Personal Duress and Unparalleled Danger UPDATED 11-7-2023

A few days ago, I blogged about Cassidy Hutchinson, her escape from Trump world, and her memoir, Enough. 

Feedback I later received suggested I could have driven the point home with more vivid descriptions. 

THIS excerpt from a Special Counsel filing seeking to reinstate a gag order Judge Chutkan had put on hold a week or so ago might better show what Hutchinson, emotionally, had to deal with. On Sunday night this week, Chutkan DID re-impose the gag. Trump DID respond with plenty of hatefulness for the judge and other "enemies."

In her memoir, Hutchinson highlighted how important it was to her to have read Bob Woodward's book, The Last of the President's Men (2015), about Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman's deputy Alexander Butterfield.

Butterfield's role in the Nixon White House was very similar to Hutchinson's in the Trump administration. 

On page 107 of The Last of the President's Men,

Butterfield left the meeting at that point.

Now alone with Nixon, Haldeman, on the tape, continued, "Newbrand [a career Secret Service agent] will do anything that I tell him to... he has come to me twice and absolutely, sincerely said, 'With what you've done for me and what the president's done for me, I just want you to know if you want someone killed, if you want anything, any way, any direction...'"

Woodward, longtime journalist with the Washington Post, besides having made himself known worldwide (most famously in a book co-authored by Carl Bernstein) with books about Nixon, also wrote a poignant trilogy about Trump; Fear; Rage; and Peril. In other words, hundreds of thousands of words describing the emotional turmoil a twentysomething Hutchinson would face as she prepared to extricate herself from the Trump's inner circle. 

Anyway, Hutchinson did muster the wherewithal to admit to the House select committee investigating the J6 insurrection that she had much more to tell them about what happened on January 6, 2021 than she did in her first interviews. In essence, she had a personal epiphany. She refused to be cowed into silence when she knew so much more about what happened before, on, and after January 6. 

Last year, in October, Woodward published the Trump Tapes: 20 interviews that show why he is an unparalleled danger.

In more than 50 years of reporting, I have never disclosed the raw interviews or full transcripts of my work. But after listening again to the 20 interviews I conducted with President Donald Trump during his last year as chief executive, I have decided to take the unusual step of releasing them. I was struck by how Trump pounded in my ears in a way the printed page cannot capture.

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Two other heroes, one a shero (Liz Cheney), the other Adam Kinzinger. On Halloween 2023, Kinzinger's memoir will be published. Both former Republican Members of Congress, they served with Democrats on the Select Committee to investigate the January 6, 2021 insurrection. I admire every member of the committee, but especially Kinzinger and Cheney. Each demonstrated moral integrity and courage unparalleled among their colleagues in the House Republican Conference. They stared down immense from levels of duress to do what they did. 

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UPDATED to include a clip from a Charlie Sykes interview with Cassidy Hutchinson

   

How Cassidy Hutchinson escaped the cult -- she had had ENOUGH

 

From page 322 of Enough, Hutchinson's fascinating memoir, as she was questioned by Liz Cheney, co-chair of the Select Committee investigating January 6,

"Let's turn now to what happened in the president's vehicle when the Secret Service told him he would not be going to the Capitol after his speech."

I've prepared for the question. I understand the effect my answer will have. I'm ready, even though I had been in a panic in the holding room about this moment, fearing I would screw it up, and dreading, too, the thought of hurting people I care about. I remember that when Tony [Ornato] was describing what had happened, that old rationalization excusing Trump's bad behavior was playing in the back of my mind: Why had people let it go so far? Until I shared this information with the committee, I hadn't told anyone else about it except for giving Mark [Meadows] and, later, Stefan [Passantino, Hutchinson's Trump World attorney] an abbreviated version. It had taken me three or four attempts to tell Jody [Hunt with Alston & Bird her attorney after cutting ties with Passantino]

Early on in Hutchinson's recollection of her life and experience in the Trump administration, she gives clues on her allegiance to Republican politics, including from her early childhood days. However, she drops more, subtle, clues to her independent mindset which defined her willingness to look beyond what had to be overwhelming peer pressure to betray genuinely American patriotic ideals.  How could she continue to favor an ill-suited narcissist who she finally realized was destroying democracy and the constitutional order?

A (recent) Evening with historian Heather Cox Richardson

Heather is a KEY voice for democracy in America today. More importantly, she is like an hour glass letting the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of more than a century and half of the American experience drip steadily onto the insatiably thirsty for knowledge ears, eyes, and awakening minds of millions of Americans.

If you're pressed for time, I recommend listening to this entire discussion at 1.5x speed. Still slow enough to absorb the entire message, yet at the same time, redeeming some of YOUR time (kinda like what California Congresswoman Katie Porter does when grilling petulant CEOs to force them to be honest about your rights and mine).

If you simply want a quick overview and encapsulation of the whys and hows of Heather's new book, Democracy Awakening, key in from the 19:00 to 22:05 mark of the video. 

The final few minutes are incredibly important too. 

Don't be mistaken or distracted or misdirected. Democracy will continue to awaken NOT because of Heather using her voice, but by YOU, and me each using OUR individual and collective voices. 

Rise UP! with One VOICE!

The Scheme, by Sheldon Whitehouse

 

The Scheme, by Sheldon Whitehouse, US Senator from Rhode Island

Sheldon Whitehouse (born October 20, 1955) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Rhode Island since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Attorney from 1993 to 1998 and the 71st attorney general of Rhode Island from 1999 to 2003.

A political progressive and climate hawk, Whitehouse became chair of the United States Senate Committee on the Budget in 2023. He has given hundreds of Senate floor speeches about climate change and has made his assertion that politically conservative "dark money" groups are conducting a campaign to seize control of the American government, specifically the Supreme Court of the United States, a hallmark of his Senate tenure.

CREW lawsuit to disqualify Trump from Colorado 2024 ballot remains alive

 

Having disqualified himself from public office by violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump must be removed from the ballot, according to a lawsuit filed today by six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters including former state, federal and local officials, represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the firms Tierney Lawrence Stiles LLC, KBN Law, LLC and Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also known as the Disqualification Clause, bars any person from holding federal or state office who took an “oath…to support the Constitution of the United States” and then has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood before the nation and took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump violated that oath by recruiting, inciting and encouraging a violent mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a futile attempt to remain in office.

Now, from CNN:

CNN — Former President Donald Trump has lost the first of several attempts to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in Colorado, based on the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against insurrectionists holding public office.

Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace this week rejected Trump’s bid to get the lawsuit dismissed on free-speech grounds.

The former president still has several pending challenges against the case, which was initiated by a liberal government watchdog group.

A trial to determine Trump’s eligibility is set for October 30, if the case reaches that stage. Colorado election officials say there’s a “hard deadline” to resolve the dispute before January 5, when the ballot printing process begins for the March 5 Republican primary.

In a 22-page ruling, Wallace said she wasn’t swayed by Trump’s argument that the lawsuit seeks to improperly restrict his rights to participate in the political process.

“The Court has no difficulty concluding that it is to the benefit of the general public that, regardless of political affiliation, only constitutionally qualified candidates are placed on the ballot,” Wallace wrote.

She added that resolving the question of Trump’s eligibility is particularly important because he is seeking “the highest office in the country” and “the disqualification sought is based on allegations of insurrection against the very government over which the candidate seeks to preside.”

Unprecedented cases

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed the Colorado lawsuit on behalf of a group of Republican and unaffiliated voters in the state. This is one of three major challenges against Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 ballot – similar cases are pending in Minnesota and Michigan, where a different group filed lawsuits.

CREW’s chief counsel Donald Sherman said in a statement that the group is “pleased with the Court’s well-reasoned and very detailed order, leading to a thorough decision, and look forward to presenting our clients’ case at trial.”

The group sued Trump and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who oversees elections in the state. Griswold, a Democrat, previously told the judge that she doesn’t have a position on Trump’s eligibility and would comply with the judge’s final decision.

However, Griswold has said in court filings that she “believes that Mr. Trump incited the insurrection” and therefore wants the judge to determine if the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist ban can be applied through Colorado state law, because she has “sworn a solemn oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and to effectuate its requirements.”

Wouldn't THAT be loverly? 

Democracy Awakening! It's YOU (and me)

Heather Cox Richardson on Saving Democracy

In a different YouTube interview I watched last night, Heather (Cox Richardson), made an off the cuff remark about how many people will read her latest book. I take her to have meant that she is letting go of her work and sending out into the Universe.

Yes, she's a Professor, and a Ph.D., but she's also several years younger than me. I both am in awe of the degree of FLOW she has demonstrated in her "ministry" to the American people. Based on reading her Letters from an American for the last few years, I feel comfortable addressing her by her first name.

From the masterfully written FOREWORD to Democracy Awakening, which I believe to be the most important book/history/message of our moment in US history:

The concept that humans have the right to determine their own fate remains as true today as it was when the Founders put that statement into the Declaration of Independence, a statement so radical that even they did not understand its full implications. It is as true today as it was when FDR and the United States stood firm on it. With today’s increasingly connected global world, that concept is even more important now than it was when our Founders declared that no one had an inherent right to rule over anyone else, that we are all created equal, and that we have a right to consent to our government.

This is a book about how a small group of people have tried to make us believe that our fundamental principles aren’t true. They have made war on American democracy by using language that served their interests, then led us toward authoritarianism by creating a disaffected population and promising to re-create an imagined past where those people could feel important again. As they took control, they falsely claimed they were following the nation’s true and natural laws. This book is also the story of how democracy has persisted throughout our history despite the many attempts to undermine it. It is the story of the American people, especially those whom the powerful have tried to marginalize, who first backed the idea of equality and a government that defended it, and then, throughout history, have fought to expand that definition to create a government that can, once and for all, finally make it real.

Richardson, Heather Cox. Democracy Awakening. Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Our fundamental (or Founding) principles ARE true. We can and we MUST each do the right thing, day after day. That is, to exercise our citizenship responsibilities. As we do so, our right to self-determination in the government of our country will survive.