Republican Senator Says He’d Totally Do a Coup if He Gets the Chance

Senator J.D. Vance has essentially admitted he would have carried out a coup during the 2020 election if he could have, in a bald-faced attempt to be chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate.

The Ohio Republican has been floated alongside Representative Elise Stefanik as a possible Trump vice presidential pick. And in an effort to outdo his reported competition, Vance gave a full-throated defense of autocracy during an interview with ABC on Sunday.

When asked if, had he been vice president in 2020, he would have certified the election results, Vance said he would have done things a little differently.

“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance said, referring to the fake pro-Trump electors that some states’ Republicans tried to send to Washington.

“That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020. I think that’s what we should have done.”

It’s unclear what Vance is basing that supposed legitimacy on, considering the Constitution makes no mention of this. Former Vice President Mike Pence has repeatedly stressed that he certified the votes in 2020, against Trump’s wishes, because he was loyal to the Constitution. There has also been no evidence that the election was fraudulent. Not even investigators hired by Trump have found issues.

Vance also said that the president can ignore Supreme Court rulings he doesn’t like.

“The Constitution says that the Supreme Court can make rulings … but if the Supreme Court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling,” Vance claimed.

This is false: Supreme Court rulings must be obeyed by everyone. That is the whole point of the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution.

Despite being a Trump critic during his career as a writer, Vance quickly changed his tune once he entered politics. Trump even endorsed Vance when he ran for the Senate in 2022. Since coming to Washington, Vance continues to express his seemingly limitless support for Trump, such as by blocking judicial nominations to protest Trump getting indicted.

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith systematically dismantled Donald Trump’s newest defense in the classified documents case, as well as his revisionist retelling of the August 2022 FBI raid at Mar-A-Lago.

In a series of court filings on Friday, Smith refuted Trump’s claim that the Department of Energy had given him special clearance to personally retain more than 300 classified documents at the Florida estate.

Trump’s legal team had argued that the government had an obligation to search for Trump’s clearance in a database maintained by the intelligence community, Scattered Castles. So, Smith did exactly that.

“Smith pointed out that he had already produced a search in Scattered Castles, ‘which yielded no past or present security clearances for Trump.’ Same result in the Department of Defense system,” wrote Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, in her Civil Discourse blog on Sunday.

The Department of Energy clearance, which Trump keeps referring to, was also retroactively terminated to the end of his presidency.

“That means that Trump’s ongoing possession of classified material and his failure to return them pursuant to a subpoena—long after the Q clearance was terminated—can’t conceivably be justified on this basis,” Vance wrote.

In the rest of the 67-page filing, Smith said that Trump’s defense had “cherry-picked” quotes from documents in order to fuel its counter narrative that the federal government was orchestrating a political crusade against the GOP frontrunner, “putting a nefarious gloss on innocuous events.”

“As the exhibits and an accurate timeline attest, the defendants’ narrative overlooks the fact that various federal agencies confronted, and appropriately responded to, an extraordinary situation resulting entirely from the defendants’ conduct,” Smith wrote.

“As [the National Archives and Records Administration] attempted to carry out its statutory responsibilities from 2021 into 2022, highly classified documents sat in a ballroom, bathroom, office space, and a basement storage room at a social club traversed by thousands of members, employees, and guests. NARA rightly involved other government agencies that had equities and authorities that it did not, as necessary to navigate an unprecedented situation.”

“That is hardly surprising, and it in no way, shape, or form supports the hyperbolic claim of ‘politically motivated operatives’ launching a ‘crusade against President Trump.’ ... The defendants’ legal problems are solely of their own making,” Smith continued.

Trump is on the line for 40 felony counts in the classified documents case, including 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding documents, and concealing records. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is in Moscow right now, and no one’s entirely sure why. But he seems happy to fuel speculation that he’s going to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin, a nightmare pairing that no one asked for.

Carlson traveled to Moscow in recent days, with Russian media documenting his sightseeing excursions. His trip has sparked rumors that he will interview Putin. If he does, Carlson would be the first Western journalist to interview Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine.

But when the Russian newspaper Izvestia asked Carlson Monday if he planned to interview the president, Carlson just smiled and said, “We’ll see.”

The Kremlin said it had “nothing to announce” about Putin’s upcoming interviews with foreign media.

“Many foreign journalists come to Russia every day, many continue to work here, and we welcome this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, not exactly denying the interview rumors either.

Carlson said in September that he had tried to interview Putin once before, but the U.S. government stopped him. He did not specify when he had tried to interview the Russian president, nor which federal agency prevented him from doing so.

Before he was unceremoniously fired from Fox News last spring, Carlson repeatedly expressed support for Putin on air and echoed Kremlin talking points. He has vehemently opposed U.S. military aid for Ukraine and blamed Western nations for Russia’s invasion because they supported letting Ukraine join NATO.

Carlson’s potential Putin interview comes as the United States is poised to slash funding for Ukraine. Senate negotiators revealed a bipartisan bill on Sunday to tackle the U.S.-Mexico border. The measure also includes billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and Israel.

But Republicans generally oppose the measure, largely out of fealty to Donald Trump. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the bill “dead on arrival” in the chamber.

While the world waits for New York Justice Arthur Engoron to issue a verdict in Donald Trump’s $370 million bank fraud trial, legal experts believe Engoron is awaiting juicy new details from an emerging plea deal from one of the real estate mogul’s former lieutenants.

Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, is negotiating a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors, reported The New York Times. That deal wouldn’t require Weisselberg to turn on his boss but would necessitate his admission that he lied on the stand during Trump’s bank fraud trial and in interviews with the New York attorney general’s office.

That could drastically impact Engoron’s ruling, according to legal experts.

“Why has Judge Engoron not issued his decision on the Trump civil fraud? One reason could well be the news that the Trump chief financial officer may be pleading to lying to Judge Engoron in a way to help Trump,” said former Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “And the Judge is waiting for that to support his decision against DJT. This [would] be another big nail in the Trump civil fraud coffin.”

Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig also weighed in, arguing that the plea deal and the verdict’s subsequent delay are a “problem for Donald Trump because he’s going to be on the receiving end.”

“If I’m in Judge Engoron’s position here, and getting ready to issue a big verdict and ruling, and now I hear this, and we’ve all heard it, that one of the key witnesses committed perjury in front of me—I slam on the brakes and I say, ‘I’m not going to rule until I know the specifics of this,’” he told CNN on Thursday.

“If you’re going to issue a ruling and if it turns out Weisselberg lied, that’s going to harm the Trump Organization when it comes time for the verdict,” Honig added.

Engoron ruled prior to the start of the trial that New York Attorney General Letitia James had proved that Trump committed fraud. What remains to be seen in Engoron’s verdict is just how much dough Trump will have to cough up as recompense for his scheme, which was likened by the judge to Bernie Madhoff’s Ponzi scheme. The court has also floated the possibility of stripping the Trump Organization’s licenses to do business in the state.

Donald Trump’s federal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election has been delayed until an appeals court decides whether he has immunity—exactly what the former president wanted.

Trump’s trial was originally set for March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, but he insists he has presidential immunity against criminal proceedings. His lawyers argued his case to a panel of three appellate judges in Washington, D.C., in early January. The appeals court has not issued a ruling yet.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s election interference lawsuit, on Friday officially called off the March trial. In a filing, she said she would set a new trial schedule once the appeals court rules on Trump’s immunity.

Regardless of how the appeals court rules, the question of Trump’s immunity will likely end up before the Supreme Court. This could drag out the lawsuit for weeks or even months.

Special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court in December to weigh in on the immunity case, so the case could move forward as quickly as possible. The Supreme Court declined to do so until the D.C. appeals court issued its ruling.

In the meantime, Trump benefits from every delay in the proceedings against him. As Politico pointed out earlier this week, delays increase the possibility that Trump could avoid charges altogether. If he has yet to face trial by November and wins the presidency, he could have the Justice Department end the lawsuits or even try to pardon himself.

Trump was indicted in August for his role in the January 6 insurrection and other attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He faces one count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against the right to vote.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and has insisted the case should be dismissed altogether. He argues that former presidents can’t be criminally charged for actions related to their official responsibilities. He did not explain how overturning an election was related to official presidential duties.

While many critics say Trump’s immunity claim is a desperate attempt to avoid accountability, it could also be an attempt to ease his path toward increased power. As Greg Sargent wrote for The New Republic, “If he wins on this front, he’d be largely unshackled in a second presidential term, free to pursue all manner of corrupt designs with little fear of legal consequences after leaving office again.”

Friday’s delay means that the next trial Trump faces will be in his indictment for his role in hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. That trial is set to begin March 16.

This story has been updated.