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Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed former president Donald Trump is "the one person that looks good" after the first January 6 committee hearing on Thursday.

Hannity, a longtime Trump ally, sought to frame the riot as a security failure for which Congress was responsible.

"This is now about a security failure of incredible magnitude and they don't even seem to want to talk about it. The one person that looks good is Donald Trump," he said.

Hannity repeated a widely debunked claim that Trump had called for up to 20,000 National Guard troops to secure the Capitol before the insurrection.

The myth originates in a claim previously made by Trump that he asked for 10,000 National Guard troops to be at the Capitol, which he claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected.

Pelosi's spokesperson has said that her office did not receive any requests for the National Guard ahead of January 6, per PolitiFact.

Hannity and other Fox News hosts have since apparently inflated the number of troops that Trump allegedly requested to 20,000, without any evidence, according to Media Matters.

During Thursday's hearing, lawmakers said that Trump took no action on January 6 to deploy law enforcement to protect the Capitol.

"Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended," Rep. Liz Cheney said.

Fox News' prime-time shows chose not to air the hearing on Thursday, even as text messages between Hannity and former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany were read out as evidence.

In the texts, Hannity advises McEnany that there should be "no more stolen election talk" and "no more crazy people."

The January 6 committee previously released panicked text messages from Hannity to Trump's inner circle before, during, and after the Capitol riot.

In the texts, Hannity expressed concern about Trump's actions and urged Trump's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows. to get him to make a statement asking the rioters to leave peacefully.

Despite his apparent private concern, Hannity has maintained support for Trump on the airwaves and has sought to downplay his role in the Capitol riot.

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Fox News' Sean Hannity: Donald Trump 'Looks Good' After Jan. 6 Hearing

The primary in Nevada is another reminder of the unusually high stakes in this years campaigns for election administration positions longtime political backwaters that have gotten little attention in the past. But followers of former President Donald Trump and his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him have poured into secretary of state races in 2022, especially in the battleground states that will play a key role in deciding the next presidential contest.

Election integrity proponents were relieved when Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who stood up against Trumps demands to find more votes, survived a reelection challenge last month from a Trump-backed challenger.

But secretary of state contests still to come demonstrate that the Trump movements drive to control election offices is far from over.

In Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, Trump-backed Doug Mastriano won the GOP primary last month. Trump has endorsed secretary of state contenders in other battlegrounds, Arizona and Michigan, as well. And a number of candidates like Marchant are not endorsed by Trump but they have adopted and amplified Trumps false claims about the 2020 election.

If we get just a few of the candidates that we have in our coalition, we save our country, Marchant told Bannon on a podcast earlier this month. Marchant did not respond to an interview request.

Despite his alignment with Trump, who has not endorsed in the Nevada primary but commands broad support in the GOP, Marchant is hardly a lock for Republicans secretary of state nomination on Tuesday.

Public polling has been sparse in this race, but a survey from The Nevada Independent/OH Predictive Insights published on Friday had Marchant deadlocked with developer Jesse Haw at 21 percent each. A plurality of GOP voters, 36 percent, were unsure, with other candidates or none of these combining for another 22 percent.

Haw, who briefly served in the state Senate, has flooded the race with his own cash. As of March 31, the last campaign finance report due, he raised more than $660,000 including more than $450,000 of his own money. That well outpaced the $43,000 that Marchant reported bringing in during the same time period.

Between the two, its kind of a bit of a tossup, said Mike Noble, the chief of research at OH Predictive Insights, noting the high number of undecided voters.

Haw has spent nearly $460,000 on television ads in the contest, according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Haws ads promote voter ID and say he will make ballot harvesting the practice of a third party collecting and returning voters mail ballots a felony. The spending is nearly double what Marchant and the PAC arm of his coalition Conservatives for Election Integrity have put on the airwaves.

And Haw has also gotten a major assist from a mysterious group called Americans for Secure Elections. That organization has pumped more than $1.7 million into TV ads either boosting Haw or attacking Marchant since the beginning of May, according to AdImpact.

Little is known about Americans for Secure Elections money or motives. In federal disclosures, the group reported receiving $1.15 million from a trio of dark money groups in March, but there is no indication where the funds came from originally. People listed as contacts for the group on state and federal campaign finance documents did not answer requests for comment.

Americans for Secure Elections had previously spent money in Ohios primary to boost Secretary of State Frank LaRose who has defended the 2020 election as fair in the past and easily defeated a challenger who said the election was stolen. (LaRose, however, shifted how he talked about voter fraud outside of Ohio, as he got Trumps endorsement for reelection.)

Haw, who also did not respond to an interview request, said in an email to The Nevada Independent that he too believed that the 2020 election had a lot of shenanigans and potential fraud. Nevertheless, Marchant has sought to cast himself as the true MAGA option in the Republican primary. Looking pretty good in the primary, but I just need to keep working hard and keep up with my cabal Republican establishment opponent who is spending double what I am spending, Marchant told Bannon recently.

Marchant, Haw and others are competing to succeed Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who was term-limited. Cegavske defended the security of the 2020 election in Nevada, earning a censure from the state Republican Party.

Democrats will nominate Cisco Aguilar, an attorney and former staffer for the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is unopposed in his primary.

Heading into Marchants primary election on Tuesday, his America First Secretary of State Coalition has had a mixed record in primaries. The coalitions biggest victory so far was in Pennsylvania, where Mastriano, a state senator, won the GOP gubernatorial nomination. If he wins the governorship, Mastriano would be able to appoint Pennsylvanias secretary of state.

Mastriano is among the most prominent election deniers in the country, and has highlighted the role his pick to run Pennsylvania elections could play in the future.

I get to appoint the secretary of state, whos delegated from me the power to make the corrections to elections, the voting logs and everything, Mastriano said on a local station in March, according to audio clipped by a Democratic opposition research group. I could decertify every machine in the state with the stroke of a pen.

Mastriano has also repeatedly said he has someone in mind for that role should he win in November, but he has not yet publicly named that person.

Mastrianos campaign did not return a request for comment.

Other successes for the group include Kristina Karamo, the Trump-endorsed secretary candidate in Michigan who effectively won the GOP nomination there in April, and Audrey Trujillo, who ran unopposed in last weeks New Mexico Republican secretary of state primary.

But the coalitions candidates have also lost in a handful of primaries so far including in Nebraska, Idaho and, most notably, Georgia, where Raffensperger defeated the Trump-backed Rep. Jody Hice in a primary.

Later this year, another prominent coalition member facing a GOP primary for secretary of state is Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem.

The Trump-endorsed Finchem is running for the open secretary of state office there, after whipping up support by pushing the much-maligned election review in Maricopa County and urging the decertification of the 2020 election, among other conspiracy theories. Finchem has been much more successful at fundraising than Marchant.

Another prominent candidate is Mesa County, Colo., Clerk Tina Peters, who is looking to challenge Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Peters has been indicted for her role in allegedly facilitating unauthorized access to election equipment, and she has been barred from overseeing this years elections in her county.

While the statewide chief election officer positions have drawn the most headlines, Marchant and his alliance have also turned their attention to county-level administrators as well races that garner even less attention than the under-the-radar secretary contests.

I have been recruiting clerks and registrars out here also, Marchant told Bannon on an April show. And Ive encouraged all of our candidates in our coalition to do the same thing.

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Trump backers unbowed in push to overtake state election offices - POLITICO

House Jan. 6 committee says there was no Trump election defense fund even though the campaign fundraised off of it

A screen displays statistics on former President Trump's fraud claims cases for the 2020 election during a hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said it discovered that former President Donald Trump's election defense fund never existed.

"The select committee discovered no such fund existed," said Amanda Wick, a member of the committee's senior investigative counsel looking into the insurrection.

The new video evidence presented to the public during the hearing showed two former Trump campaign staffers disputing during testimony that the fund ever existed.

"I don't believe there is a fund called the Election Defense Fund," Hanna Allred, identified by the committee as a former Trump campaign staffer, said in a recorded statement. Gary Coby, a former Trump campaign digital director, told the committee that the defense fund was part of a marketing tactic.

The Trump campaign was regularly trying to raise money after the former president lost the Nov. 2020 election, encouraging donors to give to what fundraising pitches called the "official election defense fund." The committee discovered that the Trump campaign and its allies raised nearly $100 million in the first week after the election.

Brian Schwartz

Former Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt, testifies during a hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt told the select committee that threats against him became "much more graphic" and began to include details about his family after then-President Donald Trump criticized him in a tweet.

Schmidt, a Republican official in charge of overseeing the 2020 election in Philadelphia, had pushed back on some of Trump's fraud claims in a "60 Minutes" interview days after the election.

Trump responded in a tweet: "A guy named Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia Commissioner and so-called Republican (RINO), is being used big time by the Fake News Media to explain how honest things were with respect to the Election in Philadelphia. He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty. We win!"

Schmidt said that he had already received threats as part of his job. But after Trump called him out by name, "the threats became much more specific, much more graphic and included not just me by name, but included members of my family by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home, just every bit of detail that you can imagine," Schmidt told the select committee.

"That is what changed with that tweet," he said.

Kevin Breuninger

Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr is seen on video during his deposition for the public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Former Attorney General William Barr repeatedly, and colorfully, dismissed the wide array of voter-fraud conspiracies being floated by Trump and some of his allies after his 2020 election loss, video from his interviews with the committee shows.

Barr ripped some of those conspiracy theories as "bulls---," "nonsense," "idiotic" and "crazy stuff," and said he told Trump to his face after the election that that the claims are "not panning out." He ran the Department of Justice from Feb. 14, 2019 to Dec. 23, 2020,

The panel played a clip of Barr recounting an Oval Office meeting a few weeks after the Nov. 3, 2020, election, in which he had to tell Trump that the DOJ "is not an extension of your legal team" and can't be used to "take sides in elections" by investigating fraud claims.

"We'll look at something if it's specific, credible, and could have affected the outcome of the election, and we're doing that and it's just not meritorious, they're not panning out," he said.

After seeing Trump spread those claims on Fox News, Barr on Dec. 1, 2020, told an Associated Press reporter that the DOJ has not seen fraud on scale that could affected outcome of election. When he next met with Trump, Barr said he thought he was going to be fired, telling the committee, "the president was as mad as I've ever seen him." The then-president accused him of making the statement "because you hate Trump."

Elsewhere, Barr recalled, "I told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public was bulls---. I mean, that the claims of fraud were bulls---. And he was indignant about that."

"I reiterated that they'd wasted a whole month on these claims on these Dominion voting machines, and they were idiotic claims." Barr said he found those claims, that Dominion voting machines were rigged to flip votes to Joe Biden, were "disturbing" in that "I saw absolutely zero basis" for them.

"But they were made in such a sensational way that they were obviously influencing a lot of members of the public," even though they were "complete nonsense," Barr said.

"I told him that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that and it was doing a grave disservice to the country," Barr said.

Kevin Breuninger

Video from an interview with former President Trump campaign manager William Stepien (L), and his attorney Kevin Marino, is played during a hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Former Trump campaign chief Bill Stepien told the committee that he and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., met with Trump to convince him that mail-in ballots weren't at a high risk of fraud as the former commander-in-chief discouraged voters from using them.

"We made our case for why we believed mail-in balloting, mail-in voting, not to be a bad thing for his campaign but, you know, the president's mind was made up," Stepien said in new testimony presented at the hearing.

The meeting with Trump took place in the summer of 2020 as the president publicly ripped the idea of mail-in ballots being used to vote during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters," Trump said at a White House briefing that year.

Brian Schwartz

Former Trump campaign Lawyer Rudy Giuliani, is displayed on a screen during a hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was "definitely intoxicated" on Election Night 2020 when he said at the White House that then-President Donald Trump should simply declare victory over Joe Biden, ex-Trump campaign aide Jason Miller said.

Miller said that he noticed Giuliani was inebriated when he and other officials, including former campaign manager Bill Stepien and then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, gathered at the White House to listen to what Giuliani wanted to tell Trump to say.

"The mayor was definitely intoxicated, but I did not know his level of intoxication when he spoke with the president, for example," Miller said as part of an interview with the select committee, clips of which were played in the hearing.

"There were suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we'd won it outright," Miller said. He said he recalled saying at the time that Trump shouldn't declare victory until the numbers were more clear.

Giuliani was effectively saying, "'We won it, they're stealing it from us, where'd all the votes come from, we need to go say that we won,' and essentially anyone who didn't agree with that position was being weak," Miller told the investigators.

In a separate interview, Stepien told the committee it was "far too early" to make any such pronouncement.

Trump, in the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, falsely claimed, "frankly, we did win this election."

Kevin Breuninger

U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) speaks during the second public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, at Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S. June 13, 2022.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif, a member of the January 6th House Select Committee, says they plan to show how the Trump campaign ripped off their supporters by convincing them to contribute to their legal fight against the 2020 election results.

Lofgren says donors were deceived and much of those contributions weren't actually used in the eventual legal fight.

"We'll also show how that the Trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts," Lofgren said. "But the Trump campaign didn't use the money for that. The big lie was also a big ripoff."

Brian Schwartz

The select committee will explain how Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, but instead of conceding, he "decided to wage an attack on our democracy," Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said at the start of the hearing.

"The numbers don't lie," Thompson said of election outcomes. If those don't add up, you can go to court and "that's the end of the line," he said.

Trump "didn't have the numbers. He went to court. He still didn't have the numbers. He lost," Thompson said.

In Tuesday's hearing, "we'll tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election" and "knew he lost," but decided to wage an attack on our democracy," the chairman said.

Kevin Breuninger

Video from an interview with former President Trump campaign manager William Stepien (L), and his attorney Kevin Marino, is played during a hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Former Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien's wife went into labor Monday morning, keeping him from testifying under subpoena before the Jan. 6 select committee in its second public hearing, NBC News reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

The panel announced the scheduling shake-up less than an hour before the hearing was initially slated to begin. The news delayed the scheduled 10 a.m. ET start of the hearing by 30 to 45 minutes.

The panel intends instead to play video of Stepien's taped deposition, sources told NBC.

Kevin Breuninger

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Trump's former Attorney General Barr repeatedly dismisses claims of voter fraud as 'nonsense' to House investigators - CNBC

The House Democrats prime-time partisan program last week and the continuing hearings on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have two aims. One is to get midterm voters to think about something other than wallet-busting inflation, surging violent crime, the baby-formula shortage and the wide open southern border.

No sooner had Thursdays show ended than that goal grew even more elusive. Fridays historic inflation numbers mean voters pain at the pump and supermarket will continue, and led to another big drop on Wall Street as pessimism over the economy deepens.

The other aim of the hearings is to put a target on Donald Trumps back. He is Speaker Nancy Pelosis white whale and she would like nothing more than to lock him up to humiliate him and make sure he doesnt run again in 2024.

Coming more than 500 days after the appalling attack on the Capitol, the bid to paint Trump as the mastermind of an attempted coup fell far short of convincing despite the fact that Pelosi devised a one-sided presentation. And with this being the only prime-time hearing scheduled before the committees September report, it is unlikely she would hold back any bombshell evidence of Trumps guilt.

Certainly Trump doesnt think hes in danger.

I cant imagine I would be prosecuted, he told me Friday. I did absolutely nothing wrong. We have free speech.

He may not have committed a crime, but there is plenty wrong with what Trump said and did. The long list begins with his too-hot speech that January morning, his public and private demands that then-Vice President Mike Pence overturn the election and his delay in telling his rampaging supporters to leave the Capitol.

Still, charging him criminally based on what we know would be a giant leap even for Attorney General Merrick Garlands politicized Justice Department.

Trump also expressed the same disdain for Pelosi she has for him.

These are the same people who created the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, the Mueller investigation and the Ukraine hoax, he said. Its a disgrace and they cant run the country. Look at it. Its going to hell.

I had contacted the former president by phone after I learned Trump told an associate he was definitely running in 2024. Similar reports have surfaced in the past, and this one met the same fate: He wouldnt confirm or deny he made the comment.

Well, something has to be done but I havent announced anything, he said. But in my mind, Ive made a decision.

Its a near-lock he is running but he sees no advantage in saying so now. It would mean complying with federal rules on reporting fund-raising and expenditures and would stretch the campaign to an unbearable length.

It could also change the midterm dynamics. As it stands, a red wave is forming and there is little upside credit available to Trump. On the other hand, if he announces early and the wave fizzles, he would be blamed.

The last time I interviewed Trump was on Presidents Day at Mar-a-Lago. My main focus was on his continued claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which I see as a dead end.

Its backward looking and is likely to turn off moderate Republicans and independents who might otherwise be attracted to Trumps policies, which were certainly superior to Bidens.

I had asked then if he regarded agreement with him on the stolen election as a litmus test for supporters, including candidates he endorses. He insisted the answer was no and claimed he talks about the last election mostly because its the most important thing for some supporters.

I reminded him of that exchange and this time he didnt cite his supporters as an excuse for why he talks about it so often, saying a lot of things have come out since then that are as hot as a pistol. He was referring to some state audits and presumably the movie by Dinesh DSouza called 2000 Mules, both of which try to prove his claims but have not made serious inroads among unpersuaded voters.

Using the stolen theme also serves as a smokescreen for Trump to escape any second-guessing about his term or the way he campaigned for reelection. By his way of thinking, if he actually won the 2020 election, why should he admit any errors?

Another reason why the backward focus is misguided is that, even if Trump wins in 2024, there is nothing he can do about the past. Joe Bidens victory cant be undone, so whats the point beyond a rallying cry?

Friday, for the first time, he tied his stolen claim to forward-looking congressional action, albeit an impractical one. As he puts it, What you need to have for secure elections is all paper ballots, same-day voting only, an identification requirement and absentee voting only for military stationed out of the country and for people who are truly sick and cant get to the polls.

He believes mail-in ballots are ripe for fraud and would ban them other than for a limited absentee program.

The chances of such legislation passing Congress are zero, and I told him he sounded like he wanted to federalize election rules and override state control, which was a main objection the GOP raised against Bidens national election bill.

Called the John Lewis Voting Rights Act after the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader, the measure would have made permanent many of the lax ballot-security changes states and leftist activists made in 2020 because of the pandemic. Thankfully, even with Biden making shameful racial accusations, the Lewis bill stalled in the Senate.

Trumps response to that history was to say that Republicans should do something about voting laws, and added that you need to have secure, honest elections and strong borders or you dont have a country.

Thats certainly true, but its also true that Trump gives the impression hes stuck in the past and needs a fresh message. Although he is clearly still a huge power within the GOP, his old feuds and grievances already sound stale and by 2024, they are not likely to inspire the hope and confidence America desperately needs.

Reader Joe Alloy points out the two faces of Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Dem. He writes: Murphy is leading the talks on gun control but in the midst of the George Floyd riots of 2020, he and Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation that would have removed approximately 10,000 armed police from schools.

Headline: Dems say no to Biden in 24.

Finally, a united nation!

Tom Schultz wants equal time, but isnt holding his breath. He writes: I cant wait for the Hunter Biden hearings to be nationally televised by all major outlets and directed by a Hollywood- type.

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Donald Trump needs a new tune -- it's time to move on from old grievances - New York Post

A wag once said the best thing about living at the Jersey Shore is that youre so close to New York City you feel like you never need to go there.

I agree. We get our fill of the New York experience from the New Yorkers who come here.

Donald Trump for example.

Long before he went to Washington, The Donald went to Atlantic City.

There, he ripped off and shortchanged virtually everyone he did business with.

Back when Trump first flirted with a White House run in 2011, I interviewed some of the locals. They knew what to expect when The Donald moved his hustle from A.C. to D.C.

Everybody down here is rooting for him, one said. They figure hell screw the Chinese the way he screwed us. Hell probably screw some Arabs, too.

That was Seth Grossman, a lawyer who heads a conservative group called Liberty and prosperity.

Grossman liked most of what Trump did while in office. But as a strict constructionist of the Constitution, he opposed the stunt Trump tried to pull on Jan. 6 .

Any American who calls him or herself a conservative must understand and respect our Constitution, Grossman said in a post at the time. Vice-President Pence did what the Twelfth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution required him to do.

What it required him to do was count the votes, not certify them. The certification was done by the states a month earlier.

Trump couldnt change that. All he could do is give the Democrats a talking point theyll be milking for decades to come.

I keep saying Trump walked into every trap the Democrats set for him, Grossman said when I called him last week. People say he exposed those traps. Well if a soldier steps on every land mine the enemy puts out for him, hes exposing the land mines.

Which is what Trump did. Till The Donalds Jan. 6 debacle, it was the opposition that was responsible for those riots in places like Portland.

But when it comes to rioting, nothing tops the video of that mob carrying Trump banners as they knocked that policewoman unconscious while storming the Capitol. That Hang Mike Pence chant will be hard to top as well.

And theres plenty more where that came from. The Democrats will be releasing it piece by piece over the coming weeks.

They certainly dont have much else to talk about as we go into the November elections. Inflation? Gas prices? Immigration?

Trump gave them the gift that keeps on giving.

But he screwed his own followers. Trump couldnt have picked a worse jurisdiction to have his crowd go crazy, Grossman says.

The last thing youd want to do is go to Manhattan or D.C., he said. He takes his most loyal supporters and puts them at the mercy of his worst enemies in law enforcement.

Trump hasnt made a lot of friends in Georgia either. But he might need some if the Fulton County prosecutor decides to indict him.

Thats a real possibility according to lawyer Norm Eisen of the Brookings Institution.

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Eisen co-authored a 100-page study of a possible prosecution of Trump and his demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger find 11,780 votes, which would have made The Donald the winner by one vote.

We conclude that Trumps post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes, the study stated. These charges potentially include criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations.

In a tweet on Friday, Eisen said, Lots saying last nights hearing ultimately had an audience of 1: AG Garland. NO! It was an audience of 2. Fulton Cty. DA Fani Willis was also watching, she will likely be the first to prosecute Trump, & Liz Cheney knew it.

Ironically, the only thing that could save Trump from a state indictment might be a federal indictment by Attorney General Merrick Garland. After that hearing, theres plenty of material if Garland decides to get frisky.

A lot of Republicans would profess to be appalled if that were to happen.

But if Trump were hauled off to the hoosegow, that would clear the way for some other Republican to run for president in 2024.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the favorite of most Republicans I know.

Unlike Trump, hes young and has a clean resume. (Not like The Donald) Also unlike Trump, hes won every race hes ever run in.

Best of all, hes not from New York City.

One president from there will be quite sufficient.

ADD - EVEN HIS HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER HAS TURNED ON TRUMP

In an editorial, the New York Post says what Ive been saying for months: Donald Trump is doing more for Democrats than Republicans. Heres an excerpt::

Trump has become a prisoner of his own ego. He cant admit his tweeting and narcissism turned off millions. He wont stop insisting that 2020 was stolen even though hes offered no proof that its true.

Respected officials like former Attorney General Bill Barr call his rants nonsense. This isnt just about Liz Cheney. Mitch McConnell, Betsy DeVos, Mark Meadows they all knew Trump was delusional. His own daughter and son-in-law testified it was bull.

Trumps response? He insults Barr, and dismisses Ivanka as checked out. He clings to more fantastical theories, such as Dinesh DSouzas debunked 2,000 Mules, even as recounts in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin confirm Trump lost.

More: Recent Paul Mulshine columns

Paul Mulshine may be reached at pmulshine@starledger.com.

Follow him on Twitter @Mulshine. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook and on Twitter.

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Donald Trumps New York City hustle is finally catching up with him | Mulshine - NJ.com