<Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared to turn to his 2020 playbook in an effort to shut down an indictment alleging he tried to overturn Georgia’s election that year.

Trump in a video he posted on his Truth Social expressed support for a Georgia state senator who on Tuesday issued a call to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who earlier this month indicted the former president and 18 co-defendants on allegations they interfered with the 2020 election.

Trump lauded “highly respected Georgia State Senator Colton Moore,” who, on Tuesday during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “The War Room,” said during a recent conversation with a fellow state senator that they discussed “taking action right now because if we don't, our constituencies are gonna be fighting it in the streets.”

“Do you want a civil war? I don't want a civil war. I don't want to have to draw my rifle. I want to make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing so, and the first step to getting that done is defunding Fani Willis of any Georgia tax dollars," Moore said.

Trump said that Moore “deserves thanks and congratulations of everyone for having the courage and conviction to fight the radical left lunatics who are so badly hurting in the great state of Georgia and threatening the great USA itself.”

“Failed DA Fani Willis who has allowed Atlanta, Fulton County to become a record sending murder and violent crime Warzone with almost no retribution for those murderers. Shockingly indicted your favorite president, me, for a perfect phone call. She is very bad for America. She is very bad for Georgia. And the bottom line is we're going to win. We're going to turn our country around. I want to thank the great people of Georgia, putting up with this crap.”

AJC political reporter Greg Bluestein likened the rhetoric to what got Trump into legal trouble in the Peach State in the first place.

“This is like 2020 all over again as Trump presses Georgia lawmakers to do something that they can’t legally do. Back then, it was overturning the election results,” Bluestein wrote on his social media account.

“Now it’s calling a special legislative session to oust District Attorney Fani Willis from office. #gapol,” the reporter added.>

<Georgia GOP Governor Brian Kemp delivered scathing criticism of a Republican lawmaker attempting a possibly "unconstitutional" "end-run" around state law in his efforts to discipline, delegitimize, defund, and derail Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her RICO prosecution of Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants for alleged actions to overturn the 2020 election. His rebuke also included the ex-president.

"There have been calls by one individual in the General Assembly and echoed outside of the these walls by the former president for a special session that would ignore current Georgia law and directly interfere with the proceedings of a separate but equal branch of government,:" Governor Kemp said during a press conference on tropical storm Idalia.

Although the governor did not mention any lawmaker by name, Republican state Senator Colton Moore this week likened Willis' prosecution to "Nazi Germany" and "Nazism," as he delivered a thinly-veiled threat of violence and civil war in his call to defund Willis.

Local Georgia station WSB, reporting on Kemp's remarks, says the governor "is telling several far-right Georgia lawmakers to lay off the calls to impeach Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis."

"Georgia Sen. Colton Moore has led a charge via a letter to Kemp requesting a special legislative session to impeach Willis after a grand jury handed up an indictment against former President Trump and 18 of his allies in the state and beyond alleging a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election here in Georgia," WSB reported.

“Do you want a civil war? I don’t want a civil war. I don’t want to have to draw my rifle,” Senator Moore said recently. “I want to make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing so, and the first step to getting that done is defunding Fani Willis of any Georgia tax dollars.”

He added, “it’s just like Nazi Germany. I mean, they want to call us the Nazis and their actions are Nazism.”

In his strong rebuke, Gov. Kemp said he wanted "to speak to some history that's trying to repeat itself over the last few days here in Georgia. Many of you will recall that in the final weeks of 2020, I clearly and repeatedly said that I would not be calling a special session of the General Assembly to overturn the 2020 election results because such an action would have been unconstitutional. It was that simple. Fast forward [to] today. Nearly three years later, memories are fading fast."

And while he also criticized Willis' "highly charged indictments and trials in the middle of an election," Kemp made clear he has "not seen any evidence that D.A. Willis's actions or lack thereof warrant action by the prosecuting attorney oversight commission." He added, "a special session of the General Assembly to end-run around this law is not feasible, and may ultimately prove to be unconstitutional.">

<Among those who have avoided being publicly connected to the 2020 election overthrow attempt are RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel and several of the House and Senate lawmakers, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Former ethics czar and legal analyst Norm Eisen combined his research with the New York Times' digital and editorial experts to craft a kind of spider web map showing links to the plot and alleged unindicted co-conspirators.

Listed on the map as an "enabler" is McDaniel, who joined with "Trump campaign apparatchiks and allies, both official and unofficial." According to Eisen, McDaniel "notably helped coordinate the slates of alternative electors from her position at the Republican National Committee."

McDaniel appeared before the House Select Committee investigating the 2020 election and made an appearance when the committee released its long-anticipated, 845-page report.

"I think the most damning (evidence) comes under the heading of the scheme to set up these false slate of electors, individuals from the GOP who would have been the electors if Trump had won those states, to certify that he had in fact won states that Biden had clearly won," explained legal analyst Ryan Goodman last year.

"That seems to just be a federal crime that is a very, very active part of the current special counsel's investigation. New evidence, brand new that we have not seen before that directs it right at Trump and Mark Meadows."

"For example, that one smoking gun so far is a call that Trump makes to the head of the RNC and he hands over the call to John Eastman to say, we want you to organize the false slate of electors," he continued. "That's all we had in the past. We now know she calls Donald Trump back soon after the call and says, I accept your request, which means it's about him, it's not about Eastman."

MSNBC's Ari Melber explained in January that McDaniel's testimony "under oath refers to Donald Trump's cover story, or what most prosecutors view as a crime, submitting false information, in this case elector material to the government. It's a type of fraud. It's a crime, illegal."

As for the lawmakers, Eisen lists off Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), as well as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

"Congressional cowards (looking at you Ted Cruz and Josh 'First Salute' Hawley!) gave comfort to the insurrectionists, and some voted against certifying Joe Biden's victory — even after the sacking of the Capitol," writes Eisen.

The Pennsylvania Capital-Star detailed the "outsized" role Perry had that was revealed in text messages obtained from Mark Meadows.

Perry pushed the so-called "Italygate" conspiracy theory, which claimed Italian satellites remotely reprogrammed voting machines. CNN reporter Katelyn Polantz said that the Justice Department was attempting to access the data on Scott Perry's cell phone and that there was a seal over the court proceeding. When the court documents were unsealed in March, it showed Perry desperately worked to keep his communications secret. He claimed that they fell under his role as an official and were protected by the "speech and debate clause."

In four partially redacted opinions, federal Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote that the investigation’s “powerful public interest” outweighed the speech or debate clause. The investigation has been quiet since.

While Jordan was linked to Jan. 6, he's used his power to go after the Justice Department for its use of "Geofencing warrants" for the Jan. 6 attack. The DOJ asked tech companies like Google to turn over the data, which is a typical practice when a user is involved in a criminal investigation. He's now working to gain access to all of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' information obtained in her investigation. He tried the same thing unsuccessfully with New York DA Alvin Bragg.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-AZ) isn't on Eisen's list, but he's working to have Willis "defunded."

McDaniel and the GOP lawmakers are only a small section of those Eisen says are connected to the conspiracy, many of whom still have not been indicted.>

<A Texas judge ruled on Wednesday that a law dubbed by critics as the "Death Star" and championed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is unconstitutional.

Signed into law by Abbott in June, the top-down legislation prohibited cities from passing local ordinances that contradict state legislation in eight broad areas like government, finance and labor. The GOP-backed effort was widely seen as a power grab meant to curtail the progress of Democrat-led cities in the Lone Star state.

Abbott explained that he signed the bill to "cut red tape & help businesses thrive," arguing that "Texas small businesses are the backbone of our economy" and "burdensome regulations are an obstacle to their success."

But District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble disagreed.

The decision against the state Wednesday afternoon came as a response to a lawsuit the city of Houston filed last month. "I am thrilled that Houston, our legal department, and sister cities were able to obtain this victory for Texas cities, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner wrote in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. "HB 2127 was a power grab by the Legislature and an unwarranted and unconstitutional intrusion into local power granted to Houston and other home-rule cities....>

<....The mayor went on to call for an end to the "self-defeating war" on cities, including home-rule municipalities like his, San Antonio and El Paso, that he says have "long been the drivers of the State's vibrant economy."

"The Governor's and Legislature's ongoing war on such home-rule cities hurt the states and its economy, discourages new transplants from other states, and thwarts the will of Texas voters who endowed these cities in the Texas Constitution with full rights to self-government and local innovation," Turner said.

The law's author, meanwhile, Republican Rep. Dustin Burrows, criticized the ruling on social media, asserting that it's "not worth the paper it's printed on."

"The Texas Supreme Court will ultimately rule this law to be completely valid," Burrows asserted on X. "The ruling today has no legal effect or precedent, and should deter no Texan from availing themselves of their rights when HB2127 becomes law on September 1, 2023"

The Texas Attorney General's office immediately appealed the decision, staying the effect of the court's declaration and allowing the bill to go into effect on Friday. The office's director of communications, Paige Wiley, told Insider in a statement that while Gamble declared the law unconstitutional, "she did not enjoin enforcement of the law by Texans who are harmed by local ordinances, which HB 2127 preempts."

But Houston City Attorney Arturo Michel told The Texas Observer that, unlike the federal Constitution, Texas' Constitution does not permit the state to preempt local laws in broad areas like the ones HB 2127 addresses.

"For 100 years, cities have had home rule powers, the power of self-governance, under the state constitution, that does not require the legislature's permission to pass laws," Michel told the outlet. "The state is trying to turn that on its head."

The legislation came under fire among Texan workers and their allies as a deadly heat wave shook the state earlier this summer because the law, once in effect, would overturn ordinances that mandated measures and labor protections like water breaks for outdoor workers and prevent localities from passing new ones.

The state saw protests from construction workers who said that an end to local water break mandates would precipitate more incidents of heat-related illness and death.

"This is a HUGE win for the working people of Texas, local govs, and communities across our state," labor federation Texas AFL-CIO tweeted of the decision. "While we expect an appeal, it remains clear this law is an unacceptable infringement on the rights of Texans and cities."

"This law was targeting very openly, very basic worker protections that workers and unions and community organizations have fought for for many years," the group's policy director, Ana Gonzalez, told The Observer. "This included other ordinances that were targeted like payday lending, and tenant protections, non-discrimination ordinances, fair chance hiring, and many other things that local elected officials have passed and response from their community needs will remain in place for now."

Other state and local officials celebrated the ruling on social media Wednesday with some vowing to continue to fight the law after its appeal.

"HB 2127 declared unconstitutional for good reason ! This is a big win for Texan workers, Municipalities, and local control," Texas Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D, wrote on X.

"Texans already knew this law — designed to block worker protections like the right to a water break — was dangerous & wrong," state Rep. Greg Casar, D, tweeted. "This good ruling will likely be appealed. I'll continue to fight for workers at every level of government."

"In a MASSIVE win for local governance, democracy, and freedom, the Death Star Bill (#HB2127) has been declared unconstitutional," Austin City Council member Vanessa Fuentes added. "This could allow localities to enact more life-saving measures, tenant protections, on-discrimination ordinances, and MUCH more.">

<Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, already under indictment in Georgia’s sprawling election conspiracy case, may have created new legal headaches for himself, a legal expert said Thursday.

NYU law professor Ryan Goodman said in a social media post that he believes Meadows may have perjured himself during testimony at a hearing Monday in which he sought to have his case moved to federal court. Meadows argued that his role as a federal official shields him from state charges.

Court documents obtained by Goodman show Meadows after initially denying that he played “any role” in the coordination of a “fake elector” scheme under cross examination acknowledged that “he had in fact given direction to a campaign official in this regard. Specifically, the defendant wrote in an email…’We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for the states’ and attached a memorandum written by co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro recommending the organization of slates of presidential electors to meet and cast votes for Mr. Trump in states Mr. Trump had lost.”

Goodman in his post wrote that “Mark Meadows has a potential perjury problem.”

“Fulton County DA puts it in understated terms in new brief. (DA uses it just for credibility.) Meadows' testimony included false statement - his lack of "any role" in coordinating false electors Was then forced to acknowledge it.”

Goodman added that: “Separately, this is a bit in the legal weeds, but DA makes very strong point. Judge Jones' question assumed some of Meadows' overt acts were beyond the bounds of his official duties. That's game over for the third element he would need to remove the case to federal court.”

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann notes that such evidence could also be used by special counsel Jack Smith in the Jan. 6 election conspiracy case.

“Meadows [sic] perjury in the removal hearing can be both separately prosecuted and be additional proof against him in the 1/6 case,” Weissmann said.

“Note: it can be used for both ends by Jack Smith.”>

<Former President Donald Trump's Save America PAC is critically low on funds — at the exact moment it stares down the prospect of paying millions more for legal fees for associates of the former president in the Georgia election racketeering case, reported USA Today Thursday.

The PAC "has spent nearly all of the more than $150 million it raised and is sitting on less than $4 million" — and Trump "has already dug into his fund for 2024 ads and borrowed money to post bail in Georgia," as some of his co-defendants beg for donations and claim he is not helping them as they assumed he would.

Four of Trump's co-defendants — attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, DOJ official Jeff Clark, and fake elector Cathleen Latham — have been reduced to using the right-wing Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo for money. Ellis in particular has allegedly been left in the cold by Trump and his associates because of her work with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the former president's most significant rival for the 2024 nomination.

These trials could end up being massively expensive, according to experts. Defense attorney Danya Perry estimates that if they run for two or three weeks, they could easily top $10 million. And some of Trump's associates are already facing financial ruin – Rudy Giuliani is reportedly nearly broke, and already has a default judgment looming over him in an election worker defamation case, as well as debts from other legal cases.

At a bare minimum, said former federal prosecutor and defense attorney Bruce Udolf, “I can’t see most top-level white collar lawyers doing it for less than $2 or $3 million.”

As all of this is going on, Trump also needs to ramp up campaign spending to mount an effective rematch against President Joe Biden, who as of last month had raised $72 million since formally launching his re-election campaign.>

<As we learned from last week’s Republican debates, the leading candidates for the GOP nomination all appear to agree on a broad plan to gut American government and replace it with a strongman president and corporate rule.

The modern administrative state, sometimes called the “welfare state” by Republicans, was largely created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Republican Great Depression of the early 1930s. And every day since FDR was sworn into office on March 4, 1933, the GOP has worked feverishly to dismantle his legacy.

Outside of Russia, China, and Hungary, this isn’t true at all for the rest of the developed world.

Nations across the rest of Europe, South America, and Asia imitated FDR’s and LBJ’s America, most going beyond our simple development of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the legalization of unions to further expand opportunity and social mobility for their citizens.

For example, Taiwan has the most efficient and comprehensive single-payer healthcare system in the world; Germany requires half of the members of every large corporation’s board of directors to come from the ranks of organized labor; Luxembourg has the highest national minimum wage in the world at roughly $19.50 an hour (they calculate it monthly).

All of Europe is pledged to reduce greenhouse gasses to get climate change under control, and they require chemical companies to prove their new compounds are safe before introducing them into food or the environment (the “precautionary principle”).

Prisons across the rest of the developed world are committed to rehabilitation and only in America are run for profit; every other developed country carefully regulates the possession of guns; pharmaceuticals are inexpensive — at least half, and sometimes a tenth of their cost here in the US — in every other developed country in the world.

Republicans and the billionaires who fund them reject all of that.

They want to abandon modern ideas like prohibitions on child labor and the age of consent; worker and workplace protections and unions; free, quality public schools and colleges; civil rights and the power of women to make their own healthcare decisions.

They’re dedicated to taking America back to the era before the New Deal and, as Steve Bannon said, “deconstructing the administrative state.”

Over the years, the GOP has used a series of plans to reach their goal of a billionaire- and-corporate-owned-and-run America with working people turned into serfs and children in factories instead of school.

In 1971, it was the Powell Memo, written by Virginia tobacco lawyer Lewis Powell and delivered to the US Chamber of Commerce. It called for a rightwing takeover of America’s schools and colleges; building out a corporate-friendly media infrastructure; packing the courts with pro-corporate, anti-labor conservatives; and the wholesale purchase of Republican politicians at both the state and federal level.

The following year Richard Nixon put Powell on the Supreme Court and over the next quarter-century he used that position to put many of his own suggestions into law. In addition to decisions gutting the powers of unions and deregulating industry, Powell’s major achievement was authoring the 1978 Boston v Bellotti decision that struck down hundreds of state and federal anti-corruption laws, explicitly allowing corporations and their senior officers to bribe politicians for the first time in American history.

No other developed country in the world tolerates this; outside of the United States, you only find it in developing countries that have been taken over by corrupt autocrats.

Two years later, when Ronald Reagan cut a traitorous deal with the Ayatollah to hold the American hostages in Iran long enough to destroy Jimmy Carter’s chances in the 1980 election, the Heritage Foundation stepped up with a plan to further gut the rights and powers of working-class people and elevate corporate and billionaire power.

They called it the Mandate for Leadership and, at the time, The Washington Post said it was “an action plan for turning the government toward the right as fast as possible.”

Reagan adopted over half of Heritage’s suggestions and in some cases went even farther, cutting enforcement of our anti-trust laws; ending the Fairness Doctrine; slashing the top income tax rate on the morbidly rich from 74 percent down to 27 percent; declaring all-out war on unions; gutting the EPA, Education, and Labor Departments; and selling off federal lands for pennies on the dollar to mining and drilling operations.....>

<.....Now the partly-billionaire-funded Heritage Foundation has laid out a second-stage plan for the next Republican administration, whether it’s Trump or somebody else, whether it’s next year or in future presidential election cycles.

They call it Project 2025. With it, they intend to finally and fully seize control of and transform America. With it, they will rule.

Ideologues on the right correctly see the Trump administration as having been a bumbling mess. Nobody expected him to win the election, not even Trump himself (he and Roger Stone had already registered the URLs and put together a “Stop the Steal” campaign claiming “election fraud” to distract and kneecap incoming President Hillary Clinton).

Nobody realized how effective Putin’s interventions — his 29 million Facebook ads and message posts targeting a million or so people in six swing states who’d been identified as persuadable by the GOP and passed along to Russian Intelligence via Paul Manafort — would be.

When Trump was declared the winner he didn’t even have a victory speech ready, was totally unprepared to govern, and it took the better part of three years for Trump and his corrupt clown car to get their act together. Most of the time he and his son-in-law were too busy making money out of their connection to the White House. They’ve corruptly taken home billions in the years since 2016.

So this time the rightwing billionaires and their GOP lackeys aren’t taking any chances.

First up, they want to deconstruct the Civil Service, taking much of the federal workforce back to 1882. There’s an amazing backstory here.

Way back in 1881, a man named Charles Guiteau thought he’d properly bribed President James Garfield by giving the president, during an in-person visit in the White House, a speech he’d written for Garfield to use. Garfield was polite but didn’t offer Guiteau a federal job, which provoked a murderous rage: shortly thereafter, Guiteau met Garfield’s train and shot him twice, killing him.

The explicit and institutionalized practice of exchanging gifts and personal loyalty for federal jobs dates back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), arguably the second-most depraved president in American history behind Trump (which is probably why Trump hung his picture in the Oval Office). His favorite nickname for himself — given him by the Cherokee he slaughtered with the Trail of Tears — was “The Indian Killer.”

Jackson had elevated the practice of bribing the president to get federal jobs into an art-form: it was called the “spoils” or patronage system and was insanely corrupt. It was also, by 1883, routine.

After Guiteau failed to gain his “spoil” or “patronage” from Garfield and killed him, President Chester Arthur oversaw the writing and passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. It separated all those government jobs from the administration in power, turning federal workers from patrons of the president into permanent bureaucrats whose first loyalty was to the nation instead of the guy who happened to be in the White House at any particular time.

It also outlawed bribing the president for a job. The goal, which it accomplished and has held for 140 years, was to end corruption in the bureaucratic branches of the federal government.

Donald Trump wanted to functionally end the Civil Service and replace the top levels of the nation’s 2.7 million federal workers with people loyal exclusively to himself. He did this through an October 21, 2020 executive order, Schedule F, (which Biden reversed on his first day in office) that reclassified those workers out of their Civil Service jobs and into political appointee positions doing the exact same work.

The next Republican administration will almost certainly put Schedule F back into force, reestablishing the 1829 spoils system for the federal government. As Paul Dans, director of Project 2025’s “Presidential Transition Project” and a former Trump administration official, told the Associated Press:

“We need to flood the zone with conservatives.”

Next up, Project 2025 proposes to kill off federal efforts that may inhibit the profits of the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it’s created who are helping fund both the GOP and Heritage.....>

<.....As Scott Waldman wrote for Politico:

“Called Project 2025, it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials.

“If enacted, it could decimate the federal government’s climate work, stymie the transition to clean energy, and shift agencies toward nurturing the fossil fuel industry rather than regulating it. It’s designed to be implemented on the first day of a Republican presidency.”

After ensuring fossil fuel industry profits and the further wilding of our weather, Project 2025 would effectively dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, presumably on behalf of the petrochemical and other polluting industries that are also big GOP donors.

It would either end or downsize the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance, and the Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education. Like the process Trump began, it would shatter the EPA into pieces, moving regional offices and cutting its workforce by “terminating the newest hires in low-value programs.”

It would also block states from advancing any agenda that may prevent the further expansion of carbon pollutants that are driving global warming by “ensur[ing] that other states can adopt California’s standards only for traditional/criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gasses [sic].”

One of the most disturbing aspects of Project 2025 and other plans for future Republican presidencies is their consolidation of power in the hands of the president, reflecting the way government is run in Hungary, China, and Russia rather than the checks-and-balances envisioned by our nation’s Founders.

They would outright end the operational independence of the of the Department of Justice and the FBI, turning both into tools (or weapons) the president alone could wield.

The Federal Reserve, with its ability to turn on the monetary spigot to ensure “the good times roll” or turn off the spigot to induce a recession would also become the president’s political plaything.

Ditto for the Federal Communications Commission, which has the power to not only regulate but even shut down over-the-air radio and TV broadcasts that displease it, as well as wielding a largely today-unused power of censorship over cable TV and the internet.

And the Federal Trade Commission, which has the power to grant billion-dollar favors or inflict severe punishments on companies, would lose their independence because they could be used to reward or destroy companies that have earned the favor or ire of the president.

As Russell Vought, president of one of the 65 far-right organizations on the Project 2025 advisory board, told The New York Times:

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.”

This is all a reflection of what, for several decades, has been called the Unitary Executive Theory. It argues — erroneously — that a strongman president like Putin, Xi, or Orbán is what the Founders and Framers had in mind....>

<.....As professors Karl Manheim and Allan Ides of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles famously wrote in 2006:

“In fact, the theory of the unitary executive is anything but an innocuous or unremarkable description of the presidency. In its stronger versions, it embraces and promotes a notion of consolidated presidential power that essentially isolates the Executive Branch from any type of congressional or judicial oversight.

“And it is much more than an academic theory. Rather it is an operative way of thinking about and applying Executive Branch power that has had and will continue to have real-world consequences for our republic and for the international community. In attempting to understand and appreciate the significance of unitary executive theory, it is worthwhile to keep in mind that it is a product of the late 20th century and not a legacy bequeathed from the founding generation.

“The theory, which in fact is more about power that it is about law, grew out of a somewhat perverse reaction to abuses of presidential power that had come to light during the late sixties and early seventies. Such events as President Johnson’s fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident and President Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia, among many other similar abuses of presidential power, led to efforts to curb what was perceived as an increasingly imperious Executive Branch. …

“The almost immediate response to this reform movement was a redoubling of efforts to consolidate and amplify presidential power. The theory of the unitary executive grew out of this reactionary response.”

Project 2025 and other efforts by the GOP to consolidate power in the Executive branch, as well as their recent successes at packing the courts and buying off Republican members of Congress, should be a clanging five-alarm fire bell for our republic.

This neofascist ideology of “rule by the rich” has been explicitly embraced by both Trump and DeSantis (who, this June, sent a senior advisor, David Dewhirst, to work on Project 2025), and the themes and contents of the plan are also regularly invoked on the campaign trail by Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley.

The merger of billionaire wealth with partisan Republican governance — and their combined efforts to reshape our government in their own corrupt image, the public be damned — threaten the integrity and future of the American experiment.

But it can only come about if we fail to awaken people, mobilize them, and vote.

Step one, then, is to wake people up to what the GOP and its billionaire patrons are planning. Pass it along.>

<Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis fired back at former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Thursday after a judge questioned whether his case should be moved to federal court.

Meadows, who was charged alongside former President Donald Trump and 17 others in Willis' sprawling racketeering indictment, is seeking to remove his state charges to federal court, arguing that his charged conduct fell under his official federal duties as chief of staff and seeking to dismiss the charges. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, an Obama appointee overseeing Meadows' request, asked both parties to submit arguments on whether a single overt act out of dozens cited in the indictment is enough to require removal of the charges to federal court.

Willis' team in a filing on Thursday argued that Meadows' alleged actions were part of a greater sweeping scheme to aid Trump's post-election crusade and that even one official should not be enough to boot his case to federal court.

"The circumstances of this case are easily distinguishable," prosecutors wrote. "The defendant conspired not for any purpose related to his duties as chief of staff, but to transform Mr. Trump from a losing political candidate into a winning one, no matter what the outcome of the election had actually been."

"Here's the crux of the argument from the Fulton County DA opposing Meadow's motion to remove to federal court," explained Georgia State University Law Prof. Anthony Michael Kreis. "Even if some of Meadows' acts fell within his duties, he's not being charged for them. He's being charged for joining in an unlawful enterprise to overturn the election."

Meadows' attorneys in a response argued that Willis' argument was not enough to prevent the state from being transferred to federal court.

"Removal is also required, even if the State has charged some acts beyond Mr. Meadows's official duties, because what controls is Mr. Meadows's articulation of his federal defense, not the State's articulation of its state charges," Meadows' attorneys wrote.

Jones has not said when he plans to rule but has said that the case could set a precedent. At least four other defendants — former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, former Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer, state Sen. Shawn Still, and former Coffee County GOP chair Cathy Latham — are also seeking to remove their charges to federal court, where they could potentially draw a more favorable jury pool and perhaps a judge appointed by Trump.

Kreis tweeted that he had been unsure on whether Meadows' move would work but after Thursday's filings said he is "confident Willis has the strongest legal argument. Anything is possible but I would be shocked if any pending motion for removal is granted."

"Mark Meadows' goose is cooked on federal removal— and so is every other defendant. If you're Jeff Clark, Shawn Still, Kathy Latham, or David Shafer you're in trouble. Testifying opens you to cross with little hope. But not taking the stand gets you absolutely nowhere," he wrote.

"Meadows is in big trouble," agreed Lee Kovarsky, a law professor and expert on the removal statute at the University of Texas, arguing that Willis' argument is "MUCH stronger."

To get removal, a federal officer must show that the indicted conduct is both under the auspices of his official duties and "a colorable federal defense," meaning it can defeat the charge. But Meadows "made no arguments" on the second point, he explained, calling it a "catastrophic blunder."

Though Meadows argues that the Constitution's Supremacy Clause gives him immunity from state charges, the Supremacy Clause "can't be a complete defense to a RICO charge here even if it knocked out *all* overt acts — let alone something less than all of them."

"A defense is not 'colorable' unless it is capable of defeating the count. And on this argument, it's not just that Willis 'gets the better of it.' Meadows lawyers didn't even get to it," he concluded. "He's in big trouble.">

<Under former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party has become a "de facto criminal organization" with him sitting on top as the crime boss, wrote analyst Chauncey DeVega for Salon.

Indeed, he argued, it's like the mob in virtually every way — even in terms of violence, with Trump using "threats of violence and intimidation to keep control and to punish his enemies" — with the only difference being that the oath they take is "administered in public."

This comes as the former president is facing four different indictments totally over 90 charges, including an election racketeering case in Georgia that includes 18 co-defendants like his own lawyers and state Republican operatives. But despite all of that, DeVega noted, six out of eight of his rivals at the Wisconsin primary debate said they would back him as the nominee even if he is convicted of a crime.

What further compounds on this, DeVega continued, is that Trump engaged in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in broad daylight, and is "unapologetic in his criminality and proud of his evil behavior – and promises to get revenge on he and his fascist MAGA movement's 'enemies' when/if he takes back the White House in 2025." Traditional GOP think tanks are even helping his organize a plan to purge the civil service and replace the workforce of the federal government top to bottom with loyalists.

None of this is a problem for the Republican electorate; a recent poll by POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos shows 60 percent of Republicans think Trump didn't even commit crimes at all, and 85 percent believe he shouldn't face punishment even if he did.

The rest of the country, said DeVega, needs not just to defeat and imprison Trump, but to take serious steps to put down the movement propping him up once that happens.

"American neofascism and the type of criminogenic politics it encouraged and was born of did not take come into being over the course of less than a decade, such elements where present long before the Age of Trump," concluded DeVega. However, he said, it is vital once Trump has been removed from the picture that "pro-democracy forces" step up to move the country forward.>

<Republicans at the state and federal levels are calling for multiple tactics to unseat Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, even if their legal standing is murky and they lack the support of Georgia’s Republican governor.

Steve Gooch, the Georgia senate majority leader, and Clint Dixon, a state senator, have said they plan to use a commission designed to discipline and potentially remove rogue prosecutors to investigate Willis following her indictment of Donald Trump for attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election.

In May, governor Brian Kemp signed a bill, SB92, that makes it easier to remove elected district attorneys. Under the law, a prosecuting attorneys qualifications commission has the power to investigate complaints and discipline or remove district attorneys whom the appointed commissioners believe are not properly enforcing the law.

Kemp on Thursday dismissed talk of using the commission or the legislature to remove Willis from office, but said the decision is not his. “Up to this point, I have not seen any evidence that DA Willis’s actions or lack thereof warrant action by the prosecuting attorney oversight commission, but that will ultimately be a decision that the commission will make,” the governor said.

The commission will begin receiving complaints on 1 October 2023, and earlier this month Burt Jones, the Republican lieutenant governor, announced three appointments to the eight-member group. Jones, who served as one of Georgia’s fake electors when he was a state senator in 2020, recently criticized Willis’s prosecution of Trump and said her treatment of the defendants like criminals is “very disturbing”.

Outside Georgia, the US House Judiciary Committee opened a congressional investigation into Willis last week. Republican Jim Jordan, the committee’s chair, sent a letter to Willis insinuating that the indictment was politically motivated.

“You did not bring charges until two-and-a-half years later, at a time when the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is in full swing,” he wrote.

Similarly, Georgia senators Gooch and Dixon have accused the Fulton county district attorney of using her job to indict Trump and 18 other co-defendants in an effort to “weaponize the justice system against political opponents”.

But critics of SB92 say the details of how Kemp and Republican lawmakers could use the commission to remove prosecutors including Willis remain murky.

Earlier this month, Public Rights Project (PRP), a nonprofit organization, filed a lawsuit on behalf of four district attorneys against the state of Georgia and Kemp challenging the constitutionality of the law. The group has since filed a preliminary injunction, asking a judge to postpone any commission activity until there is a ruling in their lawsuit.

Jill Habig, the founder and president of PRP, said there are several issues with the legislation. She believes the commission would violate separation of power, free speech rights and due process.

In a statement Thursday, Habig called Kemp’s recent statement disapproving use of the commission to oust Willis “welcome, but too little too late”, given that he had already signed the problematic legislation. She also noted that Kemp controls only 25% of the commission’s appointments....>

<.....In addition to allowing lawmakers to go after Willis for her prosecution of Trump and his allies, the legislation could lead to investigations of district attorneys who have stated their offices won’t prosecute crimes related to abortion, marijuana usage and more, despite the fact that backlogged district attorneys have long had discretion over which crimes they choose to prosecute.

Habig said she also worries about the potential precedent this could set. Several states have introduced bills that would allow lawmakers to remove prosecutors from office, but Georgia, she said, is “ground zero” for using a commission to do so.

“There are not a lot of standards for how the commission can initiate and conclude [an] investigation or criteria by which it can make its decisions,” she said. If lawmakers were able to successfully use the commission to oust Willis after complaints start being considered in October, Habig said, the appeal process is uncertain.

In Florida, Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, has removed two Democratic prosecutors from office. Habig said she worries the Georgia commission is “a little bit of an attempt to put a veil of legitimacy around the kinds of actions that Governor DeSantis has already taken”.

Kemp signed SB92 after Georgia elected 14 people of color as district attorneys in 2020, an increase from the five who were previously working throughout the state.

“I, quite frankly, think the legislation is racist. I don’t know what other thing to call it,” Willis told a senate panel earlier this year, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Willis’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dixon, the Republican state senator, has said he sees the commission as a more legitimate way to “stop Fani Willis’s bad behavior” than a special legislative session, which Kemp has said will not occur despite a petition launched by Colton Moore, another Republican senator, calling for one. The special session was already unlikely because it would have required support from Democrats.

“The Legislature does not have control over her office or funding. And even if the legislature was empowered to act, calling a Special Session requires a 3/5s majority of the legislature, meaning Democrats would have to go on the record in opposition of their aspiring super star,” Dixon wrote on Facebook. “This reality is one of the reasons we passed a law this year to hold rogue District Attorneys accountable.”

Willis, who has served as the lead prosecutor in Fulton county since 2020 and has earned a reputation for bringing racketeering cases against multiple defendants under Georgia’s broad Rico statute, has said she intends to begin the trial of Trump and his 18 co-conspirators on 4 March 2024, although the former president’s federal trial has been set for the same date.

The 41-count indictment in Fulton county uses racketeering and conspiracy charges to allege Trump, advisers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and others worked together to subvert the democratic process and the election results in Georgia.>

<Jim Jordan of Ohio is fighting the MASSIVE criminal corruption and coverups in the federal government under the Biden/Pelosi administration on behalf of We the People. The investigations also cover the malicious prosecution of Donald Trump by various district attorneys for the Democrat [sic] party at the state level in an effort to disrupt the 2024 election just as Democrats did in the 2020 and 2016 elections.>

<....Many thanks to Rep. Jim Jordan for his many efforts to investigate these crimes.>

<....Why yes, it's a VERY important job -- critical at this juncture for liberty, and justice for all. Jim Jordan is fighting MASSIVE criminal corruption and coverups. The crooked FBI and Department of Injustice are stonewalling Jordan's efforts.>

You attacked someone--as noted, with no evidence of any wrongdoing, save a conviction that, as always, you were in the right--who was quite unable to defend herself and got called out for your actions. Brave one, aren't you?

<China recently warned that the U.S. has crossed a red line with its assistance and support of Taiwan, saying that a "storm of lethal consequences" is brewing.

The Global Times, a state-run communist newspaper in China, published an op-ed on Thursday criticizing the recent $80 million military financing program the U.S. announced for Taiwan and said: "With the increasing number and intensity of its intervention methods, the brewing and imminent storm of lethal consequences for Taiwan cannot be ignored."

"China's strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition are obvious, but China's response to the continuous provocations by the US on the Taiwan question will not be limited to mere statements," the Global Times added.

The remarks comes shortly after the Associated Press reported that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration approved a military transfer of $80 million to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.

Notifying Congress, the U.S. State Department said the transfer will "be used to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities through joint and combined defense capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability," AP reported.

According to AP, the FMF is usually used for sovereign states, and China has continued to claim Taiwan as its own territory, while the U.S. disagrees and says Taiwan is an independent nation.

In addition to the Global Times, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin criticized the U.S. military transfer to Taiwan on Thursday.

"The US decision to provide weapons to China's Taiwan region under the so-called Foreign Military Financing used for sovereign states seriously violates the one-China principle and the stipulations of the three China-US joint communiqués, especially the August 17 Communiqué of 1982," Wang said.

"This move seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, undermines China's sovereignty and security interests, harms peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends gravely wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces. China deplores and firmly opposes them.

"There is but one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. The Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair that brooks no foreign interference."

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry via email and the U.S. State Department via its website for comment.

Despite criticism from China, a poll commissioned by Newsweek in April found that 56 percent of Americans saying that they would approve of U.S. military intervention if China invaded Taiwan.>

<Truth??? I'll tell EVERYONE the truth. You're a narcistic [sic] liar through and through. It's what you do on these pages every day, and you're proud of it. You chose dishonesty as your moniker. You've likely never told the truth for an entire day in your adult life.>

Ya need some basic spelling lessons, kid; even at yer advanced age, never too late ta learn. Ya don't have ta stay gormless forever.

<At a recent court hearing in the January 6 case, Judge Tanya Chutkan told former President Donald Trump’s counsel, John Lauro, that “your client’s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet.” But that ship may have already sailed. Trump’s defenders have already flooded the media with his purported “defense” to the charges: that Trump genuinely believed he won the election, and therefore he was not acting with the requisite “corrupt intent.”

This argument has been treated with far too much credulity by the media, as well as the legal commentariat. In fact, it matters not at all whether Trump really believed he won the election.

Defense attorneys would all prefer if Lauro’s depiction of the law prevailed and that juries, before finding guilt, would be required to look into the mind of a defendant and try to discern whether he truly believed he was entitled to whatever spoils were the object of his or her criminal scheme. If that were the case, reasonable doubt would be sown into almost all cases. After all, who can say “beyond a reasonable doubt” what anyone else actually believes in their heart of hearts?

John Lauro is an experienced trial attorney and almost certainly knows better. He and the rest of the Trump team are trying to shape public opinion and the jury pool by misrepresenting the law. His efforts seem to have borne fruit, as the legal chattering class has far too frequently repeated that whether Trump actually believed he won the election will pose a significant legal impediment that the government will have to overcome at trial.

Some of this confusion is likely because the indictment repeatedly states that Trump “spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.” The government will call multiple witnesses to back up the allegation that Trump knew that he lost the election. And establishing that Trump lied about his election loss will be important to the government’s case, because it makes Trump’s conduct in trying to overturn the election all the more venal.

But the knowing falsity of Trump’s election claims is not an element of any of the offenses, and the court will not instruct the jury that it must find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Trump knowingly lied when he claimed that he had won the election.

This is not to diminish the government’s burden to prove intent, a requirement present in virtually all criminal cases, and that is often outcome-determinative. But proving intent simply means that the government must prove that a defendant acting knowingly and intentionally, and not by accident, mistake or inadvertence. And defendants are presumed to have intended the natural consequences of their conduct.

So, for example, if the government can prove that Trump agreed with his co-conspirators to submit “fake electors” in order to overturn the election results in any of the alleged states, then the jury will be told that he can be found guilty. Or if a jury concludes that Trump schemed to have the Department of Justice write a letter to various state officials that “there is evidence of significant irregularities that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States,” when he knew this was not the case, then the government will have proven the element of corrupt intent. This is true regardless of whether Trump really believed he won the election.

That this is the law should surprise no one. If I honestly believe my employer has wrongfully withheld a bonus owed to me, the law does not permit me to embezzle this amount to even the score. The law expects those who believe they were wronged to avail themselves of lawful means to address their harm. It does not permit self-help by, for example, submitting fraudulent slates of electors who falsely claim to have been certified in an attempt to overturn an election — even if you think you won the election fairly.

The question of what Trump actually believed is relevant to the offense and goes to the question of motive. But these personal beliefs do not constitute an element of the offense. Indeed, to the extent that Trump actually believed he won — an extremely dubious proposition if the allegations in the indictment are true — then he arguably had an even greater motive to act unlawfully.

Judge Chutkan is an experienced jurist and unlikely to be persuaded by these misleading arguments. But it is not the judge that Lauro and his team are trying to influence. Their target is a different court — that of public opinion. And their efforts there, it appears, are already bearing fruit.>

<The impeachment trial for embattled Texas A.G. Ken Paxton is pending, but fellow Republicans in the state are already being hit with political shrapnel, according to a Saturday news report.

Republican leaders and lawmakers throughout the state of Texas are being wrapped up in the impeachment drama, with Paxton supporters reportedly targeting those who might vote to impeach him. Paxton is accused of corruption charges including accepting bribes, disregarding his official duty, and obstruction of justice in a pending securities fraud case, according to prior reports.

Paxton has also personally called his fellow lawmakers to threaten them with political consequences if they vote to impeach, according to CBS.

"When House members first heard details of the 20 articles of impeachment against Attorney General Paxton, Republican Texas Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth dropped a bombshell: 'I would like to point out that several members of this House while on the floor of the House doing state business, received telephone calls from General Paxton personally threatening them with political consequences in their next election.'" the outlet reported Saturday. "Geren didn't identify the lawmakers he accused Paxton of making the threats. The attorney general's office didn't respond to our email requesting comment."

Further, CBS was able to obtain text messages that corroborate the Paxton calls.

"But text messages obtained by CBS News Texas between Michelle Smith, one of Paxton's assistants at the Office of the Attorney General, and Republican Texas Rep. Jeff Leach of Allen, show there were hard feelings over this matter. Back in February, when Paxton asked state lawmakers to fund the $3.3 million settlement with four whistleblowers he fired, Leach told reporters he was troubled by it and wanted a hearing," the outlet reported. "In a text message to Smith, Leach said: 'I won't be talked out of doing my job and fulfilling my oath.'">

<John Eastman, one of the defendants in the wide-ranging Georgia RICO case, criticized the case Friday. He claimed the evidence was "weak" and predicted all defendants would be vindicated at their trials.

Eastman, who previously served as an attorney for former President Donald Trump, has been indicted by a grand jury in an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Prosecutors allege Eastman was a central figure in the scheme, which included setting up a fraudulent slate of electoral votes for the state.

“I think if we get a fair trial in Fulton County, whether that’s in state court or federal court, I’m confident that we’ll be fully vindicated,” Eastman told Fox News on Friday. “Not just me, but all the defendants.”

Trump co-defendant John Eastman on Georgia indictment: 'We did nothing wrong' The attorney accused the case of being weak in evidence and high in politics, stating the legal aspect was just "5%" of the fight, while politics was the rest. Eastman also claimed a broad racketeering case against a former president was setting a "very dangerous" precedent.

“Our federal criminal code and our state criminal code have gotten so expansive and so vague that any one of us can be charged by a creative prosecutor with three felonies a day,” Eastman said.

Eastman defended his actions in Georgia, claiming he had a right to legally question the results of the 2020 presidential election. Eastman added that he would do it again if he could.

“The stakes are very high. If we don’t have fair elections, if we don’t have a rule of law in how those elections are conducted, then one of the most basic premises, the foundation stones of our country, is gone,” Eastman said.

The trial date for at least one defendant in the case has been set for Oct. 23, but the dates for key figures such as Rudy Giuliani, Trump, and Eastman have not been announced. However, prosecutors are hoping the case will go to trial in the spring of 2024.>

<Donald Trump's venture into social media with the creation of Truth Social could come to a screeching halt in the near future if the merger with Digital World collapses and he faces ending up with nothing from the deal that has been pending for two years.

According to a new report from the Washington Post, there is a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close or be extended and, should it fail, Digital World will be compelled by law to return $300 million to investors.

The Post's Drew Harwell is reporting, "With the $300 million Digital World had already raised from investors, Trump Media & Technology Group, creator of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social, pledged then that the merger would create a tech titan worth $875 million at the start and, depending on the stock’s performance, up to $1.7 billion later," before adding, "Now, almost two years later, the deal faces what could be a catastrophic threat."

As the report notes, the past two years have been chaotic with executive departures, accusations of insider trading, and an $18 million settlement over accusations executives misled investors and the SEC.

According to Jay Ritter, a University of Florida finance professor, "The deal does seem to be running out of time. You can’t just keep getting extensions forever.”

"Digital World needs 65 percent of the shares held by its nearly 400,000 investors to vote 'yes' on the deadline extension; unvoted shares are counted as 'no' votes. If the extension fails, Digital World said in a filing in July that it would 'cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up' and repay investors at a price of about $10.24 per share — far below what many shareholders paid," the Post is reporting.

"Trump, who would retain his 90 percent ownership of Trump Media if the deal falls apart, has yet to make mention of the shareholder vote on his own Truth Social account," the Post's Harwell is reporting before adding, "Truth Social has attracted a relatively meager following. Though Trump Media projected in a 2021 investor presentation that the site would have 41 million total users by the end of this year, usage estimates from Similarweb, a data firm that analyzes web traffic, suggest it is a long way from reaching that goal.">

<According to SiriusXM radio host Dean Obeidallah, there is a legitimate legal case to be made that Donald Trump is violating U.S. copyright laws by selling merchandise emblazoned with his Fulton County mugshot -- and that could lead to major financial difficulties for him.

In a column for MSNBC, the attorney wrote that there has been a longstanding legal argument about who owns images like the now-infamous glowering Trump headshot associated with his indictment on RICO charges.

Noting that the former president has boasted that he raised a quick $7 million after his indictment in part by selling $34 mug shot t-shirts and “Never Surrender” coffee mugs for $25, he asserted the Fulton County Sheriff's department could come after the former president.

"Various legal experts have noted, Trump’s sale of that mug shot, taken by the Fulton County sheriff, may violate U.S. copyright laws. This could mean that theoretically, the millions he is making off that photo may rightfully belong to the Fulton County sheriff — an entity that just happens to be in desperate need of funds to address the horrific conditions in the Fulton County Jail," he wrote.

Bolstering his case he added, "Betsy Rosenblatt, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, recently explained to Spectrum News 1 Ohio that the copyright owner of Trump’s mug shot is likely the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office."

'The mugshot is the campaign poster': Why Trump's trials are his campaign

According to a 2022 article in the University of Georgia School of Law’s Journal of Intellectual Property Law, "In the context of photographs taken by law enforcement during the booking process, the author of the mugshot photograph is the law enforcement agency.”

The way Obeidallah sees it, it's up to Fulton County if they want to see Trump in court -- again -- over copyright infringement.

"Recently, Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat pleaded with county commissioners for funding he desperately needs to address conditions in the county jail, according to local station 11 Alive. LaBat told the commissioners, 'It’s a human crisis, and I have been begging for the resources,' adding, 'I’m really, really tired of begging for money to do my job,'" to which the MSNBC columnist added, "If LaBat brings a claim of copyright infringement against Trump’s campaign and wins, he could see millions of dollars come his agency’s way to address those issues. That would at least be a just result.">

<Tucker Carlson baselessly claimed that the political establishment is plotting to assassinate former President Donald Trump because they "just can't have" him as president again.

The former Fox News host peddled the conspiracy theory in an interview with anti-woke comedian Adam Carolla posted on Wednesday.

"If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment, now you go to indictment, and none of them work. What's next? Graph it out, man. We're speeding toward assassination, obviously," he said.

"They have decided — permanent Washington, both parties have decided — that there's something about Trump that's so threatening to them, they just can't have him," he said.

Carlson had, in fact, asked Trump if he feared being killed in an interview last week, to which the former president responded: "They're savage animals. They're people that are sick."

The conspiracy theory has been amplified by prominent far-right figures such as Infowars' Alex Jones and former Fox News host Dan Bongino, according to NBC News.

Jones has claimed for years that Trump might be assassinated, and earlier this year, accused "the deep state establishment" of planning to take him out.

Bongino claimed that the "plot to take out Trump is metastasizing" in a recent podcast episode titled "Speeding Towards Assassination?"

While Trump has never made such an assertion, he often describes himself as the victim of a "witch-hunt" following four historic indictments.

Daniel Jones, the president of the nonpartisan research organization Advance Democracy, warned that Carlson's rhetoric could incite real-world violence, per NBC.

"Those of us who follow and track extremism have seen that the rhetoric around the indictments of Trump is very similar to the rhetoric we saw prior to the Capitol insurrection," Jones told the outlet. "I think everyone in this space is concerned about what the next 12 to 18 months look like."

Fox fired the once most-watched host on cable news in April after the network reached a nearly $800 million settlement in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit over broadcasting Trump's lies about electoral fraud.>