Here’s something I didn’t know about in the annals of Trumpist mania and bad acting. You’ve probably seen the name Lin Wood come up. From my recollection, prior to his Trumpist incarnation, Wood was what you might call a regionally known celebrity lawyer. He was involved in a lot of high profile cases and was very successful. I don’t know how respected he was as a lawyer per se. And I don’t think he was known for supporting coups or being unhinged or evil.

More recently he was the lawyer for Nicholas Sandmann – the kid from Covington Kentucky involved with that incident with the Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial – suing media organizations for defamation. He took on the case of alleged terrorist shooter Kyle Rittenhouse with funding from high profile Trump supporter Mike Lindell (the MyPillow guy). And now since the November election he’s been at the forefront of some of the wildest and most lurid pro-Trump fraud conspiracy theories and demands for overthrow of the government.

No matter which way you splice it, Georgia is now all about Trump.

As his rhetoric puts the safety of innocent election workers, and even state officials, at risk, the outcome of the two runoff Senate races in the Peach State will show the value of President Trump’s waning political influence — at least over Republican voters in Georgia.

Last night, fresh off his pardon for past crimes, retired General Mike Flynn endorsed a call for President Trump to suspend the constitution and declare martial law. It came in a tweet in which Flynn tweeted and endorsed a manifesto calling on President “to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote.”

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Late this afternoon news broke of a federal investigation into an alleged bribery for pardon scheme targeting the White House. Matt Shuham has the basic details here. You can read the document here.

Let me run down a few initial reactions and clues in the document.

This situation with Joe DiGenova saying whistleblower (in the informal sense) Chris Krebs should be “taken out at dawn and shot” deserves our attention for a few reasons. The first, of course, is the sheer unacceptability and outrageousness of it. But it’s also a window into the permissive and transgressive far-right/Trumpist ecosystem.

You’ve probably noticed that my posts have been perhaps a bit more reflective than usual in recent days. Biden not only won and Trump is leaving but now Trump gets it and knows he’s leaving, even as he labors to manufacture a narrative in which he won but is being deprived of office by a conspiracy against him. Like TPM Reader MM below, there is a certain relaxing of muscles and tension. This really is over. And despite Trump’s still fairly successful efforts to project a reality in which he remains a presence past his presidency, I suspect it’s really over to a degree greater than we quite yet suspect.

Not that we needed any more reason to declare it over, but, as of yesterday, all six states where President Trump has attempted to contest the results of the election have finalized their vote counts. Joe Biden was and is and will be the next president.

Yet, even after Wisconsin and Arizona both officially certified the results of their elections yesterday, the Trump campaign filed another lawsuit this morning — this time in Wisconsin. The campaign is alleging “abuse” of absentee ballots, targeting 270,000 ballots.

TPM Reader MM channels some of my recent thinking …

I viewed that priceless video last night, and was delighted and unsurprised to learn that Trump was furious about it. That’s the thing about losing, when a majority hates you: nobody who matters is listening. Raised $170 million on lies? Delighted to see the money well wasted by those who contributed. Trump was politically successful in a restricted, time-limited sense, but a Trump propaganda organization fueled by supporters’ bucks? Money down the toilet, just like every other business enterprise ever undertaken by Trump. Keep the money flowing in! Give more next month!

Don’t deprive yourself of this wonderful moment when Arizona Gov. Ducey (R) is signing the election certification papers for his state and gets a call from the President on his cell phone which he promptly mutes.

It’s hard for me to think of a point in American history where an incoming President has faced a greater range of compounding crises with as little freedom of action as Joe Biden will have on January 20th of next year. There is COVID. There is economic calamity COVID created. There is the seemingly more distant but gravely important wrecked international system which portends a rising tide of foreign policy crises and disruptions in trade which has the potential to ramify out for decades into the future.

It is still just possible that Democrats will control the Senate, if they pick up both Senate seats in Georgia. But assuming Republicans hold on, basically no legislation of any significance will be possible and Mitch McConnell will have a stranglehold over staffing and presidential confirmations, not even to mention judges.