6 Aug 2021
Washington DC
What happened at the DOJ is only one piece of the puzzle. When you step back and look at it all together, it's pretty eye opening. This is a section from a forthcoming book Civil War II: From Insurrection to Insurgency.
The following catalogue of anti-democratic conduct by Trump are his personal activities over and above those of his inner circle and supporters. Claiming election outcomes he does not like are invalid, stolen and should result in uprisings, did not start in 2020.
Trump says whatever fits his narrative - a strategy he has admitted to: "If it's bad, I say it's fake. If it's good, I say that's the most accurate poll perhaps ever”. He also always claims he wins in landslides - even when he loses. "I play to people's fantasies. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s…very effective.” Other people call it bullshitting.
Trump has a long history of undermining elections that pre-dates his political career. On election night in 2012, when President Barack Obama was reelected, Trump said that the election was a "total sham" and a "travesty," while also making the claim that the United States is "not a democracy". "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!” Strange he would say that when the alternative candidate was a man he hated.
In the 2016 GOP primaries he said with no evidence "Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it. Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified."
After the 2016 election Trump claimed with no evidence that between 3 million and 5 million ballots were illegally cast (these numbers related to Clinton’s popular vote tally). ”In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," said Trump. He established a voting integrity commission stacked with cronies to expose the corruption. His own commission found “no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud”. The old norms of public conduct inhibited them from outright lying. The new norms will ensure “the right outcome” next time.
As he had done in the run up to 2016, Trump started a campaign to undermine the integrity of the 2020 election before it was held.
By July 2020, Trump realized he would not win the election. So he started floating the idea of delaying it, possibly indefinitely, leading Chris Christie to advise "You do know, you can't declare martial law. You do know that, right?”
He had aids draft an order to invoke the Insurrection Act to use active duty troops to ‘crack heads’ during the Floyd protests and was only talked out of it by the combined efforts of the CJCS, Secretary of Defense and AG Barr.
Significantly, the Insurrection Act order came the day after his evacuation to the bunker was reported in the news. This humiliated the showman. He felt it made him look weak. He then ordered the execution of the person who leaked the story such was his concern for his stagecraft. Later the same day Lafayette Sq was cleared for the photo op holding a borrowed Bible. No doubt the abuse of the public peacefully assembled thrilled his inner strongman and felt like a suitable punishment for mocking him for hiding in the bunker. The Bible photo-op with all the henchmen was brilliant stagecraft. It made it look like the law enforcement and military apparatus of the state was literally shoulder to shoulder with his plans.
Trump took advantage of the expiration of ‘consent decrees’ which prohibited private ‘ballot security’ operations at the polls. Trump exclaimed “We’re going to have sheriffs and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys” to keep close watch on the polls.
One of those hoped for US Attorney’s was the USA in Atlanta Byung J Pak who refused to lie that the election was rigged. He resigned before he could be fired.
He demanded that the DOJ tell the Supreme Court “to invalidate the election”.
Trump rightly anticipated conditions were such that a Bush v Gore scenario might occur. His appointment of Justice's Kavanaugh and Barrett related directly to their roles in support of the Bush camp in Bush v Gore at the time. Trump surmised that they would be “his” justices. So when the Supreme Court threw out bogus election fraud cases Trump attacked Justice Kavanaugh.
Trumps intent to use the court to overturn the election by creating a Bush v Gore scenario was evident months out from voting day. He admitted his intention to lean on Barrett. He was "counting on" the Supreme Court to "look at the ballots”. Barrett was awake to Trump’s plan to use the court to steal the election. At her confirmation hearing she found it necessary to state for the record that "I certainly hope that all members of the committee have more confidence in my integrity than to think I would allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people."
Trump has a long history of attacking judges when things don't go his way. So it must have been especially confounding and galling that ‘his’ Justices did not hand him the election.
He “jokes” (floats trial balloons) countless times about three, four or more terms.
Prior to the election he would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
On election night he simply declared himself winner of the election. He has never conceded.
The day after he ordered Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the election. Presidents ordering the DOJ to start investigations alone is a huge problem (a normative shift we tend to forget under the Trump onslaught) . Barr announced on 1 December 2020 that “to date, [U.S. attorneys and FBI agents] have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
Fourteen days later Barr was gone. By June 2021 Barr stated that “my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.”
Having got rid of Barr, the very next day Trump then pressures the next in line at the Justice Department, Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue to overturn the election. Those officials explained there was no fraud in the election. Exasperated Trump demands “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me”.
Prior to this, Trump had already gone behind Acting AG Rosen’s back to the next in line under Rosen, Jeffrey Clark, and dangled the AG job in exchange for Clark overturning the election outcome. Jeffrey Clark drafted a letter for Rosen and Donoghue to sign addressed to the Governor, Speaker and Senate President in Georgia explaining that the DOJ was investigating election fraud (it was not) and that in consequence Georgia should appoint “a separate slate of electors” who would cast their votes for Trump. Rosen and Donoghue refused point blank to sign this letter, enraging Trump.
Anticipating Trump would continue his coup attempt by firing him, Acting AG Rosen had a post-firing letter drafted (ultimately not used) that did not obfuscate what was going on, as is tradition in Washington. No ‘family time’ needed here. ”This evening, after Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen over the course of the last week repeatedly refused the President's direct instructions to utilize the Department of Justice's law enforcement powers for improper ends, the President removed Jeff from the Department”. It was only after the entire leadership of the DOJ threatened to resign that Trump pulled back. Full details of this stunning series of events - the DOJ coup within a national coup - are recorded here. There was a parallel coup taking place at the Department of Defense and attempted at the CIA and FBI (see below).
Jeffrey Clark had form in the area of trying to utilize the state elector override provision. He “appears to have been involved in the campaign for the Justice Department to sue Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit would’ve asked the Supreme Court to nullify the election results in each state and award their electors to Trump rather than Biden. “ While it failed this time it will be tried again and therein lies the #1 tactic to overcome future legitimate elections.
There was the famous call to GA Secretary of State Raffensperger to find votes to overturn the election. For a full time line of events just in that state go here.
Less well known, he used the same tactics in Michigan.
Trump claimed the “error rate of ballot counting in Michigan was 68 percent” when in fact it was “0.0063 percent”.
He admitted to defunding the postal service to undermine mail-in ballots. “They don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”
Knowing that Republicans would vote on the day and covid-concerned Democrats would utilize mail in ballots (that in some states would be counted after election day) Trump kept up a steady drumbeat that “Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!”. When as expected the day after the mail in votes started trending away from him he tweeted “STOP THE COUNT” [unsaid : ’while I am ahead’].
He attempted to get friendly state legislatures to override the votes of their citizens.
He fired countless officials who did or said things he didn't like. One of the more famous firings was the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s election integrity division who stated publicly that the election was “the most secure in American history.”. That judgement is supported by independent analysis.
He tried to coerce his Vice President to overturn the election at the session on Jan 6. Trump knew in advance how Pence would vote. He directed the 10,000+ angry protestors at the Capitol to pressure Pence as much as Congress. When he discovered Pence did not fold, Trump painted a target on his back and the mob responded by baying to "hang Mike Pence".
The President was subsequently impeached for inciting the insurrection. Trump holds the presidential record for most impeachment's.
Trump used the DOJ to investigate Members of Congress who were involved in impeachment proceedings.
He used private security contractors to mount an intelligence operation against his own sitting national security adviser (and active duty 3 star Army General).
He fired or forced out Inspector’s General who conducted investigations with which he disapproved.
Days after the election, he issued an order to completely withdraw all US forces from the following: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Germany and all countries in Africa. Not only was that logistically impossible, it was strategically dangerous. It had no conceivably viable foreign policy goal. But it would have been vital to distracting the OSD and JCS from his other plans for the Pentagon. This complex story is told in great detail here.
Most worrying of all, immediately after the election, he weighed decapitating the core components of the national security system. The director’s of the CIA and the FBI somehow survived, but key leaders in DOJ (noted above) and the Pentagon did not (see below).
Trump fired the Secretary of Defense, undersecretary for policy, and undersecretary for intelligence, and replaced them with loyalists (one of whom had previously been barred from a confirmed position at the Pentagon due to “his tweets and remarks promoting conspiracy theories and calling former president Barack Obama a terrorist”). This is signficant because the Secretary and not the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs issues orders to the armed forces.
These moves were seen by the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff as preparation for a coup for which they developed counter-coup contingency plans to include preventing a “distraction” war against Iran or use of nuclear weapons.
He was president when for the first time in history (outside the civil war) there was not a peaceful transfer of power.
Related reporting - The Six Main Strands of the Trump Coup Attempt