By Stephen Macaulay

“We are living through what feels like the end of America.” -- Virginia Thomas text to Mark Meadows, January 10, 2021

“The law is not a plaything for Presidents or judges to use to remake the world in their preferred image. . . . When our elected and appointed leaders break, twist and fail to enforce our laws in order to achieve their partisan ends, or to accomplish frustrated policy objectives they consider existentially important, they are breaking America.” --Greg Jacob, former Pence lead counsel, to the January 6 Committee

And there you have it in a nutshell.

Anyone who has read Thomas’ unhinged texts to Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows knows that she was doing her utmost to break and twist the laws by ignoring the will of a majority (popular vote and Electoral College) American people.

The concern isn’t just that she happens to be the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (and let’s not accept the undoubted fiction that Mrs. and Mr. Thomas keep their interest wholly separate like some domestic Iron Curtain: it doesn’t take an Originalist interpretation of the texts to Meadows — oh, and the emails to John Eastman, too — to know that this support of her Dear Leader wasn’t a passing fancy of Mrs. Thomas, that this was bordering on obsession: anyone who is married knows that exchanges of ideas and about activities are simply a way of life and for her not to discuss it shatters credulity). 

Rather, the concern is that she is at a societal strata that most of us will never reach and consequently has influence among others who are at that level with potential untoward consequences for the rest of us. (It also ought to be concerning for the faculty of the Creighton University School of Law, from which she obtained a J.D. in 1983: She is representative of the legal thinking that comes out of that place? Ignoring the Constitution?)

This discussion of Mrs. Thomas is not related to the committee’s decision to call on her to testify regarding the emails with Eastman.

It is to make the point that there were some people associated with the Trump White House who, like Jacob, understood what was going on, particularly after the loss was falsely claimed to be victory by people like Mrs. Thomas.

Jacob also noted, “We should not feign surprise when our citizens treat the law and the Constitution with the same level of respect that our leaders do.”

Consideration and thoughtfulness — characteristics of respect — are, like shame, something that is obviously absent among those who pulled a massive con on the American people.

We’re it just a grift that would have been one thing. But when those who are in what one would imagine are sophisticated salons talking in shrill tones about releasing the “Kraken,” who are coming up with conspiracy theories the likes of which not even a B-hack writer could get away with peddling, then that rips the fabric of the country.

Yes, Mrs. Thomas, it does feel like the end of America.

Thanks to you and your ilk.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Read our coverage of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, including …

•The Monday, June 13 hearing (center column) with “One Subpoena, Two Subpoenas, This Stops at the DOJ,” by Ken Zino, in the left column and “He Heard It. He Knew It.” by Stephen Macaulay, in the right column. 

•Results of our weekend Twitter poll on whether the first public hearing, on June 9, made the case against Donald J. Trump or were a waste of time. Tweeted comments are in the left (“Trump is Culpable”) and right (“Waste of Time”) columns.

•Coverage of the Thursday, June 9, opening public hearing, with Ken Zino and Eric Blair commentary in the left column, “Opening Arguments are In,” and Stephen Macaulay commentary in the right column “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

•Also read Macaulay’s pre-hearings suggestions, “When the Cameras Go Live: A Suggestion for the 1/6 Committee.”

Submit your own comments on these and/or the hearings in general on the comments section of this page, or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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By Stephen Macaulay

The Wall Street Journal editorial board somehow imagines that the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol is tricking the average American:

“Do Democrats want to unfairly besmirch the entire GOP with the January 6 disgrace, while distracting voters from 8.6% inflation and $5-a-gallon gasoline? Yes.”

Does anyone really think that someone who buys gasoline or food or damn near anything else will not notice the prices because they are so distracted by the hearings? Isn’t this a smear on the cognitive abilities of the average American by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal?

Or maybe the Journal is concerned that the members of the committee are in some way abrogating their responsibilities in terms of getting things done to address the high gas and grocery prices.

Yes, that 2% of the House of Representatives is undoubtedly hobbling important work.

(Oh, and given that two of the members were elected as Republicans, one of whom has shown herself to be unstinting in her pursuit of the truth, how is it that Democrats are doing the unfair besmirching? And what would be fair besmirching? And were it not for the people who are being besmirched — not “the entire GOP,” unless everyone in the GOP stands with those who are lying or prevaricating about what led to January 6 and even now don’t want to admit the truth (e.g., why won’t Kevin McCarthy admit that the election was fairly contested and lost by Trump?) — there would be no need for the committee.

If the Journal was really concerned about the average American’s pocketbook, then it should be more supportive of the committee’s work.

House senior investigative counsel Amanda Wick has estimated that solicitations from the Trump campaign for things like the “Election Defense Fund” has taken in $250 million dollars, money that might have otherwise been spent by average Americans on things of a legitimate nature, such as the aforementioned gas and groceries.

Instead, it went to things like the Trump Hotel Collection. In that instance, the sum paid was comparatively small -- $204,857 vs. the $1 million that went to something called the Conservative Partnership Institute — but if we go back to the Journal’s concern, know that the $204,857 represents 40,971 gallons of gas at $5 a gallon. Somehow the fuel is far more legitimate rather than raising money to pursue a fantasy. Those F-150s aren’t going to fill themselves up.

The Journal Editorial Board went on to say, “One irony is that the largely Democratic committee’s evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump’s designs on overturning the election were foiled mainly by Republicans, including many in his Administration.”

Nice to see a bit of fact-checking kicked in and there is a glancing acknowledgement of the Republicans on the committee.

But what seems to be somehow overlooked is the fact that Trump, a Republican, had “designs on overturning the election.” That the subverting the will of the people didn’t happen wasn’t because he and his supporters didn’t want it to happen. Yes, there were many Republicans, “including many in his administration” (as though there would be Democrats in his administration), who helped stop him. But Republicans, many brought into his administration, though not necessarily in an official capacity, were fundamental in promulgating what led to January 6. (Eastman, Giuliani, etc.)

“White House lawyers threatened to resign if he fired Justice Department officials who didn’t indulge his fraud theories,” the Journal writes.

It is worth noting that according to The Washington Post the warning about the potential of mass resignations occurred three days before January 6^th. What happened between November 4, 2020 and January 3, 2021?

Why there weren’t wholesale resignations among the Republicans that the Journal seems to think are like Caesar’s wife is the real question here.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Ken Zino

Trump’s losing campaign manager William Stepien suddenly skipped the hearing this morning despite being subpoenaed. At the last moment he backed out because his wife went into labor, an excuse the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection accepted. In another twist of the sedition plot, Stepien is now a campaign adviser to the Trump-endorsed House candidate, Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Liz Cheney in the Wyoming Republican primary election. 

The committee’s assertions the former president should face a landmark criminal indictment have also been supported by Monday’s live and videotaped testimony. 

What I said after the opening hearing, that Trump had Motive, Means and Opportunity, might now give way to another journalistic truism -- Follow the Money. Trump was making money by promoting the Big Lie. As Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said: “We’ll also show that the Trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts. But the Trump campaign didn’t use the money for that. The Big Lie was also a big rip off.” 

This hot potato toss reminds me of the kids’ rhyme -- One subpoena, two subpoena, Or… Well, in my view this now stops at the Justice Department’s door. The evidence continues to build unchallenged.

Once again Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) put it plainly in his opening. “… as someone who’s run for office a few times, I can tell you: At the end of a campaign, it all comes down to the numbers ... For the most part, the numbers don’t lie.

“But if something doesn’t add up with the numbers, you go to court to get resolution. And that’s the end of the line. Because those numbers aren’t just numbers. They are votes. They are your votes. And the very least we should expect from any person seeking a position of public trust is the acceptance of the will of the people — win or lose.

Donald J. Trump didn’t accept the will of the people. He didn’t have the numbers. Trump went to court, and he still didn’t have the numbers – he lost.

Trump’s nemesis, the honorable Rep. Cheney noted, “A federal court has already reviewed elements of the committee’s evidence on this point and said this: ‘In the months following the election, numerous credible sources – from the president’s inner circle to agency leadership and statisticians – informed President Trump and Dr. [John] Eastman that there was no evidence of election fraud sufficient to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.’” The court threw out the case. 

“Today, you will hear much more from former Attorney General Bill Barr’s recorded testimony, and you will hear in greater detail what others in the department told President Trump – that his claims of election fraud were nonsense,” said Cheney.

Cheney’s summation to the jury of American voters:

“First, you will hear firsthand testimony that the president’s campaign advisors urged him to await the counting of votes and not to declare victory on election night. The president understood even before the election that many more Biden voters had voted by mail – because President Trump ignored the advice of his campaign experts and told his supporters only to vote in person... He falsely told the American people that the election was not legitimate…

“Second, pay attention to what Donald Trump and his legal team said repeatedly about Dominion voting machines – far flung conspiracies with a deceased Venezuelan communist allegedly pulling the strings. 

“This was ‘complete nonsense,’ as Bill Barr said. Trump’s own campaign advisors, his Department of Justice, and his cybersecurity experts all told him the same thing... 

“And third, as Mike Pence’s staff started to get a sense for what Donald Trump had planned for January 6, they called the campaign experts to give them a briefing on election fraud and all the other election claims. 

“On January 2, the general counsel of the Trump campaign, Matthew Morgan – this is the campaign’s chief lawyer -- summarized what the campaign had concluded weeks earlier – that none of the arguments about fraud or anything else could actually change the outcome of the election.” 

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Also on this page ...

•Reaction from our Twitter poll on whether the first public hearing of The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol was effective or not worth watching, in the left and right columns, respectively. Read the center column for results of the poll.

•“Another View to the Coup,” our center-column analysis of that first 1/6 panel public hearing from last Thursday evening, with commentary by Eric Blair and Ken Zino in the left column and Stephen Macaulay in the right column. 

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COMMENT: editors@thehustings.news

By Stephen Macaulay

Let’s not get too fancy here.

The adult tells the 4-year-old to eat the broccoli and the child sticks his fingers in his ears and goes “la-la-la-la-la-la. . .” to block out what will have to happen.

In the second public hearing of The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol (the name of the committee cannot be stated too often lest people overlook the fact that it was an attack) the child in question was Donald Trump.

Aides told him that he lost. He didn’t want to listen. They repeated it. “La-la-la-la-la-la-la.”

(Trump may have wanted to believe an “apparently inebriated” Rudy Giuliani, but I suspect that a teetotaler knows full well when someone is drunk and talking bullshit.) 

But the kid at the dinner table and Trump were told, unambiguously, the truth of the matter and pretending not to hear it doesn’t change a thing.

Of course, the difference between the kid and Trump is that the broc doesn’t have the ramifications of an attack, an attack that led to the deaths of people in law enforcement. Many Republicans were in high dudgeon when the phrase “Defund the Police” was put out there.

How any of them can watch the Nick Quested footage as the mob attacked the police with fury and vengeance and not see their hypocrisy is startling. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe they, too, have their eyes shut and ears blocked so that they don’t have to witness the bloody reality of that situation.

Trump knew full well that he lost. If he didn’t, if he didn’t believe the people who he put into their positions of authority who told him he lost, then arguably the implementation of the 25^th Amendment should have occurred because clearly the man’s faculties were not what we’d expect of someone beyond age 4.

So because he knew, because he kept telling people how the election was rigged, stolen or otherwise not in his favor, he worked to instigate what occurred on January 6.

The kid who doesn’t eat his broccoli might get sent to his room with his devices taken away.

What’s going to happen to Trump?

The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol can’t answer that question.

The Justice Department can. And should.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Left-Column Tweets on the 1/6 Hearings

Eight-hundred and sixty-two people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection so far. Three-hundred and six federally charged rioters have entered guilty (pleas). At least 73 rioters have pled guilty; 32 have received jail time.

--Dr. Judith A. Miller

Trump encouraged these terrorists to be violent! Trump must be charged, jailed and never be allowed to run for president as he … has never been worthy in the first place.

--lisadesanti

The truth is never a waste of time.

--debbie does moderna

They don’t need public hearings to charge Trump. They charged 600 people with no hearings. This is a waste of time regardless of whether they make a case.

--Daniel Garrix

Trump was kind enough to confess on tapes, tweets and interviews. Aren’t we lucky!!

--Mary Wooster

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Right-Column Tweets on the 1/6 Hearings

Nope … not interested in “show trials” that are clearly orchestrated by Dems and televised on propaganda in prime time for political theater.

--Rich Corbett

When a case is one sided … well you start thinking of North Korea.

--Meredith

I didn’t watch one second. I do not watch career liars. 

--Ultra Beautiful MAGA Queen AnneTony

Democrats have got nothing, but Trump & Patriots have got it all.

--Ellen

Do you even realize that the reason people went to D.C. was because they believed there was fraud. And politicians refused to investigate.

--Britnee

Waste of time.

--Walter L. Jones

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Anatomy of a Coup by Eric Blair  

The prime-time broadcast of the January 6 Congressional hearings surpassed expectations- and fears. The first session easily could have devolved into an exercise of histrionics and tedious grandstanding. But instead of Kabuki theater, the American public received what could be our version of the Nuremberg trials, except that in this case, half of the Reichstag is still controlled by the Gestapo and Goebbels is still alive to craft the propaganda and disinformation on one particular cable news channel. Names of those who have no shame will be helpful, but better still will be indictments and convictions of those complicit in the cabal. 

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A Smash Opening Act by Ken Zino

Opening night of the January 6 public hearings consisted of the opening arguments to a seven-part plan to be covered in subsequent hearings. Despite the understandable misgivings of one of our estimable conservative columnists, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol got it right. The committee  of seven Democrats and two Republicans will hold at least six more performances of an American tragedy this month. The chair, Rep. Bernie Thompson of Mississippi, opened with a dark warning that January 6 and the lies that led to the insurrection continue to put American Democracy at risk. 

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) provided the groundwork for using Trump’s own appointees, inner circle and supporters to show the hearings are not a political theatre, but rather the House panel intends to provide evidence that Donald Trump was at the center of a vast conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump lost at the ballot box and then lost in the courts about false charges of election fraud (Trump lost 60 cases via his then-personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who had been a leader of the 45^th president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and is now disbarred in New York State). The only option left to Trumpsters was to stop counting of the votes so Trump could remain in office. 

The MMO: Trump had the motive, had the means as he attempted to use the Department of Justice, the U.S. military and the states to overthrow the duly elected president, and he seized the opportunity to abuse his powers as president. The case is the murder of democracy and the shredding of the Constitution. 

Opening statement to the jury: Trump, against the advice of his appointees and own Justice Department, set in motion a plan that ultimately spurred an organized mob led by the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to attack the capital to stop the count of electoral votes by using violence in Washington and fraud in the States where Biden won with false slates of pro-Trump electors.

A lot of nefarious activity was afoot in November before the election, when Trump’s own campaign officials told him he would lose. Attorney General William Barr  -- Trump’s lapdog who successfully spun the Mueller Report -- would meet with Trump on November 23,  December 14 and resign on December 23 because the fraud case was “bullshit.” Barr did not agree that the election was stolen and “did not want to be part of the unsupported view that the election was stolen.”

The cast of characters that will ultimately perform or support the prosecution includes thousands of witnesses comprised of senior White House officials, Trump family members, military and Homeland Security officials. 

Next week: Trump’s second act in the seditious plan, using the Department of Justice and attempting to remove the acting attorney general. Act Three: Pressure on Vice President Pence to go along with the plan. Act Four: Pressure state officials. Act Five: When states balk, instruct Republicans to lie with false slates of electors. Act Six: Trump surrounded and encouraged by so-conspirators to the horror of many senior Republicans. Act 7: Do nothing on 1/6 to stop the violence and sedition despite entreaties from senior Republicans and his own family. 

Curtain: Trump bows out as the Justice Department considers a superseding indictment of Trump arising from the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper legal matters. Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested was embedded within the Proud Boys and provided devastating footage and testimony. Now will Republican barons abandon the king? Stay tuned.

Curtain Call: It’s clear to me that more people, who were or are now in Congress, will be charged. There is a version of Aristotelian logic in play here. Thus far no evidence has been produced to support Trump’s defense or hypothesis that the election was stolen. Much evidence already exists against it. 

The unanswered problem: We are dealing with a totalitarian state of mind existing within Trump supporters, some of whom support the violent overthrow of our governments. As for upcoming elections, we can’t dissolve these people and elect a new one as Bertolt Brecht satirically suggested in a poem written after the 1953 East German uprising against an oppressive government. However, we can pressure existing government, law enforcement and courts to protect and preserve our Constitution. Is this the sequel? 

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By Stephen Macaulay

Part of the pushback on the televised January 6 hearing from people like Lindsey Graham is that it is “political,” having to do more with the midterm elections than anything else.

Let’s consider the absurdity of that.

1. The attack on the Capitol and the apparent conspiracy leading up to it was meant to undermine the Constitution of the United States. Definitionally, that is a political document. The objective of the attack was to prevent the transfer of power from the man who lost the election — a political activity — to the man who had won the election. So how could this not be political?
2. The attack on the Capitol took place on January 6, 2021. The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol was established on July 1, 2021. The midterm elections will be conducted on November 8, 2022. Were it not for the attack on the Capitol there would be no Select Committee. The Committee didn’t establish the timeline. “But wait!” some Grahamist might say. “This televising of the Committee is sensationalism.” Were it not for the attack on the Capitol there would have been, as Mark Meadows apparently said when informed by an attorney that there was nothing to change the outcome of the election, “no there there.”

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Former attorney general William Barr carried Trump’s water from Valentine’s Day 2019 to nearly the day he resigned, December 23, 2020. He was said to have undermined the understanding of the Mueller Report, thereby, arguably, providing substance to Trump’s repeated claims of it being a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” So because of Barr, there were many people who thought: “Gee, there was going to be a report showing collusion with the Russians and all manner of other bad things, but it turns out that there was no there there.” Which led to many of those same people believing what has come to be known as the “Big Lie.”

Barr literally called “bullshit” on Trump’s election-being-stolen claim.

Is it any more believable because Barr was once the water boy?

Or is this simply a sign that any reasonable person would recognize that it was, and is, bullshit?

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She is the “former Senior Advisor to the President of the United States.”

Her qualification for the job? Probably not the series of failed businesses she ran. It was nothing more than DNA.

Ivanka Trump said to the Committee that she heard what Barr said and she believed it. Clutch those pearls from Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry. 

Let’s face it: No one thought she was up for being the senior advisor to the President, so whatever she said when she was was largely discounted. (Sort of like the line of clothes and shoes she had produced in China.)

The argument goes: to believe Barr is to disbelieve her dad.

Does that really matter?

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“As you will see, Representative [Scott] Perry [Republican representing Pennsylvania’s 10^th] contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a Presidential Pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought Presidential Pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.”—Vice-chair Liz Cheney

“A pardon is the use of executive power that exempts the individual to whom it was given from punishment. The president's pardon power is based on Article II of the Constitution which says, “…he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”—Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School

Someone who has done nothing wrong will not ask for a pardon. What would be the point?

So obviously Perry and some of his colleagues knew full well that they did something wrong.

They are admitting it by their acts.

And it is not merely wrong, but illegal.

Not because of what Cheney or anyone else says. But because what they did.

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The president-elect says this:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The vice president-elect says this:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Maybe Trump simply didn’t think that he needed to defend the Constitution against “enemies, foreign and domestic.” He didn’t swear to it.

"Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the U.S. government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security.

 “President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. But Vice President Pence did each of those things.”—Vice chair Liz Cheney

Perhaps if Congress does anything it ought to make the president-elect swear the same oath as the vice president.

Clearly Trump didn’t see protecting the Capitol in his job description.

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“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful President. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”—Vice chair Liz Cheney

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Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay has a tip for the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection in the right column. Hit one of the comment tabs or email us at editors@thehustings.news with your opinions, and let us know whether you are “left” or “right.”

The Brookings Institution has a 100-page guide to the public hearings, which are to be broadcast live Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific. You can find the guide here: https://www.brookings.edu/research/trump-on-trial/

Our three-column debate on the coming 1/6 hearings may be found on page 2. 

On Tuesday the House will discuss two pieces of gun legislation; Raising the minimum age to purchase an assault rifle from 18 to 21, and federalized “red flag” laws. Scroll down this page to read commentary by Ken Zino on gun regulation in the left column, and by Stephen Macaulay on the right.

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