Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/03/listen-in-taped-trump-phone-call-he-pressures-georgia-secretary-of-state-to-recalculate-election-i-just-want-to-find-11780-votes.html
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It’s honestly hard to know what will be worse for our democracy at this point–charging a significant number of high-ranking Republicans with sedition on January 21 or not charging them.
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How is this not criminal activity? How is this not outright election tampering to seek to overturn legally certified vote count (and recount, and hand recount and audit) from an election that happened two months ago?!
WTF?!
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…and yet it’s conservatives who love to bitch and moan about the younger generations getting participation trophies and parents of that generation nagging at teachers about a bad grade 
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It absolutely is.
But you know… both sides do it, so, we can’t actually do anything about it… /s (obvs)
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Not charging them. If you don’t charge them they will just do worse next time. Pardoning Nixon and then refusing to even investigate Shrub’s war crimes and crimes against humanity made this possible.
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“After the Washington Post published audio of the phone call, Republicans were quiet on the matter. At a rally in Georgia ahead of the run-off election there on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz refused to answer questions about the president’s call with Raffensperger.” -TheDailyBeast
Almost as if a criminal gang is running the country…
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I don’t ever recall any previous presidents of either party doing such insane shit like this; that orange muthafucka is desperately trying to stave off the inevitable conclusion of his one and only term, and hopefully the crimes he’s currently committing will be prosecuted as well.
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Exactly. And the fact that anyone is lining up behind him here is frightening, and that there are some who are still thinking this is politics as usual is frightening.
I fucking hope so. We are right on the edge here, and there are far too many people not taking ti seriously. If we don’t take this seriously and shore up our democratic systems, we will lose them. The fact that so many seem unwilling to understand that scares me no end.
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Via TheHill:
"Katyal, now a Georgetown law professor, said he believed Trump’s actions were “really truly an impeachable offense.”
“This is, you know, the heart of what the abuse of power that our founders worried about so much is — it’s, you know, the idea that the government official can use the powers of his office to try and stay in office and try and browbeat other officials that disagree with them,” he said.
“So one question is whether or not a high crime and misdemeanor was committed, certainly the tape makes it sound like it has. The second is whether or not there has been a criminal offense and the federal code 52 U.S.C. 20511 prohibits a federal official from interfering in a state election process,” said Katyal.
He stated that the Department of Justice has to “at least has to open an investigation.”
JHC but who will enforce ANYTHING is the question isn’t it?
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And the fucker reeks of paranoia.
I honestly thought the goon was tougher than this. The parts of the machine? Are you sure?
Totally Queeg
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Conversely, if you do charge them and their crimes are whitewashed by a Trump-stacked judiciary, it’s also the end of democracy as we know it.
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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 12 hours unless flagged)
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Really? Fucking hell.
"…Bowman said that the real problem with trying to do anything criminally with this call is demonstrating the president’s mental state, depending on what hypothetical charge is presented. He said while it sounds like a classic mob boss shake down, Trump walks very carefully down the line between extortion and pleading. Perhaps the president believes he really was trying to protect the election. Perhaps Trump really believes the conspiracy theories.
“That could be true,” Bowman said, clarifying that Trump may have convinced himself he could not have lost. “How are you going to prove he doesn’t believe that?”
And I thought that I was done drinking for the Holidays.
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Whether he believes it’s a crime or not, makes no difference does it? If I honestly believe assaulting a cop isn’t against the law, that doesn’t get me off the hook for the crime.
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One set of rules for people in power, and another, different set of rules for everyone else.
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