Lindsey Graham preparing to shift to sucking up to the new administration

Cue MAGA death threats.

Mike Pence would like to stay in politics

He's no doubt already planning HIS 2024 run.

Vice President Mike Pence has been a go-to fundraising draw for the president’s campaign, and since October, no more than a day passed without his name emblazoning a fundraising email for the Trump reelect.

But that changed late last month. Since Nov. 25, not a single fundraising email from the Trump campaign or its Republican National Committee fundraising account has featured Pence’s name in the “from” field. And this week, that Republican National Committee joint fundraising committee, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, made another subtle change: a handful of its emails swapped out the official Trump-Pence campaign logo for one featuring just the president’s name.

[...]

“It is an open secret [in Trumpworld] that Vice President Pence absolutely does not feel the same way about the legal effort as President Trump does,” said a senior administration official. “The vice president doesn’t want to go down with this ship…and believes much of the legal work has been unhelpful.”

  The Daily Beast

Do tell.

Pence, sources say, privately views the Rudy Giuliani-led legal operation to overturn the 2020 election through the mass disenfranchisement of votes as counterproductive and doomed. And, as a former governor himself, he has been particularly uncomfortable with Trump’s attacks on Republican governors in some of the key battleground states that he lost.

[...]

“Pence deeply understands the position that [Ohio Gov. Mike] DeWine, [Arizona Gov. Dave] Ducey and [Georgia Gov. Brian] Kemp are in. He has tried to be an effective mediator and communicator between those parties and the president back and forth,” said one Pence ally. “Any time he’s played that role, it’s gone well. The president is satisfied with the facts they’ve provided. And then somehow, with[in] hours or days, the president is publicly attacking them by being fed inaccurate information from other White House sources, which frustrates the VP. It’s not a good look for the president. And it’s only created division in the party at a time when unity is very important.”

[...]

Pence has repeatedly demanded that “every legal vote” be counted and that alleged voter fraud be rooted out.

But he has studiously avoided backing Trump’s more conspiratorial allegations about election malfeasance, and declined to answer questions about his views on specific Trump statements.

[...]

Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for Pence, said Wednesday night, “As he has for the last four years, the Vice President is proud to stand with the president—in this case to ensure every legal vote is counted and every illegal vote is rejected. The Daily Beast’s anonymous sources have no real insight into what the Vice President thinks on these matters.”

After all, he doesn't want to lose Trump's voters.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Here's your voter fraud

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Giuliani's witnesses

There are more crazy clips at that link.

Here's a non-video Twitter thread of Giuliani's deplorables.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  That last doozie has history.

More on that story.

Cleaning up the Constitution

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) proposed a joint resolution Wednesday to remove a punitive provision in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, which outlaws slavery.

The resolution calls for the House and Senate to craft an amendment saying that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude may be imposed as a punishment for a crime.”

The lawmakers said the wording would close a loophole in the 13th Amendment that still provides an avenue for slavery to be legal. The amendment currently reads that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

[...]

“Our Abolition Amendment seeks to finish the job that President Lincoln started by ending the punishment clause in the 13th Amendment to eliminate the dehumanizing and discriminatory forced labor of prisoners for profit that has been used to drive the over-incarceration of African Americans since the end of the Civil War. No American should ever be subject to involuntary servitude, even if they are incarcerated,” added Clay.

[...]

In a statement announcing the legislation, Merkley and Clay tied the loophole to “Black Codes” that were implemented in the late 1800s and used by Southern sheriffs to lease out imprisoned people to work landowners’ fields. Merkley and Clay said the language created “a financial incentive for mass incarceration” that they say still exists today in unequal treatment of people of color in the criminal justice system.

  The Hill

If Mitch McConnell remains majority leader, this will never get to the Senate floor.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Mo Brooks picks the prick spot for himself

Some asshole was going to do it. Mo claimed the honors.

Republican Rep. Mo Brooks (Ala.) on Wednesday told reporters that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress meets to certify the election for President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 6.

[...]

“I'm doing this because in my judgment this is the worst election theft in the history of the United States. And if there was a way to determine the Electoral College outcome using only lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens, then Donald Trump won the Electoral College,” he told The Hill in an interview.

[...]

The Alabama Republican said he believes the issue extends beyond the court cases filed by the Trump campaign, arguing that Congress is better suited to look into the matter.

“It is extremely difficult in a court of law to determine how many illegal votes were cast and who they were cast for. And that is one of the reasons why the FBI, the Justice Department and the federal judiciary are wholly inadequate for handling this issue,” he said.

  The Hill

Apparently only Trump fanatics are qualified to do that.

“Number one is the 1993 national voter rights act that was rammed through Congress by a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate and signed by a Democratic president over the objection of Republican congressmen and Republican senators,” he said.

“The chief evil in that legislation is that it makes it illegal for voter registrars to require proof of citizenship before allowing someone to register to vote. So that in and of itself opens the floodgates for illegal aliens and other noncitizens to register to vote,” he added.

Brooks also said he sees voter ID laws as an area that needs to be strengthened.

[...]

"There’s zero evidence of even dozens, let alone millions, of non citizens voting in this or any other election," David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, told Politifact.

[...]

Brooks would not disclose “any direct or indirect communications” with senators or their staffs but is actively seeking a lawmaker in the upper chamber to join his efforts.

[...]

The congressman said he may still object to the vote if no others decide to join him, acknowledging it would serve as a symbolic protest rather than a forceful challenge to the election result.

[...]

The news comes as Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters Wednesday that he found it unlikely that someone would object to elector certification.

“I can’t imagine that that would ever happen,” Thune said, adding that while a Republican “could” stand up and object, he doubted “that goes anywhere.”

John Thune doesn't know his own people.

Norman Ornstein from Washington, D.C.-based think tank American Enterprise Institute told reporters on a call Wednesday that while he thinks there is a likelihood that at least one House member and one Senator will come forward to challenge a slate of electors, he does not believe it will have any substantial impact on the election result.

“What happens is the House and Senate meet together, and if there’s a challenge, they go back to their respective chambers and resolve the issue,” Ornstein explained. “That can happen pretty quickly. I would think it would not have significant debate, although it could have some debate before you get votes.”

I wouldn't bet my life on it. Not if I wanted to live. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Who knows where this will all end?

Recently pardoned former National Security Advisor and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Atlanta-based attorney L. Lin Wood joined a growing list of President Donald Trump’s devotees calling for martial law ­and having the military oversee a new presidential election. Both Flynn and Wood tweeted their support for the effort to undermine the will of the American electorate, with the latter saying a U.S. civil war caused by China was inevitable.

[...]

The movement stems from a full-page ad in the Washington Times that was taken out by a prominent Tea Party leader in Ohio who calls his group the We the People Convention (WTPC). The ad erroneously claimed that Democrats “staged a four-year long coup” and illegally stole the election from President Trump.

[...]

“Culminating in this corrupt and provably fraudulent current election planned to illegally and unconstitutionally deny the American people their most sacred honor, right and privilege—which is the right to elect their Representatives!” the ad stated. “There is no doubt that this attempted stealing of these elections again ‘is a case of rebellion…in fact, a clear, flagrant, and gigantic case of rebellion’ that requires exercising extraordinary authority to preserve our Union.”

[...]

“It is time to honor your oath, Mr. President. It is time for you to boldly act to save our nation as Lincoln did,” the group wrote. “We the People will support a national re-vote. We will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands, and defend our rights on our own, if you do not act within your powers to defend us.”

Wood, who has filed several lawsuits challenging Biden’s victory and is recently known for representing accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, was the first to show his support for WTPC, tweeting a link to the ad Tuesday morning and expressly calling for the president to declare martial law.

“Good morning. Our country is headed to civil war. A war created by 3rd party bad actors for their benefit – not for We The People. Communist China is leading the nefarious efforts to take away our freedom,” he wrote. “[President Trump] should declare martial law.”

Flynn followed a few hours later, also tweeting a link to the ad along with the caption, “Freedom never kneels except for God.”

  Law and Crime

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Good advice from Trump lawyers

MAGAheads stay home.

To keep the Democrats from gaining control of the Senate?

I seriously don't get this tack.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Speaking of pardons

Two people briefed on the matter told the Times that the president has talked to his advisers about potentially giving his children, his son-in-law and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani preemptive pardons.

  The Hill

He absolutely will do that.

The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was investigated during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the campaign’s contacts with Russia to get information on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 election. But Donald Trump Jr. was not interviewed by Mueller’s office or charged.

President Trump’s son-in-law gave false information to federal authorities about his foreign contacts when they investigated him for his security clearance, which the president authorized anyway. Giving inaccurate or incomplete information during background checks for security clearances is a federal crime.

The Times notes that “the nature of Mr. Trump’s concern about any potential criminal exposure of Eric Trump or Ivanka Trump is unclear,” adding that the Manhattan district attorney is looking into the Trump Organization’s alleged tax violations.

[...]

Andrew Weissmann, a deputy to Mueller, wrote an op-ed encouraging Biden’s attorney general to investigate and prosecute Trump.

[...]

The reasoning for a pardon for Giuliani was also described as “unclear,” although federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating his business dealings with Ukraine and whether he was connected to the removal of former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

DOJ investigation into Trump bribery

An alleged “bribery for pardon” scheme at the White House is under investigation by the justice department, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday.

The heavily redacted document does not name Donald Trump or other individuals and leaves many unanswered questions, but comes amid media reports that the US president is considering sweeping pardons before he leaves office next month.

  Guardian

How do you know if it's heavily redacted?

It shows that the justice department investigation alleges that an individual offered “a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence”.

Two individuals acted improperly as lobbyists to secure the pardon in the “bribery-for-pardon schemes”, as the document puts it. All three names are blacked out.

So...perhaps it was a go-between on behalf of Trump to whom the two scoundrels took their case?

On Tuesday night, a justice department official told Reuters that no US government official is the “subject or target” of investigation into whether money was funnelled to the White House in exchange for a presidential pardon.

Yet.

Trump issued a brief response on Tuesday night, resorting to one of his favourite phrases to criticise the media even though the details were contained in official court papers. “Pardon investigation is Fake News!” he tweeted.

Ordinarily, this would certainly get Bill Barr fired, and he's in enough trouble already. But my guess would have been that it's a way for Barr to keep his job if he has sycophants on the case who will "completely exonerate" Trump. But if Trump's calling it fake news, it sounds like firing material. I don't know.

The watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) tweeted in response: “It’s hard to overstate how big a deal the phrase ‘bribery-for-pardon schemes’ is.”

The document was unsealed by the district court for the District of Columbia, in Washington. Some of its 20 pages are entirely redacted, implying that revealing the details now might jeopardise an ongoing investigation.

[...]

More than 50 digital devices including iPhones, iPads, laptops, thumb drives and computer drives were seized after investigators raided unidentified offices. It was not clear why [chief judge Beryl] Howell decided to release the filing now.

But Trump will be mean-tweeting her and whining about it. And by whining, I mean throwing a tantrum.

Trump last week pardoned Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Trump and Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, discussed as recently as last week the possibility of a “pre-emptive pardon”. Giuliani tweeted a denial.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Hmmmmm

UPDATE:  Josh Barro and Ken White talk about this on their 12/2 podcast.  They say this person trying to buy a bribe has already surrendered to the Bureau of Prisons and is an attorney him/herself.  So, not the Tiger King.  That's a separate pardon bid.

UPDATE: Names named.