1964.  I must have spent a month of Sundays with my friends at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows.  And, then, school began.

That also meant it was time for the coveted 8^th grade trip.  Our whole grade (both classes) traveled to Washington, DC.  (This wasn’t my first trip to our Capital- I’d been there at least twice since I turned 4.)

We spent our nights in a dump.  A storied hotel that had fallen on hard times.  (Now, that is an understatement.)  But, it was convenient.  It was about 1000 feet from the White House.  (This was way back before it was illegal to walk on Pennsylvania Avenue by the White House- or even to visit at odd hours.   Note the hotel closed at the end of that decade, not to reopen until 1986.)

This hotel was very famous though.  It had been around forever.  (It still exists- and has become an elite hotel once again- after it- and the rest of Pennsylvania Avenue- underwent a major renovation and upshift.)

This hotel- the Willard- was where the term “lobbyist” was coined.  President Ulysses S. Grant noted all those folks desperate to bend his ear in the lobby of the hotel.  Hence the word, lobbyist.  As a matter of fact, Nathaniel Hawthorne (you know- the author of the Scarlet Letter, among other treatises) considered this hotel to be the center of Washington, DC.  Certainly not the White House, the Capitol, or the State Department.

The Willard claims (not like a certain ex-President whose claims rarely cross the threshold of veracity) that every President since Franklin Pierce has spent some time at the hotel.

The hotel started as a combination of six rowhouses (all connected) some 204 years ago- but adopted the Willard moniker only in 1947 (when Henry Willard was the leaseholder).  Willard replaced the rowhouses with a four story hotel, upon which land was purchased near the end of the Civil War (1864).   That was three years after Julia Ward Howe composed the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in this storied building.

Willard’s building was razed and the 12 story Beaux-Arts building was erected in its stead at the dawn of the 20^th century (1901).   That building was the Vice Presidential residence for James Sherman (under President Taft) through Charles Dawes (under President Coolidge.)

The Willard served as the headquarters of sort for Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and the March on Washington (1963, the year before my 8^th grade trip).   King and his retinue actually used the lobby for their meetings, since they assumed that it would be harder for the FBI to tap (especially compared to the suite they occupied).

All this is a long-winded way of bringing up why we are discussing the Willard at all today.  A few blocks away is the Old Post Office (dating from Ben Franklin’s time, at least for now still the Trump International Hotel) where TheDonald was the leaseholder.  That’s where GOP folks and foreign despots could fawn over TheDonald (staying at the hotel or holding events there weren’t considered bribes- unfortunately).

Yet, when TheDonald planned to overthrow the United States, by illegally reversing the national vote, the headquarters was NOT at his hotel.  No, the “command center” (their term, not mine) was within a series of rooms and suites at the Willard.

Right after New Year’s, Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Bannon, Bernie Kerik, and John Eastman contrived how to redo the election in 7 states, states that Joe Biden won- but which TheDonald coveted.  These “geniuses” were conspiring to throw out the vote from these states.

They planned to have these states convene special sessions to investigate the “fake” fraud, effect real fraud, and reassign the electoral college votes from Biden to TheDonald. It also required Vice President Mike Pence to disallow the electoral college to count the votes of those states, which would deprive Joe Biden of his lawful election- and then use the legislative legerdemain to replace the people’s wishes by then choosing TheDonald.

All of this was part and parcel of the January 6^th insurrection.

(Want more information?  Read “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.)

Oh- and that claim for executive privilege?   It’s kind of moot, since TheDonald used his campaign funds to cover the costs of the stays at the Willard.   So, it clearly was not an executive action, but a political one, conceived by TheDonald and his minions.