EPISODE 231: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Obviously President Biden must fire Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Monaco and not merely because neither of them can possibly continue after yesterday’s revelations in The Washington Post just as none of US can possibly continue holding our breaths wondering WHAT about the Trump and January 6th prosecutions they will screw up NEXT. Two years and nearly six months after the first attempted coup and Garland and Monaco still do not understand that this is about SELF-DEFENSE: of Justice, of Democracy, of America. If that ISN’T your attitude about the response to Trump and the coup attempt that was and the coup attempt that WILL be get out. But especially if you are in the Justice Department and you don’t understand that the point WAS and WILL BE to eliminate YOU; if you don’t understand that the ultimate goal of Trump and the creatures around him is to take the limitless finances they have been given, and the limitless TIME they have been given - BY YOU - and walk into the Department of Justice or whatever white shoe law firm you have escaped to, and hand you a piece of paper bearing a fascist order signed by a fascist judge convicting you of being an official Trump-brand enemy of the people and authorizing the Trump Police to HANG you - get out. Because, then, you will have rendered this nation – at its time of greatest peril - defenseless just as the coalition of Hate gears up for another attack. Because, then, you will have nowhere to hide from them because the rest of us, whom you have left without defense, will be fending for ourselves.

And Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco have to go, first. Because I don’t know what’s LEFT for them to screw up here but I’m sure Garland will find something in his style book for the Department of Justice that says that unless you deliver the subpoenas by Pony Express, you can’t move against a criminally insane ex-president unless you make sure you wait just long enough that there’s no way any of the verdicts can be rendered until after the election that might put him back in office, upon which he will have the charges withdrawn or will pardon himself or will simply ignore ALL the laws ALL at once and tell you to take you to take him to the Supreme Court. 

B-Block (22:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: If you're the president of MSNBC and you are asked 'If Trump were interested, would you put him on MSNBC in a live town hall format' and your answer is not "HELL NO" you must be fired. And if her answer was not "HELL NO" and you're one of the MSNBC hosts whose primetime show was spun off from mine all those years ago (Maddow, O'Donnell, Hayes) and you do not use your power to push back against the network's president and her journalistic perfidy, you have forfeited your credibility and reduced yourself to the status of Check-Cashing Talking Head.

C-Block (48:00) SPECIAL COMMENT REDUX (Note: this is repeated from Monday's Episode 230) Special Counsel Jack Smith may be readying an indictment against Trump for illegally attempting to coerce Mike Pence to defy his legal duties in the Electoral College count? Ryan Goodman from “Just Security,” whom I cite here frequently though I don’t know him and only because he knows this stuff, told Bill Kristol’s podcast that he thinks Jack Smith quote “going to indict Trump for the False Slate of Electors scheme” – and with Goodman saying the odds Fonny Willis indicts on False Electors and election interference in Georgia are 90 percent, Trump could face twin federal and state cases on overlapping topics. And then Goodman adds something that took my breath away. Indicting Trump for False Electors, “AND quite probably/possibly the pressure campaign against Mike Pence.” Wait – what?

Goodman sets the odds on Jack Smith indicting Trump ABOUT PENCE… at 60 to 70 percent. Pressuring the Vice President, Goodman says, quoting him again “is independent of whether or not he thought he won the election. He can think he won the election, doesn’t matter. But you can’t try to coerce a public official to defy their legal duties – which is just to count the votes.” Goodman doesn’t mention that, but you will remember that Stewart Rhodes and other Oathkeepers were prosecuted for – and convicted of – interfering with Congress’s ability to complete its legal duties. Ponder for a moment the prospect of Smith indicting Trump, running for the Republican nomination, for attempting to coerce PENCE, running for the Republican nomination. Oh and necessarily having Pence TESTIFY AGAINST TRUMP either before Trump is nominated or before the election. 

I’m beginning to think we may have WILDLY under-estimated how many MORE things Jack Smith is about to indict Trump for. There is reason today to believe that the number of separate indictments OF Trump BY Smith could be as many as FOUR. Maybe even FIVE