2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[N.E. Brigand]

A couple days ago from the Washington Post:

"As senators fled on Jan. 6, an irate Sen. Lindsey Graham shouted at the senate sergeant-at-arms: 'What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them.'"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The latest candidate for least surprising headline:

Ex-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark declines to answer questions from Jan. 6 panel

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Not surprisingly, Judge Chutkan denied Trump's request to block the National Archives from providing the Select Committee documentation from the White House from January 6 and leading up to it. It remains to be seen whether she (or more likely the Court of Appeals) stays the decision while Trump appeals. The National Archives are scheduled to provide the documents on Friday.

[Dave_LF]

Not surprisingly, Judge Chutkan denied Trump's request to block the National Archives from providing the Select Committee documentation from the White House from January 6 and leading up to it. It remains to be seen whether she (or more likely the Court of Appeals) stays the decision while Trump appeals. The National Archives are scheduled to provide the documents on Friday.

Judge: "Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, prosecutors have requested a 4 year sentence for Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka "the QAnon Shaman."

[N.E. Brigand]

If Donald Trump is successful in his legal challenges to prevent Congress from obtaining documents in the National Archive relating to Trump's actions concerning January 6, then I think President Biden should just give them to Congress anyway. As president, Biden has the ability and the right to disclose any information (even highly sensitive classified information, which this is not) to any person at any time.

[elengil]

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/10/10541386 ... -documents
Judge rejects Trump's bid to block release of Jan. 6 documents

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge Chutkan has denied Trump's emergency request for an injunction pending an appeal. So now Trump will (presumably) ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (the court that he has appealed to) to issue the emergency injunction.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As I expected, the Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit has granted Trump a stay. However, the panel is not a good one for Trump. It consists of Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, both Obama appointees, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee. Judge Jackson, who replaced Merrick Garland on that court, is widely considered a top choice for Biden to tap as the first African-American female Supreme Court justice. The panel has set oral argument for November 30, less than three weeks from now, and I expect the court will rule quickly after that. If, as I expect, they affirm Judge Chutkan's ruling, it will then be up to the Supreme Court to either step in and block the release of the documents or nor. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this time the high court is not going to bail Trump out, and that the documents will be released by the end of the year.

[Snowdog]

As I expected, the Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit has granted Trump a stay. However, the panel is not a good one for Trump. It consists of Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, both Obama appointees, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee. Judge Jackson, who replaced Merrick Garland on that court, is widely considered a top choice for Biden to tap as the first African-American female Supreme Court justice. The panel has set oral argument for November 30, less than three weeks from now, and I expect the court will rule quickly after that. If, as I expect, they affirm Judge Chutkan's ruling, it will then be up to the Supreme Court to either step in and block the release of the documents or nor. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this time the high court is not going to bail Trump out, and that the documents will be released by the end of the year.

Will be interesting. I'm watching from afar, but the whole concept of law and order has been pretty much overthrown in the United States from what I can see.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

After a lengthy but not unreasonable period of deliberation, the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland has requested that a federal grand jury indict Steve Bannon on two charges of contempt of congress and the grand jury has brought those charges. Coincidentally, it occurred the same day that Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows failed to appear for his own deposition. It remains to be seen whether the committee will seek similar charges against Meadows. The case was more clear-cut with Bannon, who was not a member of the government in any way at the time of the 1/6 insurrection.

The statement put out by Attorney General Garland seems to respond directly to Snowdog's comment above, so I'll quote that rather than try to respond to it myself:

"Since my first day in office, I have promised Justice Department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the Department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law, and pursues equal justice under the law," Garland said in a statement Friday. "Today's charges reflect the Department's steadfast commitment to these principles."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, prosecutors have requested a 4 year sentence for Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka "the QAnon Shaman."

The judge sentenced him to 41 months.

https://thehill.com/regulation/581963-q ... 5yWQM&rl=1

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, prosecutors have requested a 4 year sentence for Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, aka "the QAnon Shaman."

The judge sentenced him to 41 months.

https://thehill.com/regulation/581963-q ... 5yWQM&rl=1

Today, after being sentenced, Chansley has a new attorney, John Pierce, who is representing several other Jan. 6 defendants.

Pierce has issued a statement indicating that he is considering an appeal of Chansley's sentence on the grounds that Chansley's prior counsel was ineffective. The statement doubles as a fundraising request, so I would note that Pierce for a time represented Kyle Rittenhouse and raised $2 million for bond so that Rittenhouse was able to remain free pending his trial. Now Rittenhouse and Pierce are in dispute about who gets to keep that money.

In my view, if Chansley appeals, that suggests that he lied to the judge when he expressed remorse for his actions on Jan. 6. Chansley's long statement of contrition clearly impressed the judge. If he were merely faking it, doesn't that make other defendants' less thoughtful statements seem more likely to be phony? Probably for that reason, New York Times legal reporter Alan Feuer says that if Chansley were to lose this appeal, "it will create an almost certainly damaging precedent that will affect all other Jan. 6 defendants."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I guess Pierce recovered from his serious bout with Covid that supposedly kept him from making appearances on behalf of his 1/6 clients?

I'm doubtful that Chansley will really appeal. I think it is solely a fundraising ploy

[N.E. Brigand]

Chansley's previous or current lawyer, the supposedly ineffective Albert Watkins, tells Talking Points Memo that he still represents Chansley and that Chansley has told Watkins that he hasn't authorized Pierce to represent him. Watkins writes, "It appears a third-party named under a power-of-attorney for financial matters for Mr. Chansley may have attempted to use the power-of-attorney to serve as authority to engage Mr. Pierce."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Wow!

[N.E. Brigand]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump, who never officially conceded his loss in the 2020 election, has told friends in private that he believes Al Gore was wrong to concede the (much closer) 2000 election.

[elengil]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/22/politics ... index.html
Judge orders pro-Trump attorneys who brought frivolous election fraud case to pay more than $180,000 to defendants they sued

[N.E. Brigand]

Every time I look at you, I don't understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand.

A man charged for participating in the January 6th insurrection until very recently was an actor playing Judas in the current 50th anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar! That's the Internet Archive copy of the cast page from last month. Unsurprisingly, it's lately been updated. He was billed last month under his stage name. But under his legal name, he was billed as Judas in February 2020.

Which means that he and I have been within a few hundred feet of each other, because the national tour of JCS had one performance in Cleveland in March 2020 before the pandemic shut it down. (One of the other actors in the Superstar tour, then and now, was in one of our productions a couple years ago. I wonder how he feels about his now-former castmate.)

The indicted man also does Michael Jackson impersonations.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rolling Stone: "Jan. 6 Organizers Used Anonymous Burner Phones to Communicate with White House and Trump Family, Sources Say".

More specifically, three sources tell Rolling Stone that Kylie Kremer, a leader of a group named March for Trump, which helped plan the rally that preceded the January 6th insurrection, directed aides to purchase the phones "with cash" for the specific purpose of communicating with what she termed "high-level people" in the Trump campaign and White House, "including Eric Trump, the president’s second-oldest son, who leads the family’s real-estate business; Lara Trump, Eric’s wife and a former senior Trump campaign consultant; Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; and Katrina Pierson, a Trump surrogate and campaign consultant." Because that's a normal thing you do when managing an event, right?

The House select committee has subpoenaed Kremer for documents.