The Legal Coup: How Lawyers Designed Plan for Trump to Stay In Power

[robosmith]

The Legal Coup: How Lawyers Designed Plan for Trump to Stay In Power

Quote

A trove of documents reveals that Donald Trump’s plans to overturn the election went even further than previously known, imagining a Jan. 6 that lasted for not hours but days, an intervention by Supreme Court justices that they presumed to be loyal to President Trump, and a vice president who upended his constitutional duties, allowing the U.S. to descend into chaos.

The trove provides a definitive account of how a small group of attorneys, dedicated to Trump, designed and tried to implement the portion of the coup attempt which unfolded via legal arguments. They burnished the former president’s efforts with a veneer of respectability that at times masked their radicalism: This portion of the effort to reverse Trump’s loss did not proceed via loud claims of voter fraud or through Sidney Powell’s promise of a “Kraken” lawsuit that would wipe her enemies away, nor did it move forward through the actions of mobs and street thugs primed to seize the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Rather, the attorneys involved all had extensive experience in the practice of law. Chesebro is a Harvard Law graduate who spent much of his early career working on appellate cases with liberal commentator and Harvard Law professor Larry Tribe. John Eastman was a longtime conservative movement attorney who had been dean of Chapman University Law School. Others, like Pennsylvania attorney Bruce Marks, had built careers out of an extensive civil practice.  

....

While much of Trump’s effort to reverse his loss unfolded in full public view, with Trump publicly announcing his plans and threatening Pence and others to cooperate, the Chesebro documents offer a look at the portion of the coup attempt which proceeded behind closed doors: how elements of the legal strategy were devised, including both the longshot bids to throw an elephant-sized wrench in the gears of Congress and more mundane but telling examples of how the Trump campaign chose which lawsuits to bring before the Supreme Court. That includes calculations from Eastman about how many states needed to have their results contested in order for the Supreme Court to be able to overcome Trump’s electoral vote gap. 

In late 2022, TPM brought you The Meadows Texts: a definitive, comprehensive look at how the White House chief of staff coordinated the scheme to subvert the 2020 election. Now, with the Chesebro documents, we have a view into how one of the main legal architects of the coup advocated for his ideas — which were far more successful than anyone could have predicted, and included discussions of unrealized, theoretical possibilities that were far more radical than we knew. It’s the anatomy of a legal coup, but also something else: an attempt to twist the law in order to instigate a constitutional crisis.

Should be noted that ^this was only ONE of SEVERAL PLANS to OVERTURN THE ELECTION. Another proposed by Eastman was to force a contingent election by Pence discarding legitimate EC ballots, which obviously failed when Pence refused to cooperate.

 

[Hodad]

I'm terrified and appalled by how many Republican voters are ignorant of these traitorous schemes and still want Trump to be president again.

I'm FAR MORE terrified and appalled by how many Republican voters are aware of these traitorous schemes, and STILL want Trump to be president again. These are the people willing to end the American experiment in services of this deplorable human being. 

[Fluffypants]

Wait so his lawyers were trying to pursue legal channels in order to overturn the election? Huh?

So now we are learning thinking an election is illegitimate is now a crime and pursuing legal ways of overturning it is, is somehow bad.

So when Al Gore tried to overturn the election that was an attempted coup then right?

Also when all those people rioted when Trump was elected than that was a insurrection?

But forcefully taking over multiple city blocks and proclaiming it no longer part of the US was ok?

I am trying to figure out what is a coup and what isn't.

[Caswell Thomas]

2 hours ago, Fluffypants said:

Wait so his lawyers were trying to pursue legal channels in order to overturn the election? Huh?

So now we are learning thinking an election is illegitimate is now a crime and pursuing legal ways of overturning it is, is somehow bad.

So when Al Gore tried to overturn the election that was an attempted coup then right?

Also when all those people rioted when Trump was elected than that was a insurrection?

But forcefully taking over multiple city blocks and proclaiming it no longer part of the US was ok?

I am trying to figure out what is a coup and what isn't.

Try to keep up.  Read the Court Dockets on which case you are interested in.  Then, for background on Trump...read his past illicit behavior list starting in 1993 particularly his insistence on hanging out with certain other don's. Then read about him and his former Taj Mahal casino, and about his run ins with the Scottish Supreme Court, the Scottish police, the Italian, French, Austrian, Spanish Guard Civil and the Swiss Counterintelligence.  

[robosmith]

2 hours ago, Fluffypants said:

Wait so his lawyers were trying to pursue legal channels in order to overturn the election? Huh?

Read the entire article. The legal theories they were pursuing were completely novel. AKA, not legitimate.

2 hours ago, Fluffypants said:

I am trying to figure out what is a coup and what isn't.

Obstructing the EC vote certification is an attempted coup and ILLEGAL.

[godzilla]

7 hours ago, robosmith said:

The Legal Coup: How Lawyers Designed Plan for Trump to Stay In Power

Should be noted that ^this was only ONE of SEVERAL PLANS to OVERTURN THE ELECTION. Another proposed by Eastman was to force a contingent election by Pence discarding legitimate EC ballots, which obviously failed when Pence refused to cooperate.

 

NICE CATCH! not sure how i missed this... the CNN news story cited in the article is even better!

Exclusive: Recordings describe 2020 Oval Office photo-op where Trump was briefed on fake electors and January 6

so fun listening to the tonnes of actual audio of Chesebro SINGING LIKE A CANNERY to the Michigan AG!

Edited February 16, 2024 by godzilla

[godzilla]

3 hours ago, Fluffypants said:

Wait so his lawyers were trying to pursue legal channels in order to overturn the election? Huh?

So now we are learning thinking an election is illegitimate is now a crime and pursuing legal ways of overturning it is, is somehow bad.

So when Al Gore tried to overturn the election that was an attempted coup then right?

Also when all those people rioted when Trump was elected than that was a insurrection?

But forcefully taking over multiple city blocks and proclaiming it no longer part of the US was ok?

I am trying to figure out what is a coup and what isn't.

yeah, read the article. the fake electors were indeed... fake. false documents were drafted and sent to the Senate in a conspiracy to prevent the transfer of power.

legal avenues to protest the outcome of the election exist, were pursued by the Trump campaign, and failed.

 

[eyeball]

18 hours ago, Fluffypants said:

So now we are learning thinking an election is illegitimate is now a crime and pursuing legal ways of overturning it is, is somehow bad.

No. What we're witness to is what happens when people turn thought into belief and belief into action, with even less thought.

What makes bad so worse is that it's so stupid.

[robosmith]

7 minutes ago, eyeball said:

No. What we're witness to is what happens when people turn thought into belief and belief into action, with even less thought.

What makes bad so worse is that it's so stupid.

You gotta admit, they certainly had a LOT of contingency plans. Probably cause they knew every one of them was stupid and unlikely to work.

[eyeball]

12 minutes ago, robosmith said:

You gotta admit, they certainly had a LOT of contingency plans. Probably cause they knew every one of them was stupid and unlikely to work.

Yep, they still somehow managed to overthink what little thought they did put into it. That's some kind of stupid.

This clip in the movie Brazil comes to mind.