Dominion
Dominion Voting Systems is a manufacturer of voting machines. That’s a pretty limited industry. Most people just know that they go vote at a polling place and use some form of machine to do it. Who, where, what made that machine isn’t really ever a concern.
But Dominion has become a more familiar name to many after the 2020 election. Donald Trump, then President of the United States, and his staff claimed that the election was “rigged”. They insisted that the Dominion machines were somehow fixed to “steal the election” for Joe Biden. This became the basis of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign, and it led to the Insurrection of January 6th. And even worse, it led to so much of the distrust many have in our institutions today.
Since that time, I’ve always wondered what they were thinking. Did Donald Trump and his staff actually believe all of that? Or did Trump have, from the stress of Covid and campaigning and losing, some kind of breakdown that his staff just went along? Or did everyone, the President, his family and his staff, know that they were making it all up? Were they willing to destroy the results of a legitimate American election in order to maintain power?
Press Conference
On November 17th, two weeks after the election, lawyers representing the Trump Campaign held a press conference. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Florida attorney Sydney Powell spoke at the Republican National Committee headquarters. They outlined how Dominion used a software from a company called Smartmatic to rig the election, with financing from Venezuela. You’ll remember the scene: Giuliani was sweating so profusely that hair dye ran down his face. Not only did the two lawyers lend credence to the claims, but they placed the conference at the RNC to put the Party’s weight behind it.
What wasn’t revealed at the press conference: on November 15th, two days before, the communications staff of the Trump Campaign issued an internal memo about the so-called “evidence”. The memo’s conclusion: Dominion voter machines were NOT rigged, and did not even use the Smartmatic software. But two days later, Giuliani and Powell and the RNC went ahead with the lie. They knew or should have known it wasn’t true.
We Now Know
How do we know that? The New York Times broke the story yesterday. An employee of Dominion is suing the Trump Campaign and several of their representatives for defamation. It is a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and like any legal action, the lawyers from both sides are required to provide “discovery” of information before the proceedings can continue. The November 15th memo was part of the information provided to the Court.
To put it bluntly: they knew, in real time, that they were lying. They knew, that the information that were using to stir up “Stop the Steal” was false. They determined that it was more important to try to illegitimately keep Donald Trump as President, then to follow the Constitution of the United States.
And this is after former Attorney General and Trump supporter Bill Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, and the head of the Department of Homeland Security cyber-security division Chris Krebs; all told Trump and his staff that there wasn’t voting fraud that could alter the election’s outcome. His staff separately reported the same thing to him as well. At least by November 15th, they all knew that the election wasn’t rigged.
Un-Patriotic
No one from the campaign countered what Trump, Giuliani and Powell were saying. They put their jobs and loyalty to Trump ahead of their nation, and allowed the “Stop the Steal” effort to continue. This led to the Insurrection of January 6th: bad enough. But, just as badly, it led to a significant percentage of Americans who now believe that our current President is a fraud.
Patriotism is love for a country. We know patriots from their courageous acts and sacrifices, starting with Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War American officer who was caught by the British spying in New York. As he approached the gallows, he said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”.
That is simple courage and patriotism. He wasn’t worried about a “tweet” against him, or even losing his job. He was about to die. But the members of the Trump family and staff, and those other American “leaders” from Congressman Mo Brooks to Senator Josh Hawley, who went along with the “Stop the Steal” campaign, knew. They knew it was a lie, and they were willing to lie to America to get the power they wanted.
Treachery
It’s easy to throw around words like treason. Treason has a legal definition, to give aid or bear arms against the nation. So what those “leaders” did wasn’t legally treasonous. But the common definition of treason is to go against one’s country. I can think of no greater example of doing that, than to knowingly lie in order to overturn the Constitutional process of election. It was “common” treason – and it was treachery.
This isn’t “new-news” to most of us. But there, on paper in the Court documents revealed by the New York Times, is the “proof” of what most of us already figured out. I wish that my all-so-committed “Trump” friends could read and realize what that means. But it’s in the New York Times, and I am sure there will be some slant from right-wing media to make the lies more palatable. Besides, so many are so pledged to so many lies: for them there’s no turning back.
