Rachel Maddow breaks down how Trump planned to use the Justice Department to overthrow the government.
Video of Rachel Maddow:
Maddow said:
The main revelations today, the main points of the hearing today, we’re all about the U.S. Justice Department and how Trump plans to use the Justice Department to overthrow the government and stay in power. In this part of the plot, the Justice Department would essentially tell the country that Trump was right, there really was tons of fraud, swing states won by Biden probably really were not won by Biden.
The Justice Department would tell those swing states that they really should consider sending in Trump electors to the Electoral College instead of Biden electors. That was the plan for the Justice Department to play that role. And how would they carry out that plan? The vehicle for this part of the plan was this official Jeffrey Clark.
The plan was to fire the attorney general, replace him with this guy, and then this guy would enact the Trump plan, to have states that Biden won decertify their votes, to instead proclaim Trump had won those states and to have those states cast their Electoral College votes for Trump. Clark promised to carry it out. We got new detailed revelations about every step of how they tried to do that today.
I think that it’s pretty inarguable, though, that will be remembered most here from today’s hearing was the dramatic, almost cinematic testimony about how the top officials at the Justice Department tried to stop all of that from happening, down to the very last second.
Trump often used language during his presidency that clearly expressed his view that he was the United States government. These comments were often dismissed by mainstream media and political pundits as Trumpian ego when Donald Trump was expressing his belief that the Executive Branch of the United States government existed to serve his purposes.
After Trump lost the presidential election, he tried to use the Justice Department to overthrow the government.
Rachel Maddow concisely broke down the plot, but the motivating force behind the coup was Trump’s disrespect for the entire system of governance and his willingness to destroy it to keep power.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association