Trump's Coup Attempt Is Far From Finished
Trump is preparing to run in 2024, but a new Senate report detailing his sedition gives officials the evidence they need to disqualify him from completing the coup.
By John Nichols

"Subverting Justice," the 394-page report released last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee on disgraced former president Donald Trump's machinations to overturn the results of the 2020 election, outlines the details of a coup plot that only narrowly failed.

That's a fact that cannot be lost on any of us, as Trump continues to spin his big lies about the last presidential election, and as he sends ever-more-ominous signals about his intention to run in the next one. The facts of the former president's sedition, which are now more fully detailed than ever before, should inspire members of Congress and state election officials to act-according to the dictates of the Constitution-to bar Trump from ever again holding public office.

There was a vibrant conversation after Trump incited the deadly insurrection on January 6 about holding him to account based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War in order to address the treason of former Confederates. That section of the Constitution states that anyone who, "having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States...to support the Constitution of the United States, [and then] shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof," is prohibited from holding office.

The conversation faded as Congress focused on an impeachment process that, while it drew bipartisan support, ultimately failed to win the 67 Senate votes required to convict the former president. This new Senate report, with its dramatic additional evidence of Trump's sedition, more than justifies renewing the discussion of utilizing the 14th Amendment to disqualify him.

A 14th Amendment strategy is not a radical concept. Indeed, US Representative Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who was the lead impeachment manager for the House, has said, with regard to those who are disqualified under the 14th Amendment standard, "Donald Trump is right in...the bullseye middle of that group."

Raskin has argued that there "conceivably could be an affirmative statement by state legislators, by Congress, by other institutions" to make this point.

"So we'd have to figure it out and do some more research about all of that," added Raskin, a constitutional law professor before his election to Congress. "But the point is that the constitutional purpose is clear, to keep people exactly like Donald Trump and other traitors to the union from holding public office."

This is the time to refocus on the 14th Amendment, particularly as former Trump National Security Council official Fiona Hill has noted that the ex-president "is mulling again a return to what he sees more as a crown than the presidency in 2024." Her dire warning, in a recent Politico interview, holds that "if he makes a successful return to the presidency in 2024, democracy's done."

What We Know Now About Trump's Sedition

After the Senate Judiciary Committee focused for eight months on a specific aspect of Trump's multifaceted efforts to overturn the 2020 election results-his "relentless, direct pressure" on officials at the US Department of Justice to facilitate the defeated candidate's "election subversion scheme"-we now know that Trump abused his position by orchestrating at least nine calls and meetings to pressure DOJ officials to facilitate his efforts to overturn the election, and that he forced the resignation of at least one US Attorney-Georgia's BJay Pak-"because he believed Pak was not doing enough to support his false claims of election fraud in Georgia." We also know that, when Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen told the president that the department "can't and won't just flip a switch and change the election," Trump replied that the DOJ simply needed to announce that the election was corrupt. Then, said Trump, "leave the rest to me and the [GOP] Congressmen."

The committee concluded that "we were only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis as President Donald Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of the Department of Justice (DOJ)."

Those revelations from the report connect to all that we have already learned about Trump's role in the January 6 election, which led to a bipartisan vote by the House for his impeachment and a bipartisan vote by 57 senators-the most substantial in the history of presidential impeachments-for his conviction.

While that did not amount to the supermajority required to convict Trump under one section of the Constitution, the numbers are more than sufficient to bar him, under another section of the same document, from ever again using the office of the presidency to subvert justice, overturn elections, and engage in coup plotting to thwart the will of the people and the law of the land.

The wrongdoings detailed in the Senate report cannot be neglected.

Attempting to overturn an election, even if that attempt is unsuccessful, is a coup. Some coups succeed. Some fail. But they all are rooted in an assault on the rule of law that must be addressed by federal and state lawmakers if there is to be any hope of preventing the degeneration of the American experiment into the sort of anti-constitutional impunity that destroys republics.

So the first duty is to call a coup a coup, as many of the most thoughtful monitors of Trump's rampant wrongdoing did after reviewing the Judiciary Committee's conclusions.

"This report confirms that there were actually two different coups happening, sort of parallel to one another. They were not just talk. They were not just fluff. This was a very real concerted, coordinated effort," said Elie Honig, former assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

"One coup was Donald Trump trying to steal the election. The other coup was happening inside DOJ, as Jeffrey Clark, who's a real villain in this story, tried to take over as [attorney general] so he could weaponize DOJ to help Trump take over the election. This is a real scandal, and it's more than that. Merrick Garland, DOJ, needs to get involved here. Congress has done its part. It's time for DOJ to take a look."

Trump's Disqualification

Honig-a CNN legal analyst who has long brought attention to Trump's attempts to overturn the election, including the former president's January 6 call to insurrection-is right that Attorney General Garland and his team should investigate Clark for engaging in federal crimes. Among other things, Clark drafted a letter fraudulently claiming that federal investigators had identified election concerns serious enough to overturn Georgia's presidential election results. But it is not quite true, as Honig suggests, that Congress has done all it can do. Congress, even in its divided and frequently dysfunctional current form, can and should affirm that Trump has, according to the standards set by the US Constitution, engaged in actions that disqualify him from ever again seeking the presidency.

Indeed, some members of Congress have recognized that, including US Representative Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who said, "The Senate report solidifies what many of us here thought: that Donald Trump's activities clearly disqualify him from running for office again." Pocan's office explored seeking congressional action to confirm Trump's disqualification in January, before the impeachment vote. At the same time, US Representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.) proposed an inquiry into whether members of the House who had supported Trump's efforts to overturn the election should be investigated and potentially expelled under the 14th Amendment, Section 3, standard.

For the members of Congress who might have been reluctant about voting for a resolution affirming Trump's disqualification, the "Subverting Justice" report provides a clear and compelling argument for congressional action. The same goes for state election officials, who, attorney John Bonifaz and the group Free Speech for People point out, "have the authority and responsibility to determine, as part of the state ballot qualification process, that Mr. Trump is ineligible to appear on a presidential ballot because, 'having previously taken an oath...to support the Constitution of the United States,' he then proceeded to 'engage in insurrection or rebellion against the same.'"

Bonifaz tells me, "If he runs in 2024, we will go into court and argue that he has disqualified himself."

There can be no honest debate about whether Trump has engaged in insurrectionary activities that meet the amendment's standards. Nor can there be much doubt that the former president, who made a high-profile visit to the first-caucus state of Iowa over the weekend, intends to seek the presidency in 2024. When Trump says, "We're going to take America back," as he's making the rounds of states that will decide the next presidential election, there is every evidence that Bill Maher is right when he said, "the slow moving coup...is still moving."

The threat is staring America in the face. So, too, is the appropriate response.

(c) 2021 John Nichols writes about politics for The Capitol Times. His book on protests and politics, Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street, is published by Nation Books. Follow John Nichols on Twitter @NicholsUprising.

Denying Bad News Makes Us Feel Good
By James Donahue

Sometimes it seems hard to believe that national leaders like former Presidents Bush, Trump and many of their staffers would deny global warming even though the evidence around us is becoming so overwhelming even the average Joe on the street senses that something is really wrong.

Indeed, the recent onset of extreme weather patterns, hurricanes, tornado clusters, floods and drought, not only in the United States but all over the world, should be jarring us all out of the strange sleep that has left us numb for way too long.

And why would other world leaders and influential people, like the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, say that the Nazi slaughter and suffering of Jews did not happen when there are many survivors of those World War II concentration camps still living today who tell the story? The embellishment of the death camp story is another matter.

Why, for that matter, did the world turn its back on the horrors more recently occurring in places like Darfur, Africa, where the Sudanese Government conducted mass genocide on hundreds of thousands and over a million people have been driven from their homes?

Dr. Drew Weston, in a published paper noted that a research study conducted at Emory University in Atlanta indicates that the brain responds to bad news in a unique way. The research shows that "there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected."

The study of brain mapping techniques reveals that "we derive pleasure from irrationally sticking with beliefs against evidence," Weston wrote.

The study suggests that most people internalize a system of beliefs and that changing those beliefs in the form of new and compelling information can bring psychological and social pain. But when a person allows the brain to find a way to deny this new evidence and thus maintain old beliefs he or she experiences immediate biochemical pleasure.

The Weston study helps us understand why so many people throughout the world remain in denial that our planet is dying from overpopulation, extreme exploitation of natural resources, and irresponsible polluting of our land, seas and air. There is a widespread unwillingness to believe some recent scientific reports that suggest that we may have less than 50 years before the planet will no longer support life.

It is shocking to note that within hours after this report made the news, it strangely disappeared. No matter where we searched, the story was erased. Who and why was this done? The order to pull this story appears to have originated in high places.

Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said two federal agencies, the inspectors general for the Commerce Department and NASA conducted sweeping investigations of the Bush Administration's censorship and suppression of research into global warming.

Lautenberg said he believed the investigations "will uncover internal documents and agency correspondence that may expose widespread misconduct." What was the result of this investigation? Was it ever completed?

It did not make headlines, but numerous technical journals and books emerged from this study. Among the most important publications were the books The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney and Undermining Science by Seth Shulman. They concluded that the Bush Administration used the power of limiting government financial support in an effort to prevent researchers and especially government scientists from expressing their views about global climate change.

The study found that administration officials also wrote slanted Environmental Protection Agency reports about global warming for political purposes.

The Bush cover--up was subtle, but it occurred.

The Trump approach was much less subtle. He just told his followers that Global Warming (now called Climate Change) isn't real. He said this while forests were aflame, coastal towns were flooded and damaged from severe storms and farmers were struggling for lack of, or too much rain.

What we find even more shocking was the lapdog nature of the national media to go right along with the federal program of denial. As a retired journalist, this writer finds it difficult to understand why responsible media would ignore the most important and critical news story in history . . . the threatened extinction of the human race.

The Weston study might have given us some insight into the full spectrum of issues associated with individual opinions and mass-mindedness. If the story is too dire, we just do not want to hear it. Thus we allow our brains to play tricks on us, and let us go on believing that all is well when we should know better.

(c) 2021 James L. Donahue is a retired newspaper reporter, editor and columnist with more than 40 years of experience in professional writing. He is the published author of five books, all dealing with Michigan history, and several magazine articles.

Harry Potter And The Secret Of COP26
By David Swanson

"Blimey, Harry!" exclaimed Ronald Weasley, his face pressed to the window, peering out at the swiftly passing countryside as the glistening red Hogwarts Express belched coal smoke into the sky on its way north to Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference. "If the secret that you have to find is both known and unknown to all Muggles, then it follows that it's known to a lot of us too. And it also follows" - Ron turned to face his friend seated across the small train compartment - "that we can let the Muggles worry about it themselves."

"Merlin's pants!" Hermione Granger broke in, closing The Complete List of Inscrutable Contradictions in Magical Fiction with a look of unbearable frustration. "If the Muggles are holding another conference to put up a feable pretense of forestalling the destruction of all life on earth, and it's the 26th one, and the 25 previous ones have had the opposite result of what was needed, then it actually follows," - Hermione spoke slowly and clearly as if to a three-year-old - "that we can't just let the Muggles worry about it, and it just might have some relevance to our future too, no matter what sort of imbecilic prats we decide to act like."

Harry knew he needed to say something, but before he could, Ron was mumbling, with a mouth full of chocolate frogs, something about how he was sure Viktor Krum probably had the answer, considering how many oil wells his family owned.

"Enough!" said Harry, looking Hermione back into her seat, as she seemed ready to find some other compartment to sit in. "Let's go over what we know, even if we've done it a hundred times before. At least we'll be able to tell our children we tried, right?"

Ron grunted and nodded, and Hermione said quietly, "I'm not sure I'd bring children into a world full of people who couldn't find their own posterior with two hands and an illuminated wand." Harry took that as the most encouragement he was likely to get and proceeded.

"We know," said Harry, "that the Muggles make these weak agreements and fail to keep them, right? And we've been through every possible way that they could strengthen them or abide by them, right?"

"Exausting all possibilities," said Hermione, "is never a certain claim, if you consider the five principles of Snufalargin the Snooty, first established in fiteen twenty . . . "

"I know," said Harry. "I mean, I don't know, but just hear me out, OK? What if this secret, the secret that we were specifically instructed to find, both by the message in Hagrid's sandwich and in the Morse Code sounds of the Knight Bus's smashing of lampposts, is known and unknown because it's not a way of strengthening the stupid climate agreements as they are but of adding something to them that's missing, something so obvious that nobody can think of it."

"A purloined letter," said Hermione. "Yes, I thought of that and . . . "

"A pearled what?" asked Ron, and Hermione ignored him.

"I thought of that," said Hermione, "but what is left out of the agreements that would naturally be in them? I mean it has to be something enormous. It can't be somebody's little camp fire or gas station. It can't be some little industry that got a special waiver. It has to be big enough to be worth a major bother, something worth all the fighting we've been through just to get this far, not to mention Ron's . . . "

Hermione hesitated, and Ron finished her sentence for her. "Right, not to mention my hair." Ron slid back his hood and tipped his shiny bald head down at his friends."

"I like it that way," said Hermione.

Ron smiled. "I don't mind," he said. "I mean if it's that important, I'd gladly give up my saggy left . . ."

"Right," broke in Harry. "Let's get back to fighting."

Ron and Hermione looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"No," said Harry. "I don't mean we should fight with each other. I mean, let's think about the concept of fighting. We do it with little twigs in our hands. We consider 12 friends and a dog to be a major army. But how do the Muggles do it?"

"Merlin's socks, Harry," responded Hermione excitedly, "you might be onto something that's been known and unknown even to us. We're such superior beings in our imagination, yet we unquestioningly build an assumption of irredeemably evil others into everything, to the point where violence is so essentially normalized that we can't actually observe it."

"Excuse me," said Ron, "could you please say that again in Parseltounge, because it would be easier to understand that way?"

"Right," said Harry, ignoring Ron, "we declare Voldemort eternally and irredeemably evil and accept that I have no choice but to murder him, or at least get implausibly lucky and have him technically murder himself while I'm trying to do it, because we believe in prophecies and the categorizing of some beings as Dark and others as Light. But Muggles are all, I mean they're all just Muggles, aren't they? The best ones can do evil and the worst ones good. And yet they think the way we do even though they have no basis to do it."

"And so" continued Hermione, "they needn't fight if they choose not to fight, and the key to all of this is the question you asked before: How do they fight?"

"Oh," said Ron, "I know this one. Lamely. I mean, pathetically actually. No disrespect to your parents, Hermione, but my grandmother's grandmother's pet slug could fight better than . . . "

"Exactly," Harry said to Hermione, continuing to ignore Ron. "They don't fight with wands or as individuals. They fight with an enormous industry, one of the most profitable, one of the most destructive, one of the greatest consumers of petroleum and polluters of air and water and soil, a permanent machinery of endless war preparation so huge that its own momentum creates fighting, and so huge that it fades into the wallpaper."

"And what," Hermione almost shouted triumphantly, "has been quietly left out of all the climate agreements, all the Muggle plans for halting the destruction of the climate? One of the biggest ways that they destroy the climate: militaries! Some of the Muggles are paid to keep militaries out of the agreements, of course. And some of them honestly think wars are more important than preserving life on the planet. Some of them think there's nothing really to worry about anyway. And most of them haven't noticed what's going on."

"Wait," said Ron, "are you two hyped-up hippies proposing that we become peace activists?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other and then said in unison, "Yes!"

"Well, OK," said Ron. "That's the first good thing you've said since we got on this train. And look what I just found on my phone: http://cop26.info."

(c) 2021 David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.