This is the clip that should be leading every newscast about the #PaxtonImpeachment
It’s just remarkable — watch at the end how three Senators in view (jurors — all three of which have telegraphed an anti-Paxton disposition) lean forward in unison as they realize how fatal it is to the core #txlege impeachment claims.
Watch a stoic Dean of the Senate John Witmire (D-Houston) drop his poker face for a second and give the side-eye to the #txlege House Managers that are prosecuting a case that is falling apart before their eyes.
Pence errored on #Jan6 by not clearly following through on what he had telegraphed his plan was: present all purported certifications, ensure all evidence was fairly presented & weighed, and led the Joint Session through roll-call votes for all contested states.
I don’t believe there was extant evidence at the time or sufficient consensus to send anything back to state legislatures/reject any slate — so Biden would still be President — but the process would have played out in a credible and transparent way.
That’s where Pence failed: he failed to lead. He played footsie with Trump’s more audacious plan and then tried to “split the baby” in secret in the final hours. Had he actually taken the reigns and led, he could have ushered in a National healing moment. He failed to do that.
Vivek’s idea of proposing a bunch of legislation that wouldn’t pass is fanciful and naive.
Recall Pence had spent the weeks leading up to #Jan6 validating the #StopTheSteal sentiment, and then cowardly released his letter at the last minute instead of messaging it & defending it. That all happened BEFORE the session convened and any protestors had been let into the Capitol. The crowd’s chants were unforgivable, but the feeling of betrayal was predictable — which is precisely why he released it the way he did instead of standing up and defending it.
The way he rolled that decision out incited the riot more than anything Trump said…
On the surface this appears to be a legitimate criticism; but it doesn’t hold up.
Elections for President (and VP) are constitutionally mandated to be (1)“republican”* in form, and (2) conducted in a manner “prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof”
Objecting to failures of these mandates & adjudicating them isn’t “federalizing” the issue.
For more than two years, the “Trump was trying to get Raffensperger to lie for him” canard has been widely accepted as true, ended up in the second Articles of Impeachment, and will likely be the focus of yet another Trump indictment in Georgia.
It would be easy to dismiss Barr’s unwillingness to speak truth about the election as cowardice, especially as the narrative around the January 6th riots was being set and being on “the wrong side of history” would surely be concerning for a guy like Barr.
This DOJ has often abused 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) The Espionage Act. Let me tell you a quick story about one of the more egregious examples from recent history.
The case of Thomas Drake: 1/ twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Drake was an NSA executive who became concerned about illegal activities, waste, and mismanagement within the Agency. He attempted to raise concerns through standard channels, and even elevated his concerns to Congress as a whistle-blower.
2/
Eventually he started leaking certain controlled, but *unclassified* information to a press contact.
This embarrassed Michael Hayden's NSA.
Our govt rewarded his efforts with 5 counts of retaining information, 1 charge of obstruction of justice & 4 counts of false statements.
3/
In most jurisdictions the act of trafficking a child so they can be abused would be a crime. Here in Texas, a “Family” Court judge is deliberately facilitating it. Outrageous doesn’t even begin to describe it.
After multiple years of legal battles & a shameful failure to act by a Republican dominated legislature, a complex legal case is going to @SupremeCourt_TX — but the underlying facts are simple: a deranged mother wants to chop the penis off her young son.
And the Judge has granted the mother a highly atypical order allowing her the ability to unilaterally spirit the boy away to California, and has allowed her legal team to continue abusing the Family Court system to run out the clock on the father’s right to appeal.
Yesterday’s 🧵 on Twitter’s abysmal information security ended with the following question “who had access to what? And maybe even more essential: why?”
Let’s let Mudge expound: “Because key parts of leadership lacked the competency to understand the scope of the problem” 🔥🤯 1/