Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/09/after-barr-memo-richard-pilger-quits-top-doj-official-in-charge-of-voter-fraud-investigations.html
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Anyone else feel like this is a coup? Feeling a lot like a coup, now.
An attempted, half-baked coup. As long as people of integrity like Pilger refuse to go along quietly, the regime will come to an end.
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Attempted poop, not coup. Trump on his golden throne pushing through the constipation to drop one more on us.
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Yeah. So, whatever happened to the Durham Report? Conservatives were hyping it last spring like it was the second coming of The Beatles. Like it was going to save the Donalds ass or something. Guess not.
Pardon me while I laugh sarcastically.
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Why did he step down?
Wouldn’t it be more useful to fight back? To simply decline to do any of these bullshit investigations at all and stymie and obstruct donnie and barr from doing anything?
Now that Pilger has resigned in protest, doesn’t that mean donnie or barr can just put in place a cardboard yesman to go ahead and start several hundred stupid and pointless investigations right away as he is told to?
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I am curious where the wall is, too. That point at which they smack their faces against immutable object and feel resistance. When does this end and how?
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It’s the beginning of a coup. I have no lack of confidence in this administration to do what is shocking, terrible, illegal, unethical, totalitarian, fascist, and on and on ad nauseum.
Thankfully, a bloody coup is out of the question. The military seems to have nothing but disdain for this orange shit stain on the tighty whities of history.
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I am sure there are multiple levels to resigning vs attempting to obstruct. Some mercenary: if he obstructs he could be fired for poor job performance or insubordination, and lose federal benefits as well as find it harder to be reemployed by the government, especially if he hopes Biden will see his resignation as a noble act of resistance.
Some altruistic: by quitting he brings attention to Trump and Barr’s attempt at election theft. The memo is bad, but now the public knows it was bad enough that the top election fraud investigator resigned in protest.
Finally, there will be some disruption in the bureaucracy’s chain of command. I don’t know how key he is to coordinating specific election fraud investigations, or how much of a knowledge bottleneck he is, or whether he has deputies who can readily take over his duties, but having the head of DOJ’s election fraud investigation quit right after a national election is probably going to generate unwelcome chaos for Trump and Barr’s plans.
Sure, Trump and Barr can find some toady to step into Pilger’s shoes, but will that person be able to competently execute a strategy of presenting “evidence” to get the election overturned by the courts? They haven’t had much success so far with their current cabal of side show rejects, and I doubt they’ll get much further without a competent person to lead the effort.
As always, fingers crossed!
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So what kind of coup attempt is this?
Hmm, a bloodless coup… I suppose Democrats wouldn’t surprise me if they refuse to bloody their own knuckles over this shit.
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Well, the way it’s going it looks like all the solid legal walls are gonna collapse in protest for being tested.
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So if Barr is calling open season for any prosecutor who sees voter fraud, are multiple prosecutors going to go after DeJoy? Everywhere that mail was delayed is potentially interfering with the vote.
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I’m still not sure that they’re actually hoping to overturn the election results. I don’t think, still, that this can happen (the scale and [lack of] legal strength of the efforts don’t match what’s required to make it work). Even some of the monsters of Fox News are admitting that any fraud wouldn’t have been enough to change the outcome of the election. But what can/will/is happening is that they’re delegitimizing the Biden administration before it begins and, more importantly fueling the (misplaced) sense of grievance by white Republican voters that keeps the party going. Yet again, they can tell the voters, that thing you wanted - that thing you deserved - that thing that should have been yours was stolen from you! (By the immigrants, by the Blacks - er, “unfair affirmative action programs” and “urban voter fraud,” by the Jews, er “George Soros”…)
Though there’s also potentially a punitive aspect, as happened with bogus investigations into “voter fraud” in Georgia that essentially punished Black candidates for getting the Black vote out, and subsequently suppressed the Black vote:
I was wondering about that myself, but I suspect he wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. It sounds like Barr’s memo opens the floodgates for various people to take it upon themselves to open “investigations,” and all he could do was watch it happen.
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He also now finds himself in a position to speak much more freely to the press.
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Not so much. He still works for the DOJ. He just resigned from that specific position.
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Well shit.
I have this naïve fantasy where everybody who resigned in protest over the last four years just poofs back magically into their posts on January 20th.
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I’m a bit less sanguine looking at this in conjunction with the sacking of Defence Secretary Esper. who refused to deploy active-service troops against protestors. I’m guessing his replacement has been selected for a lack of similar squeamishness.
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