“But the most important reason for prosecuting Trump has nothing to do with partisan politics. It has to do with defending the Constitution.” Yes!!! If we don’t do this, what’s the point? The United States ceases to exist as the country I love and becomes something I fear.
Jun 14, 2022·edited Jun 14, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Thank you for each of the important messages within today’s newsletter.
One question I have been pondering is the need in order to successfully prosecute Trump on criminal charges is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt sufficient mens rea (guilty intent) behind his actions. I believe the quandry arises due to Trump’s serious psychological deficiencies and lack of moral character perhaps so severe as to provide conclusive evidence of a disabling mental illness. I do not mean this as a joke or hyperbole. The question might be asked if he should be imprisoned for his crimes or institutionalized as a danger to himself and others.
I fully acknowledge that I am neither an attorney nor a psychiatrist and therefore not professionally qualified to express a professional opinion on this question. However, it is clear that Trump is a severely damaged and damaging individual lacking any semblance of sound moral judgement and his narcissism is so disabling as to be potentially qualified as a severe and disabling mental illness.
As to former AG Barr, he was a very bad AG and his actions in service of Trump and while at DOJ were both unethical and way outside expected and established norms. Nothing he does now should wash away those sins.
Lastly, I would like, as a committed social justice activist, to claim for myself and others pride in being characterized as “woke.” To be woke is to be aware of what the realities of our world are. To be woke means you are paying attention to even the small details of current events, and thinking carefully about them. It means you are aware of the intersection of events, their connection to societal trends, and what we can learn from them important to all of us. When i am called woke, my response is ... thank you. I encourage all to be woke. Pay attention to what is happening and think on it carefully. Do inform yourself using responsible and reliable sources. Be woke. It is a critical survival skill in today’s world if we are to preserve our democracy and hope to create a more just, safer, healthier, more equitable world.
I see Barr’s testimony to the Committee as poetic justice. He simultaneously serves up trump and confirms what a spineless, immoral sycophant he is for not speaking out and exposing trump’s lies and treasonous actions.
I almost giggle imagining an insanity charge against Drumpf (family name). Could anything be worse for a narcissist of his caliber? Worse than being a “loser”, he would be deemed irrelevant, as incapable by means of mental instability. Oh the shame of it.
Also Progressive. However, I wish to make clear to those who claim to “own the libs,” that the 14th and 15th amendments to our Constitution proclaim that I and all individuals are “owned” by no one. They can park that characterization in a location on which the sun does not shine.
This is an excellent summary. I have been glued to both heaings - taping them as well. They are so meticulous and organized. We cannot even begin to understand the amount of work and details this committee put into this - so professional. Brilliant that Chair Robinson had Liz Cheney lay out the hearing plans - still cannot believe Fox news is so corrupt in not letting their vieweers hear the truth. However I did listen to a few minutes on Fox and they did acknowlege the hearings and what is transpiring - no emotion - just the facts which was shocking. They did not even attempt to justify or deny. I love that Chair Robinson never calls Trump prseident but just Donald Trump - really brilliant.
I’m not an attorney but in many opinions I have read the hard part of indicting Trump is to prove his intent a very difficult task in legal terms. The January 6th hearings so far have done an excellent job of proving intent to me the lay person. I think there is a lot more to come and I hope more witnesses come forward. The thing that everyone needs to consider is that DeSantis is running for re-election and we all should consider how we might help him lose. A lost for re-election would slow him down.
They are proving his intentional refusal to hear about the lack of merit of his position, and there is a jury instruction that instructs a jury to find a guilty intent upon that proof.
Am I the only one who thought Bill Barr was having the best time being deposed by the committee staff on those tape snippets yesterday ? He finally got to take revenge on his former boss and I wanted to smack his smug face. If he moved the ball forward tho it is a plus for the committee but that whole White House staff was a reprehensible mess. They needed a subpoena to tell those sorry tales ? They should have spoken out loud and clear in Nov. and December. On the other hand - Zoe Lofgren for “ Woman of the Year “ !!!
A few thoughts. First, Merrick Garland should not be watching the hearings. He has more important things to do, and he should have all of the committee’s evidence, and more, already.
Second, I hope the committee will present more about how T___p defrauded his supporters. It’s not easy to get someone to concede that he’s been cheated, but it’s powerful. People who come to realize that the man they’ve supported through thick and thin was grifting them will turn on him. It might just be T___p’s Achilles heel.
Finally, to me the most notable thing about the arrests in Coeur d’Alene is that there was going to be a Pride event there. Think about it. If there can be a Pride event in northern Idaho, the anti-LBGTQ folks have lost the battle already.
Please read above my thoughts on N. Idaho. I live close by in western Montana. There are reasons why those folks chose CDA. It's next to Hayden Lake, former home to Richard Butler and the Aryan Nation. We must be vigilant. My friend in Whitefish, MT, Tanya Gersh was doxxed and harassed by Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer. She has won a $14 million judgement of which she will never see a penny. She is now making a movie of her experience. She also goes around the country for expenses only to speak about it. Bravest woman I know. We must stand together.
“But then DeSantis will be the nominee, and he is as bad as Trump but smarter.” There is a way of preventing DeSantis from being the Republican nominee. It takes some money and some energy. Help Charlie Crist defeat DeSantis. Help Charlie Crist oust DeSantis from his position as Governor of California. It won't be easy. DeSantis has ten times as much money as Crist. DeSantis is leading in believable polls by between 3 and 8 points. Even though it won't be easy, defeating DeSantis in Florida is doable. Check out Crist's website -- https://charliecrist.com. And donate. Len Lubinsky of lenspoliticalnotes.com
I agree but I think Florida based corporations need to get involved because they could be the next target after Disney. Turnout will be the key and DeSantis has to be tied to Trump.
I completely agree with your praise for how well the January 6th Committee is doing in objectively and methodically laying out its case against Trump and his minions for the American people. As a former federal prosecutor, I can only hope that the DOJ is watching closely because the Committee can save the DOJ lawyers a lot of time in putting together a winning criminal case against Trump et al.
Robert, I agree with you 100%. If trump (and others yet to be named for their role) are not prosecuted, they win. A quitters argument goes like this: “ I’m not going to try because I might fail.” Then there would be two attacks against the Constitution. The first perpetrated by trump, et al., and the second by the DOJ for not prosecuting the sordid, smarmy, treasonous bunch.
My hope is that the Committee presents the emails sent by Ginni Thomas. I am gunning for her to be prosecuted, and then, hopefully, her husband impeached. May seem like a pipe dream to some, but there is apparently legitimate evidence that she was part of the effort to subvert the election, and her husband did not recuse himself from at least two cases ( National Archives and the Mark Meadows emails) that would have been detrimental to her. They are both undemocratic and a danger to our society.
Also, drip #3: who provided the maps to direct the PB and OK to certain office doors? And a fourth drip: who planted those pipe bombs?
The hearings have been fascinating and damning. I'm still waiting on Raskin's promise of the "roof" being "blown off." I think that's coming and I just wonder what it might be?
DOJ won’t prosecute a sitting president because of a possibly erroneous Office of Legal Counsel memo. If DOJ also won’t prosecute a president after the president leaves office because it’s just not done in the U.S., then the president really is above the law. That cannot be the case. Sure we’ve never done it before, but no president has ever done this before.
We came close, though. Nixon may have faced charges but Ford’s pardon prevented that. I assume Ford would not have needed to issue the pardon if Nixon faced no possibility of criminal charges.
Might MAGAland erupt if Trump gets indicted? Sure. But it will erupt if he doesn’t, too. The Idaho PRIDE incident shows where we’re headed regardless of an indictment.
I agree that the committee has been masterful and is giving Garland a silver platter.
There will always be a monster waiting in the wings. Evil never takes a holiday. It keeps plugging along just like the R’s have been doing since the 1960’s. They were committing treason in secrecy, Nixon communicating with the North Vietnamese. Then there are the pond scum politicians like Newt Gingrich selling people a bill of goods with the contract for America. Grover “No New Taxes” Norquist. The list goes on ad nauseum. The real evil they all bring into play is racism. White Europeans coming to the New World always thought everyone else was savage but them.
My "happy thought" for the day: Trump facing "real exposure to a decade in jail." So very comforting after all he has gotten aways with. We so need to see that Truth does matter and that there are conquences for bad behavior. Orange for the Orange Man. Justice.
One thing that struck me from this hearing was that Trump is more cunning than I had thought. He is the con man turning everything into a grift. He had people around him that were telling him the truth about the projection and then the outcome of the 2020 election that he was going to lose. He knew he was going to lose and then figured out how to make money off his supporters of his narcissistic supply. He is stupid in the sense of not bothering to learn anything except how to make money off the situation. Being a loser was the worst thing you could call him and still he figured out how to make money being a loser. The purpose in the lawsuits claiming fraud was to extend the grift and continue as long as possible getting money out of it. He himself was not going to Stop the Rip Off. Trump will become more and more dangerous as he feels pushed into a corner facing criminal charges and jail time. I'm wondering which will come first - Trump handing his followers the Kool-aid ala Jim Jones or his followers waking up to the rip off and turning very angry toward him. Whatever happens I hope the outcome is Trump and his crazies are held accountable.
Jun 14, 2022·edited Jun 14, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Robert, I agree 100%: Trump is and has never been detached from reality. He knows exactly what he's doing - he's been doing it his entire life: creating a false reality that will benefit one person: Donald Trump.
Trump began the BIG LIE back in 2016 *before* he surprisingly won the election.
And again in 2020, *before the election*, Trump, effectively, used the same script but this time he exploited the Coronavirus to extend his Big Lie: "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters. They go and collect them. They're fraudulent in many cases." April 7, 2020.
I wish the Jan 6th Committee and the TV pundits would stop insinuating that Trump was manipulated by people like Giuliani and Powell and the Pillow Man. It's complete and utter bullshit. Nobody manipulates Trump. He is the Great Manipulator. His effort to sabotage our presidential election since 2016 proves it.
The bottom line: The Big Lie is Donald Trump and Donald Trump is the Big Lie. He is a malevolent force that seeks only one thing: Power. Even if it means the end of the democracy in the United States.
“But the most important reason for prosecuting Trump has nothing to do with partisan politics. It has to do with defending the Constitution.” Yes!!! If we don’t do this, what’s the point? The United States ceases to exist as the country I love and becomes something I fear.
Thank you for each of the important messages within today’s newsletter.
One question I have been pondering is the need in order to successfully prosecute Trump on criminal charges is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt sufficient mens rea (guilty intent) behind his actions. I believe the quandry arises due to Trump’s serious psychological deficiencies and lack of moral character perhaps so severe as to provide conclusive evidence of a disabling mental illness. I do not mean this as a joke or hyperbole. The question might be asked if he should be imprisoned for his crimes or institutionalized as a danger to himself and others.
I fully acknowledge that I am neither an attorney nor a psychiatrist and therefore not professionally qualified to express a professional opinion on this question. However, it is clear that Trump is a severely damaged and damaging individual lacking any semblance of sound moral judgement and his narcissism is so disabling as to be potentially qualified as a severe and disabling mental illness.
As to former AG Barr, he was a very bad AG and his actions in service of Trump and while at DOJ were both unethical and way outside expected and established norms. Nothing he does now should wash away those sins.
Lastly, I would like, as a committed social justice activist, to claim for myself and others pride in being characterized as “woke.” To be woke is to be aware of what the realities of our world are. To be woke means you are paying attention to even the small details of current events, and thinking carefully about them. It means you are aware of the intersection of events, their connection to societal trends, and what we can learn from them important to all of us. When i am called woke, my response is ... thank you. I encourage all to be woke. Pay attention to what is happening and think on it carefully. Do inform yourself using responsible and reliable sources. Be woke. It is a critical survival skill in today’s world if we are to preserve our democracy and hope to create a more just, safer, healthier, more equitable world.
I see Barr’s testimony to the Committee as poetic justice. He simultaneously serves up trump and confirms what a spineless, immoral sycophant he is for not speaking out and exposing trump’s lies and treasonous actions.
I almost giggle imagining an insanity charge against Drumpf (family name). Could anything be worse for a narcissist of his caliber? Worse than being a “loser”, he would be deemed irrelevant, as incapable by means of mental instability. Oh the shame of it.
Yes! Let’s take back and own “woke”. Also “Liberal” and “Peacenik“ while we’re at it!
Also Progressive. However, I wish to make clear to those who claim to “own the libs,” that the 14th and 15th amendments to our Constitution proclaim that I and all individuals are “owned” by no one. They can park that characterization in a location on which the sun does not shine.
This is an excellent summary. I have been glued to both heaings - taping them as well. They are so meticulous and organized. We cannot even begin to understand the amount of work and details this committee put into this - so professional. Brilliant that Chair Robinson had Liz Cheney lay out the hearing plans - still cannot believe Fox news is so corrupt in not letting their vieweers hear the truth. However I did listen to a few minutes on Fox and they did acknowlege the hearings and what is transpiring - no emotion - just the facts which was shocking. They did not even attempt to justify or deny. I love that Chair Robinson never calls Trump prseident but just Donald Trump - really brilliant.
Chair is Bennie Thompson, Vice Chair is Liz Cheney. Both are doing a great job. The whole committee is full adults, which is refreshing to see.
I’m not an attorney but in many opinions I have read the hard part of indicting Trump is to prove his intent a very difficult task in legal terms. The January 6th hearings so far have done an excellent job of proving intent to me the lay person. I think there is a lot more to come and I hope more witnesses come forward. The thing that everyone needs to consider is that DeSantis is running for re-election and we all should consider how we might help him lose. A lost for re-election would slow him down.
They are proving his intentional refusal to hear about the lack of merit of his position, and there is a jury instruction that instructs a jury to find a guilty intent upon that proof.
Am I the only one who thought Bill Barr was having the best time being deposed by the committee staff on those tape snippets yesterday ? He finally got to take revenge on his former boss and I wanted to smack his smug face. If he moved the ball forward tho it is a plus for the committee but that whole White House staff was a reprehensible mess. They needed a subpoena to tell those sorry tales ? They should have spoken out loud and clear in Nov. and December. On the other hand - Zoe Lofgren for “ Woman of the Year “ !!!
A few thoughts. First, Merrick Garland should not be watching the hearings. He has more important things to do, and he should have all of the committee’s evidence, and more, already.
Second, I hope the committee will present more about how T___p defrauded his supporters. It’s not easy to get someone to concede that he’s been cheated, but it’s powerful. People who come to realize that the man they’ve supported through thick and thin was grifting them will turn on him. It might just be T___p’s Achilles heel.
Finally, to me the most notable thing about the arrests in Coeur d’Alene is that there was going to be a Pride event there. Think about it. If there can be a Pride event in northern Idaho, the anti-LBGTQ folks have lost the battle already.
Yes!
Please read above my thoughts on N. Idaho. I live close by in western Montana. There are reasons why those folks chose CDA. It's next to Hayden Lake, former home to Richard Butler and the Aryan Nation. We must be vigilant. My friend in Whitefish, MT, Tanya Gersh was doxxed and harassed by Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer. She has won a $14 million judgement of which she will never see a penny. She is now making a movie of her experience. She also goes around the country for expenses only to speak about it. Bravest woman I know. We must stand together.
“But then DeSantis will be the nominee, and he is as bad as Trump but smarter.” There is a way of preventing DeSantis from being the Republican nominee. It takes some money and some energy. Help Charlie Crist defeat DeSantis. Help Charlie Crist oust DeSantis from his position as Governor of California. It won't be easy. DeSantis has ten times as much money as Crist. DeSantis is leading in believable polls by between 3 and 8 points. Even though it won't be easy, defeating DeSantis in Florida is doable. Check out Crist's website -- https://charliecrist.com. And donate. Len Lubinsky of lenspoliticalnotes.com
I agree but I think Florida based corporations need to get involved because they could be the next target after Disney. Turnout will be the key and DeSantis has to be tied to Trump.
You have a typing error - should read FL not CA. Thanks for sharing his link to donate.
I completely agree with your praise for how well the January 6th Committee is doing in objectively and methodically laying out its case against Trump and his minions for the American people. As a former federal prosecutor, I can only hope that the DOJ is watching closely because the Committee can save the DOJ lawyers a lot of time in putting together a winning criminal case against Trump et al.
Robert, I agree with you 100%. If trump (and others yet to be named for their role) are not prosecuted, they win. A quitters argument goes like this: “ I’m not going to try because I might fail.” Then there would be two attacks against the Constitution. The first perpetrated by trump, et al., and the second by the DOJ for not prosecuting the sordid, smarmy, treasonous bunch.
My hope is that the Committee presents the emails sent by Ginni Thomas. I am gunning for her to be prosecuted, and then, hopefully, her husband impeached. May seem like a pipe dream to some, but there is apparently legitimate evidence that she was part of the effort to subvert the election, and her husband did not recuse himself from at least two cases ( National Archives and the Mark Meadows emails) that would have been detrimental to her. They are both undemocratic and a danger to our society.
“DRIP, DRIP!”
I await two drips of information/evidence from the Committee.
1. Conversations connecting White House and Proud Boys/Oath Keepers, possibly including
January 5. As if we needed “more,” this link should/could be “Game Over.”
2. Details of Congresspersons who led tours of Capital on January 5. We have not as yet
been told all regarding GOP Rep. Loudermilk of Georgia and potentially others involved
with “tours” on a day the Capital was closed to others. Conceivable that our representatives
provided a “map” to offices in the building.
Yes, key points.
Also, drip #3: who provided the maps to direct the PB and OK to certain office doors? And a fourth drip: who planted those pipe bombs?
The hearings have been fascinating and damning. I'm still waiting on Raskin's promise of the "roof" being "blown off." I think that's coming and I just wonder what it might be?
DOJ won’t prosecute a sitting president because of a possibly erroneous Office of Legal Counsel memo. If DOJ also won’t prosecute a president after the president leaves office because it’s just not done in the U.S., then the president really is above the law. That cannot be the case. Sure we’ve never done it before, but no president has ever done this before.
We came close, though. Nixon may have faced charges but Ford’s pardon prevented that. I assume Ford would not have needed to issue the pardon if Nixon faced no possibility of criminal charges.
Might MAGAland erupt if Trump gets indicted? Sure. But it will erupt if he doesn’t, too. The Idaho PRIDE incident shows where we’re headed regardless of an indictment.
I agree that the committee has been masterful and is giving Garland a silver platter.
Robert, today’s newsletter may well be your best ever (and you consistently set that bar very high). Thank you for your insight and eloquent prose.
There will always be a monster waiting in the wings. Evil never takes a holiday. It keeps plugging along just like the R’s have been doing since the 1960’s. They were committing treason in secrecy, Nixon communicating with the North Vietnamese. Then there are the pond scum politicians like Newt Gingrich selling people a bill of goods with the contract for America. Grover “No New Taxes” Norquist. The list goes on ad nauseum. The real evil they all bring into play is racism. White Europeans coming to the New World always thought everyone else was savage but them.
My "happy thought" for the day: Trump facing "real exposure to a decade in jail." So very comforting after all he has gotten aways with. We so need to see that Truth does matter and that there are conquences for bad behavior. Orange for the Orange Man. Justice.
One thing that struck me from this hearing was that Trump is more cunning than I had thought. He is the con man turning everything into a grift. He had people around him that were telling him the truth about the projection and then the outcome of the 2020 election that he was going to lose. He knew he was going to lose and then figured out how to make money off his supporters of his narcissistic supply. He is stupid in the sense of not bothering to learn anything except how to make money off the situation. Being a loser was the worst thing you could call him and still he figured out how to make money being a loser. The purpose in the lawsuits claiming fraud was to extend the grift and continue as long as possible getting money out of it. He himself was not going to Stop the Rip Off. Trump will become more and more dangerous as he feels pushed into a corner facing criminal charges and jail time. I'm wondering which will come first - Trump handing his followers the Kool-aid ala Jim Jones or his followers waking up to the rip off and turning very angry toward him. Whatever happens I hope the outcome is Trump and his crazies are held accountable.
Robert, I agree 100%: Trump is and has never been detached from reality. He knows exactly what he's doing - he's been doing it his entire life: creating a false reality that will benefit one person: Donald Trump.
Trump began the BIG LIE back in 2016 *before* he surprisingly won the election.
And again in 2020, *before the election*, Trump, effectively, used the same script but this time he exploited the Coronavirus to extend his Big Lie: "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters. They go and collect them. They're fraudulent in many cases." April 7, 2020.
I wish the Jan 6th Committee and the TV pundits would stop insinuating that Trump was manipulated by people like Giuliani and Powell and the Pillow Man. It's complete and utter bullshit. Nobody manipulates Trump. He is the Great Manipulator. His effort to sabotage our presidential election since 2016 proves it.
The bottom line: The Big Lie is Donald Trump and Donald Trump is the Big Lie. He is a malevolent force that seeks only one thing: Power. Even if it means the end of the democracy in the United States.