The Hunt of Six: From Bedminster until Kremlin
7.07am London / 2.07am DC / 9.07am Moscow
Even after 10 hours of "(sensational) Trump arraignment”, and at least 36 hours after Jack Smith announcement, no clear who is “CO CONSPIRATOR 6.” Public records suggest these two former Trump aides are not the mysterious "Co-Conspirator 6" referenced in Trump's latest indictment. Credit Jack Smith with launching Washington’s newest parlor game of whodunit. Trump will be indicted for crimes in Georgia (Fulton County) as early as Monday (Aug 7th, 2023).
Claims that Trump’s election interference efforts are protected by the First Amendment have no merit. The legal line is crossed when words are used to conspire to commit crimes.
Not being required to prove something does not mean you do not want to put on proof of that fact (which can be highly relevant to the crime); the jury just isn't required to find that as an element of the crime. Not at all unusual; it's like good motive evidence.
Since the latest indictment against former President Donald Trump was unsealed on Tuesday, I and countless other journalists have been searching for breadcrumbs to help resolve the biggest mystery to have arisen from these charges: Who is co-conspirator 6?
After all, media outlets including NBC News have identified the five other co-conspirators, but there has yet to be any widespread consensus about the sixth unnamed, uncharged participant in these alleged conspiracies.
I cannot definitively tell you who co-conspirator 6 is. But I can show you who they likely are not.
Not Jason Miller
Instead, in paragraph 25, the indictment quotes from a December 8, 2020, email from a “Senior Campaign Advisor” who was complaining about “conspiracy s--- beamed down from the mothership.”
If that turn of phrase sounds familiar to you, you’re hardly alone. Indeed, months ago, The Washington Post revealed that email was sent by senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller to a GOP ad guru named Larry Weitzner.
That suggests Miller can't be co-conspirator 6 because he's referred to as "Senior Campaign Advisor" in the indictment.
Not Mike Roman
Paragraph 64 of the indictment alleges “on December 13, [2020], at a Campaign staffer’s request, Co-Conspirator 5 drafted and sent fraudulent elector certificates for the Defendant’s electors in New Mexico, which had not previously been among the targeted states.”
Within the publicly available documents produced to the House Jan. 6 committee, I located a Dec. 13, 2020, email from pro-Trump attorney Ken Chesebro to then-Trump campaign official Mike Roman attaching those New Mexico documents and reflecting that Roman was the campaign staffer who requested them. That email was produced to the committee by Trump campaign lawyer Josh Findlay, another person copied on the email.
If Roman’s football-referencing tweet was a coy attempt to suggest he’s “Co-Conspirator 6,” there already was plenty of grist for such speculation.
In late June, CNN reported that Roman had been cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation through a proffer session, and Roman’s name popped up repeatedly in the report by the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Like Epshteyn, Roman had a direct line to Giuliani, and a key role in the plot to install fake Trump electors in states where President Joe Biden won the popular vote.
“A campaign operative named Michael Roman was also tapped for a major operational role in the fake elector effort,” the committee’s report declared.
In his capacity as Trump campaign’s director for Election Day Operations (EDO), Roman ran an “Electors Whip Operation,” where he created a tracker for electors in key states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to the committee.
“Roman referred to others on this email as the ‘WHIP TEAM’ and directed them to fill out the spreadsheet, to update him on ‘what you have and what you need,’ and to plan on a call that evening,” the report states.
The Committee said that Roman asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination at his deposition, refusing to answer any substantive questions about his role in the fake-electors scheme.
Chesebro is co-conspirator 5, which would mean Roman is the "Campaign staffer" recognized in that part of the indictment — and therefore, couldn't be co-conspirator 6.
That we can exclude Miller and Roman is helpful, but obviously, the bigger question is still: If not them, who is co-conspirator 6?
Former prosecutors and other experts essentially agree that proving criminal intent poses one of the biggest legal challenges to indicting former president Donald Trump for his role in the attacks on the 2020 election. “Mens rea,” Latin for “guilty mind,” is required to convict. This generally means that the offender must have acted purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently in committing the criminal act.
It’s tempting, in assessing Trump’s state of mind, to focus on whether he genuinely believed his assertion that the presidential election was “stolen” — that he had beaten Joe Biden and that therefore his subsequent efforts were merely means well within his power aimed at setting things right. If you can prove that he did know that he lost the election — that it was not “stolen” from him — you go a long way toward clearing that criminal-intent hurdle. Certainly, the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is amassing evidence that Trump knew he had lost. Numerous Trump aides and lawyers have attested to this before the committee.
But so what. For a number of the possible crimes the committee has identified, it doesn’t matter what Trump believed about the election. Focusing on that aspect misses the true test of criminal intent.
He still had no legal right to use forged electoral certificates or to pressure election officials in Georgia to “find 11,780 votes” that did not exist, or to engage in other extralegal means to try to hold onto power. That includes pressuring the vice president to assume powers he didn’t have. State and federal criminal laws prohibit these things. Vigilante justice is against the law, even if you (wrongly) believe you are a victim.
The most recent hearings of the Jan. 6 committee provide plenty of evidence to prove that Trump and a cadre of his closest associates conspired to engage in electoral vigilantism.
First, soliciting state officials to violate their oaths of office in administering elections is a clear state crime across the country, including in Georgia. And Trump did not merely solicit Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.” Raffensperger wrote in his book, “Integrity Counts,” that he considered Trump to have been making a “threat” to do him harm, and he expanded on that in his testimony before the committee Tuesday. Were Trump’s lawyers to say at trial, “Yes, but our client thought he had won the election,” they would be laughed out of court.
If Trump’s lawyers were to deny the solicitation and the threat, the jury could simply listen for themselves to the full audio recording of the infamous phone call that Trump made to Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021. It’s a smoking gun in the hands of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has been investigating Trump’s efforts in Georgia, where a special grand jury was seated last month.
It is also immaterial what was in Trump’s head regarding the outcome of the election when he participated in the audacious scheme to falsify alternate slates of electors and get them to Congress to gum up the certification of the election. “President Trump and his campaign were directly involved in advancing and coordinating the plot to replace legitimate Biden electors with fake electors not chosen by the voters,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the select committee, said at Tuesday’s hearing. The evidence provided by witnesses at the hearing backed that up. Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) testified that Trump and his lawyers repeatedly asked him to remove legitimate electors for Biden and substitute an illegitimate Trump slate.
That testimony was supported by additional video testimony from Trump allies including White House and campaign aides and Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee. At Thursday’s hearing, top Trump Justice Department officials testified about Trump’s efforts to promote Jeffrey Clark to attorney general after they refused to sign his draft letter to Georgia election officials advancing the alternate-electors scheme.
What this all describes is the equivalent of submitting a fake verdict form in a judicial proceeding. Whether one truly believed that their preferred candidate won the election, or that the official verdict was flawed, is simply no defense.
It is no wonder so many prominent lawyers associated with Trump refused to participate, as shown repeatedly in testimony Tuesday and Thursday. Even if the lawyers were confident that Trump thought he won and could prove his state of mind in court, it would surely not have cured their misgivings about the illicit methods. Nor should it. Trump’s state of mind in that regard is irrelevant.
The alternate-electors scheme is being looked at by both the Justice Department and the Atlanta district attorney. District attorneys in other jurisdictions where phony certificates were cooked up should also investigate those responsible — including the former president.
Bowers’s testimony showing that Trump and his lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani engaged in a sustained effort to pressure him to betray his oath of office by taking extralegal steps to overturn the election results would be useful in any Georgia or federal prosecution to show a clear pattern of conduct. So would the testimony of the three Justice Department attorneys who appeared Thursday.
What Trump may or may not have believed about the election outcome was also beside the point when he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to violate his legal duties in the certification of the electoral votes. A lead Justice Department prosecutor told a court that to prove criminal obstruction, Trump would simply have to have known that Pence had a legal duty to recognize the results. As experts have said, the latest evidence presented by the select committee to prove that case is beyond compelling.
Indeed, with its investigatory powers, the Justice Department could develop the evidence even further. That includes considering whether to immunize Eastman, who promoted the idea to Trump that Pence and the state legislatures had powers that they didn’t have. That way Eastman couldn’t invoke his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify. He would be compelled to divulge evidence that would probably further incriminate the former president.
What’s more, with those same facts, federal prosecutors may also have a relatively easy case to prove that Trump conspired by “intimidation or threat” to impede an official from “discharging any duties” — a specific charge against both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys regarding their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, testified that the pressure on Pence was “painful” and that, based on the president’s statements, he anticipated a threat to the vice president’s safety. In fact, he went so far as to alert the Secret Service on Jan. 5, 2021.
The criminal investigation by the Fulton County district attorney has long been underway and, with a smaller nucleus of facts, may be the first to reach the stage of indictments. The Justice Department has reportedly launched a multistate criminal investigation of the false-electors scheme and has issued grand jury subpoenas that seek communications with any “agent of Donald J. Trump.” The investigatory powers of both state and federal law enforcement agencies are substantial, but prosecutors need not make these cases more difficult than they are. If they focus on Trump’s efforts to engage in vigilante justice, the intent element of these cases is easily satisfied.
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-prada- Adi Mulia Pradana is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed. Now figure out, or, prevent catastrophic situations in the Indonesian administration from outside the government. After his mom was nearly killed by a syndicate, now I do it (catch all these blunders, especially blunders by an asshole syndicates) for free. Writer actually facing 12 years attack-simultaneously (physically terror, cyberattack terror) by his (ex) friend in IR UGM / HI UGM (all of them actually indebted to me, at least get a very cheap book). 2 times, my mom nearly got assassinated by my friend with “komplotan” / weird syndicate. Once assassin, forever is assassin, that I was facing in years. I push myself to be (keep) dovish, pacifist, and you can read my pacifist tone in every note I write. A framing that myself propagated for years.
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