Conservative lays out 5 ways 'Trump’s dishonesty' could fire up DOJ’s Jan. 6 case

During the 2020 presidential race, MAGA Republicans and right-wing media pundits accused "Real Time" host Bill Maher of "Trump derangement syndrome" for warning that if Donald Trump lost, he would not concede defeat. But Maher's prediction was spot on.

When Trump lost to Democratic now-President Joe Biden, he falsely claimed that the election was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud and made an aggressive effort to overturn the election results. That effort, on August 1, 2023, resulted in a four-count federal criminal indictment.

Special counsel Jack Smith alleges that Trump showed a brazen contempt for U.S. democracy when he lost the election but conspired to stay in office anyway. However, many Trump defenders have insisted that Trump genuinely believed he won and was merely exercising his 1st Amendment rights.

Journalist Will Saletan, in a listicle published by the conservative website The Bulwark on August 4, grapples with the question: "When Donald Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as alleged in this week's indictment, did he really believe it had been stolen?"

"The indictment charges Trump with 'dishonesty, fraud and deceit' in his efforts to impede certification of the results," Saletan explains. "It says his claims about the election 'were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.' The phrase 'knowingly false' appears 33 times in the document."

Saletan continues, "This part of the case — what Trump knew or believed —might be hard to prove, because he routinely insists that he did win the election. And while Trump has a long record of spouting falsehoods, he also has a record of appearing to believe his own b—---t."

The journalist goes on to say that although Smith "can't read Trump's mind," the four-charge indictment "does outline several incidents that illuminate Trump's dishonesty."

Those incidents, according to Saletan, are: (1) "Trump privately admitted that allegations he promoted were untrustworthy," (2) "Trump faulted Mike Pence for excessive honesty," (3) "Trump told leaders of the Department of Justice to say things he knew they didn't believe," (4) "Trump misrepresented several conversations he had witnessed," and (5) "Trump refused to look at evidence that contradicted him."

"Together, these incidents expose Trump's fundamental duplicity," Saletan argues. "He promoted allegations that he privately doubted or derided. He criticized Pence for being too honest. He told DOJ officials to publicly endorse accusations they didn't believe. He lied about conversations he had directly witnessed. And when he was offered evidence that would set him straight, he refused to look."