an autodidact meets a dilettante…

this list is from 2019, and so the list goes on…

Canto: So several pundits are claiming that Donny’s Georgia antics may pose the most immediate of his problems.

Jacinta: ‘I jes wanna find 11,780 votes, which is more than we have..’ That’s from the January 2 call to Brad Raffensperger, to be used in evidence.

Canto: Yes, the Georgia Secretary of State, a Republican, released this recorded phone call to the public, and has become a hero, and a target, ever since. 

Jacinta: The key word here is ‘find’ – as well as the number, of course. He could no doubt claim that he feels certain some votes were ‘lost’, accidentally or deliberately, by the vote-counters, whom he’d like to claim are opposition plants, but he only wants to find, with the help of the Secretary of State, enough to win the election in Georgia – which still wouldn’t win him the presidency.

Canto: Which raises the question – so obvious to investigators – as to whether he leaned on other close jurisdictions (Arizona from memory was one) to find other votes, considering that his target wasn’t just Georgia.

Jacinta: Must be hard on wee Donny, having to think of more than one problem state at a time. 

Canto: Apparently a new Georgia DA, Fani Willis, is looking to make a name for herself – and all power to her – by launching an investigation into the nappy-clad buffoon that United Staters, in their infinite wisdom, chose – or actually didn’t choose by some 3 million votes – as their numero 45. 

Jacinta: She’s been in the job for six weeks, and is destined to become quite the historical figure. Already the case might involve Lindsey Graham, Joker Giuliani and other trumpets trying to carry out wee Donny’s agenda. The key statute is ‘criminal solicitation to commit election fraud’, a phrase that plays in my ears like the music of the spheres.

Canto: Mmmm, sounds a bit clunky to me. ‘Conspiracy to commit treason’ sounds sweeter. 

Jacinta: Come on, he doesn’t want to betray his nation, he just wants to own it. 

Canto: True enough.

Jacinta: So this is a felony requiring at least a year in prison, and it’s surely as strong a case as can be had, and there may be more, including racketeering and conspiracy charges. But according to the NYT, Willis is a centrist who feels she has an obligation to follow the law in these matters. 

Canto: Actually she’s the Fulton County DA. How many DAs do they have in that country? 

Jacinta: One for every district presumably. That’s 94, according to the DoJ. Almost two per state, but presumably a state like Alaska would have one, and California several. But I’m looking at these districts, and Fulton County isn’t on there, and Fani Willis isn’t mentioned. Georgia apparently has three districts – northern, middle and southern – but it also has county DAs, and dog knows how many of them there are throughout the country. Anyway, Fulton County covers much of Atlanta, the state’s capital, so it’s pretty central. 

Canto: So, in this infamous phone call, wee Donny also issued threats – first, that he’d refuse to support the Georgia candidates for the Senate, who both went on to lose their elections.

Jacinta: Though I wouldn’t blame wee Donny for that – great grassroots work by the Democrats was, I prefer to think, the principal reason for Warnock’s and Ossoff’s wins. 

Canto: And secondly, Donny actually threatened Raffensperger with criminal charges if he didn’t comply with his orders. I’m reading this Slate article, which says, inter alia:

As election law expert Rick Hasen noted at the time, there is no question that Trump was asking Raffensperger to manufacture enough votes to overturn the Georgia election on the basis of paranoid delusions.

But I’d object to the term ‘paranoid delusions’. Donny’s just a manipulating windbag, it’s his only way of being. That means never ever losing, as he’s not adult enough – to put it mildly – to take it. Anyway, the Slate article lays out the law:

Any person who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person” to falsify voting records is guilty of “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree.” The crime is a felony offense, punishable by up to three years in prison (and no less than one year). An individual is culpable even if they failed to induce fraud.

Jacinta: So that seems pretty straightforward, but what with the role of money and dodgy lawyers and such, it doesn’t seem that anything to do with crime is straightforward in that country. Anyway, as mentioned, there’s a possibility that Lindsey Graham might be in trouble too, due to his ‘enquiries’ about maybe tossing out some mail-in ballots, and Joker Giuliani for promoting conspiracies about the election. 

Canto: But the Georgia republicans are making a desperate attempt to change the rules so that a ‘grand jury’ (United Staters love their ‘grand’ shite) would have to be drawn from the whole state rather than Fulton County, which is a Democrat stronghold. But they don’t have the numbers, apparently. But it’s an indication that republicans are still keen to go along with wee Donny and his government-stuffing ways to hell and back.  

Jacinta: So, lots to look forward to. We might turn our attention to the new administration’s Department of Justice next. Merrick Garland has a senate confirmation hearing on February 21, and no doubt republicans will throw dumb partisan questions at him, but he’ll be confirmed, and I don’t think he’ll be able to avoid all the corruption that clearly went on at the behest of wee Donny. 

Canto: I’ve heard he’s also going to make domestic terrorism a major focus – so look out Antifa, or something…

Jacinta: Yes, on that matter, I’m wondering if wee Donny will actually get caught up in all the charges resulting from the January 6 events, since so many seem to be now saying Donny made us do it, if it weren’t for wee Donny, etc etc. 

Canto: Oh let me count the many many ways to get wee Donny…

References

Donald Trump may be charged in Georgia court for election fraud, conspiracy (video)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/trump-raffensperger-election-fraud-criminal-charges.html

Georgia Republicans Are Trying to Change the Rules for Fani Willis’s Prosecution of Donald Trump for Election Crimes