Wednesday's postcard, and 3 truths, from Republicans, in the historic Trump indictment

August 2, 2023

American badger in a basalt alcove in the eastern scablands near Lamont, WA

Indelible truths

It is only in the short run that it appears wise for aspiring Republican candidates to woo voters with the twin fictions that Donald Trump (a) won the 2020 election, and (b) that he is now being unfairly prosecuted for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the capitol.

The reason this is true is because of this document—a federal grand jury indictment filed late yesterday by special prosecutor Jack Smith.

Regardless of what happens tomorrow, and for thousands of tomorrows to come, the historic indictment exists, and the moral weight of it is such that it can’t be undone; can’t be erased, can’t be burned or banned. That’s a tall order, even for a party that—with the help of Fox News and its ilk—seems to have successfully brain-washed half the population.

The reason I write this is that the evidence marshaled against Trump in the new indictment comes overwhelmingly from Republicans—from people who were Trump loyalists, almost to the end. It is their testimony and their documents that give up the game, that lay bare the truth of what happened—that Trump and a cadre of co-conspirators were pulling out the stops to keep Trump in the Oval Office, despite losing the election to Biden.

The details are devastating.

Three examples.

•The first is former Arizona House of Representatives leader Russell “Rusty” Bowers, who testified before the U.S. House Select Committee in June of 2022. Bowers is a Republican who voted for Trump in the 2020 election. Not long after learning he’d lost the popular vote in Arizona, Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, appealed to Bowers to use his influence as Speaker of the Arizona House to nullify the popular vote and lead the Arizona legislature in an effort to send alternate (Trump) electors to swing the Electoral College vote in Trump’s favor. Bowers refused, telling Trump and Giuliani that there was no substantial evidence for the voter fraud they’d alleged and that he would not violate his oath to the people of Arizona and the U.S. Constitution to intervene. His stand earned him the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award, but also earned him a censure by the Republican Party of Arizona for not going along with Trump and Giuliani’s plan. Later that year, Bowers was overwhelmingly defeated in the Arizona Republican primary election. (See pages 10-11)

•The second is the now-famous effort Trump made during a Jan. 2, 2021, hour-long phone call to persuade Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Ben Raffensperger, to change the popular vote count for President in Georgia. The aim, of course, was to nullify Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the state and swing the state, and its electors, to Trump. On the call, which Raffensperger recorded, he repeatedly corrected Trump’s accusations of voter fraud, and adamantly refused to play along, even as Trump suggested that Raffensperger and his counsel, Ryan Germany, were opening themselves up to criminal prosecution if they didn’t do what Trump was imploring them to do. (See pages 12-16).

•Thirdly, the indictment recounts the pressure put on Michigan state officials to reverse the results of the 2020 Presidential election in that state. Among other things, the indictment conveys Rudy Giuliani’s text for the Republican Majority Leader in the Michigan state senate, pushing him to challenge the results and oppose the slate of presidential electors slated to be sent to the nation’s capital for the expected Jan. 6, electoral college vote. Pressure was also applied to the Republican Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, Lee Chatfield. Chatfied not only resisted, he issued a public statement on December 14, which reads in part: “…I fought hard for President Trump. Nobody wanted him to win more than me. I think he’s done an incredible job. But I love our republic, too. I can’t fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because some think there may have been enough widespread voter fraud to give him the win. That’s unprecedented for good reason. And that’s why there is not enough support in the House to cast a new slate of electors. I fear we’d lose our country forever. This truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the Electoral College and I can’t stand for that. I won’t.” [emphasis added] (pages 10-19)

I could go on, but it would only belabor the point. Of course, Trump & Co. will continue castigating any effort to hold him accountable by denouncing it as a partisan witch hunt. No surprise there. But this is only a show, a flimsy fiction in which players like U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (both of whom railed against Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection) have now gone back to fomenting the Trump mob, parroting what the MAGA base needs to hear, which—of course—is a chorus of lies, including the big lie that Trump was deprived of re-election by voter fraud.

What’s chilling is the extent to which Trump’s last inner circle was preparing to overthrow the government and endure the consequences of doing so.

On pages 21 thru 31, the indictment unpacks the scheme to disqualify electors from several states, opening up a scenario where Biden’s election would be nullified, with Trump retaining the presidency. To help enable this, the indictment asserts that Trump was moving to install an obscure justice department lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, —identified in the indictment as “Co-conspirator #4—as the new acting Attorney General.

On page 30 there is the report of a conversation between a deputy White House counsel who warned Clark that if the scheme to keep Trump in the White House succeeded, there would be “riots in every major city in the U.S.” To which Clark is alleged to have responded: “Well…that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act”—the 230 year old law that would allow Trump to deploy the nation’s military to suppress protesting rioters.

Two things can be true at once in this nightmarish drama.

The Republican bond with Trump appears to be as strong as ever, with Trump in line to be the party’s nominee for President in 2024. Yet, it’s also true that this indictment is indelible. It can’t be erased from U.S. history, even if events unfold in ways that lead to the collapse of American democracy.

The nation, as we’ve known it—may tumble into a tragic experiment with the authoritarianism Trump and his allies seem to crave. But the evidence of this travesty will long outlive the Trumpian cult and this moment. It will live in the bedrock for as long as humans breathe. It’s even possible that instead of Donald Trump’s face added to Mount Rushmore, we’ll eventually get Jack Smith’s, or Cassidy Hutchinson’s.

—tjc