On Monday, jury selection will begin in the contempt trial of Steve Bannon. But even before opening arguments, Judge Carl Nichols has shredded Bannon’s legal defenses. In response, his lawyer, David Schoen, pondered: “What is the point of going to trial here if there are no defenses?”
On 5 January 2021, Trump spoke to Bannon three times by phone. “All hell is going to break loose,” Bannon broadcast to the world.
With a guilty verdict looming as a possibility, the former Goldman Sachs banker must be wondering whether his defiance of the select committee was worth it. If he goes to prison, don’t bet on Trump visiting.
Meanwhile, things aren’t looking that much better for Lindsey Graham. A Georgia state court ordered the ex-president’s human doormat to testify before a grand jury. Prosecutors want to know about Graham putting his fingers on the scales as Georgia tallied votes.
The senator was fine with torching democracy as long as he would not be singed or menaced by insurrectionists. Otherwise, he hated the prospect of appearing as a witness in a criminal proceeding.
By the time the closing gavel fell on Tuesday’s hearing, the American public had received another hours-long refresher on the 45th president’s disdain for the will of the electorate, and his appetite for chaos and self-aggrandizement.
On Friday night, 18 December 2020, he allowed the lunatics into the asylum. Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn and Patrick Byrne, the former lover of Maria Butina, the Russian spy, were all there in one place – that place being the Oval Office.
Some context: in mid-December, Flynn was a rock star. Just a week earlier, he had received a presidential pardon. Byrne is the former CEO of Overstock and a huge fan of cryptocurrency. He also doubted Rudy Giuliani’s legal chops.
“I had watched two months slide by Mayor Giuliani and his team displaying no organization or progress,” Byrne blogged. “Watching them trying to get anything done was like watching half-a-dozen monkeys trying to fuck a football.”
Fortunately, Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Eric Herschmann, another Trump lawyer, pushed back against the motley crew. They made clear there was no basis to claim that fraud affected the election’s outcome.
Likewise, the duo said “no” to appointing Powell as a special election counsel and opposed the federal government seizing voting machines located in electoral battlegrounds. Some things really were beyond the pale.
Trump remained undeterred. As Liz Cheney said early in Tuesday’s hearing, he had a mind of his own.
He was infantile, but not an infant. To be precise, Trump is a volatile 76-year-old. As described by Katrina Pierson, a Trump campaign aide and an organizer of the 6 January rally, he liked the “crazies”. As observed by Representative Jamie Raskin, Trump’s inaugural trope of “American carnage” emerged as “prophetic”.
The meeting of 18 December dragged into early Saturday. In the hours that followed, he tweeted a last-ditch call to arms. Like clockwork, Alex Jones and Roger Stone, another pardon recipient, reinforced and amplified their Don’s message.
Insurrection followed. By God’s grace, a bit of luck, and the courage of a few, we averted an even worse outcome. The gallows pitched on the Capitol grounds went unused. Its noose never found the vice-president’s neck.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s numbers tank while gasoline prices slowly and finally drop. At the same time, the latest polls reflect an erosion of support within the Republican party for the former guy.
According to the New York Times, Trump garners backing from just under half of the Republican party faithful, with the lion’s share of his support coming from voters without a four-year degree. For Trump, those numbers are not great, but neither are they alarming. Rather, they augur a repeat of 2016’s Republican primaries.
A rerun of elections past is not what most Americans want. Trump is treacherous and divisive. He continues to push the “big lie”. His acolytes will be on November’s ballot. Biden is worn out and exhausted. He never was the second coming of FDR, much as he may want to believe.
“It’s time to take the blinders off before it’s too late”: Stephen Ayres, who breached the halls of Congress on 6 January, said it best.
Lloyd Green is a regular contributor and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
