“I came back from Europe just a little bit before July 4, just after the Supreme Court ruling on Roe vs Wade, the efforts to deal with gun violence, and against the backdrop of all of the Jan. 6 hearings. Those three things were being paid very close attention to.
“I don’t think we fully process here how much the rest of the world feels that the United States is undercut by the manifestations of polarization and partisan infighting.
“So it’s not just Jan. 6. It’s this idea that the United States is out of control. Putin feeds on this.
“When you see Putin trying to exploit all of these hot-button issues, part of it is obviously to put us against each other, but it’s also to make the United States look less of a leader and diminished in an international context.”
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“Even former leaders expressed concern about the current, tumultuous period for an agency that has been thrust into political turmoil.
“‘I don’t know if there’s ever been one quite like this,’ said W. Ralph Basham, a former Secret Service director, referring to the current period of controversy for the agency. ‘Never a situation that would measure up to this kind of pressure.’” nytimes.com/2022/07/19/us/…
“The request for the text messages by the inspector general, Joseph V. Cuffari, stems from the office’s broad investigation into decisions made on Jan. 6 by the Homeland Security Department.
“Norman Eisen, who served as co-counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment hearing, tells me, …
“The key thing to remember is that his inactions and actions during that 187 minutes are not an isolated crime by themselves but rather the culmination of his alleged criminal conspiracies to defraud and to obstruct.” washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
“He adds that evidence about that period of time could ‘illuminate’ Trump’s criminal intent, which would be critical to any prosecution of the former president, including by the prosecutor investigating Trump’s pressure campaign on Georgia’s election officials.
“If Trump, as president, failed to activate the armed services during a foreign attack on our homeland — or worse, put out tweets praising the attackers — it would be tantamount to treason. In the face of domestic terrorism, his obligation to act was no less clear.
“The GOP’s refusal to prevent him from seeking office again (first by failing to convict him at his impeachment trial and now by declining to oppose his participation in the primaries) amounts to ratification of Trump’s treachery.” washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
“It is also an indication of the depths of the party’s depravity. Forcing GOP voters and politicians to grapple with a potential second Trump term remains one of the committee’s critical functions.
@just_security is an invaluable resource for smart legal commentary and marshaling of facts. These are the highlights of their timeline on this aspect of the multi-pronged conspiracy to overthrow our democratically elected gov’t. justsecurity.org/81939/timeline…
“A few findings that are contained in the Timeline below:
•The Trump team planned, directed, and coordinated the false alternate slate of electors scheme.
•The false alternate slate of electors was a “critical” part of the Trump-John Eastman conspiracy, according to a federal district court opinion issued in June.
“The weekend’s news cycle was dominated by the Texas House report that blamed what it called ‘systemic failure’ in the response to the Uvalde school shooting. And it wasn’t wrong.” morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/signs-of-gop…
“But systems don’t fail by themselves; they are made up of people — individuals who make decisions and who act or fail to act.
“So the term ‘systemic failure’ feels like a euphemism here; an anodyne and bland way of describing a fiasco of cowardice, incompetence, stupidity, and buck-passing by specific individuals.
“The lawyers for 11 of the electors … accused Ms. Willis of politicizing the investigation and said that many ‘of the nominee electors are prominent figures in the Georgia G.O.P.’”
“The electors include Mark Amick, who serves on the board of the Georgia Republican Foundation, a group of the party’s large donors; Vikki Consiglio, the party’s assistant treasurer;
“Shawn Still, who won a primary for a State Senate seat earlier this year; Brad Carver, an Atlanta lawyer; and Kay Godwin, the co-founder of a group called Georgia Conservatives in Action.”