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We have an awesome group of news people on MSNBC at night [1]

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Date: 2023-08-02  

Yesterday was one of the most important days in the history of the world. That sounds like an exaggeration. It is not. There is one superpower in the world today, the United States. Yet Donald Trump imperiled our democracy, incited an insurrection, and attempted a coup. He broke 156 years of our tradition of the peaceful transfer of power. The leading democracy in the world, the one superpower in the world, had her democracy threatened and this indictment here is her response. It is a powerful response and defense of her democracy. If the United States loses her democracy, this is a threat to the world. That's why yesterday was such an important day in the history of the world.

As time has gone on, I have grown to appreciate Joe and Mika and Willie Geist. However, I have loved Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Chris Hayes, Alex Wagner, and Ari Melber for quite a while. They are really great human beings! And this diary was meant to be about them and their discussion last night. However, I was watching Morning Joe this morning and that led to this rather long digression. This morning, their show was outstanding. The disgust Joe felt for Donald Trump's attempted coup was visible. It could not be more obvious. They had great guests. The statement by former US Senator Claire McCaskill:

"Two things in this country right now are 100% republican. One part of that is the evidence in this case. It is 100% republican evidence. It is his advisors, it is his office holders, it is his aides, it is his campaign officials, they are all republican, they are all Trump supporters. That's the evidence in this case. The other thing that's 100 % republican in this country right now are the people that are lying about this and continue to lie about this and who have allowed Trump to do what Jon Meachem so eloquently said, that is, 'Bend the Constitution to the point of almost breaking it', the enablers. And I will tell you maybe the saddest thing for me last night was watching Tim Scott. We were watching in real time someone lose their moral compass, someone sacrificing their character at the alter of political ambition, someone who knows better, who was there , who saw what happened, who saw people running for their lives, who knows that what Trump did was wrong and he has said is wrong. And the thing that kills me about all this is if Trump has evidence which is what it will take to overcome this indictment, he still has not shown it anywhere. If these people, if these Fox News opinion leaders, if all of these US senators who went to Yale and Harvard, Cruz and Hawley, if they have evidence then why hasn't the American people seen it? There is no evidence of fraud, none. What little they had they tried and they lost, went up in flames in dozens and dozens of courts across the country. So this really is about whether or not the rule of law is going to survive and if it wobbles, it will be because of one reason, republicans in this country that have lost their love of country in order to further their own political ambition. "

Tim Scott said, 'I remain concerned about the weaponization of Biden's DOJ and it's immense power and use against political opponents. Biden's DOJ continues to hunt republicans while protecting Democrats'

That is outrageous. The whole statement is false and Tim Scott knows it. Right now, Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges by two grand juries. The first federal indictment centers on Donald Trump's ILLEGAL RETENTION of classified national defense documents. If he was concerned, then he would have read the indictment and the 'concerns' he referred to would have been put to rest and he would have developed other, more reality based concerns.

Donald Trump was only charged for classified national defense documents that he NEVER returned. Retaining has the idea within it of making a conscious choice to hold onto some item that you possess. Had he done what former Vice President Mike Pence and President Biden did and returned the documents as soon as he learned that he had these documents, then he would never have been charged. He was notified by his staff and by White House counsel that he had to return all presidential records before he left. NARA notified him that he had hundreds of classified national defense documents and they asked him to return these documents. When he was notified that he had them, he repeatedly lied about having them and moved them about in an effort to hide them from his own attorneys and from federal investigators. This took place over more than a year. Again, he was ONLY charged for the classified national defense documents that he NEVER returned.

He gave them no choice. When he merely possessed the items, that could have been performed unintentionally and it would have been a civil matter. Presidents encounter far too much classified national defense documents for them to be prosecuted after they leave office for merely unintentionally possessing them as it happens far too often. Criminal law generally revolves around intent. Possession without knowledge would not be intentional. However, here there is an embarrassment of riches, an abundance of, mountains of evidence that he knew that he had these classified national defense documents that he had been asked to return and he CHOSE to keep them; he illegally retained them. Although unintentional possession can't be charged because of lack of INTENT and because it happens far too often, intentionally holding onto these classified national defense documents, illegally retaining them, must be prosecuted. The alternative is unthinkable. Choosing to illegally retain classified national defense documents means that a former president is CHOOSING, MAKING AN INTENTIONAL CHOICE, to PLACE THE CLASSIFIED INFORMATION AND THE SOURCES AND METHODS AT RISK OF EXPOSURE TO COVERT AGENTS FROM HOSTILE POWERS.

Donald Trump brought this upon himself entirely. Neither he nor any of his allies including Tim Scott have offered a cognizable defense in this case. So the question to Mr. Scott is, "What is his legal defense to these charges laid out in the indictment?" And if he says that he doesn't have one because he's not an attorney, then the question redounds to him, "Then why are you casting aspersions upon the Department of Justice because an independent special prosecutor brought these charges and a grand jury indicted him on them?"

1. Only the Presidential Records Act applies.

Wrong. The Presidential Records Act applies when there is simple possession. Once it became intentional, then it is illegally retaining classified national defense documents and The Espionage Act applies and not The Presidential Records Act.

2. Whataboutisms

None of them apply. The comparisons offered are apples to oranges because in Donald Trump's case, there is intent; Donald Trump chose to hold onto presidential records, classified national defense documents that are clearly not his personal possession. This doesn't apply to any of the offered whataboutisms.

1. Hillary Clinton

James Comey found that Secretary Clinton and her aides were CAREFUL to PARAPHRASE any classified documents. This shows she had no intent to place classified documents to risk of exposure.

James Comey found that Secretary Clinton's team performed a search in order to distinguish between personal emails and work emails and sought to delete only the personal emails and preserve the work emails. Given that there were more than 30,000 emails, this seems a reasonable choice. Again, Comey found that Secretary Clinton had no intent to delete work emails.

That's why he said that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges with these facts and the law.

2. President Biden

Again, there is no intent. President Biden took the initiative to search for classified documents and upon finding them, immediately he had his attorneys notify NARA and VOLUNTARILY CONSENTED to a search. This makes it plain that President Biden had NO INTENT to illegally retain classified documents. Since he worked out of several offices, this episode occurred several times, but each and every time he notified NARA when he found such documents, turned them over, and voluntarily consented to searches. In contrast, Donald Trump repeatedly lied about having these classified national defense documents and hid them. The difference in INTENT here is obvious.

There is a Presidential Records Act. There is no 'Senators Records Act's. Therefore, there was nothing whatsoever illegal about Joe Biden holding onto Senate work product and giving it to the University of Delaware.

3. Judicial Watch

Judge Amy Berman Jackson determined that the records in the case Judicial Watch vs Clinton were personal. Those records were notes and a recording of interviews for an autobiography. She ruled that the Presidential Records Act distinguishes between personal records and presidential records and that former presidents must only return the latter and not the former. There is no universe in which classified national defense documents are Trump's personal documents.

Hence, none of the whataboutisms apply. So, Mr. Scott need not be 'concerned' about the illegal retention of classified national defense documents case.

So the only other federal charges are related to Trump's attempted coup 😕😔. Mr. Scott cannot be ignorant of the facts of this case. Does Mr. Scott deny that Donald Trump lied to the people in this country and, especially, republicans across the country? Donald Trump attempted a coup. He brought his most committed supporters to the Capitol. It was performed in two distinct steps. He tweeted for them to come to a rally on January 6th and that it would be 'wild'. Why, Mr. Scott, why Ms.Ingraham, did he choose January 6th? The answer to that is found in the speech that Donald Trump gave at the rally. What did he speak about? He spoke about the event that was going to take place at the Capitol, the collection, counting, and certification of the electoral college votes. He incited their anger by lying to them with his claim that the election was stolen from him. He chose to add in allusions to strength and fight and fight like Hell to the speech and emphasized them. He said to take down the magnetometers because the people with weapons weren't there to harm him. Then he sent them to the Capitol. While the insurrectionists were at the Capitol attempting to overthrow the future administration that had won the presidential election, he was calling to try to get more Senate Republicans to support a written objection to counting the electoral college votes from states that gave Joe Biden the electoral college vote majority. He told the insurrectionists that the vice president was too weak to do "what needed to be done" and turned their anger on Mike Pence. Former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff warned the Secret Service that Donald Trump was going to endanger him the next day, January 6th. He didn't call for the insurrectionists to go home until it was clear that his plan would not succeed.

Donald Trump was told, as Joe points out, by people who would have benefited if he had been able to stay in power, that he lost. These people would have had more power and more money if Donald Trump had been able to stay in office. Donald Trump was told by his vice president, by attorney general, by his acting attorney general, by his deputy acting attorney general, by his campaign team's lead data person, by his campaign manager, by his Secretary of Labor, by White House Counsel, by his Deputy White House Counsel, by His director of national intelligence, by his Cyber security expert, by state officials, and by the courts in 61 of the 62 cases that he lost, half in front of republican president nominated judges and in front of 16 judges he himself nominated that he lost.

You can't pick somebody to believe BECAUSE they claim you won the election and then claim that the reason that you believe the false claim is that this impressive person told you that you won but that the election was stolen from you. Why weren't these people able to win more than a single case that didn't come close to altering the outcome in that state and why did these people lose every other case, even in front of judges you yourself picked? That would have disabused somebody of any real belief in the claim.

Donald Trump lost the election and he knew it. Yet, he tried through all of these methods to stay in power. He tried to stay in power despite knowing that he lost the 2020 presidential election through trying to weaponize the DOJ, but that failed. He tried to stay in power despite knowing that he lost the 2020 presidential election by using a fake electors scheme, but that failed. He tried to stay in power despite knowing he lost the 2020 presidential election through trying to pressure individual state legislators and entire state legislatures. He tried to stay in power despite knowing that he lost the 2020 presidential election by applying extreme pressure upon a conservative republican Georgia secretary of state who voted for him and wanted him to win, but that secretary of state would not give the winner's Georgia's electoral college votes to the loser. He tried to stay in power despite knowing that he lost the 2020 presidential election by applying violent threats and pressure to his own vice president, but Mike Pence would not go along with his attempt to eradicate our democracy.

What is your response to these facts, Mr. Scott? What, more importantly, is your response to the indictment which I imperfectly summarized? You and the rest of the republicans in Congress and the people on Fixed Noise can't answer these facts. You all KNOW this is true, but you can't or, better, won't admit these most obvious facts because you all value your posts, your ambition, and your future earnings more than you care about our democracy.

By the way, Andrew Weismann pointed out that the only way to assert this claim that he really did believe that the presidential election was stolen from him is to put him up on the stand 😂😂😂😂😂 😂😆😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂!

Returning to the main reason I wrote this diary was because of how grateful 😁🥲 I am that we have such amazing people who host news programs on MSNBC. I love Nicolle Wallace too! But I thought the discussion about this indictment was profound and moving. I saw the moral depth of these great, great human beings in their discussion. Obviously, they are beyond brilliant in intelligence, far more intelligent than I am. I felt like Rachel was talking to me like a friend and that was true for all of them. I know that I am failing in my attempt to explain how great they were last night. When the moment comes, generally speaking, the moment doesn't alter the character of the person facing that moment; rather, the developed character and moral compass and knowledge built up are made manifest in that moment. And the moment revealed tremendous things about the character and moral compass and intelligence and the knowledge they have acquired in Rachel and Chris and Lawrence and Alex and Stephanie and Joy Reid and Ari. We are truly blessed to have such great hosts for our news programs at night on MSNBC!

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