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If you missed the Chris Hayes show yesterday, you missed a lot.
Not only was Trump’s inside-guy at the DOJ, willing to throw the Certification process into chaos, by calling it’s results “corrupt” — and to “just let the Republican Congressmen do the rest”. There was also a plan in works — with letters drafted with DOJ letterhead — to lean on the SOS of the 6 battle-ground states. Those letters would have provided the weight of the DOJ, and ‘the political cover’ to each of those state’s legislatures to — just throw-out their duly-elected Electors, and submit their own hand-picked panel of Electors instead
— had the plan succeeded.
Once again, it was only dedicated public servants, who managed to stop the Former Guy’s “Attempted Heist” plans, in its corrupt, anti-Constitutional tracks …
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(The video explaining this failed Election over-turn plan occurred during Thursday evening A-Block of “All in with Chris Hayes”, and it can be found here:)
Hayes breaks down Trump’s ‘unnervingly plausible path’ to stealing the election
All In, Chris Hayes, MSNBC — Aug. 5, 2021
“For the first time in the development of this whole story — it's clear there was an actual, cognizable plan to overturn the election," says Chris Hayes. "An actual strategy to get Donald Trump declared the winner of the election, not just throwing stuff against the wall.”
Here are some of the highlights from this insightful and important report [emphasis added]:
Transcript: All In with Chris Hayes, 8/5/21
Summary
Mark Meadows had helped introduce Donald Trump to DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark who is putting together a secret plan to oust Rosen, the Acting Attorney General, and force Georgia to overturn its results.
[...]
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I’m Chris Hayes. When I was here in this chair last night, I started the show by saying that Donald Trump’s failed coup was worse than we thought. And 24 hours later, I am here to say once again, that the failed coup was worse than we thought last night. It’s because we’ve got another damning new bit of information since we reported last night on the roll that this man, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark played in attempting to overturn American democracy.
[...]
And it was only when a group of senior Justice Department officials threatened mass resignations that Trump pulled back. OK, well, we learned something new after the show last night. They weren’t just targeting Georgia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISHNAMOORTHI: It turns out that this guy, Jeff Clark, was writing or drafting these types of letters to all the six states that ended up going for Joe Biden. And I think that, you know, what we see is the beginning of the effort to overturn the election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That was Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, and he sits on the House Oversight Committee which has been investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and offered up that they were trying to run this operation six states. That’s based on another e-mail written by Trump’s personal secretary.
Now, I guess these states are probably Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. It was in the states that the Trump lost by the narrowest margin. And for Trump to win, he would have somehow have to flip at least three of those states.
[...] Trump lost by more electoral votes than Georgia has. So, he needed more than that.
But if you’ve got the Attorney General sending that letter to six states, all of a sudden, the math could work. [...]
But now it’s clear that by late December, they had arrived at an actual plan in place they were trying to execute. And it wasn’t just Jeffrey Clark. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was also at the center of it. Mark Meadows is a man who also participated in an attempt on the life of American democracy.
[...]
And we know from e-mails released by the House Oversight Committee, at the end of December, beginning of January, that crucial period of time right before January 6, that Meadows was repeatedly pressing Rosen to investigate so-called voter fraud, including sending one e-mail. On January 1st, it read, "There have been allegations of signature match anomalies in Fulton County, Georgia."
I love the passive tense there. There have been allegations. Can you get Jeff Clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there’s any truth of this allegation? Now, Meadows is asking for him to call in Clark because he knows Clark is on the team. And the next day, Meadows arranged the call between Trump and George’s Republican Secretary of State when Trump infamously said, "I just want to find 11,780 votes, that’s one more than what do you needed."
So, Mark Meadows is in on the plot, obviously, and Clark and Trump together have a plan. And here’s what appears to have been. They were going to try to use the completely fabricated allegations of voting fraud and irregularities that had been pumped into the atmosphere by Trump and repeated by his allies and the right-wing media, and use that to have the Department of Justice officially send a letter to the six most closely contested states, five of which have Republican-control legislators and say, hey, this is the official blessing the U.S. Department of Justice telling you the results in your state are tainted, they can’t be trusted, we don’t really know who won. And by the way, you have the constitutional authority to call a special session, select a slate of Trump electors, and send them along to Washington.
[...]
And so, finally, after flailing in those courts where they got nowhere, they realize there’s a much better avenue. Just have the Department of Justice give state Republicans the official green light to say, the election is tainted by fraud, we got to send our own electors.
Again, this is not Rudy Giuliani at Four Seasons Landscaping or Sidney Powell talking about the ghost of Hugo Chavez inhabiting the voting machines. No, this is an unnervingly plausible path to steal the election. Luckily, it took them a while to get there. And I frankly don’t have the words to describe what a cataclysm this all would have been if that letter had gone out and state Republicans have taken the signal in a number of these states and sent their own electors, because then you would have to slates elector that are sent to Congress in January 6.
All of a sudden, you have a real fight about which ones are legitimate. And there is now -- I mean, it’s fabricated, but there’s now a stronger case for Republicans to vote against Biden’s electors, a much stronger case for Vice President Mike Pence to accept their challenge. Suddenly, Mike Pence is given the fig leaf he needs to keep Donald Trump in power, or maybe gets thrown to the House under Electoral Count Act in the 12th amendment, and the 30 states of the Republican legislators vote for Donald Trump.
The plan fell apart three days before the insurrection when senior DOJ officials put their careers on the line to their great credit to stop it. But who knows what could have happened? There are all sorts of ways this could have played out and none of them good.
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[Interview with] REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Chris, that is the smoking gun. It’s unnerving how close Trump came to using the full weight of the Justice Department to overturn the election result. [...]
Thank you Chris Hayes, for the stellar and insightful reporting, on a story that too many have grown weary of … that too many are trying to just ‘turn the page’ on. Thanks for staying focus on this pivotal, historical event, and shining a light on the outrageous “abuse of power” details.
...
We as people-driven nation can’t count on being so lucky next time around.
The R’s have shown no sign of remorse, no sign of honoring their Oaths of Office. They have fealty to only one guy. And “honor” has nothing to do with it. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Unless Justice is served, and a harsh spotlight is cast on their repeated attempts to overturn a free and fair, and certified Election, we should expect them to be only more brazen in their future attempts. Which state legislatures are already busily prepping for … writing such “overturn the results” laws.
They are learning from their failures, and adapting. One of these days, their inside guys and the corrupt plans, and poisonous propaganda — will ALL coalesce — and they will get it right ...
— one day they will succeed at thwarting the majority will of the American People, and succeed in replacing it with their own claims to privilege and power.
Unless Justice is served … swiftly, with the full weight of History and this fragile American Experiment, as its ballast.
The days of “by-gones be bygones” have proven themselves — to be over. The events January 6th and its ongoing cover-up has proven that — the passing of a by-gone era — in spades.
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How those “objectives” are defined — are the keys to “bridging the gap” … if it’s not too late already.
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