Near the top of an exclusive Washington Post story Sunday morning–picked up by National Zero–verifying suspected calls Donald Trump made to Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to pressure Ducey to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election, a paragraph gave background on the story:
Ducey described the “pressure” he was under after Trump’s loss to a prominent Republican donor over a meal in Arizona earlier this year, according to the donor, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The account was confirmed by others aware of the call. Ducey told the donor he was surprised that special counsel Jack Smith’s team had not inquired about his phone calls with Trump and Pence as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the donor said.
The interesting part of the account, as written by a team of excellent journalists–Leigh Ann Caldwell, Josh Dawsey and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez–is that the source for the story is clearly the Republican donor. (Who else would have disclosed details of the conversation except the two at the meal? And others confirmed the source’s information.) The donor had the juicy bit of gossip from Ducey and tipped off the Post. The question is, why? Certainly, the fact that Donald Trump tried to pressure another Republican state official to overturn his state’s election–as Trump was recorded doing with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger–confirms a pattern of behavior that shows Georgia’s call was part of a plot, not a one-off. It’s news. But it’s news coming from a tip from a Republican donor. So again, why? Why is a Republican donor tipping off the Washington Post about a conversation he had months ago that is damning, but somewhat predicted, behavior?
To push the Special Counsel’s investigation: adding the comment–almost an aside–that Ducey has yet to talk to Jack Smith’s office is a pretty obvious, “Hey, fucktard, I want the Special Counsel to look into this.” This “prominent Republican donor” is using the Washington Post to force the Special Counsel to investigate someone he likely thinks is a danger not to the United States, but to the Republican Party.
Ducey, a loyal GOP soldier who likely has political aspirations of his own, obviously wasn’t giving up Trump to a liberal media outlet, so the donor decided to play his hand. And guess what? Whether this information is true or not–that the conversation between Ducey and the donor ever took place–is somewhat irrelevant: the investigation is going to be pushed by the public disclosure of this alleged statement by Ducey to look into it. And the reporters–being professional journalists–won’t give up their sources, so federal investigators will be starting with nothing.
Who’s this donor? Who knows, but does it really matter? The wealthiest Americans are manipulating their access to powerful politicians to drive not just the political machines, but now the reportage of independent journalists and an independent federal investigation. But to answer the question: yes, it does matter. Clearly, this donor wants Trump gone. The donor wants Trump to be under the weight of a multi-armed federal investigation on many fronts. He may, for some reason, want Trump to face potential charges specifically in an Arizona federal court.
It was not, obviously, to do the right thing otherwise he would have turned over the information to Jack Smith’s office when he received it. This donor wanted this information to be public, forcing Smith’s hand, so the Special Counsel had to make its findings public about Arizona specifically. Might Ducey have some damning information he wanted Smith to have, but could not–as a “loyal Republican”–make the first call, so he used a strawman?