When is a legal strategy an illegal strategy?
Answer: when the president of the United States who just lost his election in a perfectly legitimate contest tries to engage federal employees in a plot to overturn said election with a pretext based on claims of fraud that were, themselves, completely fraudulent.
Look, I never said that the riddle was going to be funny, but it kind of is. Buried in the link is one of Trump's current lawyers, Doug Collins, late of Congress, claiming he will do law stuff at people very hard if they overstep in their inquiry into Trump's soliciting of election campaign advice from federal employees due to "privilege". He doesn't cite what flavor of privilege this is supposed to be, but, like, I don't think it should be executive privilege if he's asking them to violate the Hatch Act and since DOJ lawyers aren't his personal attorneys I don't think bog standard attorney/client privilege applies, especially since Trump seems to have been aware that he lost legitimately and claims of fraud were actually just a pretext for engaging in electoral fuckery post facto. So--the fraud claims themselves were a fraud.
I hate to play lawyer on the blog, but that can't possibly be kosher, right? Anyhow, it looks here like Rosen did his best to cover his bases regarding what information he could provide by conferring with the DOJ IG and ultimately told his story before Trump lawyers could enjoin him not to. Which somewhat implies everyone here knew that these revelations are kind of a big freaking deal.
In another big freaking deal, former US Attorney Byung Pak also gave testimony that he resigned ahead of being fired due to not promoting the Big Lie. What's fascinating is, Mr. Pak's successor in that office didn't find claims of massive election fraud to be substantiated either.
Why, it's just like there was nothing to it! It's just like it was a manufactured grievance by a sore loser desperate to cling to the protections of an office he was neither especially gifted to fill and whose duties he was not particularly apt to fulfill.
But speaking of "nothing to it"--some of the biggest promoters of the election-fraud nothingburger are in a whole heap of trouble, as a judge has denied the attempt to dismiss Dominion's defamation lawsuit against them: your Sidney Powell, who claimed no reasonable person would believe her claims of fraud (so why bring the case, sweetheart?) , your Rudolph Giuliani (who believes that any lie is fair in an election year or if you are paid enough to tell it) and Mike Lindell, who may actually be fool enough to believe the election fraud hype he paid for.
Speaking of which, just as this unfavorable judgment about Lindell's civil liability came down, he was smack in the middle of a three-day Dominion defamation fest, which really does make his defense that much harder, especially since the upshot seems to be, why no, the packets of data he has are also kind of hoaxy and don't prove shit. And like, his special guest stars like Ron Watkins (Q if you're nasty) and Tina Peters are basically proofs that stupid people are stupid, not that fraud has actually taken place.
And notwithstanding that all this flurry of dumbassedness is so dumbass, in the real world, our election security is hurting because of idiot lies and criminal lack of concern for human life. Trump, who pretended he was like the second coming of Lincoln, never understood what a country of, for, and by the People meant, and election workers, whistleblowers, even law enforcement on the wrong side of him, are just targets for his wrath, and violence from his little fan club.
There is nothing to Trump's lies but his criminal disregard for good old truth, justice and the American way. Who should even lie for that, let alone die for that? Look at him, really. What is there to him worth the snuffing of our American experiment?
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