Tag: Ronna McDaniel

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Crime Donald Trump Elections GOP

RNC Chair McDaniel And Trump May Face Bribery Charges For Their Role In 2020 Election Conspiracy

Now that we know there’s a recording of failed one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump pressuring Michigan officials to not certify the results of the 2020 election in the Wolverine State, there could soon be new criminal charges against him and Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, according to a legal expert.

On Thursday, The Detroit News reported on the phone call.

Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.

On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they’d look “terrible” if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.

“We’ve got to fight for our country,” said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.” 

McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”

That offer of attorneys in exchange for not certifying the election is bribery, Anthony Michael Kreis of the Georgia State University College of Law noted, sharing his thoughts on Twitter.

“It seems like Ronna McDaniel could be in some trouble in Michigan and Donald Trump may be facing a fifth set of charges. A promise was offered in exchange for an official act, unlike in Georgia where the preferred method appears to have been limited to browbeating state officials.”

“And that’s before any other public corruption / election fraud conspiracy type crimes that could be well implicated.”

“The real issue is whether providing a lawyer is a “valuable thing.” On the one hand, it isn’t the kind of thing that we typically would consider as being offered as a bribe. On the other hand, it is a materially valuable thing offered in exchange for a corrupt official act.

“If we think of bribery statutes as criminalizing the offering/accepting of goods that are enriching or personally benefiting the public official, then dangling an attorney falls outside that prohibition. But the terms of these statutes aren’t so limited. Be curious to see case law.”

Special Counsel Jack Smith will also be interested in the Michigan phone call and could well amend his election interference indictment to include bribery charges for both Trump and McDaniel.

The more we find out about GOP efforts to overturn the 2020 balloting, the more it seems like every damn one of them at every level of government was a willing co-conspirator.

 

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Categories
Crime Donald Trump Elections GOP

‘Smoking Gun’ Phone Conversation Between McDaniel And Trump Is ‘Devastating’ For Both

Already facing a challenge to her continued chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Ronna McDaniel is now caught up in the ongoing investigation of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as the result of a phone call she had with one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.

According to former Defense Department special counsel and New York University Law Professor Ryan Goodman, the McDaniel-Trump phone call is “devastating” for both and places them in legal jeopardy.

Appearing on CNN, Goodman was asked by host Kate Bolduan about the phone call, which is now part of the public record thanks to the massive 845-page report from the January 6 House Select Committee, “You see this new evidence, and in this you really do see new evidence of criminal liability here for Trump and his chief of staff, at the very least, Mark Meadows. What evidence is most damning?”

Goodman replied:

“I think the most damning comes under the heading of the scheme to set up these false slate of electors, individuals from the GOP who would have been the electors if Trump had won those states, to certify that he had in fact won states that Biden had clearly won. That seems to just be a federal crime that is a very, very active part of the current special counsel’s investigation. New evidence, brand new that we have not seen before that directs it right at Trump and Mark Meadows.”

He then laid out exactly how the evidence incriminates Trump:

“For example, that one smoking gun so far is a call that Trump makes to the head of the RNC. And he hands over the call to John Eastman to say, we want you to organize the false slate of electors. That’s all we had in the past. We now know she calls Donald Trump back soon after the call and says, I accept your request, which means it’s about him, it’s not about Eastman. And their other lawyers for the Trump campaign who say to the committee that it was Donald Trump who put Giuliani in control of this false slate of electors and what Giuliani was doing, as far as they were concerned, was executing what Donald Trump wanted them to do. That’s pretty devastating.”

That led Goodman to conclude:

“Then there is a bunch of other testimony that we hadn’t heard before from Cassidy Hutchinson, saying that Mark Meadows was significantly involved, following it closely, making dozens of calls to try to operationalize the false slate of electors. I think they’re in some pretty deep trouble with both of those.”

 

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GOP Joe Biden WTF?!

RNC Chair Tries To Blame Burning Of Fox News Christmas Tree On (Wait For It…) Joe Biden

Early Wednesday, the Fox News Christmas tree was set ablaze, the Washington Post reports:

The towering Christmas tree outside the Fox News headquarters in New York was set on fire early Wednesday, causing first responders to race to extinguish a blaze that engulfed the 50-foot tree in Midtown Manhattan.

Video posted to social media shows flames and smoke coming off the decorated tree shortly after midnight just outside the News Corp. building. The network cut in for a live broadcast of the blaze at Fox News Square, just days after the tree, covered in thousands of lights and ornaments, was ceremoniously lit to ring in the holidays.

A man was later arrested for the act:

Craig Tamanaha, 49, was arrested early Wednesday and charged with setting the fire, a New York Police Department spokesperson told The Washington Post. Tamanaha faces charges including criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and arson. The man “was observed by Fox News Channel security climbing the Christmas tree decorated outside their office building near the corner of West 48 Street and Sixth Avenue” about 12:15 a.m., police said.

End of story, right? Not according to Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel, who went on Fox and tried to blame the whole thing on President Joe Biden.

McDaniel was asked to predict how she thought the GOP would do in the 2022 midterms. She remarked:

“What this poll is telling us is we’re going to take back the House and the Senate and the American people want a change. Biden is underwater. Harris’s approval is under 30% and Republicans are more trusted on three key issues: the economy, inflation and crime.

“And these are issues we’re seeing every day on our streets, around our homes, in our communities, on the news. Look at your Christmas tree that was just burned down. This is a huge problem for Democrats.”

Wait! What was that? A random act of arson is a problem for Democrats? Sounds like a bit of a stretch, and it also suggests Republicans are in big trouble, despite their bragging about how they intend to win in 2022.