The Cult Chaos of DDT

Update about the police raid on a small Kansas newspaper: Joan Meyer, the newspaper’s co-owner, collapsed and died after police took her computer and router from her home. They also photographed her son’s bank statements and left her home in a mess. The weekly newspaper reported that the 98-year-old was “in good health for her age”; the raid, which was likely illegal, contributed to her death. A federal law blocks “searching and seizing materials from journalists,” according to the newspaper, and requires authorities to subpoena materials. Eric Meyer, the woman’s son, compared the raids of his newspaper to those conducted by repressive government regimes.

The police claim that they can use a warrant if they suspect criminal activity and that the newspaper asked the state for the “victim’s” driver’s license records. Evidence permitting any exemption to the protection of journalist from searches must be on the affidavit for obtaining the search warrant, according to the newspaper, which petitioned Marion County District court for that affidavit. Within ten days, the newspaper must either receive it or have the request denied. The newspaper stated it checked in state public records after receiving a tip but did not report the story and contacted the police about the tip.

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) has made an amazing reversal, declaring six times within 30 seconds the idea of a stolen election was just his “opinion.” For almost three years, he declared he has proof while he lost 60 court cases, made telephone calls demanding more votes, wildly claimed destroyed ballots, etc. DDT’s lawyer John Lauro appears to believe his client’s denial of a stolen election can keep him from conviction. Jessica Levinson explains why Lauro is wrong:  

“Smith alleges in the indictment that Trump illegally: (1) pressured state election officials to declare that Trump won the states they represent (even though he did not); (2) attempted to send “fake electors” to vote in the Electoral College (even though they had no power to vote); (3) tried to get members of the Justice Department to endorse the idea that there was election fraud (even though there was not); (4) sought to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the Electoral College votes (even though he had no constitutional authority to do so); and (5) supported an angry mob who attempted to prevent the certification of the Electoral College.”

DDT can be convicted on all these charges—conspiries to obstruct an official proceeding, defraud the government, and violate civil rights—without showing whether DDT knew he lost the 2020 election. Smith must, however, prove that DDT acted with criminal intent by showing that VP Mike Pence had no authority to reject his constitutional duties by refusing to certify the Electoral College vote and fake electors had no authority to cast their votes on January 6, 2021.

Smith’s indictment lists eight categories of officials, agencies, and institutions, including DDT-trusted sources and closest allies, who frequently told him his claims of a rigged election were false. GOP state lawmakers and officials such as governors and secretaries of state gave him evidence.

Last week, another leading media story centered around a November 18, 2020 memo from DDT lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, identified as Co-Conspirator 5 in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of DDT, outlining strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He said it would fail, but he wanted to buy time so that DDT could win his court cases. DDT followed Chesebro’s idea of persuading six swing states to pick fake electors for DDT and have court cases to overturn Joe Biden’s election. Winning these cases, DDT would have electors ready to vote if Pence didn’t allow Electoral College voting. Soon after the memo, Chesebro laid out the directions to establish the “alternative” electors.  

In an attempt to give his plan veracity, Chesebro used a “gross representation” of a law treatise by noted constitutional law scholar Lawrence Tribe regarding congressional limitations in writing that Pence could flout the Electoral Count Act. Tribe stated that Chesebro helped him as a research assistant in the “the very parts of [Tribe’s] treatise” that the DDT lawyer then “misused.” He fully described “Chesebro’s pivotal role in laying the groundwork for ‘a coup in search of a legal theory.’”   

Another ring in this week’s media circus was Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling on DDT’s attacks on witnesses. Chutkan said that DDT’s political campaign has no bearing on the case and he should keep his defense “in this courtroom, not on the internet.” She gave no gag order but cautioned him and his lawyers to “take special care” that their public statements in the case could not be seen as intimidating witnesses or prejudicing potential jurors. She added that more “inflammatory statements” could speed up the deadline for a trial, something that DDT desperately wants to avoid.

After Chutkan’s ruling, DDT said that no one will shut him up. His lawyer John Lauro is already trying to cover for him by saying judges and prosecutors will be more lenient with DDT because “of there being sort of a campaign going on.”

Smith’s proposed trial date of January 2, 2024, has made DDT furious. He complained about the trial’s date’s proximity to the January 15 Iowa GOP caucuses—and still says the trial should be after the 2024 election if at all. Chutkan set August 28 for a hearing to determine the trial date. DDT already has five trials between October 2023 and May 2024.

In Fulton County (GA), DA Fani Willis plans to present information from the investigations about DDT and his associates trying to overturn the election on Tuesday. She has text messages and emails proving that DDT’s legal team tried to “access sensitive voting software” from 2020 voting machines in Coffee County in a fruitless search for election fraud.

A grand jury make make multiple indictments under the state’s expansive anti-racketeering statutes allowing charges for both in-state wrongdoing and activities in other states with criminal intent in Georgia. Willis described her probe as “multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.” Last year, at least 18 people were told they were targets of the investigation, but the state has no requirement to notify people in advance.

DDT’s 2024 campaign is airing an attack video toward Willis, Smith, and other prosecutors. It claims, with no evidence, that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting,” a lie that DDT pushed in his August 8 campaign appearance in New Hampshire. Willis’ only response was to email her staff, directing them to “not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity.”

Also in the past week:

DDT is angry that Jack Smith forced Twitter to hand over records from DDT’s accounts. Musk also must pay $350,000 in fines because of the missed court-ordered deadline. DDT used Twitter until after the insurrection, providing a rich trove of messages to prove Smith’s charges. The indictment describes DDT used Twitter to instill in his followers “the false expectation” that Pence could flout the constitution by not allowing the Electoral College count. For seven months, the judge kept the request sealed for fear that DDT would engage in obstructive conduct or flee prosecution.

Smith is also investigating possible fraud in DDT’s PAC, obtaining millions in donations supposedly going into an election defense fund for legal fees to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The fund never existed.

In October 2021, DDT’s adviser Boris Epshteyn was arrested for inappropriately touching two women in Arizona while working to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. His arrest was hushed up and multiple charges dropped.

DDT bitterly rails about how his opponent “put him on trial,” but during the 2016 campaign, he constantly led chants of “Lock her up!” against Hillary Clinton. For months, he also called for the DOJ to “indict” Biden—with no evidence.

DDT is a private citizen but considers himself entitled. He wants a private SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) at his residences so he can look at classified documents at home where he allegedly mishandled these secrets.   

DDT used “America First” as part of his campaign but prefers to be in southern France, yet he’s unpopular in the country. He also attacked the women who played in the World Cup and celebrated their defeat. DDT favors Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “leader unlike what we have in this country” and complains about the world’s lack of respect for the U.S. Since he left the White House, however, surveys show the increasingly positive international perspective toward the U.S.  According to a Gallup report, U.S. leadership had “largely rebounded from the record-low ratings observed during the Trump administration.”

According to bully DDT, Chris Christie is a “fat pig,” especially after Christie called DDT on his lies about his “wall.” DDT wrote he “built almost 500 Miles of Wall” although admitting some of it was replacement. In four years, DDT constructed 453 miles with only 47 miles in places where a wall had not existed, a total of 771 miles of barrier in the 1,954 miles of the southwestern border. DDT’s failed 2016 campaign promises: missing 1,283 miles, and no payment from Mexico.

Smugglers and migrants have climbed over DDT’s wall, tunneled under them, and cut holes through them with cheap equipment. Some of it has just fallen over. Debris pushing against the wall during monsoon season knocked down parts of them. Yet Republicans want to pay more bilions of dollars for more walls.  

The Cult of DDT on May 21, 2023

As always, followers of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) valiantly defend him, but even usually spineless Chuck Todd (Meet the Press) tired of their lies and avoidance. In 2019, DDT, when in the White House, said, “I can’t imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge.” Todd asked DDT sycophant Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) why he, an advocate of sending the U.S. into default, doesn’t agree with DDT. Donalds quoted DDT saying that he reversed his position because he’s no longer president. “Do you realize how absurd that sounds?” Todd asked Donalds who denied that DDT’s excuse for changing his position wasn’t absurd. Todd said:

“‘What is good for me is not for thee.’ He’s basically saying, ‘When I’m president, there’s no negotiating on this. But, hey, when somebody else is president, screw them.”

Donalds retorted that DDT is “what America needs.” Actually, DDT is what MAGA wishes: 

• Education: ranting against transgender people and burning woke books
• Military policy: retain insurrectionists.
• Healthcare: incite death threats against scientific methods.
• Campaigns: be as nasty and cruel as possible.
• Guns: promote deaths and injuries.

Mike Lofgren wrote about the new GOP: armed survivalists, psychopathic grifters, con artists, incels living in parents’ basements.

“Having been abused himself as a child, Trump now transmits abuse to others. The Trump base, disproportionately conservative and religious fundamentalist, is also likely to have been the subject of punitive and authoritarian upbringings; rather than making a clean break with the sickness, they keep replicating it in their lives. Their slave-like loyalty to Trump is a form of masochism towards the angry yet protective family patriarch…

“[Republicans] don’t want better health care, fiscal responsibility, better infrastructure, clean drinking water, or anything on a policy menu that serves rational ends… What they truly want is demons to wrestle with till the end of time. They want revenge… They crave contentiousness and conflict 24/7…

“Scholars studying the conspiracy theories these people fall for sometimes belabor the issue of whether they really “believe” such crackpot notions. Whether they believe is probably unknowable, but that is less important than the fact that loudly saying they believe it creates endless friction with relatives, co-workers, and neighbors. Being abrasive, if not actually threatening, gives them a sense of identity and attention they would otherwise lack.

“Other than tax cuts for the rich (and for himself), Trump hardly undertook any policies in his four years in office; instead he filled his time with giving his base a whole menagerie of demons to contend with. It is no coincidence that the people he verbally assaulted, be they politicians, the press or election workers, were soon besieged by death threats from his unhinged followers…

“The real glue between Trump and his devotees is his endless assurances that their lot in life is not the result of their own laziness, irresponsibility or failure to seek counseling. No, they are innocent victims, endlessly picked on by elitists, socialists and foreigners. These sinister groups are constantly changing according to expediency, but the point is to keep his acolytes in a constant state of agitation.

“He [demonized] Muslims … while going on to set up business deals (meaning bribes) between his family and the Persian Gulf despots. He even sided with the bloodthirsty Mohammed bin Salman over the Saudi-American journalist whom the Saudi princeling had murdered and dismembered…

“More than 80 years ago, George Orwell commented on the malleability of the endless hate propaganda of earlier charismatic dictatorships; it sounds eerily like the Trump technique: ‘As for the hate-campaigns in which totalitarian régimes ceaselessly indulge, they are real enough while they last, but are simply dictated by the needs of the moment. Jews, Poles, Trotskyists, English, French, Czechs, Democrats, Fascists, Marxists—almost anyone can figure as Public Enemy No. 1. Hatred can be turned in any direction at a moment’s notice, like a plumber’s blow-flame.’

“Trump’s hold over his base, a force that none of his Republican opponents can quite replicate, is ultimately predicated on the implied threat of violence. As armies, gangs and cults have demonstrated, violence is a tacit loyalty oath that bonds one member to another and above all the group to the leader. The simmering air of menace that characterizes Trump rallies is the sadomasochistic tie between Trump and his followers turned outward as hatred towards the rest of society…

“His pronouncements to his followers are functionally no different than an imam in a failed Middle Eastern state issuing fatwas to kill the infidel.”

Donalds also argued that DDT is the only person who can oppose Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russan President Vladimir Putin. Yet DDT fawned over both of them and gave Xi state secrets in front of a crowd of his followers at Mar-a-Lago. While in the White House, DDT also gave Putin anything he wanted.

Todd asked Donalds if January 6 was a “beautiful day,” as DDT claimed. Donalds disagreed it was “beautiful” but switched the topic to the southern boarder and the inflation he blamed on President Joe Biden—the inflation caused by big business that’s rapidly shrinking because of Biden’s actions. Also Donalds skipped over the progress that Biden is making, with the cooperation of the G7 summit, against China’s economic importance.

DDT led the Republicans to tie Biden to China. In 2019, while DDT was being investigated for his extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky, he publicly called on China to publish negative information about Biden, then his opponent for the presidency. DDT accused of “all that money from China” going into Biden’s “pockets” because he was in China’s employ.  

While in the White House, DDT collected at least $7 million from Chinese government-owned entities through just a lease agreement with a state-owned bank in Trump Tower. It was the second-largest tenant in the building. Two years after a five-year extension, the bank left Trump Tower at the same time that DDT left the White House.

As of 2017, DDT had at least 72 trademarks in China with another 45 pending. He also had a bank account in China, and his daughter Ivanka Trump received 41 Chinese trademarks while she was a White House adviser. Those trademarks were approved 40 percent faster than those she applied for before his inauguration. In the same year, a Chinese firm invested over $400 million in the Manhattan office tower owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband. Kushner Companies received a cash payout, an equity stake in a new partnership, and a refinancing of $1.14 billion in existing mortgage debt. About 80 percent of a $250 million loan was forgiven. Kushner had supposedly sold his stake in the property, but it was a “sweetheart deal” for his family.

And that was just in China.

DDT has lost his legal team’s  lead lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, because of infighting, according to the attorney who will no longer participated in the special counsel investigations. He said he stepped down because of differences with another of DDT’s lawyers, Boris Epshteyn, and accused him of “misrepresenting” the classified documents that DDT illegally collected. Parlatore explained how Epshteyn blocked him and other lawyers from giving DDT information, creating a disadvantage in dealing with DOJ. Epshteyn tended to deliver good news to DDT, no matter the circumstances, according to Parlatore. He added:

“In my opinion, he was not very honest with us or with the client on certain things. Uh, there were certain things like the searches that he had attempted to interfere with.”

Parlatore also ridiculed Epshteyn’s limited legal experience of only 18 months as a corporate lawyer. In late April, DDT’s lawyers asked lawmakers to remove DOJ authority to run the investigation, moving the probe to the intelligence community. In the CNN town hall, DDT again admitted he took classified documents but repeated his false claim that he had the right to do it. Asked for the reason, he said:

“I was there and I took what I took. … I had every right to do it. I didn’t make a secret of it.”

By stating he took the classified materials when he moved out of the White House, DDT was confessing to a federal crime. The National Archives also found 16 records proving that DDT knew he broke the law by taking the classified documents to Mar-a-Lago. In them, advisers directed him on how to declassify materials.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has told her staff they will be working remotely for the first few weeks of August. It seems the hammer is about to drop in litigation regarding the attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. DDT is trying to block the proceedings.

In the five-year lawsuit claiming DDT stole from Celebrity Apprentice viewers by pushing investments in an unsuccessful desktop videophone scam, his children have been removed to speed up the legal procedure.

The FBI raided an apartment owned by two Russian businessmen, partners in a shell company, in Miami’s Trump Tower. They have been evading trade sanctions with Russia caused by its invasion of Ukraine by sending Boeing and Airbus aircraft parts and electronics to Russia through an elaborate network.

Heather Cox Richardson’s “letter” for April 21 describes the way Putin has aligned himself with DDT in his list of 500+ people not permitted to enter Russia—both Republicans and Democrats who have opposed DDT. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/21/world/europe/russia-sanctions-trump.html She also explains how DDT’s loyalists in state legislatures are using the fear tactics of Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to fight democracy.