their own guilt by pleading the Fifth to the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, all of that changes when it’s your friends and supporters taking the Fifth, which Trump hasn’t spoken about in recent weeks while the House select committee examines the 1/6 insurrection against the government.

Former short-term national security adviser Michael Flynn, for instance, hid behind the Fifth more than 100 times when he faced questions from the committee. His response, for example, to a question from Rep. Liz Cheney about whether he believes in the “peaceful transition of presidential power”? He said: “Fifth.”

We’re going to hear a lot more of that kind of gamesmanship from Trumpkins summoned to testify before the panel. The cultists can avoid being indicted for contempt of Congress by showing up and then refusing to answer direct questions by hiding behind one of the founders’ civil liberties … which they are entitled to do.

However, none of it passes the smell test.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney a ‘sellout’?

Roll this one around for a moment: A critic of this blog believes U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is a “sellout” because she doesn’t profess loyalty to Donald J. Trump.

This critic, a fellow with whom I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News — and a guy I still consider to be a friend — predicts that Cheney will lose badly in the Wyoming GOP primary in August. He’s probably right. However, it is worth asking: why?

She is likely to lose because most Wyoming Republican primary voters believe the same as my critic/friend, that she has “sold out.”

To whom? Or to what?

I want to be clear about something. Liz Cheney remains an ardent conservative lawmaker. She is far too conservative for my taste. However, she takes her responsibilities seriously and is faithful to the core of her being to them.

My view is that she has sold her soul to the search for truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. Cheney has sold out, too, to the oath she took when she joined Congress nearly eight years ago. That oath was to the United States Constitution, to the laws of the land and to the government; she did not pledge an oath to an individual.

Cheney is a “sellout”? If that’s how these right-wing, Trumpkin Cabal of Kooks define the term … well, I welcome it!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney to become GOP martyr

As a general rule I dislike attaching the word “martyr” to run-of-the-mill politicians, even when they do extraordinary things.

Liz Cheney is one of those pols who also happens to be doing something that in an earlier era wouldn’t merit the kind of praise she is about to receive from this blog.

The Wyoming Republican congresswoman is standing tall for the rule of law. She is calling a former GOP president precisely what he is: an existential threat to the nation’s representative democracy.

Cheney is likely to pay a grievous political price soon in the Wyoming Republican primary. She appears slated to lose her primary fight for a fourth term in the U.S. House.

‘She knows it wasn’t stolen’: Liz Cheney challenges Republican primary rival over false Trump election claims (msn.com)

And why? Because Wyoming Republican voters have swallowed the swill offered by the former Liar in Chief. Donald Trump’s Big Lie has gained traction among the gullible voters who appear to be the most dedicated among the GOP faithful.

Liz Cheney said this week that Republicans cannot possibly be faithful to both the Constitution and to Donald Trump. Of the two, which is more essential? Hmm. Let me think. I’ll go with the Constitution.

As we have learned during the House hearings on the insurrection — which Cheney has been a key principal — Trump doesn’t give a rat’s a** about the Constitution. His loyalty belongs only to himself and he has demanded it of those who worked for him in public life.

Liz Cheney has pushed back against the ex-POTUS’s sociopathic tendency only by insisting that he follow the law.

That she would be punished for that is reprehensible in the extreme. Yet, polling data suggest at this moment that Liz Cheney is going to lose her primary battle to return to Congress.

It boggles my mind that anyone with half a noodle in their noggin could believe the liar who once masqueraded as president of the United States.

I fear that such a travesty is going to unfold and a congresswoman who is fighting for the truth will pay the price for such ignorance.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com