[guest post by Dana]

. . .even the once unimaginable:

President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, multiple sources told CBS News, and inauguration officials are making plans for additional foreign dignitaries to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Trump invited Xi in early November, shortly after the election, sources said, but it was not clear whether he has accepted the invitation.

One can hardly imagine an American presidential inauguration being attended by one of the world’s vile dictators, and at the invitation of the President-elect. But given Trump’s comments a few short months ago, none of this should be surprising:

“They hate when I say, you know, when the press — when I called President Xi, [the press] said, ‘Well, he called President Xi brilliant.’ Well, he’s a brilliant guy. He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. I mean, he’s a brilliant guy, whether you like it or not. And they go crazy.

Just so we’re clear, this is who Trump’s affection is directed toward:

Xi presides over a dictatorship that makes systematic use of slave labor and torture, that mercilessly persecutes religious minorities, that engages in the ghastly practice of harvesting vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners and other dissenters, and that imprisons between 1 million and 3 million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps. Its absolute control is reinforced by an Orwellian system of high-tech surveillance designed to suppress any whisper of thoughtcrime or opposition. It is a literally genocidal regime that constantly threatens to plunge East Asia into war in order to conquer its democratic island neighbor, Taiwan.

(In addition to Xi, Trump is apparently also considering inviting other world leaders, like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.)

—-Dana

[guest post by Dana]

On Sunday, Donald Trump said in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, that members of the Jan. 6 committee should go to jail:

[Liz] “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” he said in the interview. “They deleted and destroyed all evidence.”

“And Cheney was behind it. And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee,” he continued. “For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”

However:

Asked if he’d order the FBI or attorney general directly to go after Cheney and others on the committee, Trump claimed, “No, no. Not at all. I think that they’ll have to look at that, but I’m going to focus on ‘drill, baby, drill.”

In response to Trump’s accusations, Cheney laid out the facts in a clear and concise manner:

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power. . .He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave…This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history. Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

Moreover, Cheney pointed out that, contrary to Trump’s claims that evidence was destroyed, the evidence remains online and should be made public:

“Donald Trump knows his claims about the select committee are ridiculous and false, as has been detailed extensively, including by Chairman Thompson,” she said. “There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting — a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee — and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct.”

“The Justice Department should ensure that all that material is preserved and cannot be destroyed. As much of that information as possible should be disclosed in the special counsel’s upcoming report.”

Clearly, Donald Trump doesn’t shy away from subverting the rule of law when he sees fit. And I don’t think weaponizing the DOJ wouldn’t cause him to bat an eye if he thought it benefitted him. So does he try? (Think Kash Patel and Pam Bondi…) And for that matter, should President Biden go through with issuing blanket pardons for the Jan. 6 committee members, and would Cheney accept a pardon from Biden, when she has done nothing wrong?

You can read the text of Trump’s Meet the Press interview here.

—Dana