Broken Bad

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

So, as usual, Trump had a bad day today. And, as it often happens with one man crime waves, the badness was on a variety of fronts. Let's start in New York state:

     AG Letitia James warned a state judge that Trump tried to set up a mirror corporation in, predictably, Delaware, the American Mecca of incorporation. Trump's endless parade of stooges filed paperwork just days before James officially filed charges demanding that the new corporation be called, if you can believe the stunning originality of the name, the Trump Organization II (because everyone loves a blockbuster sequel regardless of the unoriginality of the title).

    Because anyone who knows the first thing about the Machiavellian machinations of Corporate America knows, in advance of or during civil litigation that could involve serious monetary fines, it's a common, sleazy tactic for executives to form shell corporations to shield their ill-gotten money from likely legal penalties so they can then say with a straight face that the original entity is bankrupt and can't pay the fines. 

     The Sacklers did it when they and Purdue Pharma LP were sued in civil court over the better than 100,000 opioid deaths they'd directly caused. It didn't work because in March of this year, they were forced to settle with the litigants to the tune of $6,000,000,000.

     And, closer to the current time, Alex Jones tried shielding his money from the people suing him over his Sandy Hook lies and conspiracy theories that exposed the affected families to untold misery and fear. That didn't work, either, as Jones last month was ordered to pay close to a quarter billion dollars after a circus of a trial in Texas then, yesterday, being ordered to pay close to a billion dollars more in a Connecticut court.

     So, sure, why wouldn't Trump's latest transparently idiotic gambit succeed?

     On the face of it, it looks like a masterstroke of corporate brilliance. One of AG James' hopes is that she can stop the Trump family from operating any businesses in New York state for up to five years. If the Trump Organization is officially incorporated not in New York but Delaware, then the family can continue their swindling from the 26th floor of Trump Tower.

     So that's why AG James has asked a New York judge to put the skids to this latest shell game of the Trumps.

No, We Still Don't Want to Listen to You

 

In a classic example of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, Trump tried to pull another fast one on the Supreme Court. And today, the High Court decided not to hear his lawsuit regarding the Special Master that Trump asked for in August and now doesn't seem to want, anymore.

   Essentially, the motion filed by Trump's lawyers stated that Judge Raymond Dearie, one of the people Trump had suggested for an external arbiter, and the only one agreed upon by both Trump's lawyers and the DOJ, could "irreparably injure" the government that Trump no longer controls on the basis of Executive Privilege he no longer wields.

     It was the fourth time since 2020 that the High Court has refused to entertain his ceaseless nonsense. As the Washington Post had drily put it:

The Supreme Court in July 2020 flatly rejected Trump’s bold claims of immunity from local law enforcement and congressional investigators. It turned aside multiple challenges to the 2020 election results brought by Trump and his allies. And post-presidency, the court turned down his request to keep certain White House documents from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, with only Justice Clarence Thomas indicating he would support Trump’s plea.

     Trump obviously still thinks that the Supreme Court that he's 33% responsible for inflicting on the American public is still going to be in his corner. But in reality, he's down to Clarence Thomas and sometimes not even him, a guy who shamelessly refuses to recuse himself when it comes to evidence provided by his own wife, a right wing rabble-rouser who's still spouting Qanon election conspiracy theories.

The Big One

Sometimes I think, if there really is a God up there, that He must have the timing and panache of a Flo Zeigfeld. Because, while the first two bits of Trump's legal woes were certainly welcome news to those of us afflicted with "Trump Derangement Syndrome", the best, to paraphrase Robert Browning, was yet to come.

    Because today was the final January 6 Select Committee hearing before the November 8th midterms. And, unless you were trapped under a rock and sharing space with Roger Stone and Stephen Miller, you would've been tuning in live as I was. And the overarching rationale of today's hearing was to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt what Trump's mindset was during the riot on January 6th.

    In that respect, it didn't provide any new epiphanies regarding the riot that happened on Epiphany Day, although we got to see a few communiques never before seen between Secret Service agents from that day and others. We also got to see also never before seen, fascinating behind the scenes footage of Congressional leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell trying to get a handle on the chaos that literally shut down the government's business.

    But, aside from that, anyone paying even cursory attention to the events of January 6th and the subsequent revelations already knew what Trump's mindset was on that day. When he saw that scores of his legal motions getting shot down like ducks in a row, he transitioned from the soft coup to the hard one. The riot was his Plan B. He fully intended to be there and to walk into the Capitol Building and demand that the election be handed to him. He sicced a screaming, hyperviolent, bloodthirsty crowd on his own vice president.

    What we didn't expect was Vice Chair Liz Cheney, who'd somehow managed to find her inner human after January 6th, introduce a motion to publicly and officially subpoena Trump for his testimony before the committee. It passed by a 9-0 vote. This, predictably, led Trump to respond with a shrill, tinny diatribe from the wilderness of Truth Social demanding to know why the J6 Committee didn't try to get his testimony earlier (Narrator: It had).

    Look for Trump to continue acting predictably and to unsuccessfully fight this in the courts, knowing damned good and well that it's virtually impossible to place under arrest someone who's under Secret Service protection, especially when that would require an arrest warrant to be issued by the Department of Justice that's already characterized for working at a rate of speed that would rival Lars Von Trier.

   Also, think of how rare it is for Congress to compel the testimony from a president or former president. But that fact alone should bring home just how high the stakes are in this matter.