On a recent edition of The Beat With Ari Melber, MSNBC’s Ari Melber broke a wild story featuring a video of Roger Stone doing what he does best: behaving like a crook and a criminal. The video shows Donald Trump’s ally dictating a memo to an aide on November 5, 2020, only two days after the Presidential election. This was, however, before Joe Biden had officially been declared the winner. We see Stone already concerned about Trump’s fate, and already putting out into the universe the idea that the election was stolen. Which, at that point in time, he would not have had any way of knowing.
The words coming from Stone’s mouth show how desperate Trump’s team was, and earlier than we all may have realized. In the video, Stone says:
“Although state officials in all 50 states must ultimately certify the results of the voting in their state … the final decision as to who the state legislatures authorize be sent to the Electoral College is a decision made solely by the legislature. Any legislative body may decide on the basis of overwhelming evidence of fraud, to send electors to the Electoral College who accurately reflect the president’s legitimate victory in their state, which was illegally denied him through fraud.”
How does Roger Stone know what was illegal? How does he know that fraud had taken place? It is August 2023, and we still have no evidence that the election was stolen from Trump, or that there was any substantial amount of voting fraud whatsoever. But it doesn’t stop there. Stone isn’t just spewing his view of the presidential race that had just taken place; he is commenting on the future. He notes that Trump’s team should lobby Republican legislatures to overturn the results in their states. This is so critical because using the word “overturn” is an admission that you do not care about the will of the people. This is Trump’s problem too. Democracy is irrelevant to him, which kind of seems like a disqualifier for being president.
On MSNBC, Melber spoke with Danish filmmaker Christopher Gulbrandsen, the documentarian who recorded this unbelievable footage. He said he knew that it was going to be “spectacular.” The brazen nature of Trump and his cronies is still wild to me. Their willingness to just talk and continue to put themselves in danger of criminal liability is mind-boggling. Then again, these are people who have spent their entire lives feeling superior to everyone else. No matter what they do—the crimes they commit or the people they hurt—there will always be someone to bail them out.
Melber had on another great guest, former federal prosecutor John Flannery. He gave important context about the footage, calling it “absolutely” incriminating. Flannery noted that Trump’s team must have had more info. It seems that Trump and his team possibly already knew he was going to lose way before the American public had it figured out. Flannery commented on something interesting that Gulbrandsen revealed, noting that Stone’s demeanor was not what he had expected; the Trump ally was not outwardly down over the results, and instead started encouraging Trump to “stop the steal.” Where have we heard that before? Flannery believes that this shows that Trump’s team knew the election was going to go to Biden. He also believes that this video could help in the current cases pending against Trump and his associates.
Again, so much of this has to be summarized in a way that is helpful to the American people. Simply put, this footage shows that Trump and his team knew he had lost and they had been planning to steal an election the whole time—months before January 6, 2021. These people never intended to give up power. This is an important point that we must consider when looking to 2024 and beyond. If Trump is not convicted, and not sent to prison, what will stop him? Certainly no sense of morality or affinity for the Constitution. We assumed Trump would have enough decent people around him that a catastrophic event like the insurrection at the Capitol couldn’t happen. But we now know that there are enough people in Trump’s corner to cause severe damage, and this Stone video is just further proof.
(featured image: Joe Raedle, Getty Images)
