John Eastman Emails Show Trump Knowingly Lied in Georgia Lawsuit
The January 6 Committee and John Eastman continue to fight over how many of his emails he can withhold from the Committee under a claim of attorney-client (and related) privilege.
Judge David Carter just ruled on what may be the last 500-so emails.
He ordered Eastman to turn over eight additional emails under a crime-fraud exception.
The more interesting set of four involve discussions about whether Trump should fix numbers he knew to be false before he filed a Federal lawsuit in Georgia.
Four emails demonstrate an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying the January 6 vote. The evidence confirms that this effort was undertaken in at least one lawsuit filed in Georgia.
On December 4, 2020, President Trump and his attorneys alleged in a Georgia state court action that Fulton County improperly counted a number of votes including 10,315 deceased people, 2,560 felons, and 2,423 unregistered voters.69 President Trump and his attorneys then decided to contest the state court proceeding in federal court, 70 and discussed incorporating by reference the voter fraud numbers alleged in the state petition. On December 30, 2020, Dr. Eastman relayed “concerns” from President Trump’s team “about including specific numbers in the paragraph dealing with felons, deceased, moved, etc.”71 The attorneys continued to discuss the President’s resistance to signing “when specific numbers were included.”72 As Dr. Eastman explained the next day:
Although the President signed a verification for [the state court filing] back on Dec. 1, he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate. For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate.73
President Trump and his attorneys ultimately filed the complaint with the same inaccurate numbers without rectifying, clarifying, or otherwise changing them. 74 President Trump, moreover, signed a verification swearing under oath that the incorporated, inaccurate numbers “are true and correct” or “believed to be true and correct” to the best of his knowledge and belief.75
The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public. The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS Dr. Eastman to disclose these four communications to the Select Committee.76
69 As discussed in the previous orders, President Trump’s own U.S. Attorney General said that his investigators found no evidence of fraud on a scale that would have changed the outcome of the election, but President Trump and his attorneys continued to file dozens of lawsuits in states he lost, seeking to overturn the results. First Order at 5. By early January, more than sixty court cases alleging fraud had been dismissed for lack of evidence or lack of standing. Id. at 6. See also J. M. Luttig et al., Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election (July 2022) (examining every count of every case of election irregularities brought by President Trump’s team in six battleground states and concluding that “Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case”), https://perma.cc/MKC4-BV3Q.
70 See Trump v. Kemp, 511 F. Supp. 3d 1325, 1330 (N.D. Ga. 2021) (“Plaintiff’s motion for expedited declaratory and injunctive relief asks this Court to take the unprecedented action of decertifying the results of the presidential election in Georgia and directing the Georgia General Assembly to appoint presidential electors.”)
71 59643.
72 59390.
73 60742.
74 See generally Model Rules of Pro. Conduct r. 3.3 cmt. 5 (Am. Bar Ass’n 1983) (noting that the duty requiring “that the lawyer refuse to offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false, regardless of the client’s wishes” is “premised on the lawyer’s obligation as an officer of the court to prevent the trier of fact from being misled by false evidence”), https://perma.cc/3PB5-CGRM; see also Christensen, 828 F.3d at 805 (“[C]onduct by an attorney that is merely unethical, as opposed to illegal, may be enough to vitiate the work product doctrine.”).
75 In an attempt to disclaim his responsibility over the misleading allegations, President Trump’s attorneys remove the numbers from the body of complaint (but nonetheless incorporate them by reference) and add a footnote that states President Trump is only relying on information that was provided to him. See 61108. But, by his attorneys’ own admissions, the information provided to him was that the alleged voter fraud numbers were inaccurate. See 60742.
76 59643; 59390; 60742; 61108. For document 59643, only the first page (Chapman059643) requires disclosure. For document 60742, Dr. Eastman may redact emails sent before Thursday, December 31, 2020 12:00 PM MST. For document 61108, Dr. Eastman may redact emails sent before Thursday, December 31, 2020 7:43 AM.
These emails are going to have all sorts of ramifications — in Fani Willis’ investigation and the DOJ investigation. And they’ll likely make it easier for both Willis and Thomas Windom (who is leading the Trump fraud investigation) to obtain related emails that were seized from Mar-a-Lago.
Oh My.
I hope this bites him in his ample rear.
I don’t know if it can make it through all the padding. Depends.
The XL SuperAbsorbent style will hold an entire gallon of tears you know
“President Trump, moreover, signed a verification swearing under oath that the incorporated, inaccurate numbers “are true and correct” or “believed to be true and correct” to the best of his knowledge and belief.”
We got Trump again! Busted!! I’ve lost count.
We’re so doomed when Speaker Jordan takes over. For all I know, Lee Zeldin will also be governor of New York. Hope y’all like Hungary-style authoritarianism.
“We’re so doomed when Speaker Jordan takes over. For all I know, Lee Zeldin will also be governor of New York. Hope y’all like Hungary-style authoritarianism.”
Tell me how your unending defeatism and trash talking Democrats stops this fascism.
Tell me how his comment on a progressive legal blog makes the slightest difference to anything? Does refusing to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train and not sunshine make one a defeatist or a realist? Maybe it’s better to acknowledge that things are looking like Germany in the early 1930’s and GTFO before it’s too late.
BTW, I am posting this from Montevideo, Uruguay through a VPN. At 69, I’ve learned to believe people when they tell you what they are going to do and to act accordingly.
You’re in Montevideo, Uruguay. Okay then. Which means you don’t have a sense of just how much bullshit demoralizatsiya is being promulgated across all media here in the US and in public and private spaces, let alone how often it’s inserted into online forums and blogs’ comments. You’re not getting phone calls with push polls and candidates’ statements cramming their fearmongering down our throats, or wads of glossy mailers doing even more of the same.
Yes, Mister Sterling indulges frequently in demoralizatsiya. The Nazis used it in 1930s, too, and it should have been recognized for what it was and denounced loudly as a means to undermine the public’s perception. Demoralizatsiya, or demoralization, was used by Germany even earlier, in World War I, to undermine the relationship between Britain and France. The Soviets used it long after WWII.
And now it’s used as a marketing technique, known as “fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” — it’s the reason a certain US software company was able to monopolize desktop computing on a global basis. The public has become too numb to it being inundated with it.
Well fuck that.
Why would a progressive blog tolerate demoralization which may discourage voters from exercising their right to vote in order to protect and defend democracy. That’s not even a question because the answer should be obvious.
Just stay in Montevideo, out of our way. We’re going to take our lessons from Ukraine and NAFO to defend democracy.
TY Rayne for reminding me why I come here.
DItto, thank you Rayne.
I have been in Uruguay for 24 hours. I was a resident of Los Angeles county, how does the loss of my one Democratic vote make a bit of difference in any election: city, county, state or federal?
My family emigrated to the US from Lithuania weeks before the Russians took over, but my grandfather stayed behind. He paid for that mistake with 3 years in a Siberian labor camp despite holding a US passport. I know all about how fascists go about their business and I also know about getting out before it is too late.
I will be receiving my Lithuanian citizenship in a couple of months, so don’t lecture me about Ukraine, Russia and democracy. I know, at the very least, just as much about it as you do and am making a bigger commitment to opposing fascism than any internet warrior. I just choose not to do it from an armchair in America.
How does one vote make a bit of difference?
A good friend’s son was forced to participate in a class action suit in California instead of Michigan where he lost much of his vision due to a contaminated eye care product. It cost him much of his settlement money which he desperately needed for his long-term eye care which is a goddamned challenge since they’re a small business person whose main product relies on his artwork. He had to do this because ONE Michigan state senator’s vote was enough to ensure that Michigan is the ONLY state in the US which doesn’t allow consumers to sue medical device and pharma companies for product liability. Because the ONE GOP state senator won his election by less than 0.05% votes in a district with ~250K residents.
That’s just one example. One.
You choose to encourage demoralization from outside the US. And I will lecture you all the fuck I want when you think you can drop in here from outside the US to tell a woman of color she doesn’t understand fascism.
Some good news, via Lucian Truscott IV;
“Early voting turnout in Georgia is breaking records. More than 131,000 Georgia residents have cast their ballots since early voting began on Monday. That number is 85 percent higher than the turnout in 2018, the last time Georgia voters had a chance to vote in a midterm election. Georgia’s early voting numbers are nearly as high as the turnout for the 2020 presidential election, 136,739. When you add in the 11,759 absentee ballots cast on Monday, the total number of votes cast in Georgia so far is 143,077, higher than the early vote in 2020.”
I keep hoping turnout will be much higher than polls use in their forecast. I don’t think it will be enough here in Texas to get Beto elected, but I like surprises. Roe/Dobbs should get suburban R women to vote D, but will they be enough? I so hope they are.
The chance of high turnout affecting congress critters gives me greater optimism Ds will keep the House than Beto winning as governor of TX, but a blue wave is possible.
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/some-good-news-for-a-change
Thank you, Alan. My 18-yo son, in his 1st semester of college, has registered 200+ voters! He zoomed me into his group meeting in the cafeteria last night where they planned their weekend outreach. THIS is inspiring!
Thank your son for me, posaune. That’s truly excellent work. But do tell him the mistake made by Democrats after 2008 is that we didn’t keep it up, we let our guard down, we didn’t demand more and better from DNC leadership to build on the gains OFA made.
So true! Thanks, Rayne.
Howard Dean’s 50-state plan frittered away. We have to keep on it. And need reminders like yours.
Go Son Of Posaune! I already had a vested interest in the lad, but this is awesome!
Thanks, bmaz! I’ll forward your comments to him. Btw, everyone, the ACLU has an awesome summer workshop in Voter Advocacy and Social Justice for HS students. My son LOVED this, and he has stayed in touch with all his ACLU friends — mostly college freshmen now, in schools across the country. These kids continue at high levels of motivation. Their rock star is Dale Ho.
Dale is kind of a rock star. Never to be confused with James Ho of the 5th Circuit, who is truly bad. Point Son Of Posaune to Rick Hasen as well; Rick is really good.
Hi there. Every vote counts. Your attempt to respond and rail at Rayne is getting dumped. By me. So don’t blame her.
A Uruguayan would know Luis Suarez is happy to go through a season where he misses 70% of the shots he takes.
If Alzero was coaching Suarez, he’d cut him when he was 12 for failing so much, and tell him to not even bother trying to play in the pros.
Thank you. Without hope we are hopeless.
I agree.
I always vote, hoping my vote beats them by one.
My dad used to tell my mom that there was no point in her going to the polls because his vote would cancel out hers. Her response: yeah, but you don’t go to vote.
It was an interesting household.
Yeah, fuck that!
One of the many times I’ve craved a “like” button while reading comments here. Well said, Rayne, and thank you.
I don’t post here often, (nor lurk) because I find the wishy-washy attitude of many posters here both frustrating and infuriating.
What’s wrong with this defeatism? What good will it do to hide from reality you ask rhetorically?
Everything.
Think back just 6 months ago.
When Russia tanks and troops were poised to capture Kyiv. Did you hear anyone in Ukraine say “what good will it do to fight??? We must accept reality. Tell me [how it] makes the slightest difference to anything?”
Do you clowns think the election is over before it’s even held?? And even if it goes entirely against you, will you collapse in a pool of your own weepy-tears agonizing with self-pity??
This is how the bastard fascists win. They encourage the miserable self-loathing defeatism of their opposition, They welcome it. They lie and laugh because no con calls them liars. They count on the abject cowardice of those who surrender before a shot is fired.
If you believe in something, stand up for it. Defend it!
NEVER back down before a battle, during a battle, or after a battle. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have died defending themselves. Collaborators, otoh, acknowledge reality.
Meanwhile some US “progressives” want to anoint the loathsome Jim Jordan Speaker before an election?????
That’s just bullshit. If you have any hope for America, now is the time to fight for it — and keep fighting no matter how the election goes.
Why do you think they perpetuate their lies? It’s not because they believe their lies; it’s because they refuse to surrender to reality.
They’ve declared war. So fight!
Thank you for that. Throwing in the towel before Election Day is how we lose.
In his book, “On Tyranny” the first of Timothy Snyder’s 20 lessons may relate to this point. That lesson is, “Don’t Obey in Advance.”
The idea being, the fascists win if we anticipate/ try to figure out what they want and give it to them without a fight. If we do all that to surrender, or even just because we think it might be easier to avoid some imagined confrontation, we lose.
As well as #18: “Be Calm When the Unthinkable Arrives”…
[Rayne – I think this moniker ought to work, yes?]
[Point to where I said periods were acceptable characters. Fix this — dashes or underbars only. All the other Matts have been figuring this out without anywhere near this struggle. /~Rayne]
Matt, you are fine.
No, he’s not. I specifically asked for dashes or underbars.
I did not say periods.
This is the third pass as well, it’s getting bloody annoying.
-__-
Sorry for the annoyance, Rayne! Underscores win out.
(Also nice to see bmaz defending me, if only for a moment!)
-_-
bmaz may be a legal whiz and an excellent specimen of cholla cactus but he’s not going to have to deal with the coding issues related to updating our comment system. That would be me.
The Churchill quote:
“Nations that go down fighting rise again, but those who surrender tamely are finished.”
I am not an expert in the field of psychology, but that doesn’t stop me generally, so it’s my understanding that learned helplessness is a possible outcome in behaviorism. Being a Democrat teaches you there is also a cognitive component. Democrats old enough to have been politically conscious since Reagan and the Gingrich revolution deserved our learned helplessness because it could not be escaped or avoided. Young people these days did not earn it. Older Democrats taught it to them verbally, so there must a cognitive model of learned helplessness. Democrats genuflect before elections. You can go take a look at the old Gingrich GOPAC memo. We can find words like ‘weak’ and ‘pathetic’ to describe ourselves. Here we are. We are losing history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOPAC#GOPAC_memo_of_1990
I mean no offense, wetzel, but that’s a lot of bushwa. Ask older Black Americans about “learned helplessness” — it’s goddamned tough to overcome structural racism including poll taxes, intimidation at the polls, gerrymandering, voter caging, more, and yet they’ve worked against it for decades, making good trouble as John Lewis advocated until his death.
No, “learned helplessness” is giving up when you have no excuses, when you accept the chronic demoralization from old conservative white dudes like that cheating racist bastard Gingrich and his ilk.
Thank you, Rayne. Yeah. Ask my family about learning helplessness. While I wish I weren’t old enough to remember the segregated schools in Raleigh, NC when I was a kid there, I’m glad those memories got seared ineradicably into my consciousness. And even gladder for the memories of how my parents (especially my white father) marched all over the South for civil rights even as our local Klan tried to intimidate them. Fighting is a condition of life if you care about humanity, your own and others’–which, if you really do care, are the same.
Yep.
The media is blasting out huge amounts of FUD, claiming Republicans are “surging”.
538’s list of polls claims Dems have a strong chance of holding the Senate, but less than 30% chance of holding the House.
I don’t have much faith in 538’s polling. We’re looking at a confluence of changes like new districts and a massively angry voter bloc in women.
And the media — most especially NYT — has been spreading bullshit about voter sentiment based on a particularly crappy poll which was based on less than 1000 likely voters.
See this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/TheRealHoarse/status/1582381878807793664
While I agree with much of your sentiment, I am angered by the democrat’s reaction to January 6 and that anger results in fear for the future. Democrats, since Jan 6, have not taken the republican turn to fascism as seriously as they should, and their answer is Vote Harder! Donate MORE!
Well, what has the Democratic Party done to protect democracy? In my mind there is no question more important than that one. Because all of the gains of the past 2 years will be for naught when republicans steal elections legally. Without democracy everything else is moot. McConnell used power to thwart the obvious Constitutional right of presidents and as a result we have a Supreme Court that will destroy the progress of the past 100 years. And assure Republican control of this country. His actions are a taste of the power that Republicans will use once they gain control of the voting process.
Americans have terrible habits of a poor memory and an incapacity for planning for the future. Dobbs should be a wakeup call to Americans that Republicans are going to strip them of their rights. Yet even such a blatant injustice as that is not enough to sway voters. If this November doesn’t see a massive Democratic sweep in Congress and in state legislatures, AG races, etc., that just proves that the American people are incapable of self-government, that this experiment has failed. Radical republicans will strip the rights of women, PoC, LGBTQ, non-Evangelicals and anyone not a straight white Christian male.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
As for planning for the future, the democratic party should be doing everything in their power to prevent voter suppression, corrupt vote counting and even more corrupt vote certification. That should be the number one priority. But Democrats act like the inevitable will never happen.
Republicans will be elected on a voting is illegitimate platform despite being incapable of providing any proof. If and when those election deniers win, democracy will die.
And it will die with a fig leaf of legality.
And absolutely none of that had anything to do with a sabotaged transition, continuing sabotage and obstruction inside the federal government, fearful GOP members of Congress who privately admit Trump is bad but are too chickenshit to help Democrats because they’d end up like Cheney and Kinsinger, nothing at all to do with the continued undermining of American media discouraging accurate coverage.
Yeah, sure, keep blaming the Democrats. It’s a lot easier than looking in the mirror.
As I say to my kids all the time, you can only control your own actions, not the actions of others. You blame the Trump administration, Congressional Republicans and the media. Well, the 1st two are the problem to be conquered, so that sort of misses the point. The media is well, the media and they haven’t been worth a fart in the wind in decades. They are a tool to be used in any number of ways to get messaging across. But, hey, I’m all for breaking up media monopolies, taking monetary incentives out of news reporting, reintroducing the fairness doctrine, disempowering the access media, etc.
But, this is, presumably, a website that speaks to the movers and shakers, (quite well and intelligently I would add). This type of website is great, as far as it goes, to provide facts and context for major legal cases. Personally, I learn a great deal here. However, the point is that we are on the edge of a potential disaster politically-not in dem vs rep in the every 2 years voting cycle, but a major shift in the very fabric of our nation. And I don’t see the Democratic Party doing what is necessary to prevent that from happening. In fact, Obama not just sitting Garland after McConnell blew off his obligation to give him a vote was a major milestone that may have sealed a fascist takeover by guaranteeing a radical right conservative majority on the SC who will overturn rights and democratic protections.
I do not, as a simple citizen have the power to effect what is necessary, that lies in our elected politicians and the Democratic Party needs to take this threat seriously and acknowledge the immediacy of it. I just don’t see them doing that.
I can support candidates, I can preach to the mountains what the problem is, I can donate, I can volunteer, I can advocate, but the elected politicians need to take the necessary actions.
Can we get back to the fact that Trump was caught red-handed lying about the Big Lie? I am hoping that this one spark will set off a wildfire of indictments, each vying to be the first to hit the front page with a frog-marched TFG.
BTW Rayne… thank you for keeping things real.
What a bunch of horse punky from Paulka.
When was the last time you canvassed with your local Democrats? You sat at a tent and handed out sample ballots? Wrote postcards? Attended a Democratic Club meeting? Donated to on the ground activities?
What drives us is the idea that each one of us can do something to further our democracy. That each drop in the bucket counts.
Those pontificating from on high behind their devices about what a lousy job we’re doing are particularly nauseating.
I’m sorry you have to read all that shit, Rayne.But thank you for doing so and responding.
I’m not impressed with the latest batch of visitors, either. I don’t know how you do it.
Thank you. She, and we, will plug along just fine. We have gotten good at it over all the years. There really is an influx of “visitors” that are maddening though.
True public service, yours.
Thank you!
LOL Be glad you never see the stuff in the Trash bin. Holy Toledo, the stink!!
But I’ll note it’s a sign of how tight things are that we’re seeing more new commenters offering contentious comments — they don’t show up when things are easy in either direction, only when the margins are tight.
Awesome work, Rayne. Just awesome. Truly appreciated!
Excellent diagnosis. Keep it up.
[extends old username]
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
Thanks, Rayne & Bmaz for all the work you do keeping this site as intellectually stimulating as you do by keeping away the trolls and your great comments and writing as well. And to Marcy, of course!! I’ve been coming here regularly for the last couple of years to get my fix of REAL news involving facts and intelligent analysis without the exhausting bothsidesism. I was finally able to afford a small contribution today, and I invite others who are able, to do so as well.
Thank you!
“it’s because they refuse to surrender to reality.”
So there is an abundance of hope – for reality always, always wins.
(Aside, it just occurred to me that Putin must be envious of Trump for Trump’s troubles are only legal to which Trump adds big doses ego.)
If George Washington had accepted the “reality” of the Continental Army’s desperate military situation on the Delaware River in December of 1776, he would have thrown in the towel and that would have been the end of the American dream of independence. But Washington saw another “reality”, that the Hessian outpost at Trenton might be taken by a surprise attack. After routing the Hessians at dawn on December 26th, the Continentals went on to win another victory over the British at Princeton on January 3rd, and suddenly America was back in the game again.
Speaking of “fighting”: I’d like to add that volunteering for “Get out the vote” phone banks in critical states is possible no matter where you live. Simply Googling “phone bank elections 2022 volunteer” will bring up directly actionable results.
I’m a bit hesitant to share a quote from him, but think that despite his warmongering ways, T. Roosevelt was spot on when he said:
““It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Good thing you weren’t in charge of the Shackleton expedition or a member of the 1980 US Mens Olympic Hockey team. When the sky looks gray I take inspiration from the famous statesman John Blutarsky.
“Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh?”
For those who have 3 minutes to waste/enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vtWB4owdE
It’s been a few years since I watched that movie. No doubt Senator Blutarsky’s record of scandals would have been as nothing to what has happened IRL since.
The wife and I moved to lake Chapala, Mexico eight years ago. We don’t have children and wanted a bit of adventure in retirement. I also required a place where I could play golf year round without sweltering in heat and humidity a good bit of the year. I play three times a week and have missed five days due to weather in eight years. The average annual temperature here is about 73, with low humidity.
We have voted in every election since we left and I am headed for Atlanta Friday and carrying a satchel fool of our and our friends ballots to mail when I arrive. We hope for the best for the US, but we absolutely love our life here. Another reason for my visit is I am attending the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame ceremony. My lifelong friend Clarence Scott is being inducted in the inaugural class Saturday. Clarence attended Trinity, the black high school in Decatur, and later was all-pro for the Cleveland Browns for many years. I went to all-white Decatur High. I played against Clarence and a lot of the other black guys at the black gym in the summer. I was the only white guy there. I just wanted to go where the best ball was played. Clarence and all the other great black athletes and teams were never recognized by the Atlanta papers, but I knew better. I created and worked on a documentary titled “As If We Were Ghosts” telling the stories of legends like Walt Frazier and John “Blue Moon” Odom who white folks from Georgia never even heard of until they became famous as professionals. We will interview Clarence for the Doc this weekend.
Mike Pence may have helped the democrats. Tuesday’s tweet from him:
Tweet #1
“Today, President Biden made a pledge that if Democrats were to hold on to the House and the Senate, then on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade come this January, that he would sign a bill codifying that decision into law.”
Tweet #2
“I’ve got news for President Biden. Come January 22nd, we will have Pro-Life majorities in the House and Senate and we’ll be taking the cause of the right to Life to every state house in America!”
I hope the Lincoln Project or the DNC runs ads with Pence’s words.
https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1582562298102951937
I hope voters feel this threat because even worse than anti-abortion codification could come.
This! So, so much worse. There are lots of ways to crystalize it but this one is spot on for several conversations I’ve had with “friends”…
https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1583680430011998209
“The United States is facing the greatest danger to its constitutional system since at least the 1950s, if not the *18*50s, and millions of people are like: Yeah, but gas, man”
Amanda Marcotte at Salon
The best friend of fascism is cynicism
Trumpists want you to be cynical — it’s how they’ll destroy democracy
Polling data shows the reason Americans won’t fight for democracy is they doubt it can be saved
I sure would like to know more about the polling data. Bet you dollars to donuts particular demographics feel this way whereas some demographics are used to having to fight every day of their lives just to exist — what’s the fight for democracy but a continuation of the same existential battle?
fair enough / well put
I like this bit Heidi Cuda captured at the Women’s March 2017:
There’s no way around the labor which includes bringing the weakest along. Indifference to the work is an expression of privilege.
Ed Kilgore chimes in:
Americans’ Indifference About January 6 Is the Real Threat to Democracy
Zeldin will never be Gov of NY.
That would be interest to watch.
Are you the same red who got banned from Politizoom?
Let’s just join this chorus;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAAKPJEq1Ew
LOL!
Every time I see his name, I think it says Led Zeppelin. Since he is dazed and confused, it’s an easy mistake to make.
I think this strangely worded sentence:
The attorneys continued to discuss the President’s resistance to signing “when specific numbers were included.”
Means by Dec 30, 2020, Trump refused to sign any statement that had “specific” lower numbers than the 11,780 votes that he was looking for to flip the vote in Georgia (call with Raffensperger looking for the votes was on 12/26 I believe). When the lawyers said that the actual fraud numbers look to be much lower or unknown, Trump knew that wouldn’t do it for him and told his lawyers to find the votes. They were so dishonest that they did.
I think some more complaints to the relevant State Bars are in order.
I suspect you are correct. The gut interpretation is simply that he was adverse to include specific numbers; i.e. just don’t get into quantifying the extent of allegation.
But I think this read is exactly right; the problem was that in any case the specific numbers were too low as to make the whole matter moot as outcome still wouldn’t change on them.
That Trump/Raffensperger call was on 1/2/21
Meadows, Cleta Mitchell, and Kurt Hilbert were also on that call.
In her thread about this Carter ruling, Marcy notes:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1582808333429264385
2:58 PM · Oct 19, 2022
From the screenshot:
Thanks, I was looking at one thing that said call was “late December” and another that is was on a Saturday, and considered it might have been early January Saturday, but the timing still supports that Trump was in find-me-the-votes mode…
I really can’t wait for these emails lamenting that Trump wouldn’t sign unless they put their thumb on the scale. Cleta might have to redo that legal ethics class that the state of Michigan required her to do after getting caught doing dishonest things there!
I think you’re referring to Kurt Robert Hilbert, The Hilbert Law Firm, LLC, who was the attorney for the plaintiff.
I took this to mean that Trump never likes to pin himself down on specific things that can be refuted. He much prefers the vague: “massive Fraud including thousands and Thousands of illegal Votes” (sic)
And pronounced as ” . . . [pause for habitual brief aphasia] “Voahts.”
Yet more evidence that Trump is not misinformed, not deluded, not detached from reality, knows right well that he lost the 2020 election in this particular space/time continuum, and is fully aware of what he’s doing all the time.
This comment and Seashell October 19, 2022 at 4:14 pm made me think of the applicability of Hilbert Space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space#Quantum_mechanics) to the situation.
Is there a definitive list of lawyers who have experienced discipline at the hands of their state’s bar after working for Trump? Imagine how much hubris a lawyer needs to believe “Trump has either stiffed or suborned criminal conduct from all his previous lawyers. But I’m too smart; none of that will happen to me.”
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
It is good that Eastman told him his numbers were wrong before he signed off on the false claims but won’t he just say someone else told him they were correct and he figured Eastman was wrong?
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You’d changed to “HardyWeinberg3,” please stick with it. Thanks. /~Rayne]
The Eastman email is strong evidence, with names and dates and events.
Any claim by Trump about later being told otherwise can be evaluated by contrast with this strong evidence.
Warning: bmaz could appear at any moment and make it clear how little I really know about legal evidence.
Ha! The key with all evidence is always how are you going to lay the foundation to actually get it formally into evidence in court.
So, obviously NAL, does not the ruling from Judge Carter, which states:”The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Carter wrote. “The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
assist with that process?
We know some who had Trump’s ear at the time, like Sidney Powell, Giuliani, Flynn, Lindell. He was being exhorted by Jeffrey Clark from DOJ to pursue this too. And if Ginni Thomas had Meadows’ attention, she may have had Trump’s as well.
I’m guessing Tom Fitton weighed in. He has consistently trumped rational voices with law degrees; Trump takes Fitton’s (bad) legal advice over and over. This blunder presages his more recent decision to take the “aggressive” approach in resisting the DOJ’s efforts to get documents returned, the stance recommended by Fitton.
There is just so much Trump criming that it’s hard to keep perspective. But it suddenly occurs to me that, public perception wise, this is a perfect crime for Trump to be caught at. The Big Lie underlies much of the current ideology in Maga world. Trump being proven to have knowingly lied about election results: This is a big fucking deal. We can prove it in court–The Big Lie is a lie.
I think that is an excellent point. The ruling gets to the heart of the Big Lie – Trump got creamed in 2020 and had every reason to know it. It also opens the “fraud exception” window in destroying Trump’s privilege claims and who knows what ill winds will blow in?
Fark I am soò! Happy that thinking people are still aware of democracy! Thanks Rayne thanks BMAZ
Thank you Dr. Marcy.
Your title ” John Eastman Emails Show Trump Knowingly Lied in Georgia Lawsuit” says it all.
IANAL. Marcy’s last line about Eastman’s emails-“And they’ll likely make it easier for both Willis and Thomas Windom (who is leading the Trump fraud investigation) to obtain related emails that were seized from Mar-a-Lago.” raises question(s) about process for me.
How do those emails (evidence of crimes) get into the hands of Windom and/or Willis?
Judge Carter (California federal civil case) ruled that those emails could be released to J6 Committee. Will Eastman appeal Judge Carter’s ruling? How can Fani Willis and/or Thomas Windom gain access to Eastman’s emails? Do they have to file suit against Eastman (and win) in their respective Courts? Willis has said she wants to wind down her special Grand Jury by the end of the year. She then has to go to another GJ to get actual indictments.
Windom/DOJ status is unknown.
IANAL, but if a federal judge has used “preponderance of evidence” or “probably true” as the legal weight behind a denial of A-C privilege ruling for four Eastman records, then it is likely easy enough for either Windom or Willis to issue subpoenas for these emails, either to Eastman (less likely?) or to the J6 Committee (more likely?). The question at this point is whether or not Eastman is appealing further up the chain to stay/over turn Judge Carter’s ruling here.
It’s not Eastman’s privilege to assert. It’s Trump’s.
Heh, it is not Eastman or Trump’s either at this point.
I think the question was who had standing to raise a privilege claim on appeal. But the cat does seem to have already left the bag.
Does anyone know if there is a scheduled hearing before a South Carolina Judge to compel Meadows to appear before the Fulton County SPGJ? I have yet to see anything regarding it.