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At 8.38pm on 4 November 2020, the day after America had gone to the polls to elect its next president, Donald Trump sent out a message to hundreds of thousands of his supporters from the email address contact@victory.donaldtrump.com.

By then it was already clear that not only was victory eluding Trump, but that he was heading towards defeat. A couple of hours earlier, Associated Press had called Michigan and Wisconsin for Joe Biden, putting the Democratic candidate just six electoral college votes away from the White House.

Not that you would have known it from Trumps email.

Friend, it began. The Democrats are trying to STEAL the Election. Ive activated the Official Election Defense Fund and I need EVERY PATRIOT, including YOU, to step up and make sure we have enough resources to PROTECT THE INTEGRITY OF OUR ELECTION.

Over the next nine weeks Trump bombarded his loyal followers with a blitzkrieg of emails, sometimes 25 in a single day. Some of the emails were specific, like the one sent on 8 November calling for help in Michigan where Trump said we have filed a lawsuit to halt counting (the email didnt say that a judge had already thrown out the complaint as baseless).

Some of the emails were general, pleading with Trump supporters to defend our democracy and prevent the Radical Left from DESTROYING America. They were sent under several different names from Trump himself, his sons Don Jr and Eric, the former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, the current chair of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel, and then vice-president Mike Pence.

Despite the nuances, all the millions of emails sent out from the @victory.donaldtrump.com address essentially said the same thing. They exhorted Trump supporters to back the Official Election Defense Fund with their hard-earned dollars.

If EVERY Patriot chips in $5, President Trump will have what it takes to DEFEND the Election and WIN! said the email that was transmitted on 10 November three days after Bidens victory had been sealed.

There was only one problem with this epic flurry of emails: the Official Election Defense Fund did not exist. As the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol revealed in a public hearing this week, Trump and his allies raised $250m from the emails by persuading loyal followers to donate to a chimera.

There was no fund dedicated to fighting election battles as part of Trumps mendacious and ultimately vain big lie that the presidency had been stolen from him. Instead, the money went into Trumps new fundraising entity Save America Pac, from where millions of dollars were distributed to pro-Trump organizations including his own hotel properties and the company that produced the Ellipse rally in Washington on January 6 just hours before the storming of the Capitol.

As Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic member of the January 6 committee, put it: The big lie was also a big rip off.

David Becker, executive director of the non-partisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said that the nonexistent election defense fund added a new layer to the January 6 investigation. On top of insurrection, sedition and an attempted coup, the American people were now learning about grift.

We now know that Donald Trump was told repeatedly by his own family, cabinet and staff that his claims about a stolen election had no merit, and yet he continued to use those claims to raise money, Becker said.

He was selling false claims to his supporters. The money they gave was not even being used for what he said it would be used: fighting the election in court.

Lofgrens unveiling of the big rip-off is not the first time Trump has been accused of playing rough and loose when it comes to cash. In his book Uncovering Trump, the former Washington Post journalist David Fahrenthold lays bare the sleight of hand the real estate developer practiced in his charitable dealings dating back to the 1980s.

During his first presidential run in 2016, Trump said he had given away tens of millions in charitable donations over his lifetime. Yet when Fahrenthold went looking for evidence of such benevolence, all he could find were records of $6m having been transferred to Trumps charitable arm, the Trump Foundation, since 1987.

It was also unclear where most of that $6m had gone. The only hard evidence of philanthropic giving amounted to a few thousand dollars.

One such gift, for $20,000, turned out to have been used by Trump to buy a portrait of himself to give to his wife Melania.

Fahrentholds reporting at the Post uncovered other irregularities. Trump used more than a quarter of a million dollars from his charitable foundation to cover legal fees incurred in lawsuits relating to his profitable businesses.

The largest gift from the foundation, of $264,631, was used to repair a fountain on the grounds of the New York Plaza hotel, which Trump owned at the time.

If Trumps claims about his philanthropic largesse raised questions, so too did his use of taxpayers money during his time in the White House. While in the presidency, he billed government departments for millions of dollars for use of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and other hotel properties.

Trump has also come to the rescue of those who have been accused of defrauding unsuspecting conservative Americans by making false promises to them. Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, was pardoned by Trump on the last day of his presidency.

Bannon had been charged by federal prosecutors for allegedly defrauding donors after he and his co-conspirators had raised more than $25m ostensibly to build a stretch of wall along the Mexican border. All the cash raised by We Build the Wall was supposed to go towards construction, but prosecutors alleged $1m was spent on personal uses and expenses.

Now Trump is facing his own accusations of defrauding his people. The allegation that he cheated his supporters out of millions of dollars by dangling in front of them a fictitious election defense fund could expose the former president to legal peril.

It remains unclear what impact, if any, the revelations will have on Trumps loyal army of devotees. The January 6 committee is doing what it can to introduce these people back to reality, by showing them that Trumps claims were completely false, Becker said.

But he added: If youve been living in a fog of lies for a long time, I imagine its really hard to have people tell you that the sky is not polka-dotted, its blue. And thats what we are dealing with.

The final money-begging email from the contact@victory.donaldtrump.com address was sent at 1.23pm on January 6. That was 20 minutes after Pence had gaveled in the Senate at the start of the process to certify Biden as president, and 26 minutes before a riot was officially declared at the Capitol.

After that, the Official Election Defense Fund vanished from Trump begging requests. But the blitzkrieg of emails has continued unabated.

This week alone, Trump supporters were assailed with a slew of fundraising appeals, each one more exotic than the last. There was the invitation to sign Trumps 76th birthday card but only if you donated first.

Then there was the email that offered those of My LOYAL, AMERICA FIRST Patriots who donated at least $75 a signed photo with their very own personalized message from yours truly. (In fact, the offer was of a photocopy of the former president grinning at the camera with a facsimile of his signature printed on it in gold ink.)

Other emails promised donors a Trump gold card, or a seat on the Trump advisory board. The gold card is purely figurative, and what the board does or whether it even exists is a moot point.

But the greatest prize of all was reserved for only the staunchest of Trump supporters. They could apply to be crowned a Great MAGA King or, as a separate email sent out on Friday outlined, they could join the very first roster of Official 2022 ULTRA MAGA MEMBERS.

All at a price, of course.

Read more:
The big rip-off: how Trump exploited his fans with election defense fund - The Guardian US

Ex-president Donald Trump has been accused of surreptitiously orchestrating and encouraging an attempted coup in a bid to overthrow the government on 6 January 2021 when an angry mob - a mixture of his followers and various far right groups such as the Proud Boys, stormed the Capitol building. Several people died either directly or indirectly as a consequence of the disturbances, including five police officers.

Just an hour and a half before the Capitol building was stormed, Trump had addressed his supporters at the Save America rally held at the White House Ellipse in Washington DC. These people are not going to take it any longer, Trump began. It would be really great if we could be covered fairly by the media, the media is the biggest problem as far as I am concerned. The fake news of the Big Tech, Big Tech is now coming into their own, we surprised them by beating them four years ago and this year, they rigged an election like theyve never rigged it before. All of us here today do want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical Left Democrats, which is what theyre doing, and stolen by the fake news media, thats what theyve done and what theyre doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. Our country has had enough, we will not take it any more and this is what its all about. We will Stop the steal.

Trump labelled Bidens victory as fraud, arguing, In Detroit, there were more votes than voters and that some voters, got three, four, five, six I heard one who got seven ballots! This is the most corrupt election in America, maybe in the world.

Full screen

Concluding his one hour, 12-minute speech, Trump appeared to invite the estimated 30,000-strong crowd to join him on the two-mile walk from the White House to the Capitol. So were going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And were going to the Capitol, he said. And were going to try to give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones dont need any of our help, we are going to try to give them the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country. So lets walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all, God bless you and God bless America!

Trump however, returned to the White House and did not join the march to the Capitol. Half an hour later, protesters, some carrying arms, had broken through police barricades at the Capitol and by 2 p.m. were inside the building.

So while Trump implied that he would join the crowd on a march to the Capitol, he didnt. But neither did he make much of an effort to cool the situation down when he found out that it turned violent.

Did Trump actively incite and encourage people to attack the Capitol? One part of his rally speech which could be regarded as criminal incitement, and thats the line which Democrats have focused on, when he fired a warning, We fight like hell. And if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore.

Whether the select House committee who are investigating events of 6 January will consider that as criminal incitement - urging others to riot remains to be seen. The most serious crime that Trump could be charged with is seditious conspiracy - the committee would need to prove that Trump colluded directly with the leaders of the mob with the intention of exciting hatred or contempt against persons or state institutions. Trumps lawyers will likely highlight another part of his speech in which he told those gathered, I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard to counter that argument.

Another allegation that the committee will be looking at is whether Trump deliberately obstructed or was involved in obstructing an official session of Congress - which is an offense. On 6 January, Congress were due to meet in a joint session to count the votes of the Electoral College. Trump had earlier urged vice-president Mike Pence to do the right thing and reject fraudulent votes. Proving that his intention was to disrupt the congressional counting, either on 6 January or before, will be a complex task.

The select committee will hold two sessions this week - on Tuesday and Thursday. There will be two further hearings after that on dates yet to be confirmed. Whether those hearings conclude that Trump broke the law regarding the Capitol attack or his attempts to overturn election results is anyones guess, but even if they do, it wouldnt necessarily mean that he will be prosecuted.

According to a June poll conducted by Navigator Research, 71% of respondents opposed the actions of the rioters on 6 January compared to 22% who supported it with 64% in favour of the select committees investigation to uncover the truth. A majority 54% voted in favour of the Department of Justice (DOJ) filing criminal charges against Donald Trump for his involvement in the Capitol riot, compared to 37% who opposed the suggestion.

Our polling not only shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the actions of the individuals and groups who perpetrated the assault on the Capitol, but nearly two in three support the investigation being carried out by the January 6th Committee. said Bryan Bennett, Senior Director of Polling & Analytics at the Hub Project and Advisor to Navigator Research. The unity across partisanship on these questions underscores the crisis in confidence Americans have in our democracy, and the desire to ensure that attacks on free and fair elections never happen again.

Continued here:
Could Donald Trump be prosecuted for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol? - AS USA

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Robin Rue Simmons: It must start. Thats how you seek reparations. You start.07:45

Rep. Dean: Its a very dangerous time06:18

Watergate vs 1/6: There wasnt really the cult of Nixon as there it the cult of Trump09:27

Rep. Stacey Plaskett: Donald Trump isnt interested in our democracy.06:27

Fmr. Sr. Pence Adviser: Ive been wanting my former boss to come forward05:28

W. Kamau Bell urges men to stand up for abortion rights07:15

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Michael Cohen: Donald Trump is the greatest grifter in the history of the United States06:26

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From Big Lie to Big Rip-off: The Trump campaigns fundraising tactics are in the spotlight this week after the January 6th hearings exposed a fake Official Election Defense Fund that raised $250 million to pay for legal fees to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps former personal attorney, host of Mea Culpa, and principal at Crisis-X, tells Michael Steele that Trump is a menace. Its sad to see that there are so many people out there that have so much faith in him, after they see exactly what is going on.June 18, 2022

UP NEXT

Robin Rue Simmons: It must start. Thats how you seek reparations. You start.07:45

Rep. Dean: Its a very dangerous time06:18

Watergate vs 1/6: There wasnt really the cult of Nixon as there it the cult of Trump09:27

Rep. Stacey Plaskett: Donald Trump isnt interested in our democracy.06:27

Fmr. Sr. Pence Adviser: Ive been wanting my former boss to come forward05:28

W. Kamau Bell urges men to stand up for abortion rights07:15

Link:
Michael Cohen: Donald Trump is the greatest grifter in the history of the United States - MSNBC

So, the U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 6 Select Committee has revealed that former President Donald Trump used his baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him to fleece his followers.

What.

A.

Shock.

Who could have predicted that a man who built his business, such as it is, by slapping his name on everything but used tissues and then selling those products, such as they are, at inflated prices would resort to yet another con when he was under pressure?

Who would have thought that a guy who ran for president primarily to restore some luster to his fading brand wouldnt leap at one more chance to bilk the faithful?

And who possibly could have seen that a fellow who spent at least a third of his time as both presidential candidate and president staying at Trump properties, thus lining his own pockets with taxpayer funds and campaign contributions, would not be able to resist one more grab at the cookie jar?

Clearly, such grasping chicanery on the part of the former president comes completely out of left field because, up until this point, nothing Donald Trump ever has done in his life would indicate that he is either greedy or mendacious.

Yeah.

Right.

When the history of this period is written presuming the republic survives and Americans still are permitted to express themselves freely and honestly one question will be at the center of all the studies and scholarship.

Why and how did so many Americans allow themselves to be gulled by a con artist who views them the way a rat does pieces of cheese?

I understand why so many working-class Americans turned to Trump in the first place. Their concerns werent being addressed by either political party.

Still arent, for that matter.

The traditional Republican Party always has favored the wishes of capital over the needs of labor, elevating the interests of the haves over those of the have-nots. The GOP also has a history of pitting working people against each other.

Were seeing that again now.

After years of encouraging tensions and resentments between working-class U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants, some Republicans now have begun quietly arguing that relaxing immigration restrictions would help ease inflationary pressures.

By driving down wages.

Once again, in the GOPs world view, the burden of solving an economic problem must fall on the shoulders of working people.

Not that the Democrats cant be just as clueless. Their solution to the problems of the working class is to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

There are at least two problems with that.

The first is that the real minimum wage in this country now already is between $15 and $17 per hour and its likely to climb higher than that as the worldwide labor shortage deepens in the coming years. Democrats want to close the barn door not just after the horse fled but at one of the few times in history when the horse might have some power to choose which barn it likes best and under what conditions.

The second problem with the Democrats minimum-wage policy is that it isnt grounded in any recognizable reality.

How many of them would like to try to raise a family of four on $31,000 a year? Thats what 40 hours per week of $15 per hour pays for a years labor. How many Democrats in Congress and state legislatures across the country think they could build better lives for their own children and pursue the American dream on those wages?

Donald Trump became a force in Americas political life because neither party seemed to care or grasp the challenges millions of Americans faced.

In their desperation, they turned to a grifter who saw them as lemons to squeeze for the juice they might provide him.

Now, even as evidence overwhelmingly mounts that Trump has done little but use and abuse those who gave him their devotion, many, many Americans remain faithful to the man who has misled them at every turn.

Why?

Perhaps Mark Twain said it best.

Its easier to fool people, Twain wrote, than to convince them they have been fooled.

John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The opinions expressed by the author do not reflect the views of Franklin College.

Read this article:
John Krull: Donald Trump and the art of the grift - Terre Haute Tribune Star

A photograph of former Vice President Mike Pence looking at a tweet by former President Donald Trump while he and his staff took shelter in an undisclosed location is displayed during a hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol at the Capitol in Washington, June 16, 2022. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON He started the day with a prayer.

Vice President Mike Pence, preparing to withstand the final stage of a relentless campaign by President Donald Trump to force him to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, began Jan. 6, 2021, surrounded by aides at his official residence at the Naval Observatory, asking God for guidance.

The group was expecting a difficult day. But what followed over the next 12 hours was more harrowing than they imagined.

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An angry mob with baseball bats and pepper spray chanting hang Mike Pence came within 40 feet of the vice president. Pences Secret Service detail had to hustle him to safety and hold him for nearly five hours in the bowels of the Capitol. Trump called Pence a wimp and worse in a coarse and abusive call that morning from the Oval Office, Trumps daughter and former White House aides testified.

And a confidential witness who traveled to Washington with the Proud Boys, the most prominent of the far-right groups that helped lead the assault on the Capitol, later told investigators the group would have killed Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if they got the chance.

Those were among the extraordinary new details that emerged during the third public hearing held Thursday by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol.

Pences day dawned as it often did. The vice president, whose evangelical faith was a selling point for adding him to the presidential ticket in 2016 but often a source of skepticism for Trump, was joined by three people in prayer: his chief counsel, Greg Jacob; his chief of staff, Marc Short; and his director of legislative affairs, Chris Hodgson.

Pence and the team had been subjected to a barrage of demands from Trump that the vice president refuse to certify Joe Bidens Electoral College victory in a joint session of Congress an unconstitutional action never before taken in the 2 1/2 centuries since the nations founding.

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We just asked for guidance and wisdom, knowing the day was going to be a challenging one, Short said in videotaped testimony played by the committee.

While Pence was at the Naval Observatory, Trump was in the Oval Office with aides and family members trickling in and out, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Ivanka Trump. He had already sent two Twitter posts further pressuring Pence, the first at 1 a.m. The second, at 8 a.m., concluded, Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!

At 11:20 a.m., Trump called Pence, who stepped away from his aides to take the call.

The group in the Oval Office could hear Trumps side of the call but paid little attention to what seemed to start as a routine conversation. But as Trump became increasingly heated that Pence was holding firm in his refusal to give in, the call became hard to ignore.

I remember hearing the word wimp, Nick Luna, an aide to Trump, said in videotaped testimony. Wimp is the word I remember.

Ivanka Trump, the presidents older daughter and a former top White House adviser, said in her videotaped testimony that it was a different tone than I heard him take with the vice president before.

Ivanka Trumps chief of staff, Julie Radford, appeared in videotaped testimony to say that Ivanka Trump told her shortly after the call that Donald Trump had an upsetting conversation with Pence. The president, Radford said, used the P word. (The New York Times reported previously that Trump had told Pence, You can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy, according to two people briefed on the conversation.)

Over at the Naval Observatory, Pence returned to the room after taking the call looking steely, determined and grim, Jacob told the committee.

Trump in the meantime revised a speech that he delivered later that day to throngs of supporters on the Ellipse. An early draft of the speech, the committee said, included no mention of Pence. But after the call, the president included language that video footage showed riled up the mob.

I hope Mike is going to do the right thing, Trump said in his speech. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win.

All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people, Trump continued, referring to one of his demands that Pence send the election results back to the states, a delaying tactic that he hoped would ultimately keep him in office. If Pence failed to comply, Trump told the crowd, that will be a sad day for our country.

He added, So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesnt listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that hes listening to, using the term for Republicans in name only.

Trump directed his supporters to march to the Capitol and make themselves heard.

By the time Pence arrived at the Capitol with his wife, Karen Pence, and their daughter Charlotte, an angry mob was already massing outside.

Inside, as the joint session began, Mike Pences aides released a memo to the public laying out the vice presidents view that he did not have the power over the certification that Trump and his lawyer, John Eastman, insisted he did.

Shortly after 2:10 p.m., the proceedings were interrupted by loud noises. The mob was swarming into the building. At 2:24 p.m. when Democrats on the committee said Trump was aware that the Capitol had been breached the president posted to Twitter that Mike Pence didnt have the courage to do what was necessary.

At that point, the Secret Service had moved Pence from the Senate chamber to his office across the hall. His advisers said the noise from the rioters had become audible, leading them to assume they had entered the building. Yet there was not yet a pervasive sense of alarm.

Once in his office, Pence sat with his family, including his brother, Rep. Greg Pence, R-Ind., and top aides as Short ducked downstairs to grab some food. Karen Pence drew the curtains to keep the rioters from looking in.

Short made his way back to the office. By then, Tim Giebels, the lead Secret Service agent for Mike Pence, had made a few attempts to nudge Pence and his family to move to a different location. But soon he was no longer making a suggestion. Pence, he said, had to get to safety.

The entourage began to make its way down a stairway toward an underground loading dock the point at which they came within 40 feet of the rioters. Pence and his aides did not know at the time just how close they were to the mob, some of whom were threatening to kill him.

I could hear the din of the rioters in the building, Jacob said Thursday at the hearing. I dont think I was aware they were as close as that.

From the loading dock, Pence handled calls to congressional leaders who had been evacuated from the Capitol complex and ordered the Pentagon to send in the National Guard. The Secret Service directed him to get into a car and evacuate, but he refused to leave the building.

The vice president did not want to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol, Jacob said Thursday, noting that Pence did not want to give the rioters the satisfaction of disrupting the proceedings more than they had already done. He was determined that we would complete the work that we had set out to do that day.

One person he never spoke with again that day was Trump, who did not call to check on Pences safety. Neither did the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

Just after 8 p.m., the Senate chamber opened again, after the rioters had been cleared from the complex.

Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol, Pence said as the proceedings began again. He was greeted with applause when he said, Lets get back to work.

Back at the White House, egged on by some of his advisers, Trump told aides he wanted to bar Short from entering the West Wing from then on.

At 3:42 in the morning, it was all over. Bidens victory had been certified.

At 3:50 a.m., as Pence and Short went their separate ways, Short texted his boss a passage from the Bible.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, the message read.

2022 The New York Times Company

Link:
For Mike Pence, Jan. 6 Began Like Many Days. It Ended Like No Other.