Posts

3 Things: Memory, Memory, the 6th of January

/52 Comments/in , , /by

[NB: Check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Next week the UK observes another Guy Fawkes Day, the anniversary of the failed assassination in 1605 of King James I, his privy council, and the House of Lords. Children used to recite a rhyme to commemorate the day:

Remember, Remember the 5th of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot

The U.S. has now survived its own Guy Fawkes Day; members of Congress, the Vice President and Vice President-elect were sheltered from a mob of insurrectionists who had been incited to rebel and obstruct congressional proceedings.

Unlike Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, the conspirators and insurrectionists who temporarily disrupted Congress on January 6 and who continue their seditionist schemes will not be hung, drawn, and quartered if prosecuted and found guilty.

~ 3 ~

Marcy’s crunching away on some January 6-related posts right now, but we could use some fresh thread to tide us over to discuss recent developments related to the insurrection.

Let’s start with the unexpected heroics of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which disclosed in a very early Saturday morning court filing that Donald Trump was trying to block release of 750 documents out of 1600 identified and requested by the House’s January 6 commission during its investigation — documents over which Joe Biden as the current president chose not to exert privilege.

The commission also filed a brief supporting its position that Trump as the former president does not have the authority to claim executive privilege over Trump administration documents sought by the commission.

You’ve likely read POLITICO’s report — the tl;dr version is Kyle Cheney’s Twitter thread describing NARA’s filing.

What boggles the mind is how Trump has tipped his hand as to which documents are most damning.

The cherry on top is NARA’s filing which details Steve Bannon’s role in the seditious conspiracy to incite rebellion and insurrection. Ryan Goodlaw at Lawfare wielded a highlighter for us:

Oh my. That’s just so good. It’s payback by NARA for all the crappy additional work they’ve had to do to archive the history of the Trump administration — all those tedious reconstructions of papers Trump had a nasty habit of shredding into confetti now coming home to roost.

~ 2 ~

Now add the claim reported today in Salon that Michael Flynn may have conspired to extort performance from Pennsylvania GOP elected officials in order to reseat Trump in the White House. U.S. Senate candidate for Pennsylvania, Everett Stern, who owns and operates a private intelligence company, had been contacted by persons associated with Flynn’s effort.

Stern says he’s shared information about the approach and related communications with the feds.

What’s deeply concerning about this plot is the possible involvement of foreign entities:

… Because of his intelligence background, Stern claims at least two people representing a Flynn-linked group called “Patriot Caucus” approached him earlier this year after a speech with an offer to hire his firm to gather “dirt” on officials and recruit others to assist in the plot. At one point, one of the men allegedly told Stern that they had retained the services of active intelligence officials “both domestic and foreign.” …

This sounds very much like something Flynn would do based on his past record of involvement with foreign agents.

Stern was also encouraged to achieve the ends desired using violence if necessary — “accomplish the mission even if you have to use domestic terrorism” — which he found very disturbing.

He’s recorded a YouTube video statement which sounds awkward and uncomfortable, and yet he sounds wholly legitimate in his concerns about the situation, including the lawyer for one of the intelligence targets.

Assuming Stern’s claims all check out, one might wonder if it was Bannon who set Flynn on this plot given Bannon’s relationships in PA.

UPDATE: Scott Stedman at ForensicNews tweeted Stern’s a serial fabricator. I guess we’ll let the feds sort that out. Have to ask yourself why a GOP candidate would commit political suicide with their own party and trash the cred of their private intelligence business at the same time while potentially risking federal charges for false statements.

~ 1 ~

Bannon appears to have played a more direct role in lead-up to the January 6 insurrection, along with working relationships to state-level contacts; Flynn may have been/may still be pressuring states’ elected officials using extortive tactics…

Does John Eastman’s ongoing involvement with state legislators complement their efforts?

It already looks like Eastman’s activities on and before January 6 complemented the activities Bannon and Flynn set in motion with their incitement intended to terrorize both Congress and VP Pence:

Sure would be nice to know if Bannon, Flynn, and Eastman had some overlapping communications.

Oh, and Rudy Giuliani.

Same, Jim Bourg, same. Good on you getting this photo.

~ 0 ~

ADDER: If you haven’t already read the Washington Post’s investigative expose examining the run-up to, the day of, and the aftermath of January 6, you should do so. It’s worth your time even if you’ve been following along closely as both the House January 6 commission and the DOJ investigations have unfolded. You may see things which spawn more questions than the reporting answers.

I still don’t buy the benign spin put on former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller’s role, for example. There’s a reason Trump wanted him in that role after Esper resigned; the multiple times Miller failed to respond to requests for National Guard support on January 6 looks like a particular reason.

~ 0 ~ 0 ~

I wonder if in the future children will have a rhyme to recall Trump’s January 6th autogolpe plot.

Memory, Memory, the 6th of January, Sedition, Insurrection, and Trump…

I certainly hope we have a few bonfires each January 6 to keep our memories fresh.

Angry Mom: Hiding the Trumpian Genocide’s Records

/43 Comments/in , , , /by

When I think can’t get any angrier at this miserable excuse for governance, the Trump administration proves there isn’t a limit to how low they will go.

Sleazy, unlawful executive action without adequate oversight followed by a fog of obfuscation and prevarication is bad enough. The administration will now double down now to hide what it’s done and hope like hell nobody notices.

It doesn’t help that members of Congress, journalists, and the public still haven’t grasped the true nature of the crimes before them.

The Trump administration hasn’t merely ignored or broken existing U.S. laws on handling of asylum seekers. See 8 U.S. Code § 1158:

(a) Authority to apply for asylum
(1) In general
Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.

(2) Exceptions
(A) Safe third country
Paragraph (1) shall not apply to an alien if the Attorney General determines that the alien may be removed, pursuant to a bilateral or multilateral agreement, to a country (other than the country of the alien’s nationality or, in the case of an alien having no nationality, the country of the alien’s last habitual residence) in which the alien’s life or freedom would not be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, and where the alien would have access to a full and fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum or equivalent temporary protection, unless the Attorney General finds that it is in the public interest for the alien to receive asylum in the United States.

(B) Time limit
Subject to subparagraph (D), paragraph (1) shall not apply to an alien unless the alien demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that the application has been filed within 1 year after the date of the alien’s arrival in the United States.

There’s more but the key part in boldface above. The “zero tolerance” approach to border protection violated this code. Asylum seekers do not have to apply from outside the country; they can apply once inside the country. I’m not a lawyer but I don’t see anything here that indicates asylum seekers are suddenly not eligible to apply for asylum because they crossed the border.

And nothing in the entirety of 8 U.S. Code § 1158 indicates the government may take custody of asylum seekers’ minor children with or without force.

Note also where the asylum seekers may apply — they are NOT limited to designated ports.

DHS Secretary Nielsen’s claim that border crossers had not applied through ports of entry is a lie because it wasn’t required of them.

What happens to the children appears to fit the description of kidnapping (18 U.S. Code § 1201), including section (a)(3), an “act against the person is done within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States as defined in section 46501 of title 49” for those children who are flown by aircraft to other destinations in the U.S. out of their parents’ physical custody. It’s no wonder carriers like United Airlines and American Airlines wrote and published letters yesterday telling DHS to stop using their services for moving the children across the country.

The conditions in which many of the children have been placed also appear to be abusive; based on the children seen so far there are reports of not enough food, sedation, restraints, disruption to sleep habits, etc.

But that’s not the end of it. The entire separation of children from their families appears to be genocide under The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which the U.S. has signed (1948) and ratified (1988):

Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

We have not yet seen evidence of child deaths, but section (b) is likely and (e) of Article 2 is definite — the children are now in custody of the United States government and disbursed to others’ care.

Wednesday’s executive order does nothing to remedy the situation. It doesn’t even stop the separation of children from families due to its murky wording. It exacerbates the problem by foisting some of the responsibility on the military, placing the Defense Department at odds with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S. Code § 1385) as the EO expects the military to perform a domestic function — DHS’ border patrol and immigration services — which is not in response to a natural disaster.

(Oh, this is definitely a disaster, but it is human made.)

Ordering the military to provide assistance also draws defense resources away from where they may be needed, potentially creating security risks.

And yet this is not enough insult. DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) last year if it could change its record retention practices, according to The Memory Hole:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has asked for permission to destroy all its documents about the deaths of detained immigrants in custody 20 years after a case is “closed.” (Deaths in ICE custody are almost always investigated by ICE itself. A minority are investigated by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General. [report])

Similarly, ICE wants to destroy all its documents about sexual assaults of detained immigrants in custody. The time frame is 20 years after a case is “closed.” (Again, ICE almost always investigates itself in these cases. The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General investigates around 1% of complaints/reports. [article]) NARA argues that this information is “sensitive,” implying that documents containing the identities of victims and the accused should not be kept indefinitely. ICE itself did not offer this (or any) justification.

Thankfully The Memory Hole followed up and asked for status on ICE’s request, to which NARA replied:

No final action has been taken on this schedule. NARA appraisal staff have reviewed the comments received, and held several meetings with ICE records management and program staff regarding the records being scheduled.

Proposed changes to the schedule are being reviewed internally by NARA stakeholders for internal concurrence, after which NARA will inform ICE of the required changes. NARA will then publish a follow-up Federal Register notice responding to the public comments we received. This notice will be open for public comment for 15 days from the date of publication.

But it is not yet impossible that records related to the current human-made disaster affecting thousands of children may be destroyed prematurely, depriving them of justice.

There’s simply no way that ICE should be allowed to change its records retention given the scale of the separated families disaster. And yet I have a horrible, angry feeling the Trump administration will do whatever it can to hide its role in this genocidal activity along the U.S. southwest border.

EDIT — 5:45 P.M. EDT —

I meant to add one more thing to this post. It’s imperative I add this now that the White House has tried to change the subject by using FLOTUS as a human shield with a target literally painted on her back. Do not be derailed by their bullshit. Keep asking:

Where are the girls?

Where are the babies?

Where are ALL the bodies???