Now What Brought That On?

Like Kari Lake said, Jack Smith is playing checkers, while Trump is playing chess at the highest level. Checkmate, Jack. pic.twitter.com/61J91iOxJW

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 9, 2023

Well, lookey here: 👀 

Last year, the Times reported on two 2020 memos laying out the Trump legal advisers’ electors scheme. But there was a third that was sent between those two, which first came to light with last week’s indictment. The Times has obtained that Dec 6 memo. https://t.co/xyBsi2eExx

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 9, 2023

The House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation did not uncover the memo, whose existence first came to light in last week’s indictment. W/ ⁦@maggieNYT⁩
⁦@lukebroadwater⁩ https://t.co/RJXSorOZlP

— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) August 9, 2023

"The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing 'a bold, controversial strategy' that the Supreme Court 'likely' would reject in the end," reported Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage, and Luke Broadwater. "But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and 'buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.'"

Yeah, they put it in writing.

“I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes,” said Chesebro in the memo. “It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.”

But it’s just aspirational, right? Just a constitutional crisis and obstruction of an official proceeding and denial of votes until the Supremes can answer a few questions. I mean, it’s practically Bush v Gore all over again!

Oh, did I forget the House records?

Trump is referring to a Fox News report this week that House Republicans, led by Oversight subcommittee chair Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), are alleging the now-disbanded January 6 Committee failed to fully preserve records of their investigation, in violation of congressional rules. In particular, they claim that Democrats on the committee disappeared files relating to Capitol security failures, so that they could shift blame for January 6 onto Trump. 

Former committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) has pushed back on this accusation, saying that Loudermilk's report is full of "factual errors" and that the only documents that weren't maintained were temporary documents that didn't advance the committee's investigation, while 4 terabytes of the committee's relevant information were turned over.

Irrelevant to the criminal charges anyway. Whether the Committee followed House rules or not has nothing to do with the criminal indictment.

“Full subpoena power” is not what he thinks it is But I’m sure we’ll hear more about it, even as Trump ignores the judge who is clearly in charge of her courtroom and her docket,

Nothin’ but good times ahead!