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“just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R[epublican] Congressmen.”

Bill Haskell | July 31, 2021 9:08 am

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Taken from: July 30, 2021; “Letters From An American,“ Professor Heather Cox – Richardson

The bigger story beyond the DOJ releasing six years of trump tax returns to the House . . .

“Today’s bigger story is that the House Oversight Committee released notes taken by the acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue during a phone call between former president Donald Trump and acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen on December 27, 2020. Rosen took over at the Department of Justice after Attorney General William Barr left on December 14.

The notes record how the former president tried to get the Department of Justice to say that the 2020 election was ‘corrupt’ in order to overturn it. In the call, Trump listed the many ways in which he believed the results were false, insisting that the election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan all were ‘corrupted’ and said it was statistically impossible for him to have lost the election.

Rosen ‘Told him flat out that much of the info he is getting is false, +/or just not supported by the evidence . . . we looked at allegations but they don’t pan out.’

When Rosen told the former president that the Department of Justice ‘can’t and won’t snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election, doesn’t work that way,’ Trump said: ‘Don’t expect you to do that, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R[epublican] Congressmen.’

The January 6 insurrection was ten days later.”

2 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

August 1, 2021 at 3:27 pm

This was a week of setbacks for Donald Trump in his attempt to maintain a firm hold on the Republican Party till 2024 and beyond.

In Texas, one of his endorsed candidates lost a special election runoff to a rival Republican. At about the same time, Trump came out against the bipartisan infrastructure bill currently moving through the Senate, and almost nobody seemed to care: There was no sense that Republican senators feared his wrath, no expectation that Trump supporters would crowd town halls in protest.

Among conservatives who would prefer not to have the G.O.P. controlled by Trump for the remainder of his natural life, these indicators were greeted with some optimism. “If Trump endorsements don’t equal victory,” the former Republican consultant Tucker Martin tweeted, “then maybe you can actually be yourself,” without “worrying about the ego of the host of ‘The Apprentice.’ Imagine that world.”

I’m happy to imagine it, but I fear it’s not that simple. The weakness Trump showed this week is real, but it isn’t new. His power over the G.O.P. has always been limited: As president he often found himself balked on policy by congressional Republicans, and his impressive endorsement record reflects a lot of cautious winner-picking, not aggressive movement-building. …

How Strong Is Trump’s Grip on the GOP?
- Turtles Run says:
  
  August 1, 2021 at 8:02 pm
  
  Trump’s grip on the party base largely built on his mainstreaming of far right-wing ideology and his access to political power. He no longer is President and cannot enact a large amount of the far right wish list any longer. As we move further into the Biden administration the need for a Trump endorsement will lessen not that it ever was a real gauge for success.
  
  Where Trump’s lasting legacy will remain is the way it has allowed the GOP to be open about their racist and xenophobic beliefs.
  
  The Texas candidate that beat the Trump backed candidate is no less a far right ideologue. He sports the same MAGA script he just does it without the MAGA cap.