The Daily Escape:
Arches NP – photo by Jack Bell Photography
Maggie Haberman of the NYT reported the scary details of a meeting at the White House on Friday. During the meeting, Trump tried to hire Sidney Powell as special counsel to continue the investigation into Trump’s claims of voter fraud. He also asked advisors about declaring martial law, an idea floated by Michael Flynn, the general he recently pardoned.
The meeting’s attendees included Powell, Flynn, and Rudy Guilani via phone, along with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. In addition to talk of martial law and Sidney Powell obtaining special counsel status and a top-level security clearance, Giuliani floated the idea of Trump issuing an executive order to commandeer Dominion Voting Systems voting machines. Giuliani had previously called Ken Cuccinelli, number two at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and asked him whether DHS could seize voting machines. Cuccinelli said that DHS didn’t have that authority.
Haberman reported that Meadows and Cipollone strenuously and repeatedly objected to these suggestions, saying they had no constitutional basis for going forward. Apparently, the meeting lasted several hours, and things got pretty heated. More from Haberman:
“The meeting got raucous, with various administration members drifting in and out and different people arguing. Powell told others they were quitters…”
The Washington Times, a right-leaning newspaper in DC reported that on Saturday, the military said it wants no part in the martial law discussion. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in a joint statement:
“There is no role for the US military in determining the outcome of an American election,”
This shows how weak our government really is. With the right people supporting Trump, he could have attempted a military coup and overturned the election. This also shows how seditious Trump has become in the wake of his election loss. Thinking about, and possibly calling for, troops to stop a democratically elected president from taking office have taken his voter fraud claims to a much darker and militaristic place.
Since Trump has been thinking about suspending the Constitution and invoking martial law to overturn the election, he and his associates are committing seditious acts that should be treated accordingly.
America needs to make the price Trump pays for thinking about sedition higher than his price for accepting Biden’s win.
Now would be a good time for Biden to state publicly that attempts to violate election laws, or undermine democracy through overt and/or covert acts will be investigated by his DOJ, and that they will go wherever the evidence leads.
There are practical problems to think about: how will the incoming Biden team deal with a Trump administration that simply won’t agree to leave? Trump has stooges at the Department of Defense and the Justice Department. The Pentagon has already called a halt to transition activities, ostensibly until after Christmas, but who really knows?
What if Lloyd Austin, Biden’s new Secretary of Defense shows up at the Pentagon, and is denied entrance? Who does Biden appeal to? Trump? What happens when Trump refuses to take Biden’s call?
Does Biden ask the DOJ to step in? Trump’s stooge is sitting there as well. Does Biden ask the Supreme Court to intervene? What happens next?
None of us have any idea what’s going to happen between now and January 20th, but we need a concerted effort to strengthen the guardrails of our democracy. Trump has exposed just how weak our safeguards are.
The US is one month away from inaugurating a president who will follow established norms and conventions. There’s one more month for Trump to try martial-lawing his way out from under the nastiness that awaits him upon his leaving MAGAstan.
Time to wake up America! Trump has already tried several non-military coups, from trying to influence state electors, to multiple lawsuits attempting to throw out election results. It’s not really a question of what Trump is willing to do. And he’s not going to give up. We left “peaceful, dignified transfer of power” behind several weeks ago.
It’s now a question of how many people in our government institutions won’t play along with his coup. To help you wake up, have a listen to Leslie Odom Jr. perform “Winter Song”, featuring Cynthia Erivo.
The lyrics were written by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson:
The Republican Party has shown that it is about power, period. Trump is not an outlier, rather he exemplifies what the Party stands for. For example, in one state a few years ago, a Democratic governor was elected, so the Republican legislature stripped the governor of many of his powers. And voter ID laws have been put in with suddenness meant to capture an election – not carefully and over time. In Florida a voter initiative gave felons the right to vote but as soon as that happened, Florida Republicans added a requirement that all fees be paid (and yet it appears that the actual dollar value of the fees is not easily determined). So it was that what happened to Obama’s Supreme Court nominee (or to the many other judicial appointments) was not an outlier either. And now we have Trump. Trump is not an outlier -he is what Republicanism is all about.