(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump attempted a coup, and the media need to say so [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-10-03 If Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their Republican Party toadies succeed in destroying the American experiment in representative government, no one will be more responsible than the compliant and complicit legacy media. From sanewashing Trump's often babbling incoherence, to normalizing his extremism even to the point of casting Trump’s proposed ethnic cleansing as a housing proposal, it's clear that the institution responsible for reporting on and exposing the greatest internal threat this nation has faced since the Civil War is catastrophically failing. With the latest news about Trump's actions to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the media are failing yet again. The reporting of the facts makes it clear: A 165-page filing from Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith released Wednesday lays out the election subversion allegations against Donald Trump in new detail to argue the former president doesn't deserve immunity from criminal charges because his conduct was for private gain rather than duty of public office. "Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one," Smith wrote. "Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted − a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role." "When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office," the filing added. Using criminal means to disrupt the democratic process in order to stay in office after having lost an election is called an attempted coup. Who in the legacy media will say so? It's right there in their own articles: Part of the brief focuses, for example, on a social media post that Mr. Trump sent on the afternoon of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, telling supporters that Vice President Mike Pence had let them all down. Mr. Smith laid out extensive arguments for why that post on Twitter should be considered an unofficial act of a desperate losing candidate, rather than the official act of a president that would be considered immune from prosecution under a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer. After Mr. Trump’s Twitter post focused the enraged mob’s attention on harming Mr. Pence and the Secret Service took the vice president to a secure location, an aide rushed into the dining room off the Oval Office where Mr. Trump was watching television. The aide alerted him to the developing situation, in the hope that Mr. Trump would then take action to ensure Mr. Pence’s safety. Instead, Mr. Trump looked at the aide and said only, “So what?” according to grand jury testimony newly disclosed in the brief. The riot Trump inspired endangered the life of his own Vice President, but because that Vice President refused to participate in Trump's attempted coup, Trump didn't care. Let me repeat that: Trump didn't care that the mob he had unleashed endangered the life of his own Vice President! Because Trump had one priority: To overthrow the election, and thus the incoming government the voters chose. Which is called an attempted coup. Once again, the reporting lays it out clearly: The filing offers the most exhaustive account yet of Pence’s interactions with Trump, alleging that the vice president repeatedly tried to encourage Trump to back off his claims of a stolen election. It alleges that one of Trump’s lawyers repeatedly told Trump they could not substantiate any of his claims, nor could outside consultants they hired. The lawyer told Trump the claims were “bulls---,” and that he would lose in court, the document alleges. The document alleges that Trump and some of those around him were unwilling to listen to anyone who contradicted their view that the election was stolen, sometimes lashing out at those who disagreed. It notes Trump’s public campaign to pressure governors and state officials, pointing to his posts on twitter, now X. But it also highlights internal efforts to stifle dissent. According to the document, when Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani found out that Justin Riemer, then RNC chief counsel, had sent an email urging colleagues not to back claims of a stolen election, he left Riemer a threatening voicemail. Trump was repeatedly told by his own lawyers that he had lost the election, and he not only refused to accept it, he pressured government officials to help him attempt a coup, his minions even threatening leaders of his own political party who refused to comply. This was an attempted coup. Every story about Trump's efforts should say so. Every commentary should say so. It should be in every headline and every lede. Because if Trump somehow returns to office, he won't ever again willingly leave it. That's what's at stake in this year's election, and the media should make it the biggest story about this election. 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