The details of Trump's crimes lay bare the corruption of the Roberts Court

On Jan. 6, 2021, the nation saw Donald Trump attempt to nullify a presidential election in a bid to retain power. Most of it played out in public, and on live television, and we all watched it happen, which has greatly hindered the continual fascist attempts to gaslight us into think it didn't. But it only hindered them, it didn't stop them, and a majority of Republican lawmakers, members of our allegedly free press, and the United States "Supreme" Court continue to pretend that a violent insurrection launched by a sociopathic narcissist was, somehow, an innocent something different.

The release of Special Counsel Jack Smith's new 165-page document puts those self-dealing equivocators to shame, yet again. There's little in it we didn't already know, but when it is all assembled together it leaves no plausible room to question whether Trump and his collection of crooked propagandizing freaks intended to overthrow the next government. It is also clear that stoking near-violence or actual violence was, in fact, part of the conspiracy.

Though it is presented as Smith's argument against the Roberts Court's newly invented theory that presidents can commit whatever crimes they like so long as they claim they were wearing their "presidenting" hat when it happened, it largely reads out as a re-indictment of Trump and his co-conspirators. That's not accidental; it seems clear that Smith's intent was to spell out all the evidence that Trump, Trump's campaign, Trump's allies, and Trump-backing Republican operatives were Not Fucking Acting On Behalf Of The Presidency. You would have to be a stone-cold idiot to look at even half this evidence and still make the claim; Smith is graciously inviting the several confirmed idiots on the Roberts Court to show their asses on this one yet again.

Because the Robert Court is made up in majority of corrupt judges whose legal arguments in the last half-decade have more and more egregiously bent towards securing conservative power no matter how comically the arguments made in one case need to be flipped on their heads in the next, they will likely take Smith up on the invitation. But it will have to be done in the open, just like Trump's version. The justices seeking to grant Trump blanket immunity for a monthlong plot to overthrow the government cannot say that the case against him is too nebulous or that he was doing it because he and his co-conspirators believed overthrowing the government was part of a president's prescribed duties. Or they can, but they will be obviously lying—another attempt on their parts to join the conspiracy themselves.

The document is worth a skim; it presents a far clearer description of events leading up to the Jan. 6 attempted coup than journalists have been able to muster. Pop it open on your phone or tablet and read through a political thriller that is made more terrifying by (1) being absolutely true and (2) the knowledge that Trump's still-not-imprisoned allies have gone to great lengths to prepare the same seditious plot this time around.

Some highlights:

In the immediate post-election period, while the defendant claimed fraud without proof, his private operatives sought to create chaos, rather than seek clarity, at polling places where states were continuing to tabulate votes. For example, on November 4, [P5]—a Campaign employee, agent, and co-conspirator of the defendant—tried to sow confusion when the ongoing vote count at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan, looked unfavorable for the defendant. There, when a colleague at the TCF Center told [P5] "We think [a batch of votes heavily in Biden's favor is] right," [P5] responded, "find a reason it isnt," "give me options to file litigation," and "even if itbis [sic]." When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot, a violent attempt to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, [P5] responded, "Make them riot" and "Do it!!!"

"Make them riot" is as clear an indication as you're likely to see that Trump's co-conspirators desired violence, if violence would help fraudulently suppress citizens' votes. The statement alone indicates a criminal conspiracy was taking place, one that was already underway even as the election night votes were being first tabulated.

There's also plenty of documentation to show that the co-conspirators knew full well their next "plan," one involved manufacturing "fake" election documents that co-conspirators in Congress would then declare to be real, was similarly fraudulent. CC5 here would be Ken Chesebro.

On December 8, [CC5] spoke on the phone with [PS3] a private attorney whom [CC1] and [CC6] had identified as a contact for the plan in Arizona. Following the call, [P53] recounted the conversation in an email:

"I just talked to the gentleman who did that memo, [CC5]. His idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our electors send in their votes (even the votes aren't legal under federal law — because they're not signed by Governor); so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6th. (They could potentially argue that they're not bound by federal law because they're Congress and make the law, etc.) Kind of wild/creative — I'm happy to discuss. My comment to him is that I guess there's no harm in it, (legally at least) — i.e. we would be sending in "fake" electoral votes to Pence so that "someone" in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the "fake" votes should be counted."

Chesebro was nice enough to document that the goal of the plan was not to produce a delay or to have Congress choose a new president who was not Trump, but also not Biden. No, the plan was specifically for Pence to announce Trump as the de facto winner.

The defendant and his co-conspirators recognized that Pence, by virtue of his ministerial role presiding over the January 6 congressional certification, would need to be a key part of their plan to obstruct the certification proceeding. On December 23, in a memorandum drafted with [CC5] assistance, [CC2] outlined a plan for Pence to "gavel" in the defendant as the winner of the election based on the false claim that "7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate," and proposed that Pence announce that "because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States."

So the plan was, quite literally, to introduce fake documents that also purported to be the electoral slates of 7 Biden-won states—to commit a fraud. The fake documents would then be smuggled to Vice President Mike Pence. Mike Pence would declare that the mere presence of the fake documents invalidated the election results in those 7 states, so those states wouldn't get any electors this time around, which means after counting up the remaining electors oh look Donald Trump wins.

I think the citizens of the United States of America deserve to have Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas, and the rest of the Roberts Courts' sorry band of seditious co-conspirators stand in front of television cameras and explain, in as much detail as they dare, how That Fucking Plan would have amounted to an official act from a sitting president. Go on. Go on, you self-important freaks, indulge us.

The plan to simply declare that whatever states Republicans didn't want Joe Biden to win would simply be declared invalid ran aground only because Pence and Pence's staff recognized all of this as obviously criminal, so refused to ferry in the fraudulent documents.

And that's why Trump and his co-conspirators also launched a violence-minded Plan B. Recognizing Pence's unwillingness to join the conspiracy, plans were made and executed to ensure there would be another "Brooks Brothers Riot"—one that would storm the site of the Jan. 6 vote counting just as the Florida version had, either forcing the count to stop outright due to the potential for violence or to intimidate both Pence and gathered lawmakers into allowing the conspiracy to go forward.

From that point on, the conspirators plotted to manipulate Pence. [CC1] [CC2] [CC6] and [P1] worked in concert to enlist Pence to act unlawfully, and to rachet up public pressure from the defendant's supporters that he do so. The defendant began to directly and repeatedly pressure Pence at the same time that he continued summoning his supporters to amass in Washington, D.C., on the day of the congressional certification.

This time around, there would be no "Brooks Brothers" suit-and-tie wearers in the Republican-orchestrated mob. Through the connections of his co-conspirators, Trump gathered a collection of militia-infused and violence-ready thugs.

When Pence explained, as he had before, that he did not believe that he had the power under the Constitution to decide which votes to accept, the defendant told him that "hundreds of thousands" of people "are gonna hate your guts" and "people are gonna think you're stupid," and berated him pointedly, "You're too honest."

"You're too honest" would appear to be yet another confirmation that the head conspirator himself knew he was pushing Pence to commit crimes.

At 11:15 a.m., shortly before traveling to the Ellipse to speak to his supporters, the defendant called Pence and made one last attempt to induce him to act unlawfully in the upcoming session. When Pence again refused, and told the defendant that he intended to make a statement to Congress before the certification proceeding confirming that he lacked the authority to do what the defendant wanted, the defendant was incensed. He decided to re-insert into his Campaign speech at the Ellipse remarks targeting Pence for his refusal to misuse his role in the certification. And the defendant set into motion the last plan in furtherance of his his conspiracies: if Pence would not do as he asked, the defended needed to find another way to prevent the certification of Biden as president. So on January 6, the defendant sent to the Capitol a crowd of angry supporters, whom the defendant had called to the city and inundated with false claims of outcome-determinative election fraud, to induce Pence not to certify the legitimate electoral votes and to obstruct the certification.

Thus:

So for more than an hour, the defendant delivered a speech designed to inflame his supporters and motivate them to march to the Capitol.

The defendant told his crowd many of the same lies he had been telling for months—publicly and privately, including to the officials in the targeted states—and that he knew were not true.

And:

The defendant galvanized his supporters by painting the stakes as critical and assuring them that "history [was] going to be made." He made clear that he expected his supporters to take action, telling them regarding his loss of the election that "we're not going to let that happen," calling on them to "fight" and to "take back" their country through strength, while suggesting that legal means were antiquated or insufficient to remedy that purported fraud, because "[w]hen you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules."

Trump urged the crowd numerous times to march on the Capitol. He watched Fox News coverage as the crowd attacked police officers, stormed through police lines, and smashed windows to invade the Capitol. Congress was put in recess; gathered lawmakers either attempted to flee or barricaded themselves where they were until security forces could evacuate them. Trump publicly tweeted another attack on Pence: "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done," it read in part. "Shortly after" sending that tweet:

Upon receiving a phone call alerting him that Pence had been taken to a secure location, [P15] rushed to the dining room to inform the defendant in hopes that the defendant would take action to ensure Pence's safety. Instead, after [P15] delivered the news, the defendant looked at him and said only "So what?"

There is simply no question that Trump and his co-conspirators were acting with criminal intent. They sought to nullify the results of a constitutional election so that Trump could instead remain in power. They made plans for the expected national unrest that would ensue such an announcement: The Insurrection Act was to be used to militarily suppress anti-Trump protest, and Trump's gathered militia allies were looking for that announcement as their own signal that paramilitary operations on Trump's behalf should begin as well.

Trump knew he had no basis for claiming "election fraud," because he was told so. Trump's team knew that forging "alternative" electoral states with the intent of passing them off as real was an act of fraud; they fully agreed among themselves such documents would not be "legal." Trump was indifferent to the violence even as it took place, proving that a violent attack on Congress was, in his mind, one of the acceptable outcomes of sending his assembled mob to riot there.

All of it was unquestionably an orchestrated, multi-pronged attempted coup. Trump remains a candidate for president today due to sheer breadth of the conspiracy; it had and has, in its ranks, a majority of the remaining Republican Party. The subsequent "conservative" declaration that fraud-based attempted coup should be counted as an ideological act, rather than a criminal one, is what spurred our gutless and power-serving press into privileging that fascist declaration in their own coverage rather than recoiling in contempt of all those who would say so.

And it is the sheer breadth of the conspiracy in and outside Congress that guided the actions of the hopelessly crooked Roberts Court, which has repeatedly sought to immunize him against the usual consequences for such horrific crimes. It is crooked; that much should be clear from the simple outline of events, most of which we saw unfold on our own television screens.

It is crooked to claim that Trump was doing any of the above in his capacity as president, as opposed to for purely personal gain. It's crooked to claim that attempted coup is a valid power of the presidency, or to attempt to stifle its prosecution with the galling declaration that well if a president says he was performing criminal acts in his official capacity, you're not allowed to challenge him on whether it's actually true.

The Roberts Court well and truly showed their ass on this one, and Smith's filing should be taken less as attempt to jump over the obstacles the court's co-conspirators have put in his way and more as a declaration of war. Here is the evidence. Here is what Trump and his allies did; here is all the ways we know that they knew their acts to be criminal, and encouraged criminal activity by others, and sought to topple the legitimately elected government of the country solely for their own gain and because Donald Trump is a delusional preening manchild whose narcissistic decompensations have always, always insisted that any loss or failure on his part is because of an imagined conspiracy against him.

John Roberts and his compatriots owe the nation a better explanation than the comically half-assed insistences that democracy itself is secondary to whatever powers a would-be strongman instead imagines himself to "officially" have. Their actions in these cases have been corrupt because they cannot stand on their own logic; there is no way to retain a Constitutional legal system if the executive branch—or the judicial branch—gets to brush off whichever laws they like with a bit of hand-waving insistence that no, those parts only apply when we want them to.

Trump's allies are have already announced a plan to "denaturalize" American citizens—to strip their citizenship—based on criteria of their own choosing. Will that, too, pass Roberts Court muster? Is birthright citizenship now to be erased, now that an ascendent fascist ideology deems immigrants and their descendants to be illegitimate residents of the country?

Jack Smith's filing shows the Roberts Court to be not just ideologically captured, but corrupt. There is no way to look at Trump's acts and plausibly declare them to be either Presidential or legal. The court's sweaty attempts to pretend otherwise show them to be as indifferent to democracy as Trump himself is—and shows off how utterly dishonest the court has become in its efforts to amass ever-increasing power for the nation's fascist fringe by stripping those powers from everyone and everything else.