A new message from your friends at People For the American Way.
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Friend,

Welcome to our weekly “Trumptastrophe” email series, that serves to remind
us all of the destructive policies, decisions, and actions we encountered
during the Trump presidency and the threats that he and others in the MAGA
movement still pose – and to keep those moments clear in our memory as we
fight to defeat Republican extremists during the upcoming elections.

This week’s recap highlights the many ways that Trump has evaded
accountability and how Republicans continue to distract and lie to the
American people about his lawbreaking in order to improve their electoral
chances in the 2024 elections:

Trump’s habitual lawbreaking, abuse of power, and defiance of democratic
norms led to his being impeached twice by the U.S. House of
Representatives.

On Jan. 15, 2020, House leaders [ [link removed] ]delivered impeachment charges to the
Senate over Trump’s holding up congressionally approved military aid to
Ukraine to pressure the country’s leader to announce an investigation of
Joe Biden; the [ [link removed] ]impeachment vote was held in December 2019.

On Jan. 11, 2021, the House [ [link removed] ]voted to impeach Trump for having fomented
a violent effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after he lost
the 2020 election. In both cases, Republicans rallied to Trump’s defense
and [ [link removed] ]blocked [ [link removed] ]convictions in the subsequent Senate impeachment trials.

Trump’s rhetoric in response to the first impeachment vote is strikingly
similar to what we hear from him today in response to the civil and
criminal trials he is facing. His legal team [ [link removed] ]insisted that Trump had
done “absolutely nothing wrong” and Trump [ [link removed] ]denounced the effort as a
“hoax.” Trump’s attorneys claimed that the impeachment was a political
attempt “to interfere in the 2020 election”—a remarkable complaint given
that Trump was charged with abusing his power to bully a foreign
government into [ [link removed] ]helping him get reelected.

The 2021 impeachment moved forward after Vice President Mike Pence made it
clear that he would [ [link removed] ]not act to remove Trump from office by declaring
him unfit to serve under the 25th Amendment. Impeachment and conviction
could have barred Trump from holding federal office in the future, but
Senate Republicans once again let him off the hook.

GOP leader Mitch McConnell said at the time that Trump could be held
accountable by other means, including the criminal justice system. Trump’s
own lawyer had [ [link removed] ]said the same thing, as Brian Bennett noted this month
in TIME magazine: “We have a judicial process in this country; we have an
investigative process in this country to which no former officeholder is
immune.”

Of course, Trump’s lawyers are [ [link removed] ]now claiming the exact opposite—that he
cannot be held accountable by the criminal justice for any crimes he
committed as president unless he was first impeached and convicted by the
Senate. During oral arguments, appeals court judges [ [link removed] ]noted the shift in
Trump’s claims:

"The argument was there's no need to vote for impeachment because we
have this back stop which is criminal prosecution and it seems that many
senators relied on that in voting to acquit,” Judge Florence Y. Pan, who
was appointed by President Joe Biden, told Trump’s legal team. One of
Trump’s lawyers, D. John Sauer, said that the court shouldn’t speculate
about what motivated senators in the impeachment process.

Trump has made it clear that he’s opposed to either himself or his allies
facing accountability for wrongdoing. On his way out the door in Jan.
2021, Trump [ [link removed] ]pardoned his former aide Steve Bannon, who was awaiting
trial on fraud charges. Bannon now stirs up MAGA activists on Trump’s
behalf through his War Room podcast.

Here’s how Trump’s impeachments—and Republicans’ refusal to hold him
accountable for wrongdoing—highlight the threats of a future Trump
presidency:

* Trump and his lawyers now argue that Trump has total immunity from
criminal prosecution for anything he did as president. Trump has made
it clear that if he returns to the White House, he will wield the FBI
and Justice Department as weapons against his political opponents and
personal enemies. We know how much lawbreaking Trump and his allies
were willing to do to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.
Imagine what he might do with that power if the Supreme Court tells
him he’ll be immune from criminal liability.
* Trump’s impeachments and acquittals showed that, with few exceptions,
Republicans in the House and Senate lacked the desire or courage to
hold Trump accountable for his wrongdoing—even after he put their
lives at risk by mobilizing a mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6,
2021. There are precious few Republican officials willing to even
criticize Trump. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has happily declared
himself to be “all in” for Trump. A Republican-majority House and
Senate could not be counted on to be any sort of check on Trump’s
authoritarian revenge fantasies and authoritarian impulses.
* Right-wing religious, legal, and political leaders who helped put
Trump in office and tried to keep him there also opposed his
impeachments. During his term in office, they used him to strengthen
their ideological control of the Supreme Court. And now they are
preparing to use his possible return to power to “take the reins of
government” by replacing thousands of professional civil servants with
MAGA loyalists, [ [link removed] ]further removing any potential constraints on his
well-documented disdain for following the law.
* This year, Trump has tried to turn his bank fraud trial in New York
into a platform for riling up followers with claims of political
persecution. On Wednesday night, Trump lied to supporters in Iowa,
saying he was being “forced” to return to New York, even though in
this civil trial he had no obligation to attend what he has called “a
rigged and unfair trial.” On Thursday, Jan. 11, the day of closing
arguments, a [ [link removed] ]bomb threat was made against Judge Engoron’s home.
Later that day, Trump [ [link removed] ]defied instructions of Judge Engoron by
interrupting court proceedings to decry the case against him, stating
in part “We have a situation where I am an innocent man. [...] This is
a fraud on me. What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me.” Trump’s
lawyers were previously instructed that he would only be allowed to
speak if his comments were specific to the law and evidence in the
case and he was not to make a campaign speech (clearly Trump just
couldn’t help himself).

Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend bonus: In 2018, Emory University Prof.
George Yancy [ [link removed] ]asked in The New York Times, “Will America Choose King’s
Dream or Trump’s Nightmare?” Speaking of those who defended Trump’s racist
comments, Yancy wrote, “The problem with lying, obfuscation and making
excuses, though, is that one is often forced to tell more lies, cloud the
truth, make more excuses.” We see you, MAGA Republicans!

These are just some of the reasons we need YOU in this
fight. So, find your
favorite way to unwind after reading through this week’s recap, and then
make a plan for how you will fight back THIS week, this MONTH, this
election cycle.

[ [link removed] ]If you’d like to opt-out of this series but still continue receiving
our other email content, you can do so here >>

Thanks for all that you do to defeat Republican extremism.

– People For the American Way

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