There’s been a recent trend among some self-proclaimed activists to decry any criticism of Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor as #TeamDeza (“Deza” being an abbreviation of Russian “Dezinformatsiya,” or disinformation) or, in some form, “dividing the Resistance.” You tweet that the Constitution doesn’t work the way Clouise says? You’re a Russian agent. You point out that there’s video proof that something they claim happened didn’t actually happen? You’re a Trump supporter.
This is nonsense. Anyone falling for it, anyone still reading Taylor or Mensch or their compadres with anything more than amusement — or as anything more than fan fiction — should be ashamed of themselves and their failure of critical thinking. Not only are these alternative facts foolish and wrong, reliance or belief in them is outright detrimental to the Resistance. If Americans are going to resist the 45th presidency, they’re going to need to do it with truth.
These two in particular are “chaos agents,” to quote Malcolm Nance, but it’s not just Louise and Claude; some of their followers rely on supposed “expertise” to con optimistic Resistance members and grow their own little followings. This group is weaving a few different threads right now, all deeply flawed in fact and reason:
- Impeachment of Trump has “commenced”;
- There are “sealed indictments” of Donald Trump, much of his staff, and various high-ranking Republican officials;
- The Supreme Court has notified Trump that he cannot use his pardon powers for anything related to the Trump-Russia investigatio; and
- There is a “Marshall Order of Execution” for the U.S. Marshals Service to take all these players into custody.
These four points make little to no sense. They’re not how these proceedings would unfold — and in many cases, they’re completely wrong.
The Sealed Indictments
Mensch and Taylor have great cover here. Their only evidence to back up this claim is their “protected sources.” If there is ever an arrest of a Trump staffer, they can claim that it’s a result of a sealed indictment. If not, well, I’m sure they have some more legalese that would explain why it never happened.
What really gets me about this claim, though, is that Mensch trumpets it as if she’s been vindicated. She somehow uses her own reporting and Claude’s “corroborating sources” to claim that she’s been proven correct, in some mess of begging the question and circular logic that would put Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer to shame.
But here’s where it gets weird: Taylor’s. “sources” are often people on Twitter who are just repeating what they’ve heard from Mensch… or from Taylor himself!
@fraudetaylor1 has already covered the rise of Claude Taylor, so I’ll just post their tweets:
All goes to say, maybe there’s an indictment, maybe not (there’s certainly a grand jury), but it hasn’t been confirmed to nearly the extent Mensch and Taylor want us to think — in fact, to no extent.
The “Commencement” of Impeachment
It hasn’t happened. There’s really nothing more to say here.
Impeachment begins when the House Judiciary Committee begins drafting Articles of Impeachment. This is a public process, and it’s controlled by the Chair of the Committee, Representative Bob Goodlatte. Goodlatte has done nothing to commence impeachment. He won’t, unless Trump becomes a greater drag on the GOP than his impeachment would be.
Even if it had, it means very little. Impeachment by itself has no practical effect. Recall that Bill Clinton was impeached. Nothing happened to him other than political shame.
A president or other official can be impeached repeatedly and continue to serve with all the powers they had prior to impeachment. Multiple House Republicans called for President Obama’s impeachment, but he kept plugging away, unencumbered.
Even if the House Judiciary Committee was drafting Articles of Impeachment, even if the House as a whole agreed and impeached Trump, the only effect would be to start a trial in the Senate.
Pardon Power Denied
Sources further say that the Supreme Court notified Mr. Trump that … he was not able to use his powers of pardon against other suspects in Trump-Russia cases.
Again, there’s little I can say about this other than it’s wrong. Article II of the U.S. Constitution grants the President the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
The “except” subclause means the President cannot pardon impeachments, not that he can’t use his pardon power when he’s in the process of being impeached. For example, some Republicans pushed for President Obama’s IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen, to be impeached for lying to Congress. If they had managed to do so, then President Obama could not have pardoned Koskinen for that, and could not have spared him from removal from office if the Senate subsequently found him guilty at trial. (Chairman Goodlatte, by the way, was a key figure in stopping the impeachment process against Commissioner Koskinen, which tells you a little bit about how high a bar he sets for impeachment.)
The impeachment subclause simply does not mean that a President’s pardon powers can be abridged or revoked if the President is being impeached. (And, remember, the President is not currently being impeached, so it’s doubly impossible for Mensch’s assertion to stand.)
Mensch and Taylor’s assertion is bupkis.
The “Marshall Order of Execution”
Claude Taylor is literally making things up:
So what is a “Marshall Order of Execution”? Taylor seems to think that it’s a plan for rounding up suspects in the Trump-Russia investigation.
He keeps using “MOE.”
Where did he get the acronym? According to Reddit user https://www.reddit.com/user/donaldrumpsfeld, he first announced this theory by posting a tweet, only to quickly delete it:
“MOE” is the court electronic filing acronym for the Eastern District of Missouri. So somehow he found that case, looked at it, and invented “Marshal Order of Execution” to fit the “MOE” acronym, which anyone who is familiar with the federal court system knows to mean Missouri Eastern.
If you search for “Marshall Order of Execution,” the only references all lead back to Claude. It’s nothing but lies — lies that sound sort of like law enforcement, but lies nonetheless. There is no such thing as a “Marshall Order of Execution.”
It’s Not All Wrong… But What’s Been Right Is Vague
Again, someone has already said this far better than I could, so I’m going to cite @BrendanNyhan of Darthmouth University and the New York Times:
The FISA warrants? Technically unproven, but not exactly a hard scoop to guess, based on what was already known.
Grand jury? It’s so easy to empanel one that — considering there was a confirmed investigation — it’d be more surprising if there wasn’t one.
This process repeats itself again and again. Mensch and Taylor make a bunch of huge predictions. A few kinda, sorta similar stories are repeated by the mainstream press. Taysch declares vindication; lather, rinse, repeat.
It’s the same strategy that mediums use, and it’s fooled people for millennia.
None of This Is “Dividing the Resistance”
I get it. People love reading Taylor and Mensch. They tell us exactly what we want to hear: the FBI, the grand jury, the courts, the intelligence community, and even the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee are doing exactly what they need to do to remove Trump and his cronies from the White House. It’s a wonderful thought. What more does an anti-Trump citizen need to do? Nothing, seemingly, since his removal is already proceeding in an orderly fashion behind the scenes.
It’s not. Don’t let yourself be fooled by a Tory former Member of Parliament who was — until recently — employed by uber-Trump-crony Rupert Murdoch or a freelance photographer who makes far more of his position in the White House Volunteer Office under Bill Clinton than he really should. (It’s a great position, sure, but not one that would lead to the contacts he would need to be accurately reporting anything.)
Are they completely wrong about everything? No. (Fortune-tellers aren’t wrong about everything, either, but we don’t give them credit for accurate guesses.)
Are they malicious in their intent? I can’t say for certain, but it sure seems that way when Louise blocks people who question her or sics her following on them.
Scrutiny is good. Questioning is how we find the truth. Accepting what Mensch and/or Taylor says without question will lead to laziness. The Resistance needs to be out protesting, planning for the 2018 elections (or 2017 in New Jersey and Virginia), and building the bench in our municipal and state legislatures.
Every moment that we read fantasy and wait for the so-called “Deep State” to remove Trump is a moment we’re not using productively.
This isn’t the time to get cozy.