LIZ DYE

 

Trump gets bored issuing real pardons, tries a fake one It's hilarious ... right up until his supporters storm the jail. Liz Dye Dec 18 Tina Peters (center) at an event in Sedalia, Colorado, in June 2022. (Aaron Ontiveroz/Denver Post via Getty) “FREE TINA PETERS, WHO SITS IN A COLORADO PRISON, DYING & OLD, FOR ATTEMPTING TO EXPOSE VOTER FRAUD IN THE RIGGED 2O20 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!!!” the president screeched into the ether last month. Peters was an election supervisor in Colorado before she decided that there were fraud gremlins in Dominion voting machines and fell into a life of crime. She’s also nine years younger than the president and apparently healthy, but Trump was never a stickler for details. Nor is Trump much pressed about adhering to the niceties of the Constitution. And so on December 11 he purported to grant her “a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” This is categorically illegal. Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, the president has the power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.” Peters’s offense was against the state of Colorado, which is why she’s serving a nine-year stretch at La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo. And it’s why this “pardon” has no legal effect. But it does fit squarely into Trump’s effort to retcon his attempted coup in 2021 and use his office to reward supporters and punish his enemies. Peters was found guilty by a jury of her peers. And yet Trump has threatened the state of Colorado and its governor because they won’t allow her to break the law with impunity. As his own chief of staff Susie Wiles admitted to Vanity Fair, the president has “an alcoholic’s personality” and “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.” MAGA superstar Peters served as the Clerk and Recorder in Mesa County between 2019 and 2022. In 2020, she certified Trump’s 28-point win over Biden and signed off on an audit attesting that the tally was fair. But soon she became convinced by Trump’s lies about rampant fraud and concocted a bizarre scheme to prove them true. In May 2021, Peters allowed a former surfer named Conan Hayes to digitally image the county’s voting machines. Hayes is an associate of Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, who subsidized the “Stop the Steal” movement. According to charging documents, Peters provided Hayes with a misappropriated government ID so that he could impersonate a county employee and attend a confidential software update with Dominion Voting Systems’ staff. Tina Peters is the symptom of a deeper rot Lisa Needham · October 7, 2024 Read full story In August 2021, the data Hayes exfiltrated appeared online, and state officials launched an investigation. But Peters had fled the state for Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where Mike “My Pillow” Lindell was hosting a “symposium” on voter fraud that featured the Mesa County data. Peters became a star of the MAGA movement, and then a martyr. She was indicted in March 2022 and convicted by a jury in August 2024 on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, official misconduct, violation of duty, and failing to comply with the secretary of state. Peters’s conduct before and during the trail did not endear her to the court. At one point she got held in contempt for illegally filming a legal proceeding on her iPad and lying about it to the judge’s face. Then she kicked a cop in a bagel shop when he came to seize the device. Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced Peters to nine years in prison, calling her “a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.” Peters filed multiple lawsuits seeking to overturn her conviction, in both state and federal court, but none have succeeded thus far. For my friends, everything When Trump came back into office, he pardoned almost 1,600 January 6 defendants, including members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were convicted of seditious conspiracy. That left Peters one of the only MAGA “warriors” still in jail. The US Justice Department has tried like hell to get her out. In March, it said it was conducting a review of the Colorado state prosecution for “abuses of the criminal justice process.” It sought to intervene in her federal habeas corpus case. It requested that she be transferred to federal custody, and then, when Colorado refused, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said it was investigating the state’s adult correctional facilities and youth detention centers. The president was even less subtle. In May, he called Peters “an innocent Political Prisoner being horribly and unjustly punished” as part of “a Communist persecution by the Radical Left Democrats to cover up their Election crimes and misdeeds in 2020.” In August he threatened “harsh measures” if state officials refused to release her. Trump’s pardon attorney Ed Martin gushed on X, “I just spoke with Tina Peters from her prison cell. What a privilege. What a lady. God bless her. Tina, we are coming for you, M’am [sic].” Meanwhile Peters’s legal team was thinking outside the box. Way outside the box. Peters’s lawyer Peter Ticktin is a Trumpworld insider of sorts. He roomed with the future president at boarding school and later authored a book entitled “What Makes Trump Tick: My Years with Donald Trump from New York Military Academy to the Present.” On December 7, he sent a letter to his former roomie (first published by Colorado Newsline) in which he explained that presidents really do have the power to pardon state crimes. Ticktin insisted that that the Founders intended the president to be able to forgive “all offenses” and so “it does not make sense that they intended to give the individual states the power to circumvent the President’s power to pardon.” Why no previous president discovered this power is not explained. But Ticktin’s nattering was apparently good enough for Trump, who announced four days later than he was “granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!” Fake news, real war This pardon has absolutely zero legal effect, and Colorado confirmed that it will not be releasing Peters based on the president’s meaningless incantation. Governor Jared Polis @colorado.gov My recent statement on Tina Peters Fri, 12 Dec 2025 02:08:52 GMT View on Bluesky And yet,Trump’s minions raced to pretend that the naked emperor’s proclamations carry the full force of law. The White House quickly added her to the official list of Trump’s second-term clemency grants, alongside all the crypto scammers, tax evaders, and drug smugglers favored by the president. But the addition only served to highlight the fake pardon’s impropriety. The entry describing which federal district Peters committed her crime in was blank, since she was never prosecuted by any US attorney. And hers was the only offense described in scare quotes. Every other pardon is granted “for those offenses against the United States.” But Peters’s is “for those offenses she has or may have committed or taken part in related to election integrity and security during the period from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2021.” Perhaps whichever lackey magicked up this document understood it to be worth less than Monopoly money. Lucky for Trump, the chittering choir of of rage farmers who spent Christmas 2020 spreading lies about the election are back to assure the MAGA faithful that Trump was righteously exercising a power heretofore undiscovered by his predecessors. Always be fomenting Trump, who lost Colorado in 2020 by 14 points, insists that the real crime in the state was rampant electoral fraud. On Monday he attacked Polis as “weak and pathetic” and moaned about the “high intensity jail” where Peters is being housed. (In fact, prosecutors in the state have complained that parts of the facility resemble a “five star hotel.”) Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com Trump blasts "weak and pathetic" Jared Polis because he "won't allow our wonderful Tina to come out of a jail. A high intensity jail." Mon, 15 Dec 2025 20:30:12 GMT View on Bluesky Trump immediately pivoted to claiming that “a truckload of evidence” of electoral fraud from 2020 was just about to be released. And just like five years ago, his supporters are braying for blood. Denver newsman Kyle Clark of the local NBC affiliate compiled a supercut of Peters’s supporters demanding a military invasion of the jail, replete with public executions of the wardens. Ticktin himself makes an appearance, agreeing with Steve Bannon that the feds should send in troops just as they did to desegregate schools in Arkansas and Mississippi. Kyle Clark @kylec.bsky.social NEW: Tina Peters is rejecting a J6er's call to storm a Colorado prison and free her. Peters is distancing herself from the jailbreak scheme and violent actions after allies and her attorney talked about using force or violence to free her and punish those keeping her in prison. Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:33:52 GMT View on Bluesky All of this is eerily familiar. Six years ago when Trump refused to concede the election, his supporters spun bizarre legal theories about Vice President Pence’s ability to overturn the results by rejecting swing state electors. Initially, Trumpworld insiders figured he’d throw a tantrum and then wear himself out. Instead Trump summoned a violent riot. Tomorrow, December 19, is the anniversary of Trump’s infamous tweet: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Three weeks after that post, thousands of angry Trump supporters, convinced that the election had been stolen and the vice president could stop it, stormed the Capitol demanding to “Hang Mike Pence.” All of which is to say that Trump’s fake pardon of a grifting weirdo is very funny. And also … not funny at all.

Jack Smith calmly destroys Trump’s “witch hunt” fantasy in testimony before Congress.

 

BREAKING: “BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT” — Jack Smith calmly destroys Trump’s “witch hunt” fantasy in testimony before Congress. 

This morning, Jack Smith walked into the lion’s den of a Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee meeting, and calmly laid out Trump’s crimes for the world to see. Behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith did what Republicans desperately hoped he wouldn’t: he methodically, unapologetically, and calmly reminded them why Donald Trump was charged in the first place — and why no amount of political revenge can erase the facts. 

In an hours-long deposition before the Committee, the former special counsel made one thing crystal clear: Trump is responsible for Trump actions. Not Joe Biden. Not Democrats. Not the “deep state.” Just Trump.

 “The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine,” Smith told lawmakers, “but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions.”  Translation: if Trump didn’t want indictments, he shouldn’t have committed the crime (allegedly).

 Smith didn’t hedge. He didn’t flinch. He said his team uncovered evidence proving “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election and block the lawful transfer of power — a stunning reminder of just how close the country came to losing its democracy. 

On the classified documents case, Smith said the evidence was “powerful” and that Trump “repeatedly tried to obstruct justice.” Not misplaced papers. Not a misunderstanding. Obstruction. 

And for Republicans screaming “witch hunt,” Smith torched that talking point too. He said he would have brought the same charges if Trump were a Democrat or a Republican. Facts and law, not politics, guided the investigation — a concept that seems increasingly foreign to today’s GOP. 

Smith also defended his team’s decision to seek phone records from Republican lawmakers, explaining that Trump and his allies were calling members of Congress to further their criminal scheme to delay certification. “I didn’t choose those Members,” Smith said. “President Trump did.” That line alone should haunt every lawmaker in the room. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are openly targeting Smith himself, cheering on an unprecedented retaliation campaign that has included sanctions against his law firm and calls for his prosecution — all because he dared to apply the law to a powerful man. 

Smith wanted to testify publicly. Jim Jordan said no. Transparency is dangerous when the truth cuts this deep. 

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, called the deposition “boring,” but that’s because in Jack Smith’s hands the facts don’t scream — they indict. Jack Smith walked into a hostile room knowing the hunters were circling. And instead of blinking, he calmly reminded them: the evidence speaks for itself. 

We can only hope that Donald Trump will someday face justice for the crimes that the former Special Prosecutor so meticulously detailed. Whether that happens while he’s still alive, given his apparently dubious medical conditions, remains to be seen. Please like and share to spread the truth about Trump’s crimes!

HE'S A MORON AND IT'S BECOMING CLEARER TO ALL EVERY DAY

 

JOYCE VANCE

 

Jack Smith Testifies Before The House Judiciary Committee

Making sense of the circus

Joyce Vance

Dec 16, 2025

On Wednesday, former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who investigated and charged Donald Trump in two separate cases, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Smith wanted to testify publicly, but Republican representatives insisted on closed-door proceedings.

 

The subject of Smith’s testimony

Why would Republicans balk at the prospect of public hearings? Possibly because Democratic members will also be able to question Smith about the Trump prosecutions. At least some of that information is public, and Smith will be able to discuss it. There were reports that his lawyers previously requested guidance from DOJ on how he should answer questions about non-public materials, a standard practice for former DOJ employees who speak publicly on matters they handled during their employment. That could be uncomfortable for the president and awkward for members of his party if done publicly.

Smith dismissed the cases against Trump in November 2024, following his election, because DOJ policy prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president. One case involved allegations that Trump illegally possessed classified material at his Mar-a-Lago home. The other involved charges related to January 6.

Why do Republicans want to hear from Smith?

Smith, of course, is under investigation by Republicans for his work as special counsel, part of Representative Jim Jordan’s Trump-aligned push to claim that Joe Biden weaponized the Department of Justice. In October, Senate Republicans announced that as part of the January 6 investigation, prosecutors used court orders to obtain the phone records of nine GOP lawmakers: Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Representative Mike Kelly was also on the list. The Pennsylvania Republican’s name came up because Senator Johnson had publicly identified him as the source of the fake slate of electors that there was an attempt to pass to Vice President Pence, a claim Kelly denied.

The House initiated its effort to get Smith to testify shortly after the disclosure that these records were collected during the investigation.

Investigators working with Smith used grand jury subpoenas to obtain the phone records. That’s an entirely lawful and properly documented process. There is nothing nefarious about this—it would have been prosecutorial misconduct not to get phone records, because there was publicly available evidence suggesting the Trump/Giuliani camp had reached out to these elected officials about blocking certification of the election on January 6. Investigators sought records that could show if a phone call from a number associated with Trump or Giuliani had been made to these people during the relevant time. These records would only show whether a call had been placed and, if it was answered, how long the call lasted. That’s all. This wasn’t a wiretap.

This is a standard way of collecting information during an investigation. Members of Congress’ phone records were requested just like anyone else’s could be—not with an intent to prosecute, and in fact, none of them were ever changed—but with an intent to learn the truth about what happened so prosecutors could assess whether crimes had been committed and, if so, what further investigation was appropriate. Members of Congress don’t have immunity from criminal prosecution, but phone records also routinely reveal witnesses and victims of a crime, essential information for prosecutors to compile during an investigation. In this investigation, developing witnesses who could talk about what the White House asked them to do at this critical juncture was essential.

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is an example of the basis investigators had for believing they needed to learn more about possible contacts. Tuberville was a newly minted Senator on January 6, fresh off the ballot and onto the floor of the Senate. He said publicly that he spoke with Donald Trump that afternoon. CNN reported the call was for “less than ten minutes.” Trump’s defense team denied the call happened. But Utah Senator Mike Lee’s office said Trump had accidentally called his phone, which he carried over to Tuberville so he could talk with the president. It would have been irresponsible under the circumstances not to check to see what other calls were placed to Tuberville.

Jack Smith’s team used subpoenas to collect evidence and also to develop investigative leads and witnesses.

House Republicans want more (but so do Democrats)

There was news today that Republican House Judiciary Committee members also want to take the testimony of four current and former Department of Justice officials who worked on or with Jack Smith, and who the Trump administration believes were involved in efforts to obtain the phone records. They include:

·        Raymond Hulser, one of Smith’s top deputies, was fired by the Trump administration in February after 34 years of service prosecuting public corruption cases.

·        Kenneth Polite, the first Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division during the Biden administration. Polite left before the end of the administration.

·        Timothy Duree, an attorney from DOJ’s fraud section who joined Jack Smith’s team and was fired by the Trump administration in January.

·        Molly Gaston, another DOJ lawyer who went over to Smith’s team. Gaston served as a prosecutor for almost 10 years and was highly regarded for her public corruption work. Gaston, too, was fired by the Trump administration.

“We believe you possess information vital to our constitutional oversight responsibilities,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan wrote to each of the four, according to a report from CNN. No word on whether the four will agree to interviews or wait for subpoenas. Presumably, Republicans have no more incentive to permit these witnesses to testify publicly than they do with Smith.

But the Committee’s Republicans aren’t the only ones after information. Democrats want DOJ to release part two of Smith’s final report on the Mar-a-Lago case, which remains under seal. According to House Democrats, that report “details how Donald Trump knowingly retained hundreds of presidential and highly classified records at his Mar-a-Lago club and then deliberately defied subpoenas, obstructed law enforcement, hid evidence, and lied about his continuing retention of these records.”

The lawsuit to release the report is still pending in the Southern District of Florida before Judge Aileen Cannon. House Democrats filed an amicus brief in that case and wrote to Attorney General Bondi, demanding that she release the report before Smith testified, so it would be fair game. “This Administration has repeatedly boasted that President Trump is ‘the most transparent and accessible president in American history.’ Your campaign to bury Mr. Smith’s report makes a joke out of that claim,” they said to her. “You are permitting prosecutors to be hauled before Congress to defend their work while denying Congress and the American public the written record that would explain it.”

Judge Cannon has been dragging her feet on ruling on the release since January. American Oversight, a bipartisan group that works to expose misconduct and hold government accountable, filed a petition for mandamus, asking that Judge Cannon be ordered to rule. The Eleventh Circuit, in a rare move, granted that request in November and gave the Judge 60 days to get it done, finding she had engaged in “undue delay.” Expect Judge Cannon to take virtually all of those 60 days before she rules, although perhaps Trump’s lawyers, at least those of them who haven’t joined his new administration, will seek further delay.

 

The Trump administration is trying to cast doubt on the Mar-a-Lago case

Ahead of the hearing, the administration appeared to take a stab at delegitimizing Smith’s work. Fox News ran a story Tuesday headlined, “FBI doubted probable cause for Mar-a-Lago raid but pushed forward amid pressure from Biden DOJ, emails reveal.” In a story they labeled as an “EXCLUSIVE,” they reported, “The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department, with an official saying he didn’t ‘give a damn about the optics’ of the search, newly declassified documents reviewed by Fox News Digital reveal.” The story claims that an “email revealed that the FBI’s Washington Field Office did ‘not believe (and has articulated to DOJ CES), that we have established probable cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar a Lago.’”

Some of the documents uncovered during the search at Mar-a-Lago

MAGA Twitter exploded with claims like this one:

“IT’S OFFICIAL: A bombshell memo was just dispatched to Congress finding the Biden FBI DID NOT find PROBABLE CAUSE to raid Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, but prosecutors did it anyway.

CONSEQUENCES are needed.

This is an unprecedented miscarriage of justice.”

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt retweeted the story.

 

But even Judge Cannon rejected any notion that some dissent within the ranks at the FBI invalidated the probable cause used to obtain the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. While the case was in progress, Trump’s lawyers asked for a Franks hearing, a process for challenging the truthfulness of statements made by an agent in the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant. If a defendant succeeds in a Franks hearing, he can ask the judge to exclude any evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. But Cannon didn’t find in Trump’s favor in this instance, finding that there was sufficient probable cause for the search warrant despite any dissent in the FBI ranks. Cannon held that considering dissenting views by FBI agents would not have “altered the evidentiary calculus in support of probable cause,” a remarkable ruling from a Judge who leaned strongly in Trump’s favor throughout.

 

And, of course, the results of the search, which revealed boxes full of classified documents, confirmed that prosecutors got it right.

Moreover, reporter Carol Leonnig, who wrote about these events in her recent book, INJUSTICE, posted on social media that the Fox News report got it wrong. Leonnig posted that the Fox News report was “misleading” because “Senior @FBI officials agreed there was ample probable cause before the Aug 2022 raid - incl videotapes showing Trump aides had secretly moved boxes of government records out of storage room.” She posted a page from the book that explained her assessment.

 

There are people who are interested in discrediting Smith and his investigation, and intimidating his coworkers, before he even gets started with his closed-door testimony in the morning. But the prosecutors involved aren’t people who back down. They are people who believe in proceeding against the powerful without fear or favor—that’s what public corruption prosecutors do. They don’t care, as this administration does, about whether a target is a friend or a foe of the president; their commitment is to doing justice. The administration can fire Jack Smith and his team, it can harass them, but there are still heroes who believe in doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. Tomorrow, Smith goes up against House Republicans. We won’t be able to watch the proceedings because those members of Congress are afraid to let us see them. But there is more to come. This may well be a case of “Be careful what you ask for.” Jack Smith undoubtedly has a lot to say.

We’re in this together,

Joyce