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Special Counsel January 6 Report Blasts Trump's 'Unprecedented Crimes'

Special Counsel Jack Smith released his report on the election interference case against Donald Trump on Monday night. The report summarized the case against Trump for his role in attempting to subvert and steal the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.

Smith pulled the plug on the two federal cases against Trump following his 2024 election victory. Trump had been charged with multiple counts of defrauding the country, as well as obstructing official proceedings. He was also charged with multiple federal offenses for hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

In the report, Smith writes that Trump was “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power” and “attempted to use the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.”

The report notes that Trump attempted to get state officials to ignore election results showing millions of people had voted for Biden and instead pressured them to certify him as the winner, tried to get states to send fake electors for certification by the Electoral College, and pressured officials at the Department of Justice to call the election “corrupt.”

Trump followed up these actions by directing “an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters' violence to further delay it,” the report details, in reference to the January 6 attack.

Smith concludes that “the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” and that only Trump’s election win prevented that outcome.

The report finally surfaced after Trump’s lawyers attempted to hold up the document’s release and after pro-Trump U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon initially blocked the public from seeing the outcome of Smith’s investigation.

On social media, Trump raged about the release of the report.

“Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his ‘boss,’ Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another ‘Report’ based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were,” Trump wrote.

In his post, Trump also lied and claimed that he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in a “landslide.” Trump’s margin of victory in the popular vote was 1.5 percent. By contrast, in the 2020 election he tried to steal, he lost to Biden by 4.5 percent.

Trump will never face a penalty for the allegations in the report, but he was convicted of multiple charges in New York for attempting to cover up his affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels. When he takes the oath of office on January 20, he will be the first convicted felon to assume the presidency.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Border State Sheriffs Defying Trump On Mass Deportation Scheme

President-elect Donald Trump's advisors have been hoping county sheriffs in border states will assist with the incoming administration's mass deportation campaign. But several sheriffs are already publicly promising to not lift a finger.

According to a Tuesday report in WIRED magazine, top Trump immigration advisors like Tom Homan and Stephen Miller have been having conversations with several far-right sheriffs who have expressed an interest in helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remove immigrants from the United States. But that effort is unlikely to pick up traction, both for legal reasons and because other sheriffs have said they already have their hands full and don't want to take on more work.

Currently, ICE's 287(g) program allows for state and local law enforcement to collaborate with ICE in its efforts "to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of noncitizens." However, this does not include sheriffs themselves rounding up and detaining undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, no federal funding has been appropriated to any sheriffs' offices that help ICE, meaning just 125 out of 3,081 sheriff's offices in the U.S. have signed up. And Yuma County, Arizona Sheriff Leon Wilmot told WIRED that the Supreme Court has already established that enforcing immigration law is outside the jurisdiction of local police departments and sheriffs' offices.

"[T]hat's not our realm of responsibility," Wilmot said. "If we wanted to do immigration law, we would go work for Border Patrol."

The push for sheriffs to assist the incoming administration has been led by retired sheriff Tom Mack, who is the head of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). Mack told WIRED he's been exchanging voice and text messages with Homan about getting more sheriffs involved with deportations. Homan has previously promised to build "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen." But Wilmot said "no one listens to" Mack, that he "hasn't been a sheriff in a long time" and that he "pushes his own agenda."

Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, who is a Democrat, told WIRED that he wasn't invited to an event Homan hosted in his state last month, even though Hathaway's jurisdiction includes some of the nation's biggest ports of entry. He added that he would refuse any calls to help the Trump administration deport immigrants, as it would hurt his standing in his county.

"I'm not going to cooperate, because 95 percent of the residents of the town where I live, where my county is, are Hispanic,” Hathaway said. “I'm not going to go checking the documents of practically every single person in my county to determine their immigration status, because that would create distrust between law enforcement and all the people in my community."

The sheriffs bucking calls to assist with mass deportations even include some of Trump's biggest supporters in the law enforcement community. Livingston County, Michigan Sheriff Mike Murphy — who hosted a pro-Trump rally in a building owned by the sheriff's office — told the outlet that he isn't interested in using county resources to help with federal immigration law enforcement.

"I still have a county to do police work in,” Murphy said. “Just because the president says, 'Hey, go out and round them up,' that is not all of a sudden gonna move to the top of my priority list. If somebody's house is getting broken into, that's my priority. If somebody's involved in an injury crash and they're laying on the side of the road, that's my priority. I've got cases that are open.”

Other border state sheriffs who have come out against calls to help the Trump administration round up migrants include Val Verde County, Texas Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez and Brewster County, Texas Sheriff Ronny Dodson. According to Dodson, the incoming Trump administration giving sheriffs the authority to jail migrants could "break" county law enforcement.

"I’m not gonna let the government tell me what to do in my job," Dodson said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

What Does Daniel Penny's Acquittal Mean? Not What You May Think

Is Daniel Penny a Republican, a Democrat or something else? As of this writing, his political leanings remain a mystery. Republicans clearly want to adopt the white Marine veteran who strangled a threatening Black passenger on a New York City subway car. They may deny it, but the racial dynamics created a desired optic for their warm support.

And the racial dynamics surely played a part in protests by Jordan Neely's supporters — that this was a case of a white person killing a Black man who had already been subdued. After a jury dismissed manslaughter charges against Penny, they argued that had he been Black and the man kept in a long chokehold been white, the outcome would have been different.

They were wrong. We would have had a Black hero who protected a subway car of passengers from harm.

Had I been on the jury, I would have sided with the others and released Penny.

I've shared New York subway cars with hollering homeless men. The spectacle of these mentally ill individuals was always jarring, and I'd keep a watch out of the corner of my eye. At times, I considered changing cars.

But I'd never encountered a deranged passenger yelling "I'm ready to die" and "someone is going to die today" as Neely had done — and who lunged and threw garbage at riders. I was never in a situation where several people on the car simultaneously dialed 911. Two passengers joined Penny in holding Neely down, and others held the car door open at a station to await arrival of the police.

It's true that Penny could have released his chokehold once Neely seemed subdued. It's also true that in the heat of the moment, Penny may not have realized that Neely was no longer a combatant. He says he didn't intend to kill Neely, and police confirm that when they reached him, Neely still had a pulse.

One thing was obvious to all: Neely had no business being on the streets. He had been arrested dozens of times. After breaking a woman's nose in a random attack, he was offered 15 months of supportive housing and intense outpatient psychiatric treatment. After 13 days, he left the program, but the city never went after him.

Donald Trump put Penny on display at the Army-Navy Football Game, having him join the retinue of his uniquely unqualified Cabinet picks. J.D. Vance wrote on X that "New York's mob district attorney tried to ruin his (Penny's) life for having a backbone."

I'm glad Alvin Bragg followed through on a second-degree manslaughter charge after the medical examiner declared the death to be a homicide. That gave a New York jury the opportunity to look at the facts and, in this case, clear the defendant's name.

It is notable that when past Manhattan juries ruled against Trump, MAGA accused New York of being a venue hopelessly biased against the ex-president. Penny's acquitters came from the same jury pool.

Penny's lawyer said his client was not making a political statement by joining Trump and company at the football game. "If it were a president in office who was a Democrat, who invited him to the Army-Navy game as a way to show support to the military and for his country," Steven Raiser said, "he would have gladly accepted that as well."

The subway confrontation underscores the failure to separate the dangerously mentally ill from the general public. Solving the problem requires social spending, which Trump World seems determined to cut.

A New Yorker, Penny may have felt more a quandary than a lust for vigilantism. He could serve his community well by being a Democrat and running for office.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Dirty Tricksters Who Targeted Black Voters In Detroit Will Be Prosecuted

The Michigan Court of Appeals on Friday upheld criminal charges against two far-right operatives who prosecutors say made a series of robocalls in the state during the 2020 election particularly targeting Black voters in Detroit.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that criminal charges had been filed against Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl back in 2020 after it had been found that the pair had made about 85,000 calls spreading misinformation and fear about voting across Midwestern states.

After hearing arguments concerning the case in November of 2023, the Michigan Supreme Court (MSC) supported assertions that Burkman and Wohl had utilized “corrupt means” and instructed the Court of Appeals to examine whether the pair’s actions violated state election laws.

The Michigan Supreme Court concluded in June of this year that the defendants attempted to deter Black metro Detroiters from participating in the 2020 election using the “immoral or depraved” method of spreading election misinformation, particularly for mail-in voting, using “racially based motives”.

“Defendants discussed their desire to “hi-jack this boring election” and arranged for the distribution of a robocall specifically to “black neighborhoods” with the call stating that the consequences of mail-in voting would include voter information being used by police departments to effectuate old warrants, by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts, and (potentially) by the CDC to support mandatory vaccination efforts,” the MSC wrote in its opinion in June.

In that opinion, the MSC ruled that the Court of Appeals needed to review whether Burkman and Wohl’s conduct violated Michigan law, specifically a section of election law pertaining to elector influence.

Michigan’s election laws say, “A person shall not attempt, by means of bribery, menace, or other corrupt means or device, either directly or indirectly, to influence an elector in giving his or her vote, or to deter the elector from, or interrupt the elector in giving his or her vote at any election held in this state.”

On Friday, the Michigan Court of Appeals found that because the calls directly pertained to misinformation about mail-in voting and promlegating false information in order to disrupt and deter Black voters in Michigan, they violate the law and Burkman and Wohl’s criminal charges stand.

“There can be no reasonable dispute that voting by mail is a voting procedure. That is, voting by mail is “a particular way of accomplishing” voting, which fits the definition of “procedure.” The robocall was related to the procedure, because it alleged that, if a voter used the voting procedure identified, certain negative events “will” occur,” Court of Appeals Judge Anica Letica wrote in the opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeals Judge James Redford argued that the robocalls did not pertain to voting requirements or procedures, but rather possible negative consequences of participating in absentee voting, so the court has not fulfilled the inquiries set out by the Michigan Supreme Court to uphold the charges.

Nessel applauded the court’s decision saying in a statement her office looks forward to the case being brought to trial.

“Voter intimidation infringes upon the fundamental right to vote,” Nessel said. “I am grateful the Court of Appeals saw this conduct for what it was—a gross misrepresentation of voting procedures meant to scare voters from participating in our elections.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

This story originally appeared in Michigan Advance, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

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Start your day with The National Memo Newsletter

Special Counsel January 6 Report Blasts Trump's 'Unprecedented Crimes'

Border State Sheriffs Defying Trump On Mass Deportation Scheme

What Does Daniel Penny's Acquittal Mean? Not What You May Think

Dirty Tricksters Who Targeted Black Voters In Detroit Will Be Prosecuted

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