Seriously people. Executive orders mean exactly nothing to what Trump legally can or can't do to fuck with the election results (which is zero). Stop letting idiots make you crazy

OK, let's start talking about the House's 80 page brief on impeachment. It really is an incredibly well-done piece of work. There are some things I'd do differently and some pieces I didn't love, but overall, it's very very good.

Again - this thread will happen in fits and starts. I'm swamped at work and this will come in 10-15 minute chunks as I take a break

Let's start by taking a look at the table of contents. After a 4-page intro (that's relatively long, don't love it), the brief spends a solid 30 pages walking through the facts underlying the impeachment - and, the subheadings tell us, tying in Trump's general refusal to accept

the election results with everything that followed. This is a strong rhetorical approach, but it comes with dangers: the President not only had a legal right to contest the election results, but the GOP Senators pretty much all backed that right, strongly.

It's going to be important to thread a needle of saying "this set the stage for what came after" without putting yourself in a place where you're trying to convince the Senate that the challenges themselves were impeachable. That won't fly

Dear Texas: When your argument is that election procedures were adopted in violation of the Electors clause, the only evidence you need to "marshal" is "what election procedures were adopted and how"

You don't need weeks, a magnifying glass, and Melissa Carone

Also, why is there no other forum? You couldn't have sued in Federal court in Georgia or PA in advance of the election because ...?

Oh, right. No standing. That's still a problem

Also, Texas? I feel like you should take that up with ... Texas

I kind of feel like "look, what you meant by Purcell was let's just wait until after the election and then invalidate ALL the votes" isn't necessarily the *strongest* argument

Also, you don't just get to make up a new principle of constitutional and election law and just call it "a variant of" Purcell (or anything else).

You can tell it's made up by the total absence of any citation to ANY case, ANYWHERE, saying that

THE TRUMP CARD

by an Anonymous Patriot

Bombshell My Friends💣

You probably will want to read this all.

Right now Trump is sitting on a stack of Trump cards that he's just waiting to lay down like a Royal Flush.

He has court cases still pending that will go to SCOTUS and ...

Trump biographers—including me—and many Washington journalists are telling America that (a) Trump will never stop his coup attempt, (b) there's no bottom to what he's willing to do, therefore (c) there's no final "victory" over Trump we can celebrate.

I hope America will listen.

Donald Trump is a profoundly damaged mind. Everyone close to him who gets escape velocity from his madness says so. Friends. Employees. Family members. Trump's pathologies make him an ongoing danger to America that Biden's DOJ and intelligence officials *cannot afford* to ignore.

Too many journalists wrote pieces tonight calling the SCOTUS decision in the Texas lawsuit a "fatal blow" to Trump's coup. Listen—the coup was never going to succeed and Biden was always going to be sworn in. The question is what the country will look like when (and after) he is.

So you have a man on a mission to destroy this country who has it within his power to do so and you think his pathological scheme will cease because of a court decision? The "coup" concept will unfold over as long a period as Trump needs for him to get what he wants: total power.

Lara Trump will run for the Senate in North Carolina, they say. Ivanka Trump is mulling a Florida Senate run. Donald Trump Jr. is mulling the Montana governorship. The GOP may be the "Trump Party" by 2024.

This is an ongoing effort to build an autocratic dynasty and end America.

Post-impeachment, we can say this: Trump's presidency has amended the Constitution. Not formally, of course, but informally...which matters just as much. Here are the five Trump amendments. 1/9

1. "No president shall be removed from office for treason, bribery, or any other crime or misdemeanor provided a partisan minority of the Senate will protect him (which is always). Impeachment is thus a nullity and presidents can expect impunity." 2/9

2. "Congressional oversight shall be optional. No congressional subpoena or investigative demand shall be binding on a president who chooses to ignore it." 3/9

3. "Congressional appropriations shall be suggestions. The president may choose whether or not to conform with congressional spending laws, and Congress shall have no recourse should a president declare that his own priorities supersede Congress's express will." 4/9

4. "The president shall have authority to make appointments as he sees fit, without the advice and consent of the Senate, provided he deems his appointees to be acting, temporary, or otherwise exempt from the ordinary confirmation process." 5/9