(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . emptywheel - A PERFECT PRIMER on the Jan6 Indictment - Read it. Learn it. Memorize it. SHARE IT! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-08-05 Her name is Marcy Wheeler. She’s been a contributor here on DailyKos. She has had her own website since 2011. She “made her bones” with this piece in 2007: Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy Anatomy of Deceit Wheeler's reputation as a blogger stems from her analysis of the outing of the covert CIA identity of Valerie E. Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, and the Bush administration's justification for 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Iraq War. Several of her posts led to follow-up stories in the mainstream media. As their first book publication by FDL Books (Vaster Books), "in order to have Marcy [Wheeler]’s work seen by a larger audience," FireDogLake and Daily Kos jointly published her book on the CIA leak scandal, entitled Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy, on January 28, 2007. Her investigative pieces and commentary on Trump’s indictments are some of the most detailed, incisive and thought-provoking published anywhere. And now she’s outdone even herself. She has published a concise and laser-focused breakdown of how the DOJ can (and will!) convict Mr. Trump in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. DONALD J. TRUMP Defendant. In the outside-the-courtroom fight for justice, in which we ALL participate, we must do our best to present Jack Smith’s FACTS to counter the LIES of the right. THE ELEMENTS OF OFFENSE IN THE TRUMP JANUARY 6 INDICTMENT The entire piece is well-worth reading. But in particular, this: Here, in abbreviated form, is what the elements of the offense are for the four charged crimes, which is what the jury will be given to judge the former President’s crimes. DOJ will need to prove that Trump entered into three parallel conspiracies with his alleged co-conspirators, then show that they attempted to: Use deceit to undermine the Electoral College Act Prevent the certification of the Electoral votes on January 6 Prevent the Biden voters votes in swing states from being counted And this: For 18 USC 371, the government needs to prove that Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to use deceit to pretend that Trump had won 306 electoral college votes, rather than Joe Biden. This statute is why the discussion of all the lying is in there. Notably, assuming Chutkan agrees these are all co-conspirators, DOJ won’t have to rely entirely on Trump’s lies. They’ll also rely on: Rudy’s admission to Rusty Bowers they had no evidence to back their claims Eastman’s admission to Mike Pence his claims about ECA were untested, and his admission to Greg Jacob that SCOTUS would reject them Trump’s description of Sidney Powell’s claims as crazy Jeffrey Clark’s attempts to deceive his bosses about what he was doing with Trump Kenneth Chesebro’s admission that the fake electors in several states could not comply with the law As I have laid out, DOJ has set up 5 specific lies that Trump recycled in his Ellipse speech after having them repeatedly debunked by Republicans, along with the voting machine lies Sidney Powell told. They have also laid out that Trump lied about what Pence had just told him (and there are contemporary witnesses that it happened before Trump made his false claims about Pence). Even if jurors believed Trump believed his own bullshit about some or all of the claims about fraudulent votes, DOJ would still have Trump’s lies about Dominion voting machines and Pence to prove that he knowingly defrauded the US. And here is just a sampling of evidence concerning particular co-conspirators: Rudy: The government will show that on November 14, Rudy took over Trump’s efforts to contest the vote (remember that DOJ subpoenaed whatever legal arrangement he had with Trump, but note that Special Master Barbara Jones appears to have found none of Rudy’s post-election plotting to be privileged). It will show that, acting on Trump’s instructions, Rudy repeatedly contacted both state officials and members of Congress to assert fraud that even he admitted he had no evidence for. “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.” It will show that Trump repeatedly publicly ratified Rudy’s lies, often by Tweeting the claims Rudy made, and often by pushing them both with state officials he was personally trying to pressure, but also with US government officials, including DOJ. John Eastman: The government will show that as Trump tried to find some justification for stealing the election, he turned to Eastman to give it legal cover. It will point to things like the Georgia lawsuit certification Trump signed on December 31 that Eastman acknowledged included false data. It will show Eastman’s calls in support of fake electors. It will rely heavily on the meetings Eastman personally attended in the days leading up to January 6. It will show that Trump decided, after being told repeatedly that Mike Pence wouldn’t throw out the votes, to have Eastman (as well as Rudy) speak at the Ellipse rally. Jeffrey Clark: The government will show that, starting on December 22, after Bill Barr, Jeffrey Rosen, and Richard Donoghue all debunked Trump’s false claims, Clark had secret communications with Trump that violated DOJ’s contact policy. As a result of those secret communications, Clark drafted a letter he attempted to coerce Rosen and others to sign, endorsing the fake elector scheme. Trump endorsed his actions by attempting to (and briefly at least, in fact replacing) Rosen with Clark so Clark could, “use the authority of the Justice Department to falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors.” Go read the whole thing. It will take less than 5 minutes. Then, READ IT AGAIN. And to counter these ridiculous claims about this being a 1st Amendment fight, Jack Smith already took care of that for us in the first few paragraphs of his indictment: And a paraphrasing of Ari Melber: You have the 1st amendment right to say you own a Porsche. You even have the 1st Amendment right to lie about owning a Porsche. But you do NOT have the right to sell a fake Porsche, claiming it is real. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/5/2185389/-emptywheel-A-PERFECT-PRIMER-on-the-Jan6-Indictment-Read-it-Learn-it-Memorize-it-SHARE-IT Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/