How Rudy (Yes, that Rudy) Saved American Democracy

 (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari ) 

"Mr. Giuliani was vehemently opposed to the idea of the military taking part in the seizure of machines..." -The NY Times, January 31, 2022

I'm a writer of more than middling abilities and even I can't adequately put into words how disheartening it is to go bed knowing that a dripping, drooling, belching, farting psychopath like Rudy Giuliani actually helped save our democratic institutions. And yet, that's what Alan Feuer, Michael S. Schmidt, Luke Broadwater and the incomparable Maggie Haberman discovered in their bombshell reporting last night that Trump was more hands-on than previously thought in trying to overturn the 2020 election. Not all of it was news. The article detailed things we already knew. For instance, we learned from Bernie Kerik's "privilege log" that he'd given to the J6 Committee that Trump had drafted out for him an unsigned executive order to seize the voting machines in certain states. It was drafted out on December 17, 2020, the day before his infamous meeting with Michael Flynn

      Here's something we didn't know:

      There was a second draft executive order. Quote:

      At the meeting, Mr. Flynn and Ms. Powell presented Mr. Trump with a copy of the draft executive order authorizing the military to oversee the seizure of machines. After reading it, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Giuliani to the Oval Office, according to one person familiar with the matter. When Mr. Giuliani read the draft order, he told Mr. Trump that the military could be used only if there was clear-cut evidence of foreign interference in the election."

​       Giuliani wasn't completely wrong but he wasn't completely right, either. Even in a case of provable voter fraud, any seizure of voting machines, while unprecedented, would've been the purview of the Justice Department, then led by William Barr, not the Pentagon. Ultimately, Giuliani talked Trump out of using the military to seize voting machines. If God forbid Trump was able to pull off this legal Rube Goldberg scheme and get his grubby, tiny hands on those machines, it surely would have seriously skewed the actual vote count. In other words, it wouldn't have even been as honest or above-board as the clown show that masqueraded as an audit in Maricopa County last year.

      Undeterred, this led Trump to seek other institutions in grabbing the voting machines. One thing Giuliani did agree to do at Trump’s behest was to contact the Deputy Director of Homeland Security, Ken Coochie Coochie, who then flatly told Rudy that there was no way that DHS would want any part of such a thing.

      In short, in rapid succession, when he announced his plans, aides, allies and Cabinet officials all said No to their boss. This means that Trump very seriously considered having three major government agencies, The Pentagon, DOJ and Homeland Security seize and impound voting machines, a move that, if enacted, would have officially made us a banana republic.

     Keep in mind that officially speaking, America is no longer a democracy but an anocracy, at least according to the International IDEA think tank. An anocracy is part democracy, part dictatorship. In other words, we've officially become Tucker's Carlson's wettest dream: We've become Hungary.

     If Trump had seized even one voting machine, it would have resulted in a constitutional crisis that this country has ever seen for which the Constitution has no clear-cut remedy. And January 6, which would have happened one way or the other, very likely would have been far bloodier than it was.

When Yes Men Turn Into No Men 

Giuliani told Trump No. Barr said No. Cuccinelli said No. Lawmakers from at least two states told him No. You'd have to go the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific to find more loathsome bottom feeders and maybe even then you wouldn't be able to. Yet right wing psychopaths like Giuliani, Bill Barr and Ken Cuccinelli were the bulwark that stood fast against Trump in his mad desire to seize voting machines. So, who did that leave?

   The True Believers.

   That would be Sidney Powell, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, a rabid leprechaun named Michael Flynn and Phil Waldron, who actually owns a still outside Austin,Texas. After Trump's scheme to overturn the election through the Pentagon, Waldron amended the second draft executive order, which was then presented to Trump by Giuliani and Powell.

    Now, it's important to remember the Times never would've run this bombshell of a story unless it was impeccably-sourced, which means Alan Feuer, Michael S. Schmidt, Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman would have had to have spoken with Trump's allies and former aides, meaning, they're trying to throw the fat man under the bus before he can do the same to them. (A smart tactic, as Trump, in his revved up frenzy to avoid accountability, is already throwing Mike Pence in the J6 Committee's chum line.)

     Several of Trump's most ill-advised statements of all time have come today and this past weekend, starting with his hate rally in Conroe, Texas last Saturday. His demand that the Committee investigate why his former Vice President didn't overturn the election results for him on January 6th is essentially tantamount to an admission of guilt that he'd pressured Pence into doing something illegal. We know he did. He admitted as much that morning, when he'd put Pence on notice in front of tens of thousands of red-toothed maniacs. We knew about the January 6th meeting before he went to the Ellipse to sic a mob on him.

     But the article by the Times also conclusively proves that Trump knew he lost the election and tried to overturn the results, anyway, that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any honest, good faith attempts to root out, expose and eradicate corruption and fraud in the election. In short, he knew he lost and, panicked that without the shield of the presidential seal prosecutors would come after him as they have, he decided to seize the machines and change the results.

    It's bad enough that we're no longer a functional democracy, according to at least one think tank. But if Trump had succeeded in mobilizing the federal government to seize voting machines, it would have officially turned us into a banana republic and Trump a deposed dictator trying to hang into power by any means necessary.

    And, with the vague promise of pardons for the January 6 rioters, who are some of the most unhinged psychopaths this nation offers, and openly threatening three black prosecutors who are investigating him for his countless crimes, not successfully convicting and sentencing Trump to a lengthy prison sentence would be the greatest travesty and oversight in the entire history of American jurisprudence.