David Frum - Trump Crosses a Bright Red Line

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In a bombshell conversation with Georgia’s secretary of state yesterday, President Donald Trump made monkeys of every Republican official and every conservative talking head who professed to believe Trump’s allegations of voter fraud. The president himself made clear that he had only one end in view: overturning the 2020 election.

You knew this already, of course. Anyone connected to reality knew it. Even most of Trump’s political allies probably knew it. But important incentives induced people in the pro-Trump camp to pretend otherwise. And now, as so often happens, Trump has yanked away the protective deception to reveal the truth.

And now again, Trump presents the country with a crisis and a conundrum.

What Trump did on that call with Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, first reported by The Washington Post this afternoon, might well have been a crime. More than that cannot be said until and unless a jury is heard from. But Trump has reason to worry about new juries today, alongside all the other juries he was worrying about yesterday.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-crosses-a-bright-red-line/ar-BB1cruM0?ocid=DELLDHP&li=BBnb7Kz

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Trump crosses "bright red lines" daily

and twice on Sundays.

[Irish_Dem]

2. I don't get it. Trump has been making these calls since Election night.

Why is this one a big deal all of a sudden?

[Iliyah]

4. Taped ...

and exposed.

[Irish_Dem]

5. OK. Thanks...... nt

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

Legal experts say the combination of Trump’s request to “find” a specific number of votes — just enough to put him ahead of Biden — and his veiled reference to criminal liability for Raffensperger and his aides could violate federal and state statutes aimed at guarding against the solicitation of election fraud. The potential violations of state law are particularly notable, given that they would fall outside the reach of a potential pardon by Trump or his successor …

… Georgia state law includes two provisions that criminalize “solicitation of election fraud” and “conspiracy to commit election fraud.” Trump’s detractors also pointed to a federal statute that criminalizes “the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”

In an interview with Politico, Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis also said that the “Georgia code says that anybody who solicits, requests or commands or otherwise attempts to encourage somebody to commit election fraud is guilty of solicitation of election fraud.”

“There’s just no way that if you read the code and the way the code is structured, and then you look at what the president of the United States requested, that he has not violated this law — the spirit of it for sure,” Kreis added.

At several points in the recording, Trump suggests to Raffensperger that he could be criminally liable if he does not overturn election results he considers fraudulent — though they have already been certified and subjected to two recounts. “That’s a criminal offense,” Trump said. “And you can’t let that happen.” Later he added, “It’s going to be very costly.” Responding to this suggestion by the president, Daniel Goldman — the lead counsel in the Trump impeachment inquiry in the House — tweeted that he had “charged extortion in mob cases with similar language” when he was an assistant U.S. Attorney at the Southern District of New York.

Representative Jerry Nadler, who prosecuted Trump’s impeachment, agreed that there may be criminal exposure: “In threatening these officials with vague ‘criminal’ consequences, and in encouraging them to ‘find’ additional votes and hire investigators who ‘want to find answers,’ the president may have also subjected himself to additional criminal liability.”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/did-trump-break-the-law-in-his-georgia-election-phone-call.html

[sop]

6. Trump is the one guilty of election fraud in Georgia.

So, I guess the POS was right after all when he claimed election fraud.

[Kitchari]

7. K&R n/t

[Cha]

8. KR!

[BlueWavePsych]

9. So many lines crossed.