Trump offers chilling glimpse into possible second term

 

Former President Donald Trump conjured a vision of a second term that would function as a tool of personal vengeance, and become even more authoritarian than his first, when he vowed to pardon US Capitol insurrectionists if he runs for the White House again and wins.

His pledge at a Texas rally Saturday was accompanied by a call for demonstrations if prosecutors in New York, who are probing Trump's business practices, and those in Georgia, looking into his attempts to reverse his election loss in the state, do anything that he defined as wrong or illegal. The comments underscore Trump's obsession with delusional lies that he won the 2020 election, and his determination to put that falsehood at the core of the Republican worldview. As was often the case during his four years in office, Trump's pardons threat shows that he still makes no distinction between his personal goals and the national interest or rule of law.

But the former President's new rhetorical outburst also at times hinted at concern with his own legal position, and comes at a moment when various criminal and congressional lines of investigation seem to be tightening around him. The House select committee probing the January 6, 2021, riot has now penetrated deep inside Trump's West Wing inner circle, and he lost a Supreme Court bid to keep key documents secret. The likelihood of a damning accounting from the committee, bristling with new details about Trump's attempt to destroy American democracy, is growing, though the GOP has sought to thwart it at every turn.

As well as further threatening US democracy on Saturday night, Trump was preoccupied with his personal legal exposure. He fired off a wild attack, which looked to be racially-motivated, on two Black New York prosecutors investigating whether his business empire deliberately falsified accounts to get preferential treatment on loans and income taxes. He also alluded to potential legal peril he's facing in Fulton County, Georgia, where a Black district attorney has been granted a special grand jury to examine his attempt to steal President Joe Biden's win in the state.

In a sign of the potential impact of Trump's incitement, District Attorney Fani Willis wrote to the FBI on Sunday asking for an immediate risk assessment for the Fulton County Courthouse and government buildings. She said that "security concerns were escalated this weekend" by the former President's speech and added that her office had already received "communications" from people unhappy with the investigation before Trump's rally.

Trump's pressure on investigators prompted Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who sits on the House committee probing the insurrection, to warn that the ex-President had issued a "call to arms."

"Calling out for demonstrations if, you know, anything adverse, legally, happens to him, is pretty extraordinary. And I think it's important to think through what message is being sent," the California Democrat told CNN's Pamela Brown on Sunday.

In yet another sign of Trump's incessantly consuming inability to accept his election loss, he issued a statement that same evening slamming former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing his demands to overturn the result of the democratic election in 2020, and falsely claimed that the then-vice president had the power to do so.

With Trump and his fans already referring to him as the 45th and the 47th President, his fixation with the 2020 election may also represent a growing problem for the Republican Party. In the midterm elections in November and beyond, the GOP wants to build a case that Biden is weak, flailing at home and abroad and has lost his grip on inflation. But Trump, who wants to use the elections to demonstrate his hold on the GOP grassroots, threatens to detract from that simple Republican message. While the ex-President remains wildly popular with the "Make America Great Again" crowd, his loss in 2020 poses the question of whether Republicans -- and independents and suburban swing voters -- want to get stuck forever in Trump's unhinged 2020 feedback loop. Some other potential 2024 presidential candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are meanwhile demonstrating that Trump's populist nationalism and assault on what supporters view as liberal elites will be waged long after the 45th President has left the scene.

Democrats failed in their attempt to make Trump the bogeyman in last year's Virginia gubernatorial election, when Republican Glenn Youngkin kept his distance from the ex-President and tapped into voter concerns about education, Covid exhaustion and rising prices. But it will be an easier case for Democrats to make when Trump is holding wild rallies in swing states and again makes himself the face of the party in 2022, spreading his lies, spewing increasingly racist rhetoric and behaving like an autocrat in waiting.

Trump signals possible new abuse of power

Trump's latest comment on pardons was in line with his attempt to whitewash the truth of a day when his mob, incited at his Washington rally, invaded the Capitol to try and disrupt the certification of Biden's win, beat up police officers and sent lawmakers running for their lives. Throughout his presidency, he used the chief executive's pardon power to shield his political cronies.

"If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly," Trump said on Saturday. "And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly."

People dragged into the criminal justice system because they tried to stage a coup based on lies about a stolen election are not being treated unfairly. But it is characteristic of Trump's democracy-threatening brand of politics to play up a sense of grievance and victimhood. He spent four years of his twice-impeached presidency sowing a narrative that opponents and subordinates who tried to check him were in fact the ones guilty of abusing power. And he repeatedly sought to force the Justice Department to embrace his anti-constitutional schemes.

Several high-profile Republicans quickly dismissed Trump's offer to help January 6 insurrectionists. New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who disappointed the national party by passing on a Senate bid, said on Sunday that those responsible for the insurrection must be held accountable. Asked by CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" about the possibility of a pardon for such Trump supporters, Sununu, who is emerging as a standard bearer for a possible post-Trump GOP, said: "Of course not. Oh my goodness, no."

One of Trump's closest enablers, Sen. Lindsey Graham, also dismissed Trump's promise in an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I think it's inappropriate. I don't want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was okay. I don't want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future," the South Carolina Republican said. His comments were notable since he has previously warned that the GOP needs to find a way to work with Trump if it wants to wield power. Another Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, also condemned Trump's remarks. "I do not think ... President Trump should have made that pledge to do pardons. We should let the judicial process proceed. January 6 was a dark day in our history," said Collins, who just won reelection in 2020, speaking on ABC's "This Week." She also said it was "very unlikely" that she would support Trump if he does officially decide on a third presidential run.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the party's most vocal critics of Trump and his hold on the Republican Party, tweeted Monday that "Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he'd pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election. He'd do it all again if given the chance."

This must have been a case of déjà vu for Republicans who often had their talking points overshadowed by the ex-President's extremism when he was in power. But it is one thing for key Republicans to criticize the ex-President now. On every previous occasion when the GOP faced a choice between appeasing Trump to keep or win power and standing up for American democracy and the rule of law, it has chosen the first option. In a sense, Trump's demagoguery this weekend was a fresh sign that he is convinced that his personality cult still holds his party in thrall.

The House Republican conference has already demonstrated that it would act as a vessel of Trump's power and vengeance if it wins the majority in November. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has put the ex-President at the center of his efforts to become speaker of the House and has been put on notice by pro-Trump members like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that departures from the ex-President's dogma could doom his hopes. And former Speaker Newt Gingrich encapsulated the extremism of the House GOP when he suggested last week that a new majority should throw members of the January 6 committee in jail.

Trump fires off racist attack on New York prosecutors

The ex-President's speech was also notable for an extraordinary assault on prosecutors in New York who are investigating allegations of fraud at his business empire. The ex-President called for "the biggest protests we have ever had" if the prosecutors "do anything wrong or illegal." New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. are both leading investigations into Trump's business empire. And both are Black, a point that Trump hinted at in his complaints about his treatment.

"These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They're racists and they're very sick -- they're mentally sick," he said. "They're going after me without any protection of my rights from the Supreme Court or most other courts. In reality, they're not after me, they're after you," he told his crowd.

It was the second recent occasion when Trump has sought to stir up racial hatred as part of his increasingly dangerous rhetoric. He claimed at a rally in Arizona two weeks ago that White people could not get Covid-19 treatment or vaccines in New York, grossly distorting a policy that says that race should be one factor in the use of limited therapies for a disease that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic populations.

Trump's speech once again presented a conundrum about how much attention should be paid to an ex-President who is using his high profile to stir division and outrage in order to stay politically relevant. Yet given his power in the Republican Party and the intensity of those who follow a once and possible future President who has already incited a coup to overthrow an election, it would be unwise to ignore the implications of his rage.

Even out of office, Trump has convinced millions of Americans that the election was stolen and Biden is an illegitimate president. Multiple Republican-run states have passed laws that make it harder to vote and easier for political officials to interfere in election results rooted in his false claims of voter fraud. And Trump is touring the country inciting polarization and racial animus as the hot favorite for the GOP 2024 nomination.

John Dean, a former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, condemned Trump's remarks on pardons in a chilling tweet.

"This is beyond being a demagogue to the stuff of dictators. He is defying the rule of law. Failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior," Dean wrote. "If thinking Americans don't understand what Trump is doing and what the criminal justice system must do we are all in big trouble!"

source

How a tiny European country took on China over Taiwan

 

Taiwanese and Lithuanian flags pictured at the Taiwanese Representative Office in Vilnius, Lithuania on January 20.

A curious spat has unfolded in recent months between Lithuania, a small, Eastern European nation of fewer than 3 million people, and China, a superpower with an economy that could soon exceed that of the United States.

It all started last year, when Lithuania poked Beijing in the eye -- twice in the space of a few months.

First, it withdrew from the so-called "17+1" group, a forum in which 17 eastern and central European countries engage with China, before encouraging others to do the same. Given China's numerous business interests in the region, most notably the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) focused on infrastructure projects, any kind of European pushback is unwelcome in Beijing.

Then in November, Lithuania became the first country in Europe to allow self-ruled Taiwan to open a de facto embassy under the name "Taiwan." Other such offices in Europe and the United States use the name Taipei, Taiwan's capital, to avoid references that would imply the island's independence from China. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the opening of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Vilnius would "charter a new and promising course for bilateral relations between Taiwan and Lithuania."

The move enraged Beijing, which saw it as an affront to its "One China" principle that insists Taiwan is part of China, rather than an independent sovereign territory, despite the two sides having been governed separately for over seven decades after a civil war. As a rule, those who want a relationship with China must recognize the policy diplomatically. 

 

The lobby of the Taiwanese Representative Office is pictured on November 18, 2021.

Lithuania says the new Taiwan office does not have formal diplomatic status and does not conflict with its One China policy. But Beijing reacted by immediately downgrading diplomatic relations with Vilnius. Lithuania also claimed that China has prevented Lithuanian goods from entering China, effectively creating a trade barrier. The Chinese government has repeatedly rejected these claims, blaming Lithuania for harming China's "core interest" and sending bilateral ties to a deep freeze.

Taiwan reacted by buying up Lithuanian produce that was destined for China -- including 20,400 bottles of rum -- and pledging to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Lithuanian industry to support the country in the face of Chinese pressure.

The spat has pulled in the European Union, which is backing member state Lithuania. Brussels sees Beijing's treatment of Lithuania as a threat to other EU nations, many of whom have deeper economic links with China and would like to deepen them further.

On Thursday, the EU launched a case against China at the World Trade Organization, accusing Beijing of "discriminatory trade practices against Lithuania, which are also hitting other exports from the EU's Single Market."

The WTO case could be just the start of the EU taking a more hardline stance on China, though there are reservations about whether doing so could prompt Beijing to retaliate in the form of trade wars or canceled investments in Europe.

'China needs to learn lessons'

In 1990, Lithuania became the first member of the Soviet Union to declare independence from Moscow's ruling Communist Party. It then joined the EU European Union and NATO in 2004 -- the very organization intended to be a check on socialist expansion.

In that context, a nation like China displaying aggression in its own region, notably against Taiwan -- as well as using trade as a weapon against smaller European nations -- naturally alarms those who remember life under Soviet rule.

"China needs to learn lessons because until now, they have been allowed to behave in a way that doesn't adhere to our values and rules, simply because they were so wealthy," Lithuania's former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius told CNN.

"I don't see that bigger EU countries would have taken it upon themselves to stand up. Maybe from Lithuania it will spread to others and in time, Europe will stand united against a country that doesn't meet our standards," he added.

One of the reasons Lithuanian officials may be more comfortable than some nations in taking this stance is that China is a relatively small export market for the country. Only 1.18% of Lithuania's exports went to China in 2019 -- compared with 13.1% to Russia and 3.64% to the US -- though China is also one of Lithuania's fastest growing export markets, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

For Lithuania, this hardline stance is more than a moral mission. Officials who spoke to CNN say that by standing up to China, they also hope to send a message to Moscow.

Velina Tchakarova, head of the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy, explains that Lithuania has "been under permanent Russian pressure since joining NATO. Lithuania wants to set an example within the European members that no one will succumb to autocratic regimes in Beijing and Moscow."

Lithuanian officials told CNN they hoped standing up to China might set a precedent in the EU for pushing back on autocratic regimes. One senior Lithuanian diplomat said the endgame was for Europe to have more effective anti-coercion measures.

Brussels recently proposed a legal mechanism that would allow the EU to respond to economic intimidation in a "structured and uniform manner" by using a "tailor-made and proportional response for each situation" which could include tariffs, restricting imports and limiting access to the EU's internal market.

But many of the smaller EU nations are privately skeptical that their fellow member states -- especially those who trade extensively with China -- would back them when push comes to shove.

A strong economic relationship with China is a key plank of the EU's drive for "strategic autonomy," a term used in Brussels to describe the EU becoming more independent from US influences as a geopolitical power. The thinking was that by partnering with Beijing economically, Europe could act as a bridge between the US and China, while not getting squashed between the two.

Bigger member states, most notably France, have been strong supporters of the strategic autonomy drive. And while European politicians have grown increasingly uncomfortable with China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims, suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and aggression towards Taiwan, when it comes to hard cash, many European countries are not quite ready to alienate China.

Tchakarova believes that by "bringing China into the debate, Lithuania seeks to strengthen the US position in Europe, but also to warn Brussels and key member states (Germany and France) of the potential risks and dangers associated with bilateral relations with China in the future."

Essentially, they hope to force these countries to take a stand. So, will it work?

A delicate balance

Some in Lithuania think their hardline stance has already produced results. Officials point to the fact that France has backed them, along with the rest of the EU, and called on China to deescalate the situation. This is particularly significant right now, since France holds the EU's rotating presidency and is also in the middle of a presidential election campaign. Earlier this month, Slovenia announced that it too would seek to increase trade with Taiwan.

One senior European Commission official told CNN Brussels' position is that Lithuania has not gone against its One China policy, and that if China continues to be hostile, it must provide evidence that the policy has been breached, which Lithuanian officials are chalking up as a victory.

However, not everyone, even in Lithuania itself, thinks the strategy has been a wholesale success.

President Gitanas Nauseda said that while he supported opening the Taiwanese Representative Office, he thinks the name was needlessly provocative and Lithuania must now deal with the "consequences."

Beijing responded by saying acknowledging the mistake was a good start, but still believes Lithuania to have broken the One China principle.

Brussels has been getting its act together on geopolitical matters lately. After years of bitter backbiting, it may be that Brexit and the pandemic have reminded EU leaders that unity in areas of mutual interest means even small nations like Lithuania can use the mechanics of the EU to stand up to one of the richest, most powerful nations on earth.

Whether Lithuania's stand -- and the EU taking a stand along with it -- will result in any concessions from Beijing is another matter. A recent editorial in the outspoken nationalistic state-run tabloid Global Times issued a series of steps Lithuania must take to restore relations, and warned: "no matter what tricks they play, China will never give in half an inch on issues of principle."

But experts agreed the only chance, however remote, of forcing any concessions from China on the issue is for Europe to present a united front.

Benedict Rogers, a longstanding human rights campaigner and the chief executive of Hong Kong Watch, says that while "China has shown it is very adept at divide-and-rule and able to play countries off another ... when countries stand together and stand up against China together, Beijing's bullying tactics are less effective and pressure on China can have more impact."

For all this may seem a small spat, what's at stake is years of work in which the EU has tried to find a way to reconcile its economic relationship with China with its duty to member states and its moral values. The question is for how much longer that balance can hold.

source