Donald Trump has been indicted for his role in the attempted coup which peaked on January 6th, 2021.
My other videos mentioned in this video:
Donald Trump’s Failed 2000 Presidential Campaign:
Fox News Knows They’re Lying:
Organic Fresh Coin:
Resources mentioned in this video:
- Mike Pence’s mismanagement of the HIV Crisis
- Identities of co-conspirators
- Mitch McConnell’s Comments
Credits:
“Der Kleber Sting” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:06 Bennett Tomlin Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my personal channel where we remember that the rules are made up and that the rich and powerful are to blame. 00:00:08:06 - 00:00:17:21 Bennett Tomlin Today we're once again talking about someone who is both rich and powerful and neither as rich nor as powerful as he says. Donald Trump. 00:00:17:21 - 00:00:37:06 Bennett Tomlin Donald Trump has been indicted again, and we're focusing in on the indictment that describes his efforts to overturn the results of the election and remain in power. It involves threats of force, use of the Department of Justice to try to push lies, delusional schemes and an utter unwillingness to abide by the results of a democratic election. 00:00:37:06 - 00:00:51:29 Bennett Tomlin Now, before we get any further, I need to be very clear that I am not a lawyer named definitely not a prosecutor. I cannot provide legal advice to Donald Trump or anyone else. And the contents of this indictment are only allegations of lawbreaking. 00:00:51:29 - 00:01:04:05 Bennett Tomlin Now, he was specifically charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. 00:01:04:09 - 00:01:08:01 Bennett Tomlin With that out of the way, let's start talking about his scheme. 00:01:11:29 - 00:01:23:11 Bennett Tomlin When the issue of Trump's second impeachment came up and there was this debate about how to handle the events of January 6th and everything Donald Trump did leading up to it. Mitch McConnell stated, 00:01:23:11 - 00:01:31:19 Bennett Tomlin There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. 00:01:31:19 - 00:01:38:20 Bennett Tomlin He then continued impeachment conviction and removal or a specific inter-governmental safety valve. 00:01:38:23 - 00:01:44:07 Bennett Tomlin It is not the criminal justice system where individual accountability is the paramount goal. 00:01:44:07 - 00:01:56:28 Bennett Tomlin Indeed, Justice Story specifically reminded that, well, former officials were not eligible for impeachment or conviction. They were still liable to be tried and punished in the ordinary tribunals of justice. 00:01:57:03 - 00:02:07:19 Bennett Tomlin He then continued, We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one. 00:02:07:19 - 00:02:22:23 Bennett Tomlin So I went to emphasize before we get any further, that Republicans, when it came time to impeach Trump for a second time, tried to make the argument that it was not necessary to impeach him because if necessary, he could be held accountable by the criminal justice system. 00:02:22:25 - 00:02:31:27 Bennett Tomlin This would be that. Remember that if Republicans try to say he should not be indicted, this is what they specifically asked for. 00:02:31:27 - 00:02:42:02 Bennett Tomlin another defense that right wing idiots have already started trotting out is that Trump's efforts to destroy democracy are not a crime because Trump honestly believed that he had won. 00:02:42:02 - 00:03:02:19 Bennett Tomlin This indictment makes it clear that he had no reason to believe this. Mike Pence told him there was not evidence of fraud. The Department of Justice, including Trump, appointed William Barr and Trump appointed Bill Stepien, told him that there was not evidence of fraud. John Ratcliffe, the Trump appointed director of National Intelligence, told him that there was not evidence of fraud. 00:03:02:26 - 00:03:21:10 Bennett Tomlin Chris Krebs, the Trump appointed director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told him there was no evidence of fraud. And after he said that publicly, he was fired by Donald Trump. Senior White House attorneys told him there was no fraud. Senior staffers on the campaign told him that he had lost, 00:03:21:10 - 00:03:24:20 Bennett Tomlin state legislators and officials across many states, 00:03:24:20 - 00:03:53:01 Bennett Tomlin many of them Republican, told him that he had lost and that there was not evidence of fraud. State and federal courts rejected basically all of his lawsuits, claiming that the fraud either did not exist or was not outcome determinative. This included several specific pieces of nonsense that he tried to claim. Republican and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Trump that Trump's claim that tens of thousands of voters voted in Georgia who were dead was just not true. 00:03:53:08 - 00:03:57:23 Bennett Tomlin Despite this being explained to him by a Republican. Trump kept claiming it. 00:03:57:23 - 00:04:11:14 Bennett Tomlin Trump kept claiming there was 205,000 more votes in Pennsylvania than voters. And despite this being nonsense and the Pennsylvania A.G. and Deputy A.G. explaining to him that it was nonsense, he kept claiming it. 00:04:11:14 - 00:04:15:25 Bennett Tomlin Trump, and Rudy Giuliani kept claiming there was a suspicious vote dump in Detroit. 00:04:16:02 - 00:04:26:04 Bennett Tomlin Trump's attorney general explained that this was false and the Republican speaker of the House and majority leader of the Senate in Michigan explained how it was false to him. 00:04:26:04 - 00:04:39:01 Bennett Tomlin At one point when Rudy Giuliani was talking about this, he even named specific election workers who ended up getting death threats. And Rudy, in his nonsense, claim that they were passing around USB ports like drugs. 00:04:39:05 - 00:04:53:24 Bennett Tomlin And then he claimed they should have their houses and places of work searched for proof of USB ports, which, of course, they're going to find because everyone fucking has USB ports. And Rudy Giuliani apparently doesn't fucking know what a USB port is. 00:04:53:24 - 00:05:00:02 Bennett Tomlin It's truly incredible when you listen to Rudy talk nowadays, to think that he was the guy who went after Cosa Nostra. 00:05:00:02 - 00:05:20:26 Bennett Tomlin Trump also claimed there were tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud in Nevada, despite the Republican secretary of state in Nevada explaining to him this was not true. Trump claimed that 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona. His own campaign manager and the Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representative both explained to him this was not true. 00:05:20:26 - 00:05:49:16 Bennett Tomlin Trump claimed that voting machines had switched votes from Trump to Biden, his ag, acting AG., acting deputy A.G. had all told him this was false. We may never know what Trump actually knew, but he had zero justification for the nonsense he was claiming. And Republicans he appointed repeatedly explained to him how it was not true. And despite this, he continued to use it as a pretext to try to maintain power in an anti-democratic manner. 00:05:49:18 - 00:06:07:27 Bennett Tomlin And there are actually a couple of clues that suggest, at some level, Trump did know that much of this was bullshit. Remember in my video about Fox News and the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit and I noted that Rupert Murdoch called the nonsense about voting machines that Sidney Powell was spreading crazy. 00:06:07:27 - 00:06:10:21 Bennett Tomlin Well, that's an opinion shared by Donald Trump. 00:06:10:21 - 00:06:33:26 Bennett Tomlin He allegedly said in private that Sidney Powell seemed crazy. Yet he continued to reference those theories in public, almost like he didn't care if the things he was saying were true, as long as they said he won and provided a pretext for him staying in power. And all of these lies laid the foundations for their scheme to stay in power. 00:06:37:24 - 00:07:06:16 Bennett Tomlin Donald Trump and his coconspirators concocted a scheme to hold on to power after he lost the election. This scheme involved targeting seven states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And each of these. Trump lost, but his margin of defeat was relatively small, and they hoped they would be able to muddy the waters and take advantage of Republican state legislatures in order to continue to advance their nonsense and keep Trump in power. 00:07:06:16 - 00:07:13:15 Bennett Tomlin This muddying was accomplished, won by Trump and his surrogates, spreading nonsense conspiracies about the election. 00:07:13:15 - 00:07:32:07 Bennett Tomlin But primarily the scheme focused on creating false slates of electors going out of their way to try to make them look as legitimate as possible, including instances where state legislators sneaked them into the state legislature so that they could act at the same time as the legitimate electors. 00:07:32:09 - 00:08:01:20 Bennett Tomlin These slates were then intended to be sent along to Mike Pence and the archivist in a similar manner to the actual slates. Republicans in Congress were then going to object to the illegitimate electors to try to create a pretense for Mike Pence as President of the Senate as part of the Electoral Count Act to either accept the alternate slates, reject out all those states and decide for Trump, or send these issues back to the states where the Republican state legislatures would decide in favor of Trump. 00:08:01:20 - 00:08:15:21 Bennett Tomlin To aid in making these objections seem more legitimate. Trump intended to pressure the DOJ to issue letters which would falsely claim they had found fraud in order to provide cover for members of Congress and state legislatures to object. 00:08:15:21 - 00:08:25:13 Bennett Tomlin They also intended to have members of quite a few white nationalist organizations, militias and other Republicans who would gather in DC in an attempt to increase pressure. 00:08:25:15 - 00:08:32:27 Bennett Tomlin This includes, as we've talked about in previous videos, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. And these would be the groups who would eventually assault the Capitol. 00:08:32:27 - 00:08:45:12 Bennett Tomlin When it became obvious that Pence was not willing to participate in the coup in this way. They then tried to pressure him to delay the certification in hopes they would find other ways to pressure Republicans to keep Trump in power. 00:08:45:12 - 00:09:07:25 Bennett Tomlin These schemes were created by multiple people, but several memos created by Kenneth Chesebro were particularly important. On November 18th, he created a memo that stated that due to the ongoing recount in Wisconsin, they would create an alternate set of electors who would meet and cast votes so that if the lawsuit and the recount was decided in their favor, they would then have this other slate 00:09:07:25 - 00:09:08:27 Bennett Tomlin they could submit. 00:09:08:27 - 00:09:34:29 Bennett Tomlin A second memo on December 6th, instead, decided to target now six states instead of just Wisconsin, create these alternate slates, even if they did not succeed in court and then have Pence open these alternate slates to try to prevent certification of Biden as the actual winner. And on December 9th Kenneth made the memo which described the steps these fake electors should take to look as close to the legitimate electors as possible 00:09:34:29 - 00:09:43:06 Bennett Tomlin By December 20th, the Wisconsin recount was over and that recount increased Biden's margin of victory in Wisconsin. 00:09:43:06 - 00:09:48:12 Bennett Tomlin But the plan was already in motion and was being spearheaded by Rudy Giuliani. 00:09:48:12 - 00:09:52:23 Bennett Tomlin And that gets us to the approach to January 6th. 00:09:56:21 - 00:10:10:20 Bennett Tomlin January 6th was the day that Mike Pence was supposed to handle his ceremonial duty as president of the Senate to count the electoral votes and certify the election results. And this was the part of the process that the Trump campaign hoped was vulnerable to corruption. 00:10:10:20 - 00:10:16:26 Bennett Tomlin The whole scheme was meant to peak here, with congressional members being pushed to object to muddy the waters. 00:10:17:01 - 00:10:22:16 Bennett Tomlin And with Pence under immense pressure from Trump and others to give in to their whims. 00:10:22:16 - 00:10:30:07 Bennett Tomlin Let's talk about the last couple of days of the scheme, because I think it helps emphasize how desperate they were and how far they were willing to go. 00:10:30:07 - 00:10:42:07 Bennett Tomlin On Christmas Day Pence called Trump to wish him a merry Christmas. Allegedly, Trump almost immediately turned the conversation to January 6th and pressured Pence to reject votes. 00:10:42:11 - 00:10:54:15 Bennett Tomlin On December 27th, Trump claimed to Bill Stepien, his acting attorney general, and his deputy attorney general. That there were more votes than voters in Wisconsin. They repeatedly explained to him that this was not true. 00:10:54:15 - 00:11:04:20 Bennett Tomlin On December 29th, Trump told Pence, falsely that the DOJ was finding lots of fraud, despite, as we just said, Bill Stepien telling him this was not true. 00:11:04:22 - 00:11:29:26 Bennett Tomlin On December 31st and January 3rd, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to Bill Stepien and his deputy attorney general that there were hundreds of thousands more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. And each time these officials explained to him that this was not true. On January 1st, Donald Trump called Mike Pence and berated him because he learned Pence opposed a lawsuit that would say he had the authority to reject votes. 00:11:29:28 - 00:11:33:13 Bennett Tomlin Eventually, this allegedly led to Trump telling Pence, 00:11:33:13 - 00:11:35:13 Bennett Tomlin “You're too honest.” 00:11:35:16 - 00:12:00:10 Bennett Tomlin And January 2nd, Donald Trump personally called Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. Trump then proceeded to lie about fraud and pressured Brad to change the votes and make a statement saying that the votes already submitted were not accurate. During the conversation, Raffensperger repeatedly explained to Trump how he was wrong, which eventually led to Trump telling Brad that failing to find the votes would be a big risk to him. 00:12:00:10 - 00:12:08:14 Bennett Tomlin The very next day in January 3rd, after Brad spent all that time explaining it to Trump. Trump tweeted out that Brad had actually not been able to explain it to him. 00:12:08:14 - 00:12:14:27 Bennett Tomlin Also on January 3rd, Donald Trump once again told Pence that he had the absolute right to reject the votes. 00:12:14:29 - 00:12:21:02 Bennett Tomlin Pence told him this was not true and pointed out that a federal court had just rejected that very argument. 00:12:21:02 - 00:12:37:01 Bennett Tomlin Also, on January 3rd, John Eastman circulated a new memo with a new plan where Pence would take the states with multiple slates and send them back to the state legislatures to decide where they hoped the Republican led legislatures would pick in favor of Trump. 00:12:37:01 - 00:12:55:15 Bennett Tomlin Also on January 3rd, Jeffrey Clark, a member of the Department of Justice who was collaborating with this scheme, met with a deputy White House counsel and this deputy White House counsel attempted to dissuade Clark from taking over as attorney general, which is what Trump wanted and reiterated that there had not been fraud that would affect the election. 00:12:55:17 - 00:13:12:18 Bennett Tomlin This counsel told Clark that there would be riots in every major city if they did this, and this led Clark to explain to this counsel that they were aware of that and were ready to use the military to put it down, saying, “well, that's why there's an Insurrection Act.” 00:13:12:18 - 00:13:20:29 Bennett Tomlin On January 4th, John Eastman, one of these attorneys assisting Trump, called the Arizona House speaker in an attempt to convince him to decertify the election. 00:13:21:01 - 00:13:40:14 Bennett Tomlin The Arizona House speaker explained that they had not found fraud in Arizona, which would change the results of the election. This allegedly led Eastman to say that the Arizona Republican speaker of the House didn't know enough about facts on the ground and insisted that they should still decertify so that they could let the courts sort it out. 00:13:40:14 - 00:13:55:14 Bennett Tomlin Also, on January 4th, Donald Trump, John Eastman, Mike Pence, Pence's chief of staff and Pence's counsel, had a meeting where Trump again made false claims about fraud to try to convince Pence to reject votes or send them back to the states. 00:13:55:16 - 00:14:16:11 Bennett Tomlin At one point during the meeting, apparently Pence asked Eastman whether it was actually defensible to return the votes to the state, which led to Eastman saying, “Well, nobody's tested it before.” Pence then allegedly turned to Trump and said, “Did you hear that? Even your own counsel is not saying I have that authority,” which led Trump to saying, “that's okay, 00:14:16:16 - 00:14:25:13 Bennett Tomlin I prefer the other suggestion,” meaning instead of sending them back to the states. Pence rejects them unilaterally and picks Trump as the victor. 00:14:25:13 - 00:14:41:22 Bennett Tomlin Also on January 4th, apparently, John Eastman had a conversation with a senior Trump adviser where Eastman acknowledged the courts would not support their plan, which led to the adviser telling him, You're going to cause riots in the street. 00:14:41:24 - 00:14:48:24 Bennett Tomlin And Eastman again noted that this was part of their plan, saying that sometimes violence is necessary. 00:14:48:24 - 00:15:09:05 Bennett Tomlin The next day, on January 5th, Eastman, at the urging of Trump, again met with Pence's chief of staff and counsel to try to convince him to unilaterally reject the votes. This eventually led to Pence's counsel saying that this would be a disastrous situation and that this could lead to the election being decided in the streets. 00:15:09:05 - 00:15:31:15 Bennett Tomlin That same day, on January 5th, Donald Trump and Mike Pence met in private together where allegedly Trump tried to convince him to reject the votes. Pence said he could not. And then Trump warned him that he was going to need to publicly criticize him, which led Pence's chief of staff to warn the Secret Service that Pence might be in danger. 00:15:31:15 - 00:15:53:20 Bennett Tomlin January 6th was basically a just the hits tour of various claims of election fraud that Republicans had carefully explained to Trump were not true. This included Arizona nonsense nonsense about Detroit and USB ports. Nonsense about dead voters in Georgia. Nonsense about the number of voters in Pennsylvania. Just layers and layers of nonsense. 00:15:53:20 - 00:16:05:24 Bennett Tomlin Also, on January 6th, Trump's stepped up his pressure campaign on Pence starting at 1 a.m. in the morning when he tweeted that if Pence came through, they would win. 00:16:05:25 - 00:16:07:07 Bennett Tomlin If he sent the votes back 00:16:07:07 - 00:16:16:12 Bennett Tomlin at 8 a.m., he tweeted that states wanted their votes back and added, “Do it, Mike. This is a time for extreme courage.” 00:16:16:12 - 00:16:26:25 Bennett Tomlin at 11:15 a.m. he called Pence and again pressured him to reject the votes. This led to Trump deciding to override his advisers and personally target Pence 00:16:26:28 - 00:16:29:14 Bennett Tomlin in his speech, he would deliver shortly after this. 00:16:29:14 - 00:16:35:07 Bennett Tomlin He had also told Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman to pressure Pence during their speeches. 00:16:35:07 - 00:16:48:07 Bennett Tomlin This led to Rudy Giuliani saying that Pence could cast the law aside and personally decide on the validity. He also called for trial by combat, foreshadowing the dark times to come on this day. 00:16:48:07 - 00:16:54:06 Bennett Tomlin John Eastman told the crowd that states were demanding that Pence and the votes back, which was not true. 00:16:54:09 - 00:17:00:11 Bennett Tomlin Trump began his speech at 11:56 a.m. and we see this pressure continued to ramp up. 00:17:00:11 - 00:17:12:23 Bennett Tomlin During it, he said he hoped Pence would do the right thing, which in this case means the wrong thing. And he got the crowd to start chanting Send it back. Suggesting Pence needed to send this issue back to the states. 00:17:12:23 - 00:17:17:04 Bennett Tomlin Trump also insisted that the rules no longer applied. 00:17:17:06 - 00:17:23:02 Bennett Tomlin Making the statement that “when you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules.” 00:17:23:02 - 00:17:41:01 Bennett Tomlin Finally, he came back to his incitement. “We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.” Before he sent them to the Capitol. Shortly before 1 p.m., Pence issued a statement to clarify he could not do what Donald wanted. 00:17:41:01 - 00:17:50:01 Bennett Tomlin Despite this, there was a crowd at the Capitol, including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who began to push towards the doors, eventually breaking in around 2:15. 00:17:50:01 - 00:17:54:08 Bennett Tomlin Trump's advisers told him to say something which would calm the rioters down. 00:17:54:10 - 00:18:14:12 Bennett Tomlin He refused. And instead, at 2:24 p.m., about 10 minutes after the initial breach, he decided to tweet. “Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.” One minute later, at 2:25 p.m., the Secret Service had to evacuate Pence. 00:18:14:12 - 00:18:21:06 Bennett Tomlin During this insurrection, the crowd kept chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” and “Traitor Pence.” 00:18:21:12 - 00:18:29:20 Bennett Tomlin About half an hour later, at 3 p.m., Trump called Kevin McCarthy and told him that the crowd was more upset about the election than Kevin was. 00:18:29:20 - 00:18:37:26 Bennett Tomlin At 4:17 p.m., Trump released his infamous Rose Garden video, where he continued to lie about the election being stolen. 00:18:37:26 - 00:18:46:04 Bennett Tomlin At 6:01 p.m. Trump again turned towards tweeting, insisting that this was a landslide election victory which had been stolen. 00:18:46:07 - 00:18:51:20 Bennett Tomlin The fact that many of his appointees had repeatedly attempted to disabuse him of. 00:18:51:20 - 00:18:59:23 Bennett Tomlin That evening, Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani began reaching out to lawmakers again to convince them to delay the certification. 00:18:59:23 - 00:19:21:05 Bennett Tomlin Rudy Giuliani tried to call five senators and one representative. Co-conspirator Six called another six senators, and these calls were full of more of this nonsense. At 7:01 p.m., the White House counsel called Trump and told him to withdraw objections and allow certification, which Trump refused. 00:19:21:09 - 00:19:42:25 Bennett Tomlin At 11:44 p.m.. The very waning minutes of January 6th, John Eastman emailed Pence's counsel and advocated for him to break the ECA and they knew they were breaking it because he says, “I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for ten days.” 00:19:42:25 - 00:19:53:10 Bennett Tomlin They knew this was not legal. At 3:41 a.m. on January 7th, the results were certified and Trump's efforts had been bested. 00:19:53:15 - 00:20:13:15 Bennett Tomlin To summarize, Donald Trump relied on a plan involving lying to create chaos so that they could submit alternative electors, pressure Pence to use those alternative electors to declare the election for Trump, and were prepared to use violence, intending to use the military to put down any objection to this. 00:20:13:15 - 00:20:18:18 Bennett Tomlin Donald Trump and his co conspirators planned a coup. 00:20:22:16 - 00:20:28:14 Bennett Tomlin My expectation is that people who got this far in this video will almost certainly not support Donald Trump. 00:20:28:18 - 00:20:34:23 Bennett Tomlin I'm not reaching those who still support him because they've clicked off way before this. So why am I still talking? 00:20:34:23 - 00:20:39:28 Bennett Tomlin Because our republic was in part, saved by the bravery of this man. 00:20:39:28 - 00:20:49:22 Bennett Tomlin This man is a coward whose inaction that took countless deaths thanks to his brutal and deliberate mismanagement of the Indiana HIV crisis. 00:20:49:22 - 00:20:59:21 Bennett Tomlin But despite this, he was still willing to stand up to Donald Trump's coup, a thing that many members of the GOP are still not willing to do. 00:20:59:23 - 00:21:19:26 Bennett Tomlin Because I want to make clear at this point, we know that Donald Trump is a racist sexual assaulter authoritarian who attempted a coup, which means anyone who continues to donate or support Donald Trump is supporting a racist sexual assaulter, authoritarian who attempted a coup. 00:21:19:26 - 00:21:32:17 Bennett Tomlin Every single one of them. And we should put as much societal pressure on as many politicians, donors and others who continue to support this because it is not acceptable. 00:21:32:17 - 00:21:51:10 Bennett Tomlin Failure to speak about this directly will mean more election workers will be in danger and the Trump GOP will be further empowered to continue to disrespect democracy. And we cannot rely on there being enough members of the GOP willing to stop these coups. 00:21:51:10 - 00:22:03:22 Bennett Tomlin Thank you for tuning in. If you really enjoyed this video, then consider checking out my video on Donald Trump's 2000 presidential campaign, which includes some of the main characters from this one, including Rudy Giuliani.
