 Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nation's capital on January 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. Well, this was expected, but it is finally official. Donald J. Trump, former president of the United States, but most notably the star of Home Alone 2, lost in New York, has been federally indicted by a grand jury over his effort to overturn the 2020 election, making this the third time he has been indicted. That is, uh, quite the accomplishment. The CNBC reports, Trump was hit with four serious felonies in the new indictment, accusing him of fraudulently trying to undo his loss in the 2020 election. The first charge, conspiracy to defraud the United States, has a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison if convicted. Two other charges, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding, carry much heavier maximums, 20 years in prison. The fourth charge against Trump, conspiracy against rights, has a maximum possible sentence of 10 years behind bars. Now, if the charges alone weren't scary enough for him, well, there's even more bad news. Because when the trial takes place in May, as Brian Taylor Cohen points out, Judge Tanya Chute Khan is appointed to preside over Trump's January 6th indictment case. This is an Obama appointee who issued some of the harshest rulings against January 6th insurrectionists, and this bodes absolutely terribly for Donald Trump, obviously. Now we've seen elites get away with so much, but it's hard to not see these crimes that he's being charged with and factor in all of the other indictments and think, this man is fucked. I mean, yes, we have a two-tier justice system, but sometimes rich people and people with power, they act a little bit too brazenly and they're held accountable for it. I'm not saying that he's definitely going to be held accountable, but when you have three indictments, I mean, goddamn, the only way it seems like at this point in time he can escape punishment is by getting that executive immunity and winning a second term. This is so surreal, again, this was expected, but it's still very bizarre to know that this former president has not only been indicted three times, which is unprecedented, by the way, no former president has been criminally charged, including Nixon, but that he could still win. That's the craziest part. Now, I do want to get to some reactions, but before we do that, let's look at some of the details of the indictment because this is very serious. It's 45 pages long, I'll link to it in its entirety down below, but here's some highlights courtesy of the New York Times. This is from the indictment, quote, despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. The indictment charges saying Trump unleashed a blizzard of lies about purported mass voter fraud and then tried to get state, local, and federal officials to act to change the vote results. These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false. In fact, the defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue, often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters and who were best positioned to know the facts and he deliberately disregarded the truth the indictment states. The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy, a special counsel, Jack Smith, said in announcing the indictment. It was fueled by lies, lies by the defendant. So the chickens are finally coming home to roost. Now the entire indictment is much more detailed, so again, I would highly encourage you to read it in its entirety. But there's another interesting element that I do want to get to here and that is the six additional co-conspirators who were not named but identified in this indictment, who are also probably in a lot of legal trouble. Now despite them not being named, the New York Times pieced together the evidence and they determined that these are the individuals the indictment is likely referring to. The first one is obviously Rudy Giuliani. I think that all of us could have figured that out. The second one is John Eastman. Sidney Powell is most likely co-conspirator number three. Co-conspirator number four is probably Jeffrey Clark, excuse me, who Trump wanted to appoint as acting Attorney General. But remember, this was going to lead to a mass walkout at the Justice Department, so he didn't do it. On top of that, there's co-conspirator number five, who is almost certainly Kenneth Chesaubro, who is the attorney who tried to enact the False Electors Scheme. Now, Trump responded in a tweet storm via TruthSocial and I'm sure that you can already predict what he said. But let's just get to his main statement because this is all of his response summarized in an official statement. But he is essentially predictably calling this the weaponization of the Justice Department and saying it's an attempt to interfere with the 2024 election. And he says that the lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, which is really an interesting analogy for him of all people to use, because in that example, he and his supporters would be the Nazis. But I mean, this response is predictable. And it seems like he just copy and pasted this from the last indictment because what else do you say at this point? He sounds like a broken fucking record. Wrong. No, this is the weaponization. I mean, the only new thing that I think he said that I haven't seen is, well, why weren't these charges brought 2.5 years ago? And I mean, sure, you can ask that question, but you are a former fucking president. So obviously, they're not going to charge you unless they have a really solid case against you. So that's probably part of it. But it doesn't delegitimize the charges. The fact that it took time doesn't make them any less valid, obviously. But what's really interesting to me, another element about this story, is how right wing propaganda is trying to spin this because, of course, their job is to spin this. But how do you spin this? Because if you read the indictment, I mean, they describe what we all saw. But predictably, you know, Fox News is spinning this and they're having a difficult time making a persuasive case as to why we should not take this seriously case in point. It's really hard for me to take this seriously. And I don't think any sensible American should take what's happening very seriously. They should anger them. But the actual charges, you can't take seriously. They're feelings masquerading as facts. Their opinions trying to be passed off as crimes. It's garbage dressed up with a legal thesaurus. And it's criminalizing speech. You have every right to think an election might be rigged or fixed. I mean, is every institution perfect? I mean, what if we criminalize the idea that if you said the justice system was flawed? What if we told you that, you know what? You're saying the justice system is rigged? You're going to jail. But that's been a common refrain. So I think it's amazing to me how hatred for Trump has turned the haters into what they claim to condemn. These are all the things that they would have accused him of that he never did. This is why I can't take it seriously. I have a hard time. This is why I draw things. It's my therapy. So that's the best defense that they've got, apparently. I'm sure that they'll come together and formulate better talking points. But I mean, what? A guy can't even say that the election was rigged nowadays. Free speech. Except you can. Trump didn't just question the integrity of the election. He literally took action to steal the fucking election. He had co-conspirators. He made moves. So I mean, you can't just say, oh, he's asking questions. This isn't like a matter of Joe Rogan chopping it up with some dipshit on his podcast about how vaccines cause autism or something like that. Like this isn't just him conspiracy mongering. This is him taking action to steal the election. This is not a free speech issue. This is the former president trying to overturn the results of an election that he did not like. And Greg Gutfeld knows this, but he thinks that that's kind of like the easiest way to obfuscate. But I mean, it's just, it's sad, right? And sure, Trump's sycophants might find that defense compelling, but normal Americans aren't going to fall for that. A July 17th UGF poll found that 90% of Americans believe that conspiring to overturn the results of a presidential election is a serious crime. Furthermore, 70% think that aiding and inciting an insurrection against the federal government is also a serious crime. And 67% think attempting to obstruct the certification of a presidential election is a serious crime. He's now being charged with that. So I mean, I'm not saying that that is going to lead to Trump losing the general election because it's still entirely plausible that he wins, assuming he does become the GOP's nominee. But what this does demonstrate is that if Fox News actually wants to persuasively convince people that these charges are an attack on free speech or nothing burger, he's going to have to get a little bit more savvy with the propaganda if he's going to convince anyone outside of their bubble. But I mean, what else can be said at this point? We have a former president who has been indicted now three times, and yet he's still the leading candidate for one of two major parties in this country. And the craziest fucking part is that he could still very much become presidents again. Like I'm not saying that he's definitely going to win, but I'm saying if he's the GOP nominee, I mean, at least 50% chance, right? We all never thought he could win the first time. So I think it would be incorrect to assume that because of these charges, all of a sudden he's going to lose. Sure, maybe normies are turned off by it, but crazier things, well, I don't know if a crazier thing has happened in this country, but crazier things have happened throughout human history, right? But I mean, this would be up there. If a former thrice-indicted president won a general election, that would be insane. But I mean, if that did happen, I fear for the future of democracy because I don't think we'd have a future of democracy because he knows the second that he leaves off as executive immunity goes away and he'd go straight to prison. So of course that creates this incentive for him to never want to leave. So this time, if he gets in, I mean, it's logical to assume that he's not gonna want to leave for sure this time, even more so than last time. So either way, we'll just have to wait and see. But I wish that like this were a movie in not real life because it has serious consequences, but putting that aside, it is deeply entertaining and decades down the line, assuming we haven't wiped ourselves out due to climate change, it would be really interesting to revisit this, I'd like to see a movie about this because it is entertaining, it's a little bit stressful when you're living in the moment, right? We're all living through a historical moment and we have to grapple with that reality. But I mean, I think that to bring some levity to the situation, we have to admit, this is extremely humorous in a variety of ways. It's just sad that the implications of this are broad and could spell disaster for the future of American democracy and the human race, but putting that aside, it is what it is. This is the reality, these are the facts, these are the details, this is the present circumstance that we find ourselves in and we've got to face it. So buckle up, folks, because it's going to get a lot rockier in 2024. Mike is a total shitless. Once he started chilling for the DNC, I stopped watching. So I definitely won't be hitting the subscribe button or turning the notifications by clicking the bell. No way, it's very sad enough.