A bombshell segment on the 05/20/24 edition of The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) delved into the GOP’s long history of using political pressure to scuttle criminal investigations and prosecutions targeting them.
Maddow’s intent was to bring attention to the Republican political attacks currently being leveled against Fulton County DA Fani Willis, as she tries to hold former President Trump accountable for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia.
It is widely assumed by many, that the political attacks currently playing out against DA Willis are somehow novel, or totally unheard of in America, when as Maddow clearly illustrates, there is a very long and sordid history of Republican politicians successfully employing similar tactics in the past.
The full Maddow segment (YouTube) is available here for context, but my posts on X(formerly Twitter) get to the crux of her argument, and that is, the Republican attacks on Fulton County DA Fani Willis are nothing knew. Republicans have been doing these political pressure campaigns against prosecutors dating as far back as the 1940s. Such pressure campaigns have largely evaded media scrutiny because as she puts it, they make the country and all the stakeholders look bad.
#Maddow: "The prosecutors and investigators personally were CRUSHED. They were smeared and discredited and destroyed, so they were in no position to tell the story either, and so the story, mostly, was not told. But we NEED TO KNOW that story and stories like that…" pic.twitter.com/UsZnixTvpw
As Maddow correctly points out, it’s incumbent upon any democracy-loving individual, to step up and defend DA Fani Willis, or any other similarly situated prosecutor, against such political pressure campaigns. They are antithetical to a free and democratic society.
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Former Porn Star Stormy Daniels recently appeared to testify at former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial currently playing out in Manhattan, New York. As was expected, a lot of juicy details came out of her testimony, some previously known by the public, and others totally new. Trump’s supporters have predictably sought to downplay, even totally disregard Daniels’ testimony, but as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow recently said on her colleague Nicolle Wallace’s show, we cannot/must not forget the fact that the person at the heart of this sordid affair, is someone who could potentially end up as U.S. president again. Put another way, this is, as Maddow would put it, “a big freaking deal”.
Maddow said(5:55): “The very big picture here is, we are thinking seriously as a country, about putting somebody back in the White House, who mounted a violent effort to overthrow the government the last time that he was voted out, who says that parts of the constitution should be terminated, who says he wants to put the U.S. military in American cities, he wants to build camps for tens of millons of people. That’s what we’re thinking about doing. There’s like this huge yikes factor when it comes to him.”
Maddow adds(6:43): “On top of the scariness about what he’s offering us as a political figure, on top of his likely criminal liability in his multiple criminal trials, we also then just get this yuck factor stuff[with the porn star].”
Maddow then lists the yucky stuff
“She’s doing a porn company promotion at a golf tournament.”
“His infant son is four months old.”
“He has his bodyguard ask her if she’d like to have dinner, so she goes to his room. There is no dinner. He’s wearing satin pajamas. She says get dressed.”
“He tells her I’ll get you under my reality competition TV show and I will help you cheat at it. I’ll give you advance notice on the challenges on the show, and that will help you.”
“He tells her me and my wife don’t sleep in the same room.”
“He asks her when she was last tested for sexually transmitted diseases.”
“He tells her she reminds him of his daughter.”
“She goes to the bathroom, she comes out of the bathroom, and he’s stripped down to his underpants.”
“She tries to leave, and he steps between her and the door. She doesn’t want to do it. She says she doesn’t feel threatened but he says to her, I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park…”
“They have sex. She’s not into it. He does not wear a condom. That is particularly concerning to her, and he should know that it is because she has just explained to him about her work in the adult film industry.”
“They meet several more times, he makes more sexual advances, they never have sex again, and ultimately it is only when he finally says no, I’m not putting you on my TV show, that she stops picking up his calls.”
Maddow then bottom lines it perfectly saying, “[President]Jimmy Carter almost lost in 1976 because he said he had committed lust in his heart, but this is who we are thinking about putting back in the White House right now, along with what he has threatened to do to the country, in part out of anger for the criminal liability that he has brought on himself by trying to cover up things like this, behavior like this, character like this.”
The U.S. Senate voted Saturday February 13th, to acquit former President Donald J. Trump of inciting the January 6th 2021 insurrection in Washington DC, which led to five deaths, including two Capitol police officers, and an interruption of a live joint session of Congress. The incident, which mostly played out on live TV, will forever remain one of the lowest points of American democracy because it shattered one of the globally revered cornerstones of American democracy–that regardless of who wins the election, one could always bet on a peaceful transfer of power.
While generally acknowledging that former President Trump did indeed incite the violent mob that descended upon the Capitol building as alleged in his House impeachment, 43 Republican Senators still voted to acquit him, hiding behind the jurisdictional argument that because Trump was no longer in office, the U.S. Senate had no jurisdiction over his trial. In other words, they acquitted Trump because they argued that because he had already left office, his entire Senate trial was unconstitutional–a very shaky legal argument.
It bears pointing out that Trump’s impeachment by the House for inciting DC insurrection happened on January 13 2021, while he was still in office. The House sent the impeachment papers a few days later to the U.S. Senate, then under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. There was enough time for the Senate, then under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to commence a Senate trial while Trump was still in office. Instead, McConnell made sure there would be no Senate trial until after Trump’s term expired on Jan 20, 2021. So it’s quite disingenuous and insulting for Senator McConnell and his fellow Republicans who voted to acquit Trump, to now turn around and hide behind a jurisdictional loophole that they manufactured. The fact of the matter remains that Senate Republicans knew full well that Trump’s incitement of the DC riots was an impeachable offense, so they created the jurisdictional loophole they could hide behind, as they carried out their goal from the beginning–acquit Trump at all costs.
After the Senate vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement which correctly summed up the decision by Republican Senators to acquit Trump:“Today an overwhelming bipartisan vote to convict Donald Trump speaks to the courage of the United States Senate. I salute the Republican Senators who voted their conscience and for our Country. Other Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold Trump accountable for igniting a violent insurrection to cling to power will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history.”
Because we totally agree with Speaker Pelosi that the decision by these 43 GOP Senators to acquit Trump of inciting DC insurrection “will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history“, we have to do our traditional name and shame for the sake of future generations. When our children and grandchildren read in History textbooks, that a group of U.S. Senators decided to acquit a U.S. President, even after he incited an insurrection which led to a mob storming the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead, it is only fair that they also see the names and faces of the shameful U.S. Senators behind such a horrendous decision. Here’s a handy list of the 43 shameful GOP Senators.
Bottom line folks, as horrible as Trump’s acquittal verdict was to people who love democracy worldwide, there may be a silver lining where Democrats are concerned. Yours Truly has repeatedly stated that the increasing radicalization of the Republican party could provide an opening for Democrats to go after corporations that traditionally sponsor the GOP. A healthy two-party system is good for American democracy, but given everything we’ve witnessed so far with the GOP under Trump, it is debatable whether the GOP is even a political party anymore. This was true even before DC insurrection, but now it is totally impossible to ignore the issue. The radicalization within the GOP under Trump has gotten so bad, that some establishment Republicans are already mulling branching away to form a reasonable “center-right” party. As we approach the 2022 elections, Democrats should seriously pressure corporations that traditionally donate to Republicans, by asking them to justify their continued funding of a party that has basically devolved into a Trump cult. Maybe, just maybe, guilt tripping major corporations into starving Trump’s GOP of major $$$, especially after DC insurrection, is the best way of slapping the Party of Lincoln back to normalcy.
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