Believing J6 Myths

Tom Jackman, Scott Clement, Emily Guskin and Spencer S. Hsu at WP:

Twenty-five percent of Americans say it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the FBI instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a false concept promoted by right-wing media and repeatedly denied by federal law enforcement, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.

The Post-UMD poll finds a smaller 11 percent of the public overall thinks there is “solid evidence” that FBI operatives organized and encouraged the attack, while 13 percent say this is their “suspicion only.”

Among Republicans, 34 percent say the FBI organized and encouraged the insurrection, compared with 30 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.

The results confirm that misinformation about Jan. 6 is widespread as the United States heads into a presidential election year, during a campaign in which the former president and leading 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support for those who participated in the insurrection. Despite a detailed congressional investigation and more than 725 completed federal prosecutions of Jan. 6 participants that did not yield evidence of FBI involvement, a substantial minority of Americans still embrace conspiracy theories not unlike the ones that drove many rioters to storm the Capitol three years ago.


“The people that went there to express their views, to support Trump, were peaceful,” said Richard Baum, 61, an independent voter from Odessa, Tex. “The government implants were the violent ones: the FBI, the police people that were put in there, the antifa and BLM hired by George Soros; everybody knows that.”

The Post-UMD poll finds 39 percent of Americans who say Fox News is their primary news source believe the FBI organized and encouraged the Jan. 6 attack, compared with 16 percent of CNN or MSNBC viewers and 13 percent who get most of their news from ABC, CBS or NBC. The poll finds 44 percent of those who voted for Trump say the FBI instigated the attack.

J6 Was an Insurrection

 The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that, under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Trump is ineligible to be on the Colorado presidential primary ballot.  

Although we acknowledge that these definitions vary and some are arguably broader than others, for purposes of deciding this case, we need not adopt a single, all-encompassing definition of the word “insurrection.” Rather, it suffices for us to conclude that any definition of “insurrection” for purposes ofSection Three would encompass a concerted and public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the U.S. government from taking the actions necessary to accomplish a peaceful transfer of power in this country. 100 The required force or threat of force need not involve bloodshed, nor must the dimensions of the effort be so substantial as to ensure probable success. In re Charge to Grand Jury, 62 F. 828, 830 (N.D. Ill. 1894). Moreover, although those involved must act in a concerted way, they need not be highly organized at the insurrection’s inception. See Home Ins. Co. of N.Y. v. Davila, 212 F.2d 731, 736 (1st Cir. 1954) (“[A]t its inception an insurrection may be a pretty loosely organized affair. . . . It may start as a sudden surprise attack upon the civil authorities of a community with incidental destruction of property by fire or pillage, even before the military forces of the constituted government have been alerted and mobilized into action to suppress the insurrection.”). 

¶185 The question thus becomes whether the evidence before the district court sufficiently established that the events of January 6 constituted a concerted and public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the U.S. government from taking the actions necessary to accomplish the peaceful transfer of power in this country. We have little difficulty concluding that substantial evidence in the record supported each of these elements and that, as the district court found, the events of January 6 constituted an insurrection. 

¶186 It is undisputed that a large group of people forcibly entered the Capitol and that this action was so formidable that the law enforcement officers onsite could not control it. Moreover, contrary to President Trump’s assertion that no evidence 101 in the record showed that the mob was armed with deadly weapons or that it attacked law enforcement officers in a manner consistent with a violent insurrection, the district court found—and millions of people saw on live television, recordings of which were introduced into evidence in this case—thatthe mob was armed with a wide array of weapons. See Anderson, ¶ 155. The court also found that many in the mob stole objects from the Capitol’s premises or from law enforcement officers to use as weapons, including metal bars from the police barricades and officers’ batons and riot shields and that throughout the day, the mob repeatedly and violently assaulted police officers who were trying to defend the Capitol. Id. at ¶¶ 156–57. The fact that actual and threatened force was usedthat day cannot reasonably be denied. 

¶187 Substantial evidence in the record further established that this use of force was concerted and public. As the district court found, with ample record support, “The mob was coordinated and demonstrated a unity of purpose . . . . They marched through the [Capitol] building chanting in a manner that made clear they were seeking to inflict violence against members of Congress and Vice President Pence.” Id. at ¶ 243. And upon breaching the Capitol, the mob immediately pursued its intended target—the certification of the presidential election—and reached the House and Senate chambers within minutes of entering the building. Id. at ¶ 153. 102 

¶188 Finally, substantial evidence in the record showed that the mob’s unified purpose was to hinder or prevent Congress from counting the electoral votes as required by the Twelfth Amendment and from certifying the 2020 presidential election; that is, to preclude Congress from taking the actions necessary to accomplish a peaceful transfer of power. As noted above, soon after breaching the Capitol, the mob reached the House and Senate chambers, where the certification process was ongoing. Id. This breach caused both the House and the Senate to adjourn, halting the electoral certification process. In addition, much of the mob’s ire—which included threats of physical violence—was directed at Vice President Pence, who, in his role as President of the Senate, was constitutionally tasked with carrying out the electoral count. Id. at ¶¶ 163, 179–80; see U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 4; id. at art. II, § 1, cl. 3. As discussed more fully below, these actions were the product of President Trump’s conduct in singling out Vice President Pence for refusing President Trump’s demand that the Vice President decline to carry out his constitutional duties. Anderson, ¶¶ 148, 170, 172–73. ¶189 In short, the record amply established that the events of January 6 constituted a concerted and public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the U.S. government from taking the actions necessary to accomplish the peaceful transfer of power in this country. Under any viable 103 definition, this constituted an insurrection, and thus we will proceed to consider whether President Trump “engaged in” this insurrection. 

Trump's Authoritarian Language

Marianne LeVine at WP

Former president Donald Trump denigrated his domestic opponents and critics during a Veterans Day speech Saturday, calling those on the other side of the aisle “vermin” and suggesting that they pose a greater threat to the United States than countries such as Russia, China or North Korea. That language is drawing rebuke from historians, who compared it to that of authoritarian leaders.

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said toward the end of his speech, repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”

Trump went on further to state: “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”

The former president’s speech in Claremont, N.H., echoed his message of vengeance and grievance, as he called himself a “very proud election denier” and decried his legal entanglements, once again attacking the judge in a New York civil trial and re-upping his attacks on special counsel Jack Smith. In the speech, Trump once again portrayed himself as a victim of a political system that is out to get him and his supporters.

Yet Trump’s use of the word “vermin” both in his speech and in a Truth Social post on Saturday drew particular backlash.

“The language is the language that dictators use to instill fear,” said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human. That’s what dictators do.”

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that “calling people 'vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.

“Trump is also using projection: note that he mentions all kinds of authoritarians ‘communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left’ to set himself up as the deliverer of freedom,” Ben-Ghiat said. “Mussolini promised freedom to his people too and then declared dictatorship.”

Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, told The Post “those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”

Support for Violence and Authoritarianism

Public Religion Research Institute:

Just under four in ten Americans (38%) agree with the statement, “Because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right,” while 59% disagree.

About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%). Majorities of Americans who most trust Fox News (53%) or far-right outlets (52%) agree that we need a leader who breaks the rules, compared with smaller shares of those who do not trust TV news (40%), or who most trust mainstream news (32%). Republicans with favorable views of former President Donald Trump are notably more likely than those with unfavorable views of Trump to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (54% vs. 32%).

...

Disturbingly, support for political violence has increased over the last two years. Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” up from 15% in 2021. PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.

One-third of Republicans (33%) today believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. Those percentages have increased since 2021, when 28% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats held this belief. Republicans who have favorable views of Trump (41%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump (16%) to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump are more than three times as likely as those who do not believe that the election was stolen from Trump — 46% to 13%, respectively — to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

The Presidential Oath and Supporting the Constitution

Asha Rangappa:

You often think that you have heard it all from Trump, or his lawyers, and then you realize you actually haven’t. A lawsuit filed in Colorado challenging Trump’s eligibility to be on the state’s presidential ballot under the Fourteenth Amendment goes to trial on October 30. The case centers around whether the events of January 6 constitute an “insurrection” for purposes of Section 3 of the amendment, which states that:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

But Trump’s lawyers are arguing that Section 3 doesn’t apply to Trump, because the presidential oath of office only required him to “protect, preserve, and defend” the Constitution, not “support” it. To quote the movie Dodgeball, it’s a bold strategy, Donnie, let’s see how this plays out.

The argument that Section 3 doesn’t apply to the president has been made before, but typically it’s focused on whether the President is an “officer” for purposes of the amendment, not the wording of the presidential oath. The lawyers who argue that he isn’t an “officer” are in the minority; most constitutional scholars agree that the President is covered by the amendment. As far as the semantic argument, it seems like an uphill battle to me to argue that “protecting,” “preserving,” and “defending” are not forms of “support.” It would be also be absurd to suggest that the President could not support the Constitution and not be in violation of his oath (or, conversely, that he has license to not support it…what?).

Milley on the Oath

Many posts have discussed oaths .

Eric Bazail-Eimil at Politico:

Gen. Mark Milley used his final speech as Joint Chiefs chair on Friday to emphasize that troops take an oath to the Constitution and not to a “wannabe dictator,” days after former President Donald Trump suggested the nation’s top officer should be put to death.

In an impassioned speech during his retirement ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va., Milley spoke of the continued bravery of American service members and underscored that the oath they take to protect the Constitution encompasses “all enemies, foreign and domestic,” emphasizing “all” and “and.”

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

“Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian and Coast Guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price,” Milley continued. “And we are not easily intimidated.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump and Truth

Why haven’t the indictments hurt?

In part it’s b/c Trump voters generally believe it's Trump who tells them the truth.
More than conservative media and their own friends & family.
Trump leads among those say it's very important a nominee is honest & trustworthy. pic.twitter.com/WwR8GWci8l

— CBS News Poll (@CBSNewsPoll) August 20, 2023

Threats of Political Violence

Many posts have discussed political violence.

Sonam Sheth at Insider:

A Texas woman was arrested last week after the Department of Homeland Security said she made death threats against the Washington, DC, judge presiding over the special counsel Jack Smith's 2020 election interference case against Trump.

Abigail Jo Shry called Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is Black, a "stupid slave," adding, "You are in our sights, we want to kill you," according to an affidavit from a DHS officer.

"If Trump doesn't get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you," Shry said in the August 5 voicemail, the DHS alleged. "So tread lightly, bitch ... You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it."

Shry told Department of Homeland Security officials that she didn't really mean she'd kill the judge, according to the affidavit — but she's still facing a federal charge that carries up to a five-year sentence.

The Houston public defender's office representing Shry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other Trump supporters online discussed targeting the grand jurors in another Trump case, according to media reports.

After Georgia prosecutors indicted Trump and 18 other co-defendants in a sprawling RICO case, far-right message boards lit up with threats of violence against the grand jurors — whose names were listed in the indictment — who voted to charge the former president.

One user wrote that the list of jurors' names was a "hit list," Media Matters reported. Another user responded, "Based. Godspeed anons, you have all the long range rifles in the world."

RICO

 James C. McKinley Jr. at NYT:

At the heart of the indictment against Mr. Trump and his allies in Georgia are racketeering charges under the state Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.

Like the federal law on which it is based, the state RICO law was originally designed to dismantle organized crime groups, but over the years it has come to be used to prosecute other crimes, from white collar Ponzi and embezzlement schemes to public corruption cases.

It’s a powerful law enforcement tool. The Georgia RICO statute allows prosecutors to bundle together what may seem to be unrelated crimes committed by a host of different people if those crimes are perceived to be in support of a common objective.

“It allows a prosecutor to go after the head of an organization, loosely defined, without having to prove that that head directly engaged in a conspiracy or any acts that violated state law,” Michael Mears, a law professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta. “If you are a prosecutor, it’s a gold mine. If you are a defense attorney, it’s a nightmare.”

Prosecutors need only show “a pattern of racketeering activity,” which means crimes that all were used to further the objectives of a corrupt enterprise. And the bar is fairly low. The Georgia courts have concluded that a pattern consists of at least two acts of racketeering activity within a four-year period in furtherance of one or more schemes that have the same or similar intent.

Section Three

  Adam Liptak at NYT:

Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.

The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”

He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”

 The Sweep and Force of Section Three

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 172, 2024
William Baude
University of Chicago - Law School
Michael Stokes Paulsen
University of St. Thomas School of Law

Date Written: August 9, 2023

Abstract

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids holding office by former office holders who then participate in insurrection or rebellion. Because of a range of misperceptions and mistaken assumptions, Section Three’s full legal consequences have not been appreciated or enforced. This article corrects those mistakes by setting forth the full sweep and force of Section Three.

First, Section Three remains an enforceable part of the Constitution, not limited to the Civil War, and not effectively repealed by nineteenth century amnesty legislation. Second, Section Three is self-executing, operating as an immediate disqualification from office, without the need for additional action by Congress. It can and should be enforced by every official, state or federal, who judges qualifications. Third, to the extent of any conflict with prior constitutional rules, Section Three repeals, supersedes, or simply satisfies them. This includes the rules against bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, the Due Process Clause, and even the free speech principles of the First Amendment. Fourth, Section Three covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support as “aid or comfort.” It covers a broad range of former offices, including the Presidency. And in particular, it disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.

Keywords: Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, Section Three, Insurrection, Rebellion

Suggested Citation: Baude, William and Paulsen, Michael Stokes, The Sweep and Force of Section Three (August 9, 2023). University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 172, 2024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=

J6 Indictment

 Special Counsel Jack Smith Delivers Statement

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

 

Washington, DC Statement as Delivered

Good evening. Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia and sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. 

The attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. 

The men and women of law enforcement who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6 are heroes. They’re patriots, and they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that define the United States. 

Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. 

In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, I must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 

I would like to thank the members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are working on this investigation with my office, as well as the many career prosecutors and law enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous January 6 investigations. These women and men are public servants at the very highest order, and it is a privilege to work alongside them. Thank you.

Racial Identity is Fluid

David Byler at WP:

Many Americans assume race is a constant: something people are born into and that — like their birth date or country of origin — simply doesn’t change.

But for a surprising number of us, race is a fluid concept. Polling data show that roughly 8 percent of adults jumped from one racial category to another in recent years. And that has important political implications for the Republican Party.

The best data on race-switching comes from panel surveys conducted by academics. These studies — such as the General Social Survey, the American National Election Studies and the Cooperative Election Study — ask a representative sample of Americans about their views and identities and then contact them again four to eight years later to track how they have changed.

...

In recent elections, some voters changed their race and their vote at the same time.

For example, 59 percent of multiracial Trump converts — that is, mixed-race voters who passed on Mitt Romney in 2012 but voted for Donald Trump in 2016 — also switched their race to White. Among multiracial voters who didn’t support Trump or Romney, only 4 percent moved into the White category.

Juliana Jiménez Jaramillo at Slate:

Ricky and Lucy were considered one of the first interracial couples on television, even though Desi Arnaz, who played Ricky on I Love Lucy, came from a white Cuban family. Despite being white, television executives opposed his casting, saying the public wouldn’t go for a “Latin” as the husband of an “All-American girl.” It was only after Lucille Ball insisted that they reluctantly agreed.

His whiteness wasn’t enough for him to go unnoticed, but it did allow him to get as far as he did in show business in 1950s America. A CBS creative consultant on the I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary Special, Alex Abella, who is Cuban-born himself, said to Hispanic magazine in 2001, “If Desi were black or had black blood, he wouldn’t have had any success or been allowed on the air. Americans could accept him because—like it or not—he was white.”

The Doomsday Book

 Miles Taylor at Vanity Fair:

Inside the White House complex, an instruction manual is hidden in a secure location for use only in national emergencies. Few people know where it is, and even fewer people are allowed to access it. Informally dubbed the “Doomsday Book,” the manual contains the president’s break-glass options for keeping the country running in situations ranging from global nuclear war to an armed foreign invasion of the United States.

The options are known by an anodyne name—PEADs—or “presidential emergency action documents.” Recently declassified records suggest that the PEADs allow the president to invoke extraordinary powers. The records hint at draft authorizations to enable the White House to unilaterally detain “dangerous persons,” censor the news media, flip an internet “kill switch,” take over social media, and suspend Americans from traveling. These might be the type of actions a president would take if the nation’s capital was destroyed, enemy forces were hunting down U.S. leaders, or the survival of U.S. democracy was in doubt.

Mark Harvey was once the keeper of the book. He served on the NSC during the Trump administration and referred to the manual as “the Mad Libs for the most extreme measures of government.” While Harvey wouldn’t confirm or deny the PEAD contents, his job was “to advise whether to pull out that book and go through these extraordinary decisions,” which he said could be implemented by the nation’s chief executive “with the stroke of a pen.” He was always on hair-trigger alert.

When Donald Trump was in office, senior aides like Harvey were concerned about protecting access to the PEAD documents. Inexperienced MAGA types roamed the White House halls daily, and NSC experts knew that, in the wrong hands, the special powers could be dangerous. Would someone suggest that Trump try to use the documents for non-emergency situations? Would they try to manufacture a crisis so that he could invoke presidential emergency actions?

Fake Trump Photos, Fake Trump Voice

If MLK were alive today, I have no doubt in my mind that he would be close friends with President Trump.

Two men who risked everything for equality. Two men who were spied on by the government.

MLK and DJT would have so much to talk about. pic.twitter.com/nIqR0LqbL5

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 18, 2023

Two of our nation’s greatest advocates for Civil Rights: MLK and DJT. pic.twitter.com/O3TxhqWXiB

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 15, 2023

Matt Novak at Forbes:

The fake images of King and Trump together were created using artificial intelligence software, though it’s not clear precisely which program was used. AI generator tools like DALL-E, Stability Diffusion and Midjourney allow anyone to create a photo-realistic image simply by using a text prompt and describing the scene they’d like to see created. Companies with large photo libraries have filed suit against various image generators this year, including a lawsuit from Getty Images against Stability AI filed in February.

Louis Jacobson and Loreben Tuquero at Poynter:

Never Back Down, a political action committee supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination, used former President Donald Trump’s own words against him in a new ad.

Candidates do that all of the time. In this case, however, the ad-makers pushed the boundaries by manipulating audio to read out loud an attack against Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in Trump’s voice.

The message spoken in the ad accurately reflects what Trump wrote on Truth Social, but he did not speak those words himself.

The ad criticized Trump for “attacking” Reynolds, a popular fellow Republican from one of the most important early states in the presidential primary calendar.

The post on Trump’s Truth Social platform said, “I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events!”

A viewer wouldn’t know that Trump didn’t say this out loud: Never Back Down took Trump’s words and used artificial intelligence to create audio of a Trump-like voice reading them.

 

Houses of Worship Are Unique in Civil Society

Jessica Grose at NYT:

I asked every sociologist I interviewed whether communities created around secular activities outside of houses of worship could give the same level of wraparound support that churches, temples and mosques are able to offer. Nearly across the board, the answer was no.

Phil Zuckerman, a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College, put it this way: “I can go play soccer on a Sunday morning and hang out with people from different races and different class backgrounds, and we can bond. But I’m not doing that with my grandparents and my grandchildren.” A soccer team can’t provide spiritual solace in the face of death, it probably doesn’t have a weekly charitable call and there’s no sense of connection to a heritage that goes back generations. You can get bits and pieces of these disparate qualities elsewhere, he said, but there’s no “one-stop shop” — at least not right now.

Jeffrey M Jones at Gallup:

U.S. church attendance has shown a small but noticeable decline compared with what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the four years before the pandemic, 2016 through 2019, an average of 34% of U.S. adults said they had attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the past seven days. From 2020 to the present, the average has been 30%, including a 31% reading in a May 1-24 survey.

The recent church attendance levels are about 10 percentage points lower than what Gallup measured in 2012 and most prior years.

David French at NYT:

Evangelicals are a particularly illustrative case. About half of self-identified evangelicals now attend church monthly or less often. They have religious zeal, but they lack religious community. So they find their band of brothers and sisters in the Trump movement. Even among actual churchgoing evangelicals, political alignment is often so important that it’s hard to feel a true sense of belonging unless you’re ideologically united with the people in the pews around you.

Zelensky and American Exceptionalism

 Volodymyr Zelensky at WSJ:

A decade ago the current boss of Russia wrote that “America is not exceptional.” What he did later shows what he really meant. Many tyrants in human history have claimed global influence, but none of them could inspire the rest of the world to strive for the best in human nature. That’s why today’s Russian tyrants, like all tyrants, are fundamentally weak and their regime will crumble over time. When any tyrant hates America and denies its exceptional role in the struggle for freedom, he recognizes his own inevitable defeat. To Russian tyranny I say the world needs more, not less, American exceptionalism.

In 2013, Trump sided with Putin:

And it really makes him look like a great leader, frankly. And when he criticizes the president [Obama]  for using the term "American exceptionalism," if you're in Russia, you don't want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you're in many other countries, whether it's Germany or other places, you don't want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you're exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that's basically what Putin was saying is that, you know, you use a term like "American exceptionalism," and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it's sort of a hard term to use.

 But other nations and other countries don't want hear about American exceptionalism. They're insulted by it. And that's what Putin was saying.

Special Access Programs

Former CIA chief of staff Larry Pfeiffer at The Bulwark:

According to the indictment against Trump, eight of the TOP SECRET documents may have had information about or derived from so-called Special Access Programs (SAPs). The sensitivity of these documents was so great that prosecutors were obliged to redact even the codewords on the documents. The implication is that even publicly acknowledging the codenames of these projects, without discussing their operations at all, was deemed a great security risk.

...

SAPs have three protection levels—acknowledged, unacknowledged, and waived. Acknowledged SAPs are ones whose existence is openly recognized and whose purpose may be identified publicly. Details of acknowledged SAPs remain classified and access protected by designated codewords. Presidential travel activities are often cited as examples—everyone knows the president travels, and often it’s public long in advance that the president will be in a certain place at a certain time: a U.N. meeting, a party convention, a State of the Union address, etc. What’s secret are the details of how the president will get to and from the events and how the Secret Service will protect him. Funding for acknowledged SAPs is generally unclassified.

Unacknowledged SAPs are those whose existence and purpose require greater protection. All information is classified, and funding is classified, unacknowledged, and not directly linked to the program. Under extremely limited circumstances, the normal reporting requirements of an unacknowledged SAP can be “waived” by the Secretary of Defense. Congressional oversight in those cases would be limited to oral notifications to the chair, ranking members, and staff directors of the respective appropriations and armed services committees.

To recap, of the 31 documents former President Trump is being charged with inappropriately storing at his resort hotel, eight may have contained information about or derived from our government’s most sensitive activities. In the wrong hands, the exposure of that information could risk the lives of U.S. and allied military and intelligence personnel, and foreign intelligence sources and their families—not to mention American civilians.

Jack Smith Statement

Special Counsel Jack Smith Delivers Statement
Washington, DC ~
Friday, June 9, 2023

Good afternoon. Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.

The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.

Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. And our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws. Collecting facts. That’s what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The prosecutors in my office are among the most talented and experienced in the Department of Justice. They have investigated this case hewing to the highest ethical standards. And they will continue to do so as this case proceeds.

It’s very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter. Consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida.

In conclusion. I would like to thank the dedicated public servants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom my office is conducting this investigation and who worked tirelessly every day upholding the rule of law in our country. I’m deeply proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Thank you very much.

Indictment of a Former President

 Trump is under indictment.  Austin Sarat:

The Constitution’s authors contemplated the arrest of a current or former president. At several points since the nation’s founding, our leaders have been called before the bar of justice.

Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution says that when a federal government official is impeached and removed from office, they “shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”Tench Coxe Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

In his 1788 defense of this constitutional provision, Alexander Hamilton noted that, unlike the British king, for whom “there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution,” a president once removed from office would “be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Trump has been impeached twice but not removed from office.

As a scholar with expertise in legal history and criminal law, I believe the punishment our nation’s founders envisioned for government leaders removed from office would also apply to those who left office in other ways.

Tench Coxe, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress from 1788 to 1789, echoed Hamilton. He explained that while the Constitution’s speech or debate clause permanently immunized members of Congress from liability for anything they might do or say as part of their official duties, the president “is not so much protected as that of a member of the House of Representatives, for he may be proceeded against like any other man in the ordinary course of law.”

In Coxe’s view, even a sitting president could be arrested, tried and punished for violating the law. Though Coxe didn’t say it explicitly, I’d argue that it follows that if presidents can be charged with a crime while in office, once out of office, they can be held responsible like anyone else.

The Trump Divide Among Conservative Profs

David L. Swartz has an article at Theory and Society titled "Trump divide among American conservative professors."  The abstract:

There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and right-wing movements in Europe. Yet, little research has been devoted to divisions among conservatives themselves, especially among conservative academics. Although Trump has maintained remarkable unity within the Republican Party for electoral reasons, he has fostered sharp divisions among conservative intellectuals and academicians. This article compares 102 politically conservative professors who are Trumpists and 80 conservative professors who are anti-Trumpists. All 182 function as public intellectuals who advocate their views in print and digital media. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and particularly Pierre Bourdieu’s analytical field perspective, this article proposes a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key issues surrounding the Trump presidency. The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative academic critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect positions in the academic field to affiliations with think tanks, government agencies, and professional associations in the field of power that reinforce their respective political identities. This research contributes to political sociology, the sociology of intellectuals, and the sociology of conservative politics in American higher education.