In an interview, Frank “American Gangster” Lucas said, "I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it." The GOP has revealed itself to be a gangster party, no different than the involvement of organized crime in American politics. The Texas GOP is only one of many symptoms of that bankruptcy.
Donald Trump didn't "pervert" the GOP.
He didn't "lead it astray."
He simply voiced the ugliness in public without shame. He gave it a face and a hat and a jolt of energy.
We're watching a movement here and it doesn't matter if Trump ever says so much as another word.
Watching the GOP openly embrace platforms attacking gay Americans, attempt to diagnose their enemies as "dangerous" and "unhinged" is a glimpse into what this party is.
They are radicalized and devoted to rolling back democracy and human rights in the name of profit and power.
The very essence and core of the GOP is to destroy liberal democracy and reestablish control by white, wealthy, evangelical men.
That is the purpose and the project. There's no more denying it. No more pretending it isn't the case.
It's DEADLY obvious.
And let's make this very clear.
Republicans aren't simply going to "wake up." They're not going to "snap out of it."
Everyone who tells you this will simply work itself out are either complicit, delusional, or both.
This is a full-blown crisis. And it has to be treated as such
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According to two people briefed on the matter, Alyssa Farah Griffin, the White House communications director in the days after the election, recently testified to the Committee that Mr. Trump said to her in November 2020 words along the lines of: Can you believe I lost to Mr. Biden?
If Trump knows that he lost, that means he acted with criminal intent to overthrow the election.
The context of Trump’s actions during the post-election period changes if he went into the plot to overturn the election knowing that he lost to Joe Biden. Trump’s actions are still criminal, no matter if he knew that he lost or not, but his potential defense that the election was “stolen” from him will be non-existent if it can be proven that he lost.
If Trump always knew from the beginning that he lost the election, besides potential charges of sedition, Trump committed criminal fraud in his post-election fundraising. Trump was likely engaged in a plot to defraud the United States of America, and if the 1/6 Committee can prove that Trump knew that he lost, the path to criminally charging the former president becomes more clear.
www.politicususa.com/...
As a potential defense, the tactic suggested by Mr. Trump’s statement is far from a guarantee against prosecution, and it presents obvious problems of credibility. Mr. Trump has a long history of saying whatever suits his purposes without regard for the truth. And some of the actions he took after the 2020 election, like pressing officials in Georgia to flip enough votes to swing the outcome in that state to his column, speak to a determined effort to hold on to power rather than to address some broader perceived vulnerability in the election system.
But his continued stream of falsehoods highlights some of the complexities of pursuing any criminal case against him, despite how well established the key facts are at this point.
And the statement also reflected steps Mr. Trump is taking behind the scenes to build a new legal team to deal with an array of investigations, including into his pressure campaign to change the outcome of the election in Georgia and his taking classified documents with him when he left office.
M. Evan Corcoran, a white-collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor brought on by Mr. Trump, was involved in drafting the document, according to two people briefed on the matter. Mr. Corcoran has also represented Stephen K. Bannon, a Trump ally who has been indicted by the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
www.nytimes.com/...