2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

There absolutely was fraud in the MI election, but the other way:
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-35 ... --,00.html

Oh that's right! I totally forgot about Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, who have also been charged by the district attorney right here in Cleveland, Ohio for similar robo-calls that engaged in voter suppression.

There's a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Los Angeles named Ken White who co-hosts a podcast for radio station KCRW called "All the President's Lawyers." White had joked for a couple years that Wohl, a notorious (but still quite young) mischief maker on the right, would someday go too far and break the law, or as he put it, commit a "big boy federal crime." White recently indicated his disappointment that these antics that got Wohl in real trouble are only state crimes.

The problem is, just as with Russia's interference in 2016, it's nearly impossible to quantify what effect these ploys have on the vote. In the case of Russia, researchers have said the phony messaging they created was viewed hundreds of millions of times on Facebook alone. But how many votes for Trump did that translate into? (Whether by changing minds, getting a Trump-leaning viewer to vote for him, or getting a Clinton-leaning viewer to stay home.)

White recently indicated his disappointment that these antics that got Wohl in real trouble are only state crimes.

Yeah, but president can't pardon state crimes.

Almost two years later in Cleveland: Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman pleaded guilty to the fifth-degree felony of telecommunications fraud. That state crime carries a maximum possible penalty of one year's imprisonment. It's not clear what they will actually be sentenced to, but they did agree to pay the maximum fine of $2,500 as part a deal in which prosecutors dropped 14 counts of telecommunications and bribery.

NBC: "The Federal Communications Commission says it will serve a $5.1 million fine against conservative activists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl and J.M. Burkman & Associates over their role in making 1,141 unlawful robocalls ahead of the 2020 election."

[N.E. Brigand]

Holy @#$%. I saw various reports earlier this afternoon suggesting that impeachment was unlikely: even one well-established Democrat in the Texas House was quoted as saying he opposed it because the process was rushed.

Ken Paxton was just impeached by a 121-23 vote in the Texas House. He'll be suspended from office until his trail in the Texas Senate is complete (There were also 2 "present" votes and 3 absences.)

So much for Donald Trump's threat to act against Republicans who voted to impeach.

The 121 votes for impeachment were split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats. That's normally described as "bipartisan," but I notice some of Paxton's supporters (responding to his statement in about the impeachment) complaining about a supposed "uniparty."

Associated Press: "FBI arrests Texas businessman at center of alleged crimes that led to impeachment of Texas's Attorney General Ken Paxton."

[N.E. Brigand]

Ken Paxton was just impeached by a 121-23 vote in the Texas House. He'll be suspended from office until his trail in the Texas Senate is complete (There were also 2 "present" votes and 3 absences.) So much for Donald Trump's threat to act against Republicans who voted to impeach.

The 121 votes for impeachment were split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

Associated Press: "FBI arrests Texas businessman at center of alleged crimes that led to impeachment of Texas's Attorney General Ken Paxton."

Update (Dallas News): Ken Paxton's "attorney ... believes the FBI charges against Nate Paul involve Paxton [and that] the FBI is trying to get Paul to flip on Paxton."

[N.E. Brigand]

The 121 votes for impeachment were split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

Associated Press: "FBI arrests Texas businessman at center of alleged crimes that led to impeachment of Texas's Attorney General Ken Paxton."

Update (Dallas News): Ken Paxton's "attorney ... believes the FBI charges against Nate Paul involve Paxton [and that] the FBI is trying to get Paul to flip on Paxton."

Per this article in the Houston Chronicle, Attorney General Ken Paxton made a loan, still outstanding, of $125,000 to Dan Patrick, who is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. In that role, Patrick is the President of the Texas Senate, and unlike other states -- or for that matter the U.S. Senate -- where the body's president only has an occasional role, in Texas, the President regularly presides.

And the Texas Senate is going to try Paxton on the impeachment counts brought by the Texas House.

[N.E. Brigand]

We knew the man on the right sometimes goes by the names John and Dennis:



Before today, we did not know that the man on the left sometimes goes by the name Helen.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

GOP lawmaker's lawsuit against newspaper backfires and exposes damning 2020 election emails

Among the most notable communications was between Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano and then-One America News anchor Christina Bobb, who has since become part of Trump's legal team.

Mastriano, a staunch Trump ally who last year failed to win his race to become Pennsylvania's governor despite Trump's support, told Bobb that he was worried about Trump's proposals to have state legislatures throw out certified election results, as other Republicans had told him such a scheme would be "illegal."

The emails reveal that Trump personally called Mastriano to push him on the legality of the scheme and gave him materials that falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems of rigging the election for Biden.

Think Jack Smith is paying attention to this?

[N.E. Brigand]

I wonder what led to this new Washington Post story being published:

"FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year. In the DOJ’s investigation of Jan. 6, key Justice officials also quashed an early plan for a task force focused on people in Trump’s orbit."

My first thought: while John Durham's report was a crashing failure that revealed nothing important, his long, long investigation made the FBI very nervous about pursuing criminals when those criminals happen to be connected to Donald Trump.

Pete Strzok complains that the FBI and DOJ need to "do their job," but in response officials there would probably say, "And get fired like you did? No thanks."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I share Brad Moss's view.

[N.E. Brigand]

Yes, but: what are the past mistakes that Bradley Moss thinks will be repeated?

The implication of his comments is that Trump got away with his Russian-obstruction crimes because the Dept. of Justice acted too aggressively and hastily and didn't prepare an "ironclad" case against him. Which doesn't seem to me to reflect what actually happened at all.

(And I would repeat that among the members of "resistance Twitter" who are critical of the Dept. of Justice in light of today's news is the very person I cited above, former FBI agent Pete Strzok, who definitely earned the right to make these criticisms.)

[N.E. Brigand]

I wonder what led to this new Washington Post story being published:

"FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year. In the DOJ’s investigation of Jan. 6, key Justice officials also quashed an early plan for a task force focused on people in Trump’s orbit."

My first thought: while John Durham's report was a crashing failure that revealed nothing important, his long, long investigation made the FBI very nervous about pursuing criminals when those criminals happen to be connected to Donald Trump.

Pete Strzok complains that the FBI and DOJ need to "do their job," but in response officials there would probably say, "And get fired like you did? No thanks."

My other two initial thoughts were that this story seems designed to presage either of two very different outcomes:

(1) The January 6th investigation is close to wrapping up without charges being brought against Donald Trump, despite his obvious role leading the insurrection, and we're hearing from investigators or former investigators who fear they will be blamed for this result and thus are dumping on Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

(2) The January 6th investigation is close to bringing charges against Donald Trump (other news over the weekend suggests that even William Barr now believes this is likely to happen), and investigators or former investigators who are unhappy about that and wish to undermine the prosecution are trying to build a story that the case is weak because the Dept. of Justice and FBI originally didn't think there were grounds to investigate.

Marcy Wheeler sees the fingerprints of former FBI agent Steve D'Antuono all over this piece. D'Antuono was the head of the Washington field office, and Wheeler points out that he made many of the questionable choices described in the article.

But couldn't the piece also be the result of Garland, Monaco, and/or Wray throwing D'Antuono under the bus?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Kyle Cheney also pushes back on the Washington Post story, pointing out a glaring inaccuracy (which Marcy Wheeler later cites).

[N.E. Brigand]

I do appreciate Teri Kanefield's observation that this article "sort of kills Trump's talking point that the DOJ was weaponized against him".

But it was also true in 2016 that the DOJ and FBI didn't take the Trump investigation very seriously but still got dragged over the coals for it by Republicans, so if Merrick Garland really did drag his feet in an effort to avoid the appearance of politization, that would have been a pointless exercise..

[Voronwë the Faithful]

LOL, I had thought about adding that tweet of Teri Kanefield's to my post above. I really like her blog posts, particularly the recent 3-part series she did about the documents case.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

More from Teri Kanefield



I thought about posting the part of Bret Baier's remarkable interview with Trump where he tried to tell Trump that he lost the 2020 election, but I decided not to. But my, of my, that interview is a doozy.

[N.E. Brigand]

(Edited to remove content to the correct documents thread. Sorry about that.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, I heard Carol Leonnig, the lead author of that Post article, interviewed on NPR and she just flat out lied, saying the DoJ didn't do anything to investigate for 15 months, which is completely false. But of course she and the interviewer, Mary Louise Kelly, both treated it as a fact. Very disappointing.

[N.E. Brigand]

Leonnig is generally well-respected, so I'm not sure what's going on here. Admittedly radio and television reports do tend to simplify matters.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's true (both that she is a well-respected journalist and that radio and TV reports to tend to simplify matters). To be clear, I think there is validity to her report, but she overstates the case and understates the spin.