HOW CLOSE ARE WE?

Civil War or Overthrow of the Government are on the table.

How close are we to losing it all?

It’s easy to get numbed to all the crazy political shenanigans of the Trump Administration, but we really do need to take the time to absorb the details and implications of the extraordinary interim report by the Senate Judiciary Committee: “How the Former President and His Allies Pressured the DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election,” released last Thursday.

If you still oubt that we are, indeed, in the midst of the worst constitutional crisis in our history, you need to read the whole thing.

The interim report puts into stark detail facts and actions that - if I had ever written a screenplay using them - no one would have believed. The president declaring war on the country? Unpossible! Except...

Justice Department officials really did scramble to stave off a pressure campaign by the President of the United States to overturn an election and keep him in office. He was getting advice about how to block certification of the election from a lawyer he had found on television.

As you probably learned somewhere in your education, John Adams insisted that a republic had to be “a government of laws, and not of men.” But as this report shows, the law by itself was not sufficient to prevent the coup Trump wanted to carry out. Trump had successfully installed people within the government who were willing to betray their country and commit treason by declaring war on the United States (the legal definition of treason, the only crime described in the Constitution). Hr only failed because there weren’t enough of them and he ran out of time.

He has all but declared formally that he is running again for president again in 2024. Two-thirds of Republican voters believe the 2020 election was stolen from him. If Republicans win the mid-terms next year, he really could be back in the White House, regardless of the popular vote in 2024.

The guys who failed this time learned from their failure. Trump allies like Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who were in regular contact with Trump in the days after the election and made their own attempts to pressure department officials, are working to promote The Big Lie now that the election was stolen.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to enlist the Justice Department to convince states to nullify election results. Now, those state legislatures have passed laws allowing themselves to do exactly what Trump wanted.

Most shocking is the story of Jeffrey Clark, acting head of the DOJ’s civil division. Despite having no authority over election law, he held meetings and conspired with Trump about the election behind the back of Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen at the end of December and the beginning of January.

Things intensified when Clark presented Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, with a letter that he wanted them to sign, urging state legislatures to hold special sessions for the purpose of replacing legally appointed slates of electors with new slates, with the clear implication that Trump would then be declared the winner. He had the gall to tell the acting Attorney General that he could either cooperate with the planned coup or be fired, in which case he, little Jeffrey Clark, would do what needed to be done to overthrow the government of the United States.

In the end, Trump was only stopped by the threat of a mass resignation by Department of Justice senior leaders and United States Attorneys that would expose him to ‘bad publicity.”

And how do Republicans respond? The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican minority under the direction of “Dean of the SenateSenator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) released a response so laughably indulgent that it amounts to, “How can you charge a man with a crime he didn’t commit? He listened to his advisors and followed their advice. What is everyone getting so worked up about?”

Grassley’s laughable response portrays Trump as nothing more than a “concerned citizen” who only wanted to clear up questions about the election. Trump, they write, “expressed concern with ensuring that DOJ was doing its job of fully investigating allegations of election fraud so that the American people would have confidence in the results of the 2020 election.”

And when confronted with the possibility of mass resignations that would eclipse the Saturday Night Massacre? “President Trump listened to his advisors, including high-level DOJ officials and White House Counsel and followed their recommendations.”

All the reporting and investigations of Trump’s coup attempt make clear something utterly terrifying: The people who do the most damage to our country and democracy aren’t necessarily brilliant supervillains.

The Judiciary Committee’s report recommends strengthening rules that govern the relationship between the White House and Justice Department to make another attempted coup less likely in the future. But it’s clear that to the Trump administration, the rules didn’t matter.

We now know, after the past six years, that 232 years of constitutional democratic government has existed solely on the voluntary agreement of those who participate to follow unwritten norms and the considerations of common decency. Talk about a jury-rigged structure! And if there are those who refuse to do so, there is little that can be done to stop them, outside of the good will and integrity of people the criminal president appointed. If he gets back in 2024, do you think he will appoint anyone not utterly beholden to him?

Oliver Knox at the WaPo “Daily 202" came up with an interesting take:

Fans of “The Simpsons” have a leg up when it comes to understanding the way conservatives defended Donald Trump Thursday after the latest disclosures about his months-long campaign to overturn President Biden’s victory.

Call it the “Sideshow Bob” defense.

Serving prison time for attempting to murder Bart Simpson, former television-show sidekick Bob wages a campaign for his release. At one point, while other prisoners riot, he calls into the radio show of Birch Barlow (meant to evoke Rush Limbaugh) and complains about the unfairness of it all.

“Convicted of a crime I didn’t even commit! Hah! ‘Attempted’ murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for ‘attempted’ chemistry? Do they?!?” he grouses.

In other words, you should exonerate Bob for scheming to murder Bart, stalking the Simpson family, tying them up and nearly running the boy through with a sword — all of which he does in a previous episode — because he was stopped.

We are moving toward a critical moment for rule of law in the United States, where that idea will finally be vindicated or shown to be a mockery.

The decision on whether to charge a former President with a crime is weighty. The decision to conduct a proper investigation of a former President is not. Trump has been shown clearly to be just another lawbreaker.

Investigating Trump and his fellow conspirators, and then following through on the result, is fraught. There is a significant minority in this country that are publicly fine with the possibility of a second civil war. Indicting Trump and putting him in the dock of justice could be the spark that sets it off.

Leaving him alone, to return to power with vengeance in mind and a collection of fools who will do his bidding, is worse.

Comments are for those who support this project, the Paid Subscribers. You can join this merry band for less than the price of two cups of Starbucks coffee a month. $7/month or $70/year, which saves you enough for four cups, $14.