Ah Barbara McQuade over het argument dat Trump werkelijk geloofde dat er fraude gepleegd was:
quote:
[..]
The committee’s intention to demonstrate that Trump’s planning began early could be politically powerful, but that’s not all: It also points directly to possible criminality.
If Trump and/or his co-conspirators are criminally investigated in relation to Jan. 6, one potential crime could be obstruction of an official proceeding, in this case the count of presidential electors in Congress. Prosecutors must show that Trump or other perpetrators did this “corruptly.”
“You’d have to show that when he was trying to find various means to overturn the election, he actually knew he lost,” former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade told me.
Demonstrating “corrupt” intent entails showing knowledge of a “wrongful purpose,” McQuade said. She noted “willful blindness” could be essential to demonstrating this.
“If you close your eyes to the high probability that a fact exists,” she said, “you can’t use that to evade responsibility.”
In a kind of collective act of self-gaslighting, much of the public has been disarmed by Trump’s tendency to unabashedly project his corruption, as if blithely signaling his intentions somehow drains them of corrupt intent.
In fact, Trump briefed us in advance on the corrupt scheme he intended to carry out, and then executed it according to plan. Yet the story we constantly hear is Trump “believed” his efforts had some sort of legitimate basis. That’s absurd.
Whether Trump and his band of coup-plotters will be criminally investigated is unknown, of course. But whatever happens on that front, Monday’s line of inquiry has the potential to forcefully expose to the public the throbbing core of premeditated corruption at the heart of Trump’s scheme. And that could enlarge public understanding in a very big way.
'Willful blindness' heet dat in juridische termen
Richard Donoghue de acting Attorney General (nadat Barr ontslag had genomen) getuigde ook dat Trump na iedere debunking van een 'fraude'-voorbeeld gewoon met een nieuw voorbeeld kwam zonder tegenspraak:
Hij was duidelijk niet geinteresseerd in de feiten zoals Bill Barr ook getuigde:
quote:
In a clip from his videotaped deposition, Barr recalled a Dec. 14, 2020 meeting with Trump in which the then-president presented him with a report on purported fraud perpetrated with the help of Dominion voting machines.
"I sat there flipping through the report and looking through it, and, to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me," Barr recalled, later adding: "And I was demoralized because, oh, boy, if he believes this stuff, he has lost contact -- he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff."
"And on the other hand," Barr added, "you know, when I went into this and would tell him how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were."
That same day, Barr resigned from the Trump administration, a decision which took effect nine days later.
[ Bericht 5% gewijzigd door Kijkertje op 14-06-2022 05:41:37 ]
“The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”— Bertrand Russell