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| credit: de Adder, Washington Post Wackydoodle axes: Can lil' Donny swim? |
This week's public hearing of the J6 Committee focused on the pressure campaign against Vice President Mike Pence to coerce him into rejecting Electoral College votes from swing states during the joint congressional session on January 6th. Pence previously was notable for his craven acquiesence towards his boss, but decided at the last moment to stand up for democracy in a heated phone call with Herr Trumpillini the morning of January 6th. The would-be dictator called his VP "a wimp" for refusing to participate in his autogolpe he and his cast of crazies had cooked up. John Eastman, the former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and law professor, was the primary author and advocate of the illegal seven point plan to overthrow the duly elected government of the USA.
Eastman was in the room when Vice President Gore ceremoniously counted electoral votes in the 2000 election when there were legitimate objections to the vote count from Florida. Eastman himself admitted in a conversation with Mike Pense's legal adviser, Greg Jacobs, that his idea to get Pence to reject votes was unconstitutional. Jacob told him his plan violated the Electoral Count Act, which Eastman disparaged. Most telling of his state of mind is his e-mail to fixer Rudy Giuliani saying that he should be put on the "pardon list". Both Eastman and the former president knew that their efforts to overturn the election were illegal. Trumpillini was repeatedly told his claims of vote fraud were baseless, and that the Vice President did not have the power to single-handedly overrule the results. The advisors of illegality included the plan's author, John Eastman. He took the Fifth one hundred times during his deposition by investigators of the House Select Committee. While Pence was fleeing a violent mob at the Capitol, evading them by a mere forty feet, Trumpillini issued a tweet criticizing Pence for his "lack of courage" that further incited the insurrectionists who had erected a gallows on Capitol Hill. Would they have actually used it or was this only psychodrama? You decide.
Perhaps the biggest bombshell among many is the request for testimony from Virginia Thomas, a right-wing activist and wife of reactionary Justice Clarence Thomas. She was in contact with Mark Meadows and John Eastman about the coup. She wrote to the then Chief of Staff to "unleash the Kraken", referring to a team of volunteer conservative lawyers that included the incredible Sidney Powell. She lobbied twenty-nine state legislators in Arizona to support an alternative slate of electors, and communicated with Congress members sympathetic to the cause. John Eastman suggested at one point that Clarence Thomas might vote to hear an election fraud case if it came to the Court. On what information he based that opinion is open to question. Thomas was the only Jutice to vote agianst Trump in his attempt to block release of documents to the House investigators. More revelations are to come. In the meanwhile™, why is not eyewitness Mike Pence summoned to testify? After all President Trump did it, and it is a crime*.
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| credit: M. Ramirez, Las Vegas Review-Journal BC Idonwanna sez: Just the facts, ma'am! |