This morning, I saw one of my favorite headlines of the week: “Former President Trump faces serious criminal, civil investigations after White House.” There isn’t a LOL big enough. Even Trump’s own lawyers – during the second impeachment trial – insinuated that if Trump should face any consequences for inciting an insurrection, it should be in criminal court, not a Senate trial. Hopefully, that will happen. Among other criminal investigations and civil cases.

Former President Donald Trump might have easily avoided conviction at his second impeachment trial — but he could find it a lot tougher to beat the several serious criminal and civil probes that he now faces. And at least one of those investigations carries the potential for Trump to be sent to jail if convicted. That would be an unprecedented event in American history, as no ex-president has ever been charged with a crime, much less locked up for one.

Trump, a Republican, whose spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has claimed that the probes are politically motivated witch hunts by Democratic prosecutors. But judges in two of those investigations have repeatedly ruled against Trump’s lawyers in disputes related to evidence. Those rulings underscore the criminal and civil risk that Trump faces, as does the fact that on Jan. 20, he lost the protection from prosecution effectively rendered by holding the office of president.

“There’s a lot of balls up in the air in the potential criminal arena, and if I were Donald Trump, I would not be resting easy,” said Joseph Tacopina, a leading criminal defense attorney in New York City.

[From CNBC]

CNBC had the breakdown of all of the investigations and lawsuits Trump is currently facing or will face soon enough. Couldn’t have happened to a better Nazi! Meanwhile, Trump’s old white supremacist rainmaker Steve Bannon had some thoughts about Ol’ Bigly’s mental state when Trump was in the White House:

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon thought Donald Trump was suffering from early-stage dementia and campaigned covertly to remove him from office via the 25th amendment, according to a veteran TV producer. Ira Rosen, the author of a new memoir about his work for CBS, Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes, was speaking to Skullduggery, a podcast from Yahoo News.

Rosen told hosts Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman his book was “not a dish on this person or that person”, then gave listeners a taste of the dish inside. He was asked about his relationship with Bannon, which developed around attempts to set up a 60 Minutes interview. “Steve is a big talker, a big gossiper,” Rosen said. “He became a source for a lot of media people in Washington.”

In his book, Rosen writes that Bannon “believed Trump was suffering from early stage dementia and that there was a real possibility he would be removed from office by the 25th amendment, where the cabinet could vote that the president was no longer mentally capable of carrying out his duties.” He also writes that one Bannon text said: “You need to do the 25th amendment piece. By the way brother I never steer you wrong.”

[From The Guardian]

I mean… we knew all of this at the time? We knew there were people in the White House (and in the Pentagon) freaking out about Trump’s mental state. We knew that there were people in the White House actively rooting for the 25th Amendment to be invoked. I guess it’s notable that Bannon was even saying it, which means that Trump’s mental deterioration was so obvious to literally everyone he was in contact with.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.