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To Understand the Latest Crazy Trump Indictment, Check Out The 6 Types of Charges


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | AUGUST 16, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/16/to-understand-the-latest-crazy-trump-indictment-check-out-the-6-types-of-charges/

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Late Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants in a 98-page indictment that included a total of 41 different counts.

The defendants are already fighting back, with Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, seeking to remove the case to federal court based on a statute that protects federal officials from state court prosecution for official conduct. More counteroffensives will likely follow, with other former federal officials, including Trump, presumably also seeking removal to federal court, while the remaining defendants will probably expeditiously move to dismiss the indictment on a variety of grounds. 

To get a handle on the indictment and to stay current with the various developments, it is helpful to put the charges into one of six buckets, starting with the biggest one: the alleged RICO conspiracy. 

Bucket 1: RICO 

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) count runs some 70 pages and says all 19 defendants, “while associated with an enterprise, unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in, directly and indirectly, such enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity.” The indictment next defines the “enterprise” as “a group of individuals associated in fact,” who “had connections and relationships with one another” and “functioned as a continuing unit for a common purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise,” which Willis maintains was “to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

There are several problems with the RICO count, most fundamentally, as Andrew McCarthy explained in an enlightening article, RICO requires an “enterprise,” which, while not necessarily a formal entity, needs to be an identifiable group. The RICO crime, then, is “being a member of the enterprise that commits crimes, not the commission of any particular crime.”

But there must be some sort of “enterprise,” and here Willis conflates the objective — keeping Trump in power — with “the enterprise.” “It was that objective, and not the sustaining of any group, that brought them together; and once that objective was attained or conclusively defeated, the group — to the dubious extent it really was an identifiable group — would (and did) melt away,” McCarthy wrote. It’s a “good sign that you’re not dealing with a RICO enterprise,” the former federal prosecutor explained.

Without an “enterprise,” there can be no RICO crime, and the facts alleged in the indictment are such that the defendants will likely soon seek dismissal of that count. Now, Georgia law differs from federal law on RICO, and there is no saying how the state court will interpret its own RICO statute, but from a legal perspective, the claim is exceedingly weak.

The second fundamental problem with the RICO count is factual: Willis portrays the defendants as trying to unlawfully change the election in Trump’s favor, but the many actions Trump and others took involved legal proceedings and efforts to convince the legislative bodies to use their authority to address what the defendants saw as a fatally flawed election. A court is unlikely to toss the complaint on this ground, however, with factual disputes ones only a jury can resolve. 

However, if the court holds, as it appears it should, that the RICO count fails as a matter of law because there was no “enterprise,” then that factual dispute is irrelevant. Likewise, the 160-some “acts” Willis included in the indictment — everything from Trump declaring victory on Nov. 4 to tweeting that followers should watch a television newscast — allegedly in furtherance of the “RICO” conspiracy become irrelevant. 

Bucket 2: Alternate Electors

The second-biggest bucket concerns the counts related to the naming of alternative Trump electors. The crimes alleged here range from soliciting individuals to violate their oaths of office, to conspiring to file false statements or documents, to forgery. Counts 2, 6, 8-19, 23, and 37 alleged these and other crimes against various defendants all arising out of Republicans appointing an alternative slate of Trump electors who would vote for Trump in the event he prevailed in his then-pending Georgia lawsuit.

While the legacy media continue to frame these individuals as “fake electors,” as I’ve previously detailed, that is fake news. Rather, legal precedent indicates that alternative electors should be named to protect a candidate challenging the outcome of an election, as Trump was in Georgia and elsewhere. That is precisely what Democrats did in Hawaii in 1960 when Richard Nixon had been declared the victor in the state, but John F. Kennedy’s court contest remained viable. 

As a matter of law, these counts should all be dismissed because Republicans naming alternate electors was not a crime — no matter how much the press wants you to believe otherwise.

Bucket 3: Petitioning the Government for Redress

The crimes charged in Counts 5, 28, 38, and 39 fit into a third bucket that consists of efforts by Trump and others to petition the government for redress. Here, the crimes charged include solicitation of violations of oath by public officers and the making of false statements during those efforts, but the common theme is that the defendants sought to have Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger or the Georgia legislature address Trump’s allegations of voting irregularities or fraud. 

There is nothing criminal, however, in asking the secretary of state to use his authority to investigate and respond to voting irregularities or to ask the legislature to call a special session to name Trump electors. On the contrary, those activities would seemingly be protected by the constitutional guarantee of the right to petition the government for redress.

Bucket 4: False Statements

The fourth bucket holds numerous counts against a variety of defendants with the common theme being false statements charges. Count 27 alleged false statements were included in one of Trump’s election lawsuits, but lawyers are entitled to rely on information provided for others, making this count weak. Counts 7, 24, 25, and 26 all charged individual defendants with making false statements to Georgia House or Senate committees. The main issue here will be whether the defendants made the statements knowing they were false. 

Count 22 charges an attempt to make a false statement and concerns a letter DOJ lawyer Jeff Clark drafted and recommended be sent to the Georgia legislature. As I previously detailed, however, there was no impropriety in Clark’s drafting of that letter. Clark will also likely succeed in having the case against him removed to federal court and then dismissed. 

Counts 40 and 41 both involve charges of lying as well, with Count 40 alleging one defendant lied to Fulton County investigators and Count 41 alleging perjury before a grand jury. Given the target on these defendants’ backs, it’s difficult to believe they knowingly lied, but that question may end up being left to a jury to decide.

Bucket 5: Communications Related to Ruby Freeman

Counts 20, 21, 30, and 31 all involve charges concerning efforts to supposedly influence the testimony of Ruby Freeman, who was an election worker at the State Farm Arena. Here, the theory seems to be that some of the defendants attempted to pressure Freeman to lie about what happened during the vote counting. Again, it may be left to a jury to decide this issue.

Bucket 6: Accessing Voting Machines and Election Data

The final category of charges involves efforts by Sidney Powell and others to allegedly illegally access voting machines and election results. Counts 32-36 allege various crimes related to those efforts, including conspiracy to commit election fraud by tampering with machines. Once the defendants charged in those counts respond, it will be easier to assess the criminal theories proffered and any weakness in the claims.

For now, though, watch for the federal court’s holding on whether Meadows, Clark, Trump, and potentially others have the right to remove the case to federal court. Simultaneously, expect the other defendants to seek dismissal of all or part of the indictment, likely narrowing this criminal case down substantially.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Ginni Thomas Transcript from J6 Panel Reveals Witch Hunt Operation Without a Witch


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | DECEMBER 30, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/30/ginni-thomas-transcript-from-j6-panel-reveals-witch-hunt-operation-without-a-witch/

Ginni Thomas
The committee’s targeting of Ginni Thomas was a political operation to tar the Thomas name and even provoke left-wing calls for impeachment.

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The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 released the transcript of the probe’s interview with conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas Friday, revealing why she wasn’t mentioned once in the panel’s more than 800-page final report. Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had nothing of consequence to offer her inquisitors — whether it be about the Capitol riot, efforts to overturn the 2020 election, or her husband’s work on the high bench — despite attempts by the panel and its corporate media allies to malign and bully her and her family.

In September, Thomas appeared before lawmakers to justify her choice as a private citizen with political opinions to petition her own government in the aftermath of the last presidential contest. Text messages published by the committee between Thomas and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in March revealed the longtime activist pressing the administration to “stand firm” in its challenges against the final result.

“You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice,” Thomas wrote as news organizations began to call the race for President Joe Biden. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Publicizing her private messages had its intended effect: tar the Thomas name and even provoke left-wing calls to impeach the sitting justice. Several Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded Justice Thomas recuse himself from relevant cases to the 2020 election, resign altogether, or face impeachment because his wife is politically active. But out of the 29 messages between Meadows and Ginni — among more than 2,300 text messages recovered from Meadows’ trove of data handed to the committee — not one, according to The Washington Post, included a direct reference to Justice Thomas. And Ginni made that clear to the panel.

“Regarding the 2020 election, I did not speak with him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities,” Ginni said. “And I did not speak with him at all about the details of my post-election activities, which were minimal, in any event. I am certain I never spoke with him about any of the legal challenges to the 2020 election, as I was not involved with those challenges in any way.”

While dispelling myths about alleged collusion with her husband, Ginni did not back down from her conviction, shared by millions of Americans, that the 2020 election was conducted unfairly with irregularities that warranted challenges. When pressed by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the panel, on the avenues to contest an election result, Ginni brought up Democrats’ challenges to every presidential election won by Republicans since the start of this century.

“Democrats have done that in many instances — 2000, 2004, 2016,” Ginni said. “It seemed like there were a lot of people who claimed President Trump was illegitimate for 4 years and tried to undermine his administration.”

In 2017, Democrats objected to electoral votes from more states than Republicans did last year.

“As she told the Committee, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about potential fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, and her minimal activity was focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated,” Mark Paoletta, Ginni’s attorney, told The Federalist in an exclusive statement. “Beyond that, she played no role in any events following the 2020 election. She also condemned the violence on January 6, which was reflected in one of her texts to Mark Meadows at the time. In short, the Committee discovered nothing new because there was nothing to discover.”

Despite the committee’s decision to thrust Ginni into the spotlight of the Jan. 6 investigation over her messages to Meadows, her name was never mentioned in a single one of the committee’s show trial hearings.

At the conclusion of Ginni’s deposition, the committee asked whether there was anything Ginni would like to add. Ginni responded by condemning political violence on all sides and reminding lawmakers of her security concerns after Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded justices “pay the price” for decisions that run counter to his leftist wishes.

“Violence on both sides is abhorrent, and the more you guys focus on just one side, it can do significant damage to our country,” Ginni said. “And, certainly, I’m living with Senator Schumer having said some things on the steps of the Supreme Court that unleashed a lot of things that have us living with Marshals right now.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Inside Liz Cheney’s Coordinated Effort to Prevent Troop Deployment Before Jan. 6


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | AUGUST 02, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/02/inside-liz-cheneys-coordinated-effort-to-prevent-troop-deployment-before-jan-6/

Liz Cheney on Fox News

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Days before the Capitol riot provoked a years-long effort to impeach, prosecute, and politically malign former President Donald Trump, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney coordinated efforts to deter the very actions she now claims haunt the former president.

Cheney has blamed Trump for not ordering the National Guard to defend the Capitol complex, even though multiple sources confirm that he authorized their deployment days prior to the Jan. 6 rally at the White House and riot at the Capitol. Security officials in charge of the Capitol declined to call up troops to protect it, government records show. Yet Cheney herself seems to have orchestrated opposition to use of the military to quell election-related unrest, allegedly organizing a Washington Post op-ed on Jan. 3, 2021, signed by every living former defense secretary.

“All 10 living former defense secretaries: Involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory,” the headline read. It went on to threaten any military official who thought any use of the military might be a good idea. “Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic,” the op-ed warned.

The op-ed was allegedly organized by Cheney, whose father was secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush before serving as President George W. Bush’s vice president. Eric Edelman, a national security adviser to Dick Cheney, told the New Yorker the Wyoming lawmaker “was the one who generated” the piece for the Post.

Now Rep. Cheney has adopted Trump’s supposed inaction on the National Guard as a primary line of attack. On “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney again depicted Trump as an apathetic leader who dismissed pleas to deploy the National Guard while the Capitol was under siege.

“There are several witnesses who say they met with President Trump on January 4th,” said Bret Baier, “and he offered some 20,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol building on January 6th but the offer was rejected. Is that true?”

“His own acting secretary of defense says that’s not true,” Cheney said, highlighting committee testimony from former Acting Secretary Christopher Miller who told the panel Trump made no order to deploy the National Guard. “So, the notion that somehow he issued an order is not consistent with the facts.”

Except the president did issue authorization for D.C. leaders to call up the National Guard for pre-emptive reinforcements days before the Capitol riot. While Mayor Muriel Bowser took limited advantage of the extra troops, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sergeant at arms rejected or stonewalled the offer six times, according to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. Pelosi’s office was reportedly concerned the guard’s deployment was bad “optics” after having spent the prior summer decrying the use of federal law enforcement to put down left-wing insurrections.

When Trump sent reinforcements to secure federal buildings under attack in Portland, Pelosi condemned the extra law enforcement as “stormtroopers.” After days of sustained riots wreaked havoc across Washington D.C., Pelosi called the sight of uniformed troops protecting the Lincoln Memorial “stunning” and “scary.”

The campaign to fight any use of troops to restore order during the left’s widespread and coordinated summer of rage was so effective that Gen. Mark Milley issued an abject apology for merely appearing in uniform at a site that had been ravaged by leftist arsonists.

“My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” Milley said about appearing in front of a historic church across the street from the White House. The night before, left-wing arsonists had targeted the church as part of a riot that besieged the White House and led to the injuring of dozens of Park Police and Secret Service officers.

Bowser’s use of guard troops on Jan. 6 extended to unarmed troops restricted to traffic control and removed from protests.

“[N]o DCNG personnel shall be armed during this mission, and at no time, will DCNG personnel or assets be engaged in domestic surveillance, searches, or seizures of [U.S.] persons,” she directed to law enforcement.

Although Cheney and her colleagues with the Select Committee have sought to indict Trump as responsible for a slow response from the National Guard on Jan. 6, the panel’s own findings have undermined the probe’s point. In December, the committee released a trove of private communications from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who pledged the National Guard would be ready to maintain order.

“Mr. Meadows sent an email to an individual about the events on January 6 and said that the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ and that many more would be available on standby,” the committee wrote, as if revealing some grand scandal to help their case.

In June, Miller and former Chief of Staff of the Department of Defense Kash Patel went on Sean Hannity’s program to dispel committee accusations that the president was indifferent to the National Guard.

“Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women for us to utilize,” Patel said.

Miller, whom Cheney cited as evidence of Trump’s negligence, corroborated Patel’s testimony on air.

“To be clear,” Miller said, “the president was doing exactly what I expect the commander in chief to do, any commander in chief to do. He was looking at the broad threats against the United States and he brought this up on his own. We did not bring it up.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Secret Service agent and former White House official willing to testify that false claims were made at Jan. 6 hearing about Trump


Reported by CARLOS GARCIA | June 28, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/secret-service-agent-and-former-white-house-official-willing-to-testify-that-false-claims-were-made-at-jan-6-hearing-about-trump-2657578414.html/

A former White House official and a Secret Service agent said they were willing to testify in the Jan. 6 hearings in order to contradict claims that former President Donald Trump got into an altercation while trying to make his way to the Capitol rioting. The claims were made by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, on Tuesday. Hutchinson said that she heard from Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff, that the former president became incensed when he wasn’t allowed to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He is alleged to have grabbed at the steering wheel of the vehicle and then lunged at the agent who was preventing him from leaving.

Later on Tuesday, that Secret Secret agent reportedly said he was willing to testify that this account was false. Ornato also indicated the same willingness to testify contrary to the story. Both Ornato and Robert Engel, the agent, had previously testified for the Jan. 6 Committee behind closed doors about what they witnessed on that day.

A spokesperson for the committee released a short statement about the development.

“The Committee trusts the credibility of a witness who was willing to testify under oath & in public but is also willing to hear any information that others may have that would aid in their investigation,” read the statement.

Among the other shocking claims from Hutchinson, she stated that Trump allegedly said that Vice President Mike Pence deserved to be hanged by the crowd of people rioting at the U.S. Capitol. The former president took to social media to deny some of the claims and to lambast Hutchinson as a person that he hardly knew except for his having heard terrible things about her.

In response to the day’s testimony, Fox News host Bret Baier said the claims were “stunning” and “compelling” because of Hutchinson’s proximity to power.

Here’s more about the claims made in the hearing:

Bret Baier: This is stunning www.youtube.com

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The Attacks on Clarence and Ginni Thomas Are Merely Latest in a Decades-Long Smear Campaign


REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 30, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/30/the-attacks-on-clarence-and-ginni-thomas-are-merely-latest-in-a-decades-long-smear-campaign/

Clarence Thomas

Not only are the attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni purely political, they’re deeply hypocritical.

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While claiming its aggressive collection of confidential information on private citizens is “narrowly tailored” and without a nefarious purpose, Democrats on the Jan. 6 Committee selectively leaked communications of a private citizen to smear political opponents.

Last week, CNN and the Washington Post published text messages between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, who goes by “Ginni,” and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged in the days leading up to and on the day of the Capitol riot.

“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Ginni reportedly urged Meadows days after the 2020 contest when news organizations began to call the race for former Vice President Joe Biden. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Out of the 29 of more than 2,300 text messages released from Meadows’ vast trove of data handed to the Select Committee, not one, the Washington Post conceded, included a direct reference to the sitting justice as the weaponized probe sought to dox a private citizen for petitioning her government.

“The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results,” the Post reported with the paper adopting Pelosi committee’s framing to indict private political views as a blockbuster scandal.

While the committee has made an open point to prosecute those who publicly sought to cast doubt on the fairness of the 2020 election results, the committee’s targeting of Ginni Thomas for privately petitioning government officials on her own marks further escalation of the probe’s assault on civil liberties, and makes Thomas case all the more unique.

CNN reported Monday the committee will now seek an interview with Ginni, who has become the latest to be dragged before lawmakers for exercising dissident views, even in private. But the probe’s latest request is just as much targeted at Ginni, a long-time conservative activist who has never concealed her activism, as it is her husband.

The left’s racist disdain for Justice Thomas has never been a well-kept secret by a virulent left frustrated by the mere existence of a black conservative, let alone one on the high bench. Attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record on lenient sentencing for child sex crimes are cruel and racist. Baseless criticism of Justice Thomas is warranted, however, for his political heresy, starting with his own confirmation process three decades ago.

Publication of the text messages provoked immediate calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6 investigation for the crime of his wife’s public political views raising concerns over an election with record mail-in voting and last-minute rule changes. New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even demanded Justice Thomas resign or face impeachment.

As outlined Tuesday in The Federalist by former Thomas Law Clerk Wendy Long, however, judges are never asked to recuse themselves over political views, whether their own or their spouse’s.

“Leftists in Congress and the media hyperventilate over every tidbit showing that Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni, is involved in national conservative politics – most recently, that she pushed for integrity in the 2020 election,” Long wrote. “This isn’t news, and it has nothing to do with Justice Thomas’s ability to be a fair and impartial jurist.”

Instead, Long explained judicial recusal is about “mainly financial, legal, personal, or professional interests of the Justice or a family member.” Not personal politics. The strategy of the modern left, however, has been to intimidate the courts into submission to extremist and anti-Constitution politics. Consider the last three nomination battles: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was slandered as a serial gang rapist, Amy Coney Barrett was depicted as a character in The Handmaid’s Tale, and Stephen Breyer was pressured to retire while Democrats were in power to replace him.

Not only are the attacks on Thomas purely political, they’re hypocritical. Will Democrats calling on Justice Thomas to refrain from his official duties as a jurist similarly demand a probe into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leveraging her position in Congress to rake in millions? Will journalists married to people in power recuse themselves from coverage on any issues their spouses conduct even minor work on? Probably not. It’s all theater.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Guilty Until Proven Guilty

A.F. BRANCO on December 16, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-guilty-until-proven-guilty/

Liz Cheney has got Mark Meadows’ text messages and claims this isn’t a Stalinist-style show trial.

Liz Cheney With Meadows Text Messages
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.

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Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Drops a BOMB on Power-Drunk Democrats – Trump Offered Assistance Multiple Times to DC Officials Before January 6th (VIDEO)


Reported By Jim Hoft | Published February 8, 2021

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows joined Maria Bartiromo yesterday on Sunday Morning Futures. During their discussion, Mark Meadows dropped this BOMB on the power-drunk Democrats who are out for blood.

According to Mark Meadows President Trump offered Capitol Police, national guard and even offered the Department of Defense to help protect Washington DC prior to the January 6th protests.

Via The Palmieri Report:

Meadows told Bartiromo “we also know that in January, but also throughout the summer, that the president was very vocal in making sure that we had plenty of National Guard, plenty of additional support because he supports our rule of law and supports our law enforcement and offered additional help.”

“Even in January, that was a given, as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the Secretary of Defense” Meadows added “That was a direct order from President Trump and yet here is what we see, all kinds of blame going around but yet not a whole lot of accountability.”

“That accountability needs to rest where it ultimately should be and that’s on capitol hill” he added.

Someone needs to shoot this off to that nasty liar Liz Cheney.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jim Hoft
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.

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‘Fed up’ conservatives plot revenge against Boehner


waving flagBy Susan Ferrechio | June 23, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fed-up-conservatives-plot-revenge-against-boehner/article/2566818

Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Monday in a radio interview that many conservatives were “fed up” with the string of punishment meted out to members who don’t vote in line with the Republican leadership on key legislation.

The latest punishment was handed down to Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., for voting against an important procedural resolution to advance “Fast Track” trade legislation the GOP is eager to pass. Meadows last week was stripped of his chairmanship of the House Oversight Government Operations subcommittee. “So, Mark Meadows, a good man, a good friend, and what they did to him is exactly wrong, and there are a number of us who are fed up with it,” Jordan said on the Laura Ingraham show. “And we are looking for ways that we can say, hey, we are going to stay with Mark and be as helpful as we possibly can.”

It’s not clear what the frustrated group could do to thwart Boehner, but some are kicking around the idea of trying to slow the work of the House. Freedom Caucus members say that while they number a little more than three dozen, there are an additional 20 conservatives who could potentially vote along with them if they decided to take a stand against the leadership by making it difficult to pass legislation. Republicans control 246 votes, and on legislation that lacks Democratic support, the leadership can only afford to lose 29 Republicans.

Anger at the leadership has been brewing for many months, as the GOP retribution against disobedient conservatives appears to have escalated;

  • Just last week, Reps. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Steve Pearce of New Mexico, and Trent Franks of Arizona, lost their posts on the Republican whip team for voting along with Meadows against advancing the trade legislation.
  • Earlier this year, Republican leaders booted Reps. Daniel Webster and Richard Nugent, both of Florida, from the powerful Rules Committee after they voted against John Boehner for a third term as speaker.
  • In the last Congress, Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich., Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., Walter Jones, R-N.C., and David Schweikert, R-Ariz., were tossed from committees after voting against the leadership.
  • Meadows told the Washington Examiner the move to strip him of his subcommittee chairmanship was made by Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, but came at the direction of Boehner, R-Ohio.Reality 2

“I think it was an action meant to try to humiliate or intimate me, but I wear it as a badge of honor, standing firm for freedom for the American people,” Meadows told the Examiner.

Republican leadership aides say the GOP is not striking back in a punitive manner, but places a high value on loyalty from the members and gives top posts to those who don’t buck the Speaker on certain measures, such as resolutions to advance legislation for debate. Lawmakers who are being punished say the leadership is trying to force them to vote against what they believe is best for their constituents, who have flooded their offices with calls and emails in opposition to the trade legislation. Meadows and other Republicans opposed to the trade bill believe the trade bill would cede too much power to the executive branch and would facilitate trade deals that would cause U.S. job losses.

“There is no honor in bowing to a bully,” Meadows told the Examiner. “There is only fighting the good fight and whether you win or lose, I am willing to do my best to represent the people who elected me.”

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