The evidence we have now about the blueprint for Trump's coup attempt is utterly damning

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-coup-blueprint/

On January 2, Trump lawyer John Eastman called into Steve Bannon's War Room podcast to explain how to steal the election. Eastman told Bannon that Vice President Mike Pence could still overturn Biden's victory. The interview was part of an extremely public campaign by Trump and his closest allies to lobby Pence to steal the election during the certification ceremony.

One of Eastman's crackpot theories was that the vice president has the unilateral power to accept or reject electoral votes at his whim, or failing that, to somehow "send the election back" to Republican-controlled swing state legislatures that would disregard the will of their people and replace Biden's electors with Trump's.

Eastman was Trump's master of self-serving constitutional bafflegab. His job was to spin elaborate pseudo-legal theories to justify Trump's assault on democracy. It was Eastman who wrote the notorious memos outlining his fanciful legal arguments for why the vice president has the power to unilaterally reelect himself. Eastman also co-wrote a blueprint for how Trump could use the military, the police, and criminal gangs to hold onto power after a disputed election. Eastman even spoke at Trump's rally on the Ellipse, making wild allegations of election fraud before Trump set the mob on the Capitol.

To understand January 6, you have to think in terms of an inside game and an outside game. The inside game was to steal the election procedurally. The outside game was to gather a mob to terrorize officials into going along with it. Eastman was a conceptual architect of both the paper coup attempt and of the plan for the political repression that Trumpists expected to follow in the wake of the theft.

*snip*

[vlyons]

1. Has Eastman been subpoena'd and why isn't the DOJ indicting these traitors?

I'm not impressed with Garland

[dalton99a]

5. Yes.

By the House committee

[Dan]

7. A part of me wants to say

Bring the CIA home, to do the job that they have been doing overseas for years.

[Tomconroy]

2. I don't think we've learned the half of what was going on.

[Irish_Dem]

10. I agree, we don't yet have all the puzzle pieces.

The full story needs to come out.

[calimary]

17. And that's the strategy. Right THERE.

So we’ll never know. Way to claim “plausible deniability”, I guess.

[Irish_Dem]

20. Yep, some of the guilty will be protected and get off the hook.

[calimary]

18. Double post. Sorry about that.

[msfiddlestix]

3. The inside game, the outside game.... not going to be held accountable soon enough

Swift judicial accountability is absolutely, 100% critical to preventing the biggest coup since jan 6th attempt to succeed, via up coming elections. At this particular juncture, with the slow walking, side stepping judicial process, and all of the ancillary congrerssional proceedings moving at a snail's pace, I see the window of timely accountability closing quickly.

Hell, Bannon's next hearing is a week or two away and likely to be continued and delayed while Bannon is free to continue planning, plotting and most importantly riling up the base via media platform.

It's just unbearable to watch the remaining embers of our democracy completely turning to cold ash and snuffed out.

How in the hell can we pretend otherwise?

[triron]

14. I guess same way the Germans did in the early 1930s.

[Evolve Dammit]

23. I expected better but I guess we're heading down the same road. Make plans.

[Justice matters.]

21. The critical period for the 1/6 Committee will be September/October 2022.

That's when the public hearings need to be broadcast on teevee.

Give Democratic candidates plenty of opportunities to air ads locally for their election.

Would not be surprising the DOJ will wrap up their secret investigation on co-conspirators during that time too.

In the meantime, let's wait and see, because drumpf and his minions are relatively harmless.

[Evolve Dammit]

24. Most Americans don't care now. Disengaged, burned out or MAGATs. We will see about "harmless",

especially after the Kenosha decision. The judge and jury sent a huge message today.

[Justice matters.]

26. I don't see a relation between that trial and the findings of the 1/6 Committee exposed...

in September & October 2022 (as I presume they will be aired).

Democratic candidates will have plenty of subjects to present to independent swing voters. Like "we need to legislate their recommendations to make sure no other violent assault on our democratic institutions will ever happen again, and the republicans will never vote for them to be coded into law" or something the like.

I think most voters don't want to see another coup attempt by the republicans. Enough of that fascist crap!

If they don't want another violent coup, don't vote republican. Period.

[Evolve Dammit]

33. Everything that is happening is related/ connected. We are devolving as a civil society rapidly.

[msfiddlestix]

28. Well I feel like that's going to be too late in the game

I do feel as you expressed, the DOJ will quietly wrap up their "secret" investigation about then maybe 6 months before per old policy standards. (6 months before elections) I mean, possibly a presser... but at the end of the day not much in the way of critical accountability by way of serious charges and prosecutions. I truly hope I'm wrong about that. But it's 11 months in now... your mileage may vary, but I'm not optimistic.

I just KNOW you meant the "wait and see" comment as sarcasm. because I just KNOW you do not regard drumpf and his minions as: "relatively harmless" .......

amirite?!

[Justice matters.]

32. The key word here is: "relatively"

The orange terrorist can issue any crazy BS like he did before (although he lost Twitter), but he is not in power, doesn't command the army, nor anything the like. He's caused an unprecedented increase of the national debt by a woozy EIGHT TRILLIONS in 4 years, and mismanaged a deadly pandemic that caused SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSANDS preventable deaths by lying, calling it a HOAX...

His batshit crazy insurrectionists will not assault Congress for months now, seeing how their fellow traitors are ending in jail, like the idiot shaman (who said he hates drumpf now: how many others hate him for letting his goons do prison time while their terrorist leader walks away free going golfing??).

So, until the Committee finishes its job and the DOJ follows through (or the other way around), they are "relatively" harmless.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[FakeNoose]

6. The organizing and planning started long BEFORE Chump lost the election

Chump already knew by early summer 2020 that he was gong to lose in November. That's when his "Stop the Steal" plans were getting cooked up. If we look back on his campaign speeches from last year, Chump was already talking about how it was all "rigged" even before Biden won the Democratic Party nomination. After Biden became the Nominee, Chump's talk about "rigging" went into high gear.

How can someone who's supposedly in charge of the government, claim that the election will be "rigged"? Isn't it his job to see that it's NOT rigged? Does it mean he can't do his job? What if he were to win the election, does mean he rigged it to win?

There are so many questions!

Everything points to Chump being a criminal, a traitor, and the worst president we've ever had.

[pandr32]

11. I'm in total agreement.

[msfiddlestix]

29. "and the worst president we've ever had"

I agree. I remember when I used to say that about dumbya Matter of fact we all did. Couldn't have imagined then, that Bush would be out topped as the worst president ever. Because Bush clearly was in over his head. And his cabinet were right there with him.

yet the unthinkable happened. and it could happen again.

[blueinredohio]

8. If we have evidence why doesn't someone do something about it?

[TheRealNorth]

9. Well, they are going to argue....

That they "believed" the election was stolen, and that challenging the slate of electors was within their rights.

So you have to.be able to prove:
1) they knew that they legimately lost and attempted to subvert the election process
2) or that they engaged in criminal activity in the process of planning for Jan 6th, or responding to the events on Jan 6th.

[blueinredohio]

12. They knew they lost because they concocted this plan

in case they lost. If they legitimately won they wouldn't have carried out the plan. They wouldn't have to. What's the difference in this coup and someone hiring a hit man who was an undercover cop? They didn't commit the crime yet they just planned it.

[Scrivener7]

13. And they're out there planning their next attempt. And no one is stopping them.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Trump's peers would never tolerate a coup against them.

Putin, Xi, Myanmar, Erdogan.

[Evolve Dammit]

34. Two completely different approaches. DOJ is doing almost nothing. 45 would be a rabid inquisition.

[Generic Brad]

16. I've no doubt his push to be Speaker is his new path

Imagine if that happens. Immediately he will be saying “That’s a nice President and Vice President you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to them .”

Don’t doubt for a moment that is his new plan to retake the White House.

[gab13by13]

19. He can't be Speaker from the golf course.

[stage left]

22. When will he actually be damned?

If he were a Democrat(God forbid) he would have been jailed yesterday.

[Fiendish Thingy]

25. Even if Eastman never testifies to the committee, there should be enough evidence

To make a criminal referral to DOJ once the committee finishes its final report sometime next year.

Getting those smaller fish to flip will be critical- hopefully they are among some of the 150 the committee has already interviewed behind closed doors.

[Magoo48]

27. IMO, none of this means shit.

It has a potential for consequential meaning if it is followed through on.

Color me skeptical. So until such time as some meaningful results unfold.

I say—so fuckin’ what?

[bullwinkle428]

30. Posted without comment.

[traitorsgalore]

31. As if the Georgia phone call to overturn the results weren't enough

Treason abounds, justice is something we're told to wait for until it's "off the table".

[Evolve Dammit]

35. Seriously. We have no accountability. At all. Not seeing it. Ain't happening. Hope I'm wrong.