5333 private links
Fulton County DA Fani Willis has evidence exonerating Republicans she’s targeting in her 98-page Georgia indictment. //
The revelations unearthed in the transcript raise a significant question: If Willis was in possession of the transcript prior to Aug. 14, why did she charge Shafer and Smith for allegedly partaking in a “conspiracy” to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results when the aforementioned document shows otherwise? //
Unlike the 1960 Hawaii case, which was promptly resolved in court prior to Congress’s certification of the election, the Fulton County state court reportedly violated Georgia’s election code by failing to swiftly assign a judge to hear Trump’s election challenge. Furthermore, the Georgia court delayed the first scheduled hearing of Trump’s lawsuit until Jan. 8, 2021 — “two days after Congress certified Biden the winner of the 2020 election” — which effectively guaranteed that any court decision invalidating potentially illegal ballots would be moot.
It’s worth mentioning that evidence unearthed following the 2020 election shows Trump’s legal challenge in Georgia had strong merit, with records indicating there were more illegal votes than Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia. Under state law, Georgians must vote in the county where they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of Election Day.
As The Federalist reported, however, Mark Davis, the president of Data Productions Inc. and “an expert in voter data analytics and residency issues,” used data from the National Change of Address database to identify “nearly 35,000 Georgia voters who indicated they had moved from one Georgia county to another, but then voted in the 2020 general election in the county from which they had moved.” In a phone interview this week, Davis told The Federalist that more recent figures show more than 12,000 of those 35,000 Georgians later updated their voter registration addresses, “providing the secretary of state the exact address they had previously provided to the [U.S. Postal Service].” In other words, more than 12,000 in-state movers tacitly confirmed they illegally cast their vote in the wrong county in 2020.
The US Department of Energy has reversed former President Trump’s ban on the import of certain electrical equipment from China.
The report by Special Counsel John Durham makes clear beyond a shred of doubt that the Russia Hoax was the most atrocious weaponization of our government in American history. It was a crime like no other.
Costello is the former legal adviser for Michael Cohen. Cohen is one of the two key witnesses in the case, along with Stormy Daniels. Both have serious credibility issues.
Costello’s testimony further decimated any case that the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg may have thought he ever had. //
Costello is the former legal adviser for Michael Cohen. Cohen is one of the two key witnesses in the case, along with Stormy Daniels. Both have serious credibility issues.
Costello’s testimony further decimated any case that the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg may have thought he ever had. //
Costello said that Michael Cohen has “far from solid evidence.” Costello said he used to be Deputy Chief in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, so he would know. Costello said he “never would have touched a guy” like Cohen (as a witness) because he was a convicted perjurer. Not to mention all the other lies that he told them that are in the emails that were being discussed, Costello said. //
Costello said that the prosecution wanted to ask him limited questions about six emails but that he managed to force the fact that Cohen said he hadn’t told Trump he made the payments to Stormy Daniels into an answer, presumably because the prosecution didn’t want the grand jury to hear it. But it sounds like he did get it in there.
Costello also told Tucker Carlson what Michael Cohen said about doing anything he had to, to stay out of jail. //
He explained Cohen said he hadn’t waived the attorney-client privilege. Costello then pulled out his waiver and said, “Is this the kind of witness you want to ride to the finish line?” just completely doing Cohen in.
Trump not knowing about the payment is one more thing that should end this case if this wasn’t a completely political effort.
houdini1984
3 hours ago
Look, I don't care if Trump wants to get into petty pissing matches over book sales. I don't care if he wants to regurgitate lame-ass nicknames and insults that make him sound like a 2-year old on crack. I don't even care if he wants to make a fool out of himself by punching down over irrelevancies. I voted for the man twice and understand this is the bad that you get with the good. With that said, here is why I think this childishness is almost disqualifying:
- This country is on fire and heading toward extinction under Biden. We do not have time for this nonsense.
- Attacking other Republicans - especially ones who have not attacked him first - is an asinine distraction from #1.
- There are hundreds of American political prisoners sitting in gulags in D.C. If Trump wants to pick a fight with someone, let him fight with the fascist tyrants who are abusing those people's civil liberties every damn day. After all, they went to D.C. to support him. Can he not support them?
- China is eating our lunch. Why is Trump not leading the charge to mobilize our response? Oh, that's right... DeSantis has a book. Priorities, man...
- Our next President has one shot to get this country back on track. To do that, he needs to be laser-focused on defeating our enemies at home and abroad. Trump seems to have learned nothing from his first term in that seat. When is he going to demonstrate otherwise? Ever?
As for DeSantis, I know that someone is going to ask the inevitable question: "but what WH policies does he propose?" Save yourself the trouble. He is anti-woke. He is pro-family. He is Republican and conservative, which means that he will be on board with the same types of policies that we liked when Trump promoted them. He is against illegal immigration. He has questioned the blank check policy re: Ukraine. He supports low taxes, reduced regulation, and the overall freedom agenda.
And yes, Bush may like him -- but only because he hates Trump. Derp.
Hans Mahncke @HansMahncke
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This from Trump's deposition in the Jean Carroll case is hilarious.
https://documentcloud.org/documents/23572304-trump-deposition-transcript-ordered-unsealed-in-carroll-case-by-judge-kaplan-whos-on-sbf
4:59 PM · Jan 13, 2023
Q: "Did you talk to anyone about what to say in the statement?"
A: "No, i didn't. I'm not Joe Biden."
There’s long been a concern among Trump’s lawyers that putting him in a deposition is a bit like putting a rabid raccoon in a crib with a baby. Doing that just isn’t going to end well, but in this case, the former president was left with no choice, having been ordered by the judge to appear. Sure enough, it was vintage Trump, and that shot at Biden in which he’s bragging about having written a statement himself is an instant classic. //
Larry Foster @Murvel2015
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Replying to @HansMahncke
I read his entire response and it’s priceless… he tells the lawyer he’s going to sue him, classic Trump
Megan Fox @MeganFoxWriter
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THREE TIMES! Lawyer response, "are you done?" ROFL
6:49 PM · Jan 13, 2023
David Rivkin and Lee Casey in WSJ: “if the Justice Department’s sole complaint is that Mr. Trump had in his possession presidential records he took with him from the White House, he should be in the clear, even if some of those records are classified.” //
Someone whose legal analysis I would credit is David Rivkin. I’ve seen him and his team in action, and they are really good. He’s been involved in the notorious Wisconsin John Doe cases representing the conservative victims of the prosecutorial misconduct.
Rivkin and his law partner Lee Casey, had an Op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on August 22, 2022, that confirms my gut instinct that the search warrant was rotten from the get-go, The Trump Warrant Had No Legal Basis. Here’s an excerpt, but read the whole thing at the link:
The materials to be seized included “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021”—i.e., during Mr. Trump’s term of office. Virtually all the materials at Mar-a-Lago are likely to fall within this category. Federal law gives Mr. Trump a right of access to them. His possession of them is entirely consistent with that right, and therefore lawful, regardless of the statutes the FBI cites in its warrant.
Those statutes are general in their text and application. But Mr. Trump’s documents are covered by a specific statute, the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It has long been the Supreme Court position, as stated in Morton v. Mancari (1974), that “where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.” The former president’s rights under the PRA trump any application of the laws the FBI warrant cites.
Willis’s disregard for the Speech or Debate Clause represents the least offensive part of the Fulton County prosecutor’s witch hunt. By targeting political opponents with a sham investigation that promises a fishing expedition inquiring into legal and legitimate Republican strategies, the Democrat district attorney runs headlong into the First Amendment. However, because pre-Trump our country has never seen such a blatant abuse of power and weaponizing of the grand jury system, precedent provides scant support to stop Willis and other Democrats. //
As I detailed earlier this month, “Willis told a Georgia federal court that ‘a central focus’ of her investigation into the 2020 election ‘is former President Donald Trump’s January 2, 2021, telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger requesting that the Secretary “find 11,780 votes” in the former President’s favor.’” And “with that opening paragraph, the Fulton County Democrat revealed the hoax of an investigation she is running,” because “Trump did not request that Raffensperger ‘find 11,780 votes.’ Period. It never happened.”
Because Willis continues to push a grand jury investigation premised on a provable lie, the courts should force Willis to justify the grand jury proceedings in total. //
While the Speech or Debate Clause provides—or should provide—some protection against a prosecutor running rogue, the weaponizing of the grand jury by state-level Democrats presents no less of a breach of the Rubicon than the Trump Mar-a-Lago raid. But because our country has never seen this scenario before, it is unclear whether First Amendment jurisprudence will be up to the task of countering the continuing abuse justified by a desire to destroy political enemy No. 1.
What separates us from the Third World in our politics, he opined, are the twin concepts of peaceful transfer of power via the ballot box rather than by military intervention and the unwritten and unspoken principle that victors do not use the police power of the state to punish the vanquished. Without the second concept, no sane person will ever relinquish office if they run the risk of ending up imprisoned or on the gallows. Once politics become a blood sport, he said, there is no way to stop the slide into rule by people with guns. //
Contrary to Goldberg, no one thinks former presidents are above the law. But just about everyone, except him and Williamson, are smart enough to realize when the prosecution is political and when it is criminal.
I don’t know how we back away from this ledge, and as the days go by, I care less and less whether we do or we don’t. I don’t think I’m alone.
Imperator
13 minutes ago edited
Trump has a known legitimate business which is/has been openly investigated out the wazoo. Not one iota of his business can effect national security. Biden has a known illegitimate business which is "off-limits" for open investigation, in spite of its national security ramifications. Ditto for the Clintons. No double standard here, is there?
Why bother hiding your cards when the media won’t challenge you?
Democrat lawyer Marc Elias knows what’s up. He shows us why the Democrats raided Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
Because this would never apply to anyone else, right? Looking at you, Hillary. //
Marc E. Elias @marceelias
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The media is missing the really, really big reason why the raid today is a potential blockbuster in American politics.👇
8:09 PM · Aug 8, 2022
18 U.S. Code § 2071 – Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally: //
Marc E. Elias @marceelias
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Replying to @marceelias
Yes, I recognize the legal challenge that application of this law to a president would garner (since qualifications are set in Constitution). But the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this is during a campaign is in my view a "blockbuster in American politics."
8:48 PM · Aug 8, 2022
As Mike Anton presciently wrote two weeks ago, the political persecution of Donald Trump is not about him at all, but about his representation of what a large block of voters want that the national security state refuses to allow.
The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class—Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”—must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want.
Complaints about the nature of Trump are just proxies for objections to the nature of his base.
No wonder Democrats keep bleating loudly about “our democracy” — they know we don’t live in one presently. And this FBI raid is going to make a lot more people aware of it.
If Republicans continue to submit to this farcical arrangement, it will be more confirmation that America’s two-party system is also a pretense, and Republicans are merely a fake opposition party kept on life support to help some people believe our elections are legitimate.
Republicans’ promised hearings aren’t enough. Republicans also held hearing after hearing on Spygate, and nobody was brought to justice. They should be using every peaceful tool of dissent, protest, and refusing to cooperate, as well as preparing to replace the entire FBI and DOJ with completely apolitical staff. Anything Democrats want or need from Republicans from now on, including providing the appearance of a consenting two-party system, should be completely off limits until this banana republic governance ends.
Fani Willis’s own court filings against President Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and other Republicans reveal her investigation is a sham because its ‘central focus’ rests on a lie.
Greenwald said that Trump expelled the “Bush-Cheney” ideology by denouncing them and he won, thereby changing the very nature of the Republican party. That’s why the Cheneys and the Bushes hate Trump, “petty dynastic vengeance,” Greenwald said. Cain notes how “principled” the left is when they align themselves with the neo-conservatives because the neo-conservatives are against Trump.
Things haven’t been the same since Trump showed you can unseat the establishment. That’s why he’s truly “evil” to these people on both sides of the aisle, it has nothing to do with Jan. 6. They hated him way before that, indeed, ever since he won and that’s why. He upset the plan and showed it could be upset. That’s why he has to be crushed so that no one will ever dare to do that again. //
DithoTx
5 hours ago
“In our nation’s 246 year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Deep State Dynasty than Donald Trump.” //
To the NeoCons and the rest of the Establishment, Donald Trump was the ultimate traitor. //
Trump's personality, the "mean tweets," the nick-names for opponents and all that stuff is, in their minds, so unacceptable that they place their standards of behavior above the things that really matter. They would rather have a center-right or center-left President who behaves like they do, or like Reagan did, because appearances are far more important to them than principals. It's a grotesque standard of priorities,
After years of dragging down Trump-supporting evangelicals — voters who made a careful calculation and helped install the president who confirmed three conservative Supreme Court justices that made up the Dobbs majority — there wasn’t much Moore could have said but mea culpa.
Oh, but never underestimate the hubris of an ear-tickled right-wing defector, especially one with a track record like Moore. In his social media absence, he came up with something to say that didn’t include admitting error: Nope, overturning a deadly precedent that ruled for half a century and resulted in more than 63 million lives lost doesn’t vindicate conservative Trump voters. //
Moore has completely bought into the framing of left-wing media and other cut-throat opponents of conservatives, especially as it relates to Trump as a “disruptive figure.”
You can see this in the above passage, with phrases like “the cost of hitching the pro-life movement to a figure such as this.” And Moore invokes the deeply flawed analysis of the likes of David French and even John Piper when he singles out Trump’s “character,” as if we can dispense with that character analysis when it comes to a pro-abortion, pro-transgender opponent who helped concoct a yearslong hoax to cheat her way into the presidency and regards half the country as deplorable.
This single point wouldn’t be proof positive of Moore’s media trance, but there’s much more evidence than that spanning left-wing talking points outside the abortion realm. During just this one event, Moore parroted the media’s infamous Charlottesville lie. He promoted the leftist worldview that everything in life connects to skin color (invoking The Bulwark’s founder Charlie Sykes). He repeated the media’s gaslighting that the “great replacement theory” is a right-wing conspiracy rather than an explicit Democrat strategy, and with a straight face, he said: “…The Jan. 6 Committee hearings are so important.” //
Some of the people who have been the most own-the-libs-ish in the way that they’re speaking are the people who’ve been the least involved in the actual trenches of the pro-life movement.
Wow, he’s got us all figured out. We morally stained Trump voters celebrating the untold lives that will be saved in post-Roe America — a victory we thought we might never see in our lifetimes — are just trying to own the libs. No regard for neighbor here and certainly no real pro-life work. //
If you can’t talk about a massive blow to a death-culture industry that exploits women and murders innocents without uttering, “but Trump…” and putting down fellow pro-life Christians who don’t share your politics, perhaps you’re confused on who exactly your neighbor is.
And if you can’t be a “triumphalist” about the biggest pro-life victory in half a century, are you really trying to “persuade [your] neighbors of this position,” or are you trying to persuade the world that hates you that you’re not one of those Christians? //
In refusing to credit Trump for the judicial appointments that made overturning Roe possible, Russell Moore doesn’t understand that:
• The Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways.
• That, unless he is without sin, he has no right to cast stones at the “vulgar” Donald.
• To cite one of many historical examples, Lincoln won the Civil War by overlooking General Grant’s penchant for overdrinking because, unlike the general’s predecessors, he fought to win. Or would Moore have preferred that the South had either won the Civil War, or had succeeded in forming a separate nation, preserving slavery?
• The battle to eventually eliminate abortion is literally as life-and-death, if not moreso (with 63 million fatalities, in just one nation), than any war which has ever been fought, or any government sponsored massacre which has ever occurred..
Just Jim
8 hours ago
Trump pre-authorized 20k Nat Guard troups. That's in writing in a authorization from about Jan. 4. Not only were the troops pre-authorized, the administration did everything they could to stage the equipment for readiness so that, at the moment the local government and LEO requested them, they could be there and geared up as fast as possible. What is also in writing is the rejection by Mayor Bowser and the Capital Police of the use of Nat Guard.
Kash Patel lays it all out here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/kash-patel-govt-docs-shatter-insurrection-narrative-why-did-pelosi-bowser-and-capitol-police-decline-national-guard-days-before-jan-6_4615875.html
Once they finally did request the Guard, they were in place within about two hours, which is the fastest deployment in in history (or since the 1940s). //
Kash Patel: Gov’t Docs Shatter ‘Insurrection’ Narrative; Why Did Pelosi, Bowser, and Capitol Police Decline National Guard Days Before Jan. 6?
In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard, but official government documents show Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Washington mayor Muriel Bowser, and the D.C. Capitol Police each declined the offer.
“The fact that President Trump authorized security for the Capitol and he ordered the transition of government—he could legally and factually not have been orchestrating a coup to conduct an insurrection,” says Kash Patel.
Why hasn’t the FBI turned over all documentation related to January 6? Were there undercover government agents in the crowd that day? And why was Trump supporter Rosanne Boyland, who died that day, repeatedly beaten by a Capitol Police officer even while she was unconscious?
Kash Patel: Gov’t Docs Shatter ‘Insurrection’ Narrative; Why Did Pelosi, Bowser, and Capitol Police Decline National Guard Days Before Jan. 6?
In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard, but official government documents show Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Washington mayor Muriel Bowser, and the D.C. Capitol Police each declined the offer.
“The fact that President Trump authorized security for the Capitol and he ordered the transition of government—he could legally and factually not have been orchestrating a coup to conduct an insurrection,” says Kash Patel.
Why hasn’t the FBI turned over all documentation related to January 6? Were there undercover government agents in the crowd that day? And why was Trump supporter Rosanne Boyland, who died that day, repeatedly beaten by a Capitol Police officer even while she was unconscious?
As Jonathan Turley noted, they haven’t laid out anything for any kind of criminal case against Trump.
Yet, on the eve of the primetime hearing this week, committee members sound strikingly less prosecutorial. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) told CNN that “I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn’t act. He did not take action to stop the violence.”
It is difficult to make a criminal case over what an official failed to do. //
Brit Hume @brithume
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This is the sort of information, while not excusing Trump, that the 1/6 committee's Republicans would have insisted be part of the hearings, if they were trying to be fair. They are not.
Just the News @JustTheNews
Trump gave order to ‘make sure’ Jan. 6 rally was ‘safe event,’ Pentagon memo shows. Gen. Milley’s recollection undercuts Democrat effort to suggest president wanted to incite violence. | Just The News https://justthenews.com/government/congress/trump-gave-explicit-order-about-jan-6-rally-make-sure-it-was-safe-event-dod
4:23 PM · Jul 22, 2022 //
Rosie Memos @almostjingo
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You don’t get to rewrite history @January6thCmte stop editing out “peacefully and patriotically” #Jan6thHearings #January6thHearings
8:20 PM · Jul 21, 2022 //
Then the Trump Pentagon reached out to the Capitol Police to ask if they wanted the National Guard on Jan. 2, but the Capitol Police were turned them down.
On top of that, as Just the News notes, Trump wanted to ensure it was going to be a safe event.
But the most compelling piece of evidence that Trump wanted to thwart — rather than incite —violence is contained in a lengthy memo written by the Pentagon inspector general that chronicled the assistance the Defense Department offered Congress both ahead of and during the riot
In it, the IG recounts a fateful meeting on Jan. 3, 2021 in the White House when then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Trump on national security matters.
The complete passage — hardly mentioned by Democrats at the hearings or the news media covering them — is worth absorbing in its entirety.
“Mr. Miller and GEN Milley met with the President at the White House at 5:30 p.m.,” the IG reported. “The primary topic they discussed was unrelated to the scheduled rally. GEN Milley told us that at the end of the meeting, the President told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protestors on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or Soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event. Gen Milley told us that Mr. Miller responded, ‘We’ve got a plan and we’ve got it covered.'”
As reported by Just the News on Wednesday, the latest information appears to be the most damning yet; particularly for the Department of Justice:
In the final hours of the Trump presidency, the U.S. Justice Department raised privacy concerns to thwart the release of hundreds of pages of documents that Donald Trump had declassified to expose FBI abuses during the Russia collusion probe, and the agency then defied a subsequent order to release the materials after redactions were made, according to interviews and documents.
The previously untold story of how highly anticipated declassified material never became public is contained in a memo obtained by Just the News from the National Archives that was written by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows just hours before Trump left office on noon of Jan. 20, 2021. //
The documents that Trump declassified never saw the light of day, even though they were lawfully declassified by Trump and the DOJ was instructed by the president though Meadows to expeditiously release them after redacting private information as necessary. //
So let’s see: lawfully declassified documents, a very concise memo from Trump’s then chief of staff; yet the DOJ usurps presidential powers and blocks declassification, claiming some bogus security excuse.
Meadows told JTN on Tuesday he was “dismayed” that the DOJ ignored a lawful instruction from a sitting president and said it was part of a larger dynamic within the permanent federal bureaucracy (see: “deep state”) to repeatedly undercut Trump and protect itself. //
Meadows in his 2021 memo said White House lawyers told him the DOJ’s last-minute concerns were not legitimate because the executive office of the president was exempt from the Privacy Act.
In the interview on Tuesday night, he said he agreed in the final minutes of the presidency to let DOJ make redactions “out of an abundance of caution” and expected the DOJ would comply with Trump’s order. //
Former Trump adviser David Bossie, head of the Citizens United watchdog group — as I noted at the top, one of the groups targeted by the IRS — said the episode is a pointed reminder that the permanent bureaucracy in Washington wields so much power it can thwart the actions of a duly elected president. Not only true, as we’ve learned; but it should scare your socks off if you think about it, properly.
a few things were obvious about Trump as a candidate and president.
First, he didn’t have strong political beliefs. Many, including one former writer here a RedState, used to get what seemed to be sexual gratification from calling Trump a “New York liberal.” But, as a salesman, he knew what was important to those who voted for them. To this day, I’m not terribly sure what Trump believes, but I’m also sure that it doesn’t matter.
Second, he didn’t hold Americans in “fly over country” in contempt. I think Trump connected with conservative Americans in a way that no candidate since Ronald Reagan has managed to do because he wasn’t laughing at us to his rich liberal buddies at cocktail parties.
Third, in the words of my Old Man, “ya dance with them what brung ya.” When Trump was sworn in, he had a choice to make. He could stay true to the people who voted for him or yield to the siren call of Washington’s social life. In a singular act of political courage, he chose loyalty to his supporters.
One of those signs of loyalty was Trump’s overt embrace of the Pro-Life Movement. I’m not sure that Trump had ever spent ten consecutive seconds thinking about the issue of abortion. From his life and lifestyle, I’d not be surprised to find that he didn’t have a personal problem with this horrific practice. Unlike President George W. Bush, whom I admired, Trump was not ashamed of us. President Trump became the first president to personally appear at the March for Life rally since its inception in 1974. Neither Reagan nor Bush, all of whom talked big talk about being pro-life, ever made an appearance, but a New York City playboy cared enough to show up. When it came time to appoint justices, Trump delivered three whose records indicated they were pro-life and conservative.
Unsurprisingly, people who made a career out of being “Never Trump” are trying to rewrite history to take credit for something that happened despite their best efforts. //
A pause here for a brief fact check. The famous lists of possible Supreme Court nominees were developed inside the Trump White House by a team led by Don McGahn. The Federalist Society executive vice president Leonard Leo was an adviser. The selections were not by any stretch of the imagination “delegated.” In fact, it was Conservative, Inc. insiders who howled as loudly as the Washington Post editorial board about how the proposed justices would scare moderate voters. //
Sure, George W. Bush gave us Samuel Alito. But, do you know who else he gave us? John Roberts. Roberts is the guy whose concurrence in Dobbs tells the majority that included all three Trump-appointed justices that they were completely wrong in their decision. In a weird way, we are lucky to have John Roberts. We were saved from much worse because Bush couldn’t find enough inbred senators willing to foist Harriet Miers off on us. I agree that Clarence Thomas is a treasure. But do you know who else George H. W. Bush put on the bench? David Souter. Souter wrote the opinion in Casey that sought to forever lock in abortion as a Constitutional right. He voted with the majority in the Lawrence vs. Texas decision that changed or placid “slouching towards Gomorrah” posture into the Usain Bolt-style sprint that put us on the glide path to codifying a cheap simulacrum of actual marriage as the law of the land. //
The Gospel Matthew (21:28-32) contains the Parable of the Two Sons. The story is that a father asks his two sons to go work in the vineyard. One tells his father “no,” but then relents and goes off to work. The other tells his father, “yes,’ and doesn’t go. The question is, who actually did their father’s will? I’m not trying to make a theological argument defending Trump; I am merely using this well-known (at least I hope) Bible reading as a point of departure for a comparison. Trump spent his entire life never giving much thought to governance. Yet once he was president, he governed more conservatively than any president in the past 20 years. Not only on Life but the economy, neutering Iran, the Abraham Accords, and, I’d contend, bullying the freeloaders in NATO into starting to meet their obligations. In essence, he said “no” at first but ended up doing the hard work in the vineyard.
On the other hand, we had “conservatives” who were elected, pledging to defend life. When it came down to nut-cutting time, they still agreed to fund Planned Parenthood, ignore the Pro-Life Movement outside of election year photo-ops, and appointed judges who, to this day, continue to support abortion and anything else the administrative state desires. They are the ones who said “yes,” and decided they liked being invited to the cool parties and maybe moving out of the conservative punditry ghetto more than fighting for causes. So who was actually the more conservative?
Donald Trump won in 2016. He won because he likes to win and because he knows if you aren’t a winner, you are the other thing…that would be a loser. //
There is a place inside the conservative tent for thinkers as well as for doers. What there isn’t a place for are people who fought tooth and nail to keep abortion legal by supporting Hillary Clinton…and Joe Biden…and then claim the Dobbs victory for themselves and their fellow travelers because they had wonderful thoughts and wrote erudite articles.