Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team are scrutinizing a February 2020 Oval Office meeting in which disgraced then-President Trump touted his administration’s efforts at securing the upcoming election, sources tell CNN, adding that Donald was so excited he wanted the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to hold a press conference hyping it. The fat bastard began changing his tune just weeks later as states began expanding mail-in and early vote options as the COVID-19 pandemic exploded and has stuck with his constant “voter fraud” bullshit ever since, which CNN says indicates Smith is looking to establish his degenerate quarry’s state of mind and intent to try to overturn the results from long before the first votes had even been cast.

That same month was when Senate Republicans, led by life coach lady and dumb piece of shit Marsha Blackburn, blocked three separate election security bills, including one mandating campaigns alert the FBI and FEC about any contact from foreign entities assistance and a ban on voting machines from being connected to the internet… that last one later becoming a staple of 2020 election conspiracy fan fiction stories. Blackburn had accused Dems of using the bills as fundraising messaging and attempting to “seize control over elections from the states.”

“On behalf of Tennesseans, we are taking a united stand against the tainted electoral results from the recent Presidential election. American democracy relies on the consent of the governed. Allegations of voter fraud, irregularities and unconstitutional actions diminish public confidence in what should be a free, fair and transparent process,” Blackburn said in a January 2, 2021 statement announcing her intent to object during the electoral college vote count joint session four days later.

But back to the CNN story on the White House meeting from that month: Sources said that it ended with a Trump tantrum over a briefing that then-Acting Director of National Security Joe Maguire had delivered days earlier to members of Congress in which Maguire had said the Russians were backing Donald’s campaign because no shit that’s been the story every day for the past eight years.

Maguire was fired just a week later and, while the exact timing is unclear as to whether it was before or after Blackburn and the Senate GOP stiff-armed the Dems on election security, it’s hard to see how the events are unconnected. February 2020 has been memory-holed and understandably so given that it might’ve been the least fucked-up month in a deeply fucked-up year in American politics. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t dark and ugly for its own distinct reasons, not least of which was the Senate GOP’s jury nullification of the articles of impeachment against the Orange God Emperor for abusing his power and inviting foreign interference in a presidential election, effectively saying “Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to win, even if it means literally coercing a besieged ally into interfering to your advantage.” That, coupled with the blocking of the election security bills makes it clear that Trump and the Senate GOP were in lockstep on allowing the Russians to run wild to their advantage in the election later that year. The tragedy is that it took a global pandemic and over a million lives in collateral damage to just barely end the Trump-McConnell axis’s grip on power.