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Since when is it a crime to buy rope, a knife, and a few garbage bags? [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-08-16  

Last year, a man stopped in at a phone store in midtown Manhattan and picked up a new cell phone. In 1995, a man calling himself “Robert Kling” walked into a body shop in Kansas and rented a Ryder truck. This January, a man in Massachusetts celebrated the new year by buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies.

The phone guy was Rex Heuermann, also known as the Gilgo Beach killer, who used his burner phones to solicit victims. The truck renter was Timothy McVeigh, who drove that truck to Oklahoma City. The guy with the sudden yen to clean also happens to have a missing wife and a blood-stained knife that he somehow overlooked.

All of them would still be walking around free if courts were using the standard of evidence Rep. Jim Jordan now wants to apply to Donald Trump and his allies.

In the wake of the latest criminal indictment against Donald Trump and 18 others, Republicans have latched on to what may be their silliest argument yet—an argument that tries to forgive a massive interstate conspiracy to overthrow the government by breaking it down into its smallest components. And then trying to argue that if you dice them up small enough, none of the pieces are really a crime on their own.

There’s no finer example of this fallacy than the one provided by Jordan, Trump's well-showered defender.

x Mark Meadows asked for a phone number. @JennaEllisEsq gave legal advice.



But somehow the Fulton County DA thinks this is a vast criminal conspiracy?



Totally ridiculous.



Maybe the DA should focus on the REAL crime, murders, and corruption happening in her county every day! — Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) August 15, 2023

Hey, everyone makes phone calls, right? Heuermann made them to taunt the relatives of his victims, while former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows made them so that he and Trump could lean on state officials and convince them to reverse the results of the election.

Cyanide is just nitrogen and carbon, people. You can find both of those things in the air. Are you telling me we shouldn’t breathe?

Not only has Jordan—and Fox News, and a wave of other Trump supporters—tried to reduce the case down to illogically small components, they’ve also done some pretty massive cherry-picking. In Meadows’ case, his actions in the indictment were not limited to just “making a phone call.” Other actions by Meadows in the indictment include:

Meeting with Trump and the leaders of the Michigan Legislature in the Oval Office and making false statements about fraud in the election. (Act 5)

Sending a text message to gather information on Pennsylvania officials so that Trump could repeat the pitch to them. (Act 6)

Meeting with Pennsylvania legislators at the White House to discuss “holding a special session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.” (Act 9)

Asking Trump adviser John McEntee to “prepare a memorandum outlining strategy for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.” (Act 19)

Traveling to Cobb County, Georgia, and attempting to get into the audit of mail-in ballot signatures, then arguing with the Georgia deputy secretary of state and members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation about being let into the closed audit. (Act 92)

Arranging for Trump to talk with the Georgia secretary of state’s chief investigator so that he could pressure that investigator to find “the right answer.” (Act 93)

Sending a message to the chief investigator asking, "Is there way to speed up Fulton county signature verification in order to have results before Jan 6 if the trump campaign assist financially?" (Act 96)

The actual charge against Meadows comes from his efforts to persuade Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense … by unlawfully altering, unlawfully adjusting, and otherwise unlawfully influencing the certified returns for presidential electors.”

Likewise, Jordan’s pretense that Trump attorney Jenna Ellis was only “offering legal advice” covers a lot of ground, including:

Holding a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, where she “made false statements concerning fraud in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia and elsewhere.” (Act 2)

Speaking at a meeting of Pennsylvania legislators where she “solicited, requested, and importuned the Pennsylvania legislators present at the meeting to unlawfully appoint presidential electors.” (Act 8)

Followed up that first meeting by taking part in the White House meeting with Pennsylvania legislators. (Act 9)

Calling the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives “for the purpose of soliciting, requesting, and importuning him to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Pennsylvania.” (Act 10)

Then doing the same thing with the head of the Pennsylvania state Senate.(Act 11)

Then calling the speaker again. (Act 12)

Then the president pro tempore again. (Act 13)

Traveling to Phoenix, where she “solicited, requested, and importuned the Arizona legislators present at the meeting to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Arizona.” (Act 17)

Meeting with the speaker of the Arizona state House “to call for a special session of the Arizona State Legislature.” (Act 20)

Traveling to Michigan to appear at a meeting of the Michigan House of Representatives, where she solicited Michigan legislators to unlawfully appoint Trump electors. (Act 21)

Traveling to Georgia to meet with members of the state Senate and—no shocker here—soliciting legislators to unlawfully appoint Trump electors. (Act 22)

Authoring a memo that “outlined strategy for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.” (Act 107)

Authoring a memo stating, "the Vice President should begin alphabetically in order of the states, and coming first to Arizona, not open the purported certification, but simply stop the count at that juncture." (Act 126)

So Ellis just “offering legal advice” included trips to at least five states where she tried to convince state legislatures to throw out the results of the election and appoint new electors, making multiple phone calls to state officials to convince them to call special sessions, and writing at least two memos outlining how Pence could break the electoral certification process on Jan. 6.

Frankly, the most amazing thing is that Meadows and Ellis have the fewest charges in the indictment. Each of them is charged with a single count in addition to their participation in the overall racketeering scheme that earned the whole group a RICO charge. Ellis earned an additional charge of unlawful solicitation for her efforts to persuade Georgia legislators to appoint false electors (Count 2). Meadows got dinged for attempting to get a public official to violate their oath of office for his efforts to lean on Raffensperger (Count 28).

That Republicans are singling out tiny fragments of these actions and trying to make it seem as if that makes the whole indictment invalid is absurd in the extreme. Not only are these acts just a fraction of the total picture, but even the smallest, normal, everyday action can be illegal when it is done in furtherance of a crime. Just ask any getaway driver.

Then again, Jordan is an expert at overlooking large crimes broken down into smaller incidents. After all, since when is it a crime for a doctor to meet with a college athlete?

Did anything happen while we were all taking a well-deserved break? Something about Donald Trump being indicted not once, but two times! Also in the news: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign collapse. So much is happening!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/16/2187616/-Since-when-is-it-a-crime-to-buy-rope-a-knife-and-a-few-garbage-bags

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