[ “I understand Trump fatigue, but it feels like the president
and his advisors preparing to use the military to quash protests
against his planned coup should be bigger news."]
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AUGUST 2, 2023  
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Heather Cox Richardson
August 3, 2023
Letters from an American
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_ “I understand Trump fatigue, but it feels like the president and
his advisors preparing to use the military to quash protests against
his planned coup should be bigger news." _

,

 

There have been more developments today surrounding yesterday’s
indictment of former president Trump for conspiring to defraud the
United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and
attempting to obstruct an official proceeding as he tried to overturn
the results of the 2020 election and install himself in office over
the wishes of the American people. 

Observers today called out the part of the indictment that describes
how Trump and Co-Conspirator 4, who appears to be Jeffrey Clark, the
man Trump wanted to make attorney general, intended to use the
military to quell any protests against Trump’s overturning of the
election results. When warned that staying in power would lead to
“riots in every major city in the United States,” Co-Conspirator 4
replied, “Well…that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

The Insurrection Act of 1807 permits the president to use the military
to enforce domestic laws, invoking martial law. Trump’s allies urged
him to do just that to stay in power. Fears that Trump might do such a
thing were strong enough that on January 3, 2021, all 10 living former
defense secretaries signed a _Washington Post_ op-ed warning that
“[e]fforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election
disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional
territory.” 

They put their colleagues on notice: “Civilian and military
officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable,
including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave
consequences of their actions on our republic.” Josh Marshall
at _Talking Points Memo_ recalled today that military leaders told
Congress they were reluctant to respond to the violence at the Capitol
out of concern about how Trump might use the military under the
Insurrection Act. 

Political pollster Tom Bonier wrote: “I understand Trump fatigue,
but it feels like the president and his advisors preparing to use the
military to quash protests against his planned coup should be bigger
news. Especially when that same guy is in the midst of a somewhat
credible comeback effort.”

On _The Beat_ tonight, Ari Melber connected Trump Co-Conspirator
John Eastman to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Just before midnight on
January 6, 2021, after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Eastman wrote
to Pence’s lawyer to beg him to get Pence to adjourn Congress “for
10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as
well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of
illegal activity that has occurred here.” On the floor of the Senate
at about the same time, Cruz, who voted against certification, used
very similar language when he called for “a ten-day emergency
audit.” 

An email sent by Co-Conspirator 6, the political consultant, matches
one sent from Boris Epshteyn to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, suggesting
that Epshteyn is Co-Conspirator 6. The Russian-born Epshteyn has been
with Trump’s political organization since 2016 and was involved in
organizing the slates of false electors in 2020. Along with political
consultant Steve Bannon, Epshteyn created a cryptocurrency called
“$FJB, which officially stands for “Freedom. Jobs. Business.”
but which they marketed to Trump loyalists as “F*ck Joe Biden.” By
February 2023, Nikki McCann Ramirez reported in _Rolling Stone_ that
the currency had lost 95% of its value.

Since the indictment became public, Trump loyalists have insisted that
the Department of Justice is attacking Trump’s First Amendment
rights to free speech. Indeed, if Giuliani’s unhinged appearance on
Newsmax last night is any indication, it appears that has been their
strategy all along. Aside from the obvious limit that the First
Amendment does not cover criminal behavior, the grand jury sidestepped
this issue by acknowledging that Trump had a right to lie about his
election loss. It indicted him for unlawfully trying to obstruct an
official proceeding and to disenfranchise voters. 

Today, Trump’s former attorney general William Barr dismissed the
idea that the indictment is an attack on Trump’s First Amendment
rights. Barr told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “As the indictment says,
they're not attacking his First Amendment right. He can say whatever
he wants. He can even lie. He can even tell people that the election
was stolen when he knew better. But that does not protect you from
entering into a conspiracy. All conspiracies involve speech. And all
fraud involves speech. Free speech doesn't give you the right to
engage in a fraudulent conspiracy.” 

Rudy Giuliani has his own troubles in the news today, unrelated to the
attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. His former
assistant Noelle Dunphy is suing him for sexual harassment and abuse,
and new transcripts filed in the New York Supreme Court of
Giuliani’s own words reveal disturbing fantasies of sexual
domination that are unlikely to help his reputation. (Historian Kevin
Kruse retweeted part of the transcript with the words, “Goodbye,
lunch.”) 

The chaos in the country’s political leaders comes with a financial
cost. According to Fitch Ratings Inc., a credit-rating agency, the
national instability caused by “a steady deterioration in standards
of governance over the last 20 years” has damaged confidence in the
country’s fiscal management. Yesterday it downgraded the United
States of America’s long-term credit rating for the second time in
U.S. history. 

Fitch cited “repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute
resolutions,” “a complex budgeting process,” and “several
economic shocks as well as tax cuts and new spending initiatives”
for its downgrade. The _New York Times_ warned that the downgrade is
“another sign that Wall Street is worried about political chaos,
including brinkmanship over the debt limit that is becoming entrenched
in Washington.”

The timing of the downgrade made little sense economically, as U.S.
economic growth is strong enough that the Bank of America today walked
back earlier warnings of a recession. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
noted that the key factors on which Fitch based its downgrade had
started in 2018 and called the downgrade “arbitrary.” The
editorial board of the _Washington Post _ called the timing
“bizarre.” But the timing makes more sense in the context of the
fact that House Republicans could not pass 11 of 12 necessary
appropriations bills before leaving for their August recess.

The White House said it “strongly disagree[d]” with the decision
to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, noting that the ratings model
Fitch used declined under Trump before rebounding under Biden, and
saying “it defies reality to downgrade the United States at a moment
when President Biden has delivered the strongest recovery of any major
economy in the world.” But it did agree that “extremism by
Republican officials—from cheerleading default, to undermining
governance and democracy, to seeking to extend deficit-busting tax
giveaways for the wealthy and corporations—is a continued threat to
our economy.”

—

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