Dining on Dereliction of Duty

By Ken Zino

Once again the United States Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol advanced its case that Donald Trump knowingly sent an armed and dangerous mob -- 800 charged so far and half have pled guilty -- to the U.S. Capitol in furtherance of his Big Lie that the election was stolen. This has been abundantly refuted by his Attorney General, and White House counsel, among many other senior members of his cabinet and White House and reelection staffs.

There is a perverse irony in the strategy used by Trump and other Republicans and right-wing media outlets to personally attack the credibility of the increasing numbers of former Republican Trump-believers who continue to testify that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was the last and most violent act in his desire to retain power at all costs. These attacks prompt more and more Republican insiders to come forward to defend and assert that previous witnesses were telling the truth.

In last night’s testimony, Trump White House insiders testified they resigned the evening of January 6 because they would not defend the indefensible. More are on the way; the Select Committee will re-convene in September.

Republican vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming said last night “But in the course of these hearings, we have received new evidence; and new witnesses have bravely stepped forward. Efforts to litigate and overcome immunity and executive privilege claims have been successful, and those continue. Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break. And now, even as we conduct our eighth hearing, we have considerably more to do. We have far more evidence to share with the American people, and more to gather.”

Last night we learned that for 187 minutes on January 6, Trump watching Fox News in the dining room of the West Wing refused multiple requests by his aides and allies to intervene and call off the mob he unleashed. Neither the violent words of rioters on Fox News that he was watching, nor the pleas of capital police and Secret Service members who were in the midst of the ongoing riot moved Trump to take any action. Trump even ignored the pleas of his own family, including Ivanka and Don Jr., to send people home.

Why not? Simply put the mob he created was doing exactly what he wanted –- disrupting the count of the Electoral College votes of the election he lost.

“Even though he was the only person in the world who could call off the mob he sent to the Capitol, he could not be moved to rise from his dining room table and walk the few steps down the White House hallway into the press briefing room,” said Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), via video feed.

“Where cameras were anxiously and desperately waiting to carry his message to the armed and violent mob savagely beating and killing law enforcement officers, revenging the Capitol, and hunting down the Vice President and various members of Congress. He could not be moved,” Thompson said.

Committee member Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), who served 20 years as an officer in the United States Navy, provided the civic lesson:

“Article II of our Constitution requires that the president swear a very specific oath every four years. Every president swears or affirms to ‘faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States’ and, to the best of their ability, ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.’

“The President also assumes the constitutional duty to ‘take care’ that our nation’s laws be ‘faithfully executed,’ and is the ‘commander in chief’ of our military. Our hearings have shown the many ways in which President Trump tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the days leading up to January. “With each step of his plan, he betrayed his oath of office and was derelict in his duty,” Luria said.

“I thought that January 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history,” said former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews last night. “President Trump was treating it as a celebratory occasion. So it just further cemented my decision to resign.” She did that night.

Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security advisor also said in live testimony he immediately decided to resign when he saw Trump’s tweet denouncing Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with his plan to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Closing thought by Liz Cheney: “The defeated president turned his supporters’ ‘love of country’ into a weapon.”

Trump lied and continues to lie. People died. Let’s not let Trump kill our democracy. He needs to be held accountable for dereliction of duty.

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Like Beating a Dead Election Results Challenge

By Todd Lassa

If you think you’ve heard everything from the eighth hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^thAttack on the United States Capitol before, it’s because you watched it in horror that day, and maybe watched most, or all seven, previous hearings.

Thursday night, the panel filled in Donald J. Trump’s 187 minutes of public “absence” that day with loyal Republican White House aides testifying he ignored their pleas to call off the mob as he tried to disrupt the ceremonial Electoral College count.

D.C. Metro Police Sgt. Mark Robinson testified on video that Trump wanted to return to the Capitol after Secret Service drove him back to the White House and put the motorcade on standby for 45 minutes. Trump knew within 15 minutes of returning to the White House that the Capitol had been breached, he said.

Trump then spent the next two-and-a-half hours watching Fox News from the White House dining room. From 11:06 a.m. to 6:45 p.m., the committee said, no calls to the president were entered into the White House logs.

But the president’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, called Trump for about four minutes beginning at 1:39 p.m., Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), of the panel said, and at 1:49 p.m. the D.C. police called the attack a riot. Trump responded by tweeting a video of his speech at the Ellipse from that morning.

In his video testimony, Trump administration counsel Pat Cipollone testified that he and everyone else in the White House except the president wanted the president to call off the riot from the moment its intensity was apparent on TV.

Former Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, who testified live with former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger (both pictured above) said Thursday she supported a move to get Trump to record a video from the press briefing room, less than a 60-second walk from the dining room, telling his followers to leave the Capitol.

Trump did not budge, and instead took an eight-minute call from Giuliani at 2:03 p.m. At 2:13 p.m., the Capitol building was breached and rioters entered. An anonymous White House security official testified on an audio recording that members from the vice president’s security detail, holed up with Mike Pence in his Capitol office, were beginning to fear for their own lives. The security detail were “close to pressing to use lethal weapons, or worse,” and were calling family with goodbyes.

Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet said that Mike Pence “did not have the courage to do what should have been done to defend our country and the Constitution,” and that prompted the mob to turn on the vice president and call for his hanging.

Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser who, in his opening remarks, praised Trump’s foreign policy on China trade and the Middle East Abraham Accord “decided to resign after that tweet. … I simply did not want to be associated with the events that were unfolding at the Capitol.”

Matthews, the former deputy press secretary, called it a “bad tweet” that “essentially gave the green light to these people.” Supporters “truly latch on to every word and every tweet” from Trump. The president called one of his minions, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who had to end the call so he could evacuate himself from the Capitol. The 1/6 committee showed the infamous photo of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) raising his fist in support of the insurrectionists, then moments later running away from the rioters inside the Capitol.

Trump tweeted at 2:38 p.m. and 3:13 p.m., calling on his supporters to “stay peaceful,” but Trump “already knew the mob was attacking the police,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said. One rioter’s two-way radio broadcast said that Trump had told them to support the police, but said nothing about the safety of members of Congress.

Fox News personalities joined the White House staff in urging Trump to call off his supporters and to condemn their actions. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) tweeted a video asking Trump to call it off and President-elect Biden told him to “demand an end to this siege.”

Finally, at 4:17 p.m., Trump tweeted a video from the Rose Garden telling rioters to go home, that they were “special” and he “loved” them. By now, the National Guard and FBI began to deploy on the Capitol.

Trump had rejected a Rose Garden script that asked his supporters to “leave the Capitol in a peaceful way. He instead began the message by repeating “fraudulent election” claims.

“I was shocked by the fact that he chose to begin the video by repeating the lie that the election was stolen,” Matthews said. She found it heinous that she may have to defend Trump’s words. “I knew I was leaving (the White House job) that evening.”

Kinzinger showed Trump’s last tweet of the day, from 6:01 p.m., in which he begins, “These are the things that happen when a sacred landslide victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away … remember the day forever.”

“He showed absolutely no remorse,” Kinzinger said.

Testimony bled into January 7, when both Pottinger and Cipollone officially resigned. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows described to him that Trump was “very emotional and in a very bad place.”

January 6 panel vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), standing in for COVID-stricken chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who briefly appeared via video, concluded the hearings saying Trump should not “be even trusted with another position of authority again.”

The committee continues its investigative work in August, when its first report is due, and its next set of hearings are scheduled to begin in September.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

It Is Really Quite Evident

By Stephen Macaulay

Gallup has been tracking the confidence that Americans have — or perhaps I should say “don’t have” — in newspapers since 1973 (the year Roe v. Wade was decided; Nixon was sworn in; the Watergate hearings began; the OPEC oil embargo caused a rise in gas prices) and TV news since 1993 (the year NAFTA was signed; the World Trade Center was bombed; and two former police officers were convicted of violating the civil right of Rodney King).

As of the latest polling, Gallup says 5% have “a great deal” of confidence in newspapers and 4% feel the same way about TV news. The polling organization adds to those figures those who express “quite a lot” of confidence so as to make the numbers not quite as pathetic: 16% for newspapers and 11% for TV news.

While the numbers for those who have “some” confidence are, well, OK, 37% and 35%, respectively, those numbers should be considered in the context of the “very little” numbers: 43% for newspapers and 49% for TV news.

Who knew that the likes of David Muir and Lester Holt were held with such skepticism?

As you may recall, Donald J. Trump, when president, called the media “the enemy of the American people” on more than one occasion. In 2017 the Gallup “great deal/quite a lot” combined numbers for newspapers were at 27%, and TV news at 24%. There has been a fairly consistent decline since. After all, who wants to read or watch things they have no confidence in?

(A digression: There is often criticism expressed by the likes of Trump and his acolytes, minions and enablers that the “mainstream press” is some how fake or otherwise misleading. It used to be that people who were Republicans believed in the “free market,” including the free market of ideas. To be sure whether we are talking about NBC or The Washington Post, these outlets are owned by giant corporations. Consequently, one might think that is in and of itself a restriction on what gets reported or how it gets reported. (Yes, Fox News is owned by a giant corporation, as well.) But the point is, these corporations became giant, in large part, because of their appeal to a large percentage of people the same way that McDonald’s has sold billions of burgers. The mainstream press needs to appeal to the majority of the people because if it doesn’t, then it will likely lose those who are willing to spend time with it, the same way that McDonald’s would lose patrons if it suddenly decided that it would serve only ostrich burgers. Yet because the mainstream press didn’t — and doesn’t — see the world in the same way that Trump sees it, it is somehow bad. Which is bizarre to consider vis-à-vis the claims of his landslide victory: There is an insufficient number of people on either side of the bell-shaped curve in order to have a majority. Therefore the mainstream is the place where most Americans are.)

Where do these Americans who have little confidence get information regarding the findings of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol (think about those words: Attack on the United States Capitol)?

Well, it seems that a prime-time broadcast isn’t going to have a heck of a lot of effect nor the reporting by a whole room of Pulitzer Prize winners.

So maybe those people are simply a lost cause. The majority of people who believe what can be considered “accepted reality” (e.g., no, there was no Venezuelan manipulation of voting machines, nor satellites beaming data to Italy) are the ones who need to be addressed. Period.

“Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”—Donald J. Trump

///

“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”--Article II, Section 1, Clause 8

Yes, the Constitution. The document that codifies the laws that Americans are supposed to uphold because if they don’t, then they are in violation of the rules of the Republic. Most Americans are simply born in the U.S. and consequently don’t swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. But in some cases — including assuming the office of the Presidency — there is, hand on Bible, an affirmation that its defense will be undertaken, a defense of the democracy, something bigger than any one person, something for which legitimate patriots have died for during the years since 1788, the year the Constitution was ratified.

While the Committee members have done a masterful job, once again, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of what happened on, and adjacent to, January 6, let’s put that aside.

So far as I know there has been no conspiracy theory that all of the video that has been displayed on the Attack on the United States Capitol is fake.

What we have seen was happening.

So we stipulate this: There was an attack on the United States Capitol by an armed force.

It is similarly clear that the objective of those attackers was to “Stop the Steal.” Under those particular circumstances said stopping was to be accomplished by preventing Congress from undertaking its legal duty to certify the 2020 Presidential election.

“The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; -- The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President. . . .”--from the 12^th Amendment

Which brings us back to that oath.

“. . .the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Armed attackers trying to subvert the Constitution.

The “best” of his ability was to watch TV?

Here’s the thing: it isn’t hard to understand that:

Trump lost the election
Trump knew he lost the election
Trump figured there was a way that he could subvert things to his benefit
Trump tried to subvert things regardless of having be told by many people that it would be wrong
Trump broke his oath

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

“The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.”—Article III, Section 3

Those who attacked the U.S. Capitol were trying to overthrow the government. They were armed. And we’ve learned they were organized.

Did Donald Trump try to stop them?

Doesn’t “we love you, you’re very special” sound like aid and comfort?

Let’s put that aside.

“[H]e shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”—Article II, Section 3

Did Trump fulfill his Constitutional duty?

It doesn’t take a prime-time broadcast to make people willing to think know what Donald Trump did—and what he didn’t do.

People who are willing to believe his self-serving lies are seemingly beyond redemption.

Forget the fringe. Let’s do what’s right for the majority of Americans who put their hands over their hearts and say “. . .and to the Republic, for which it stands. . .”, those people who obey the law, even if it is a local ordinance about parking.

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Left Here

Ready for Thursday’s eighth hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol? Read our coverage and analysis of the first seven hearings, with commentary by Stephen Macaulay and Ken Zino by scrolling down this page, and on to Pages 2, 3 and 4.

Leave your own comments on the hearings and/or other political news and issues in the comments sections or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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Trump’s 187 Minutes on 1/6

The House Select Committee … concentrates tonight on ex-President Trump’s 187 minutes of radio silence during the January 6^th attack on the Capitol, with the panel’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) tuning in virtually because he has COVID-19.

Hearing VIII: Begins 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday. Read our coverage/analysis and commentary Friday in this space. Add your comments in the boxes in any of these three columns, or email editors@thehustings.news.

Expected to testify live Thursday are Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security advisor, who resigned the White House on January 6, 2021, and Sarah Matthews, former press aide. The Select Committee has not confirmed these names.

Report due: The 1/6 panel has confirmed it will publish an interim report on the Capitol attack in September.

About those Secret Service texts: The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog Office of Inspector General learned last February that the Secret Service had killed most of the smartphone texts related to January 6, The Washington Post scoops, citing sources familiar with the situation. The Inspector General’s office also was ready to issue a public report in October 2021 that the Secret Service was stonewalling on requests for records and texts in connection to the Capitol insurrection, WaPoreports.

Can’t happen again?: Bipartisan groups of Senators proposed two bills designed to reform the 1887 Electoral College Act and end any doubt that an incumbent presidential candidate, like Donald J. Trump, could disrupt the Electoral College count (per Roll Call). The Electoral College Reform Act, sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) would require at least one-fifth of both the House and Senate to object to a single state’s Electoral College votes, up from the current requirement of a single Congress member, as per the 1887 law. The Collins/Manchin bill also would remove an 1845 law that allows a state legislature to declare a “failed election” and specify that the date of a presidential election could be moved for “extraordinary and catastrophic events.”

Eight more Republicans and five Democrats have joined Collins and Manchin in supporting this potential closing of loopholes that some historians warned of prior to the November 2020 presidential election. A second and complementary bill, supported by five Republicans and seven Democrats, would double the maximum federal penalty to two years in prison for anyone convicted of intimidating or threatening election officials, poll watchers, voters or candidates, and boost penalties for stealing, destroying, concealing or altering election results, to a $10,000 fine and two years in prison, Roll Call reports.

The two bills will advance through two different Senate committees.

•••

Speaking of the above … Donald J. Trump’s attorney and former America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney for District Attorney Fani Willis’ grand jury investigation of the former president’s alleged Electoral College tampering in Georgia, according to Politico. Queue the recording of Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; “I just want 11,780 votes … .”

Speaking of the above, Part II: The government rested Wednesday in its Contempt of Congress case against former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, after calling a congressional staffer and an FBI agent to the stand, The Washington Post reports. Defense countered that Bannon had been speaking with the House Select 1/6 panel as recently as last week, and that the defendant was negotiating, and not refusing, to hand in documents or testify.

--Todd Lassa

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...meanwhile...

(WED 7/20/22)

Georgia AG targets false electors … As Democratic frustration continues to build over U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s lack of action while the House Select Committee investigates the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis has deemed 16 Republicans who falsely signed Electoral College certificates in late 2020 to be criminal “targets,” (per Politico). Willis revealed the determination in a court filing to fend off a legal move to disqualify her from leading the grand jury investigating the effort to overturn Georgia’s Electoral College vote for Joe Biden. The filing was by one of the alleged false electors, Burt Jones, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor for the state.

•••

MAGA Republican wins Maryland primary … Term-limited Gov. Mark Hogan is a popular moderate Republican in an otherwise deep-blue state, but his hand-picked successor, Kelly Shulz, is projected to lose the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday to Trump-backed state legislator Dan Cox, the AP reports. Cox had criticized Hogan’s “restrictive and protracted” COVID-19 lockdown efforts, and unsuccessfully sought to impeach him over the issue.

With provisional and mail-in ballots yet to be counted, the Democratic race is too close to call, AP says, with Oprah Winfrey-backed celebrity author Wes Moore leading Tom Perez, Labor secretary for the Obama administration who served as Democratic National Committee chairman during the Trump administration.

Upshot: Hogan was an early moderate Republican critic of then-President Trump and is considered a likely candidate for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

•••

Latest on those Secret Service texts … The Secret Service claims deleted texts from January 6, 2021, are not recoverable, The Washington Post reports. The National Archives has called on the agency to report back within 30 days about their “potential unauthorized deletion.”

--Todd Lassa

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(TUE 7/19/22)

•••

Upshot: Hogan was an early moderate Republican critic of then-President Trump and is considered a likely candidate for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

•••

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Right This Way

And write this way, to add your civil comments on hearings by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. Hearing VIII begins 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday on most news channels and online (or check C-Span, like we do). You can find coverage and analysis plus commentary by Ken Zino and Stephen Macaulay by scrolling down this page, and by going to Pages 2, 3 and 4.

Submit your opinion, civilly, in the comments box in any of these columns, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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On the Left

Scroll down this page and turn to Pages 2, 3 and 4 to read our complete coverage and analysis on all seven hearings held so far by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, featuring left-column commentary by Ken Zino and right-column commentary by Stephen Macaulay.

Leave your own comments on the hearings and/or other political news and issues in the comments sections or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

(Fauci, pictured ... scroll down for story)

PM UPDATE

Texts ‘unrecoverable?’ … The U.S. Secret Service delivered “thousands of pages of documents” but not the requested texts related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection to the House Select committee investigating the attack, The New York Times reports. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Gugliemi said the phone records are probably not recoverable.

•••

House marriage equality bill gets some GOP support … The House of Representatives passed the Respect for Marriage Act to protect LGBTQ+ rights by a 267-157 vote, with 47 Republicans voting with all the Democrats, The Hill reports. The bill is a reaction to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ warning that gay marriage rights are next, after the court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Considering that relatively strong support by House Republicans, the question now is whether at least 10 Republicans help move the bill through the Senate without threat of filibuster – which would deflate Democrats ability to use the issue in the November midterms.

--T.L.

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(MON 7/18/22)

Deleted text messages expected today … The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection expects to receive deleted January 5 and 6, 2021, text messages today from the U.S. Secret Service, according to committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), a committee member. The committee subpoenaed the texts last Friday after learning the messages had been deleted as part of a device-replacement program.

•••

Fauci retires … Hero of the pandemic maskers, foil of pro-MAGA media Anthony Fauci (above) announced he will “almost certainly” leave his job as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says The New York Times. Fauci, 81, the top medical advisor to presidents Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump says he has a time frame in mind for when to step down and it almost certainly will be prior to the end of Biden’s current term in January 2025.

•••

White House aides to testify … Matthew Pottinger, ex-President Trump’s deputy national security advisor and Sarah Matthews, a former press aide, will testify during Thursday in the House Select Committee’s eighth, and potentially final televised hearing into the January 6 Capitol attacks, the Associated Press reports, citing an anonymous source. The hearing scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday will investigate Trump’s actions or lack thereof as he sat in the White House and watched his followers beat police officers and breach the Capitol to stop the Electoral College vote procedings.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

On the Right

Did the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, deserve the criticism and acrimony from Fox News and other right-wing media over his pushback on former President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic? Leave your comments on this or any other recent issues – including our coverage, analysis and commentary by Stephen Macaulay and Ken Zino on the January 6 hearings -- in the comments section, or email editors@thehustings.news.

Find coverage of and commentary on last Tuesday’s seventh hearing by scrolling down this page. Hearings V and VI are on page 2. Hearings III and IV are on page 3, and coverage of and commentary on the first two hearings are on page 4.

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On the Left

Can Senate Democrats get anything done before the November 3 midterms? Does the party have any chance of holding on to its paper-thin Senate majority, or even expand it to overcome the blocking votes of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ)?

Let us know your thoughts, and whether you lean left or lean right, by hitting the comments box in any of these columns (unlike Facebook or Twitter, subject to moderation), or with an email to editors@thehustings.news.

Tune in Friday for our coverage and commentary on the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol’s eighth public hearing, scheduled for Thursday, July 21, at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

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… meanwhile…

(MON 7/18/22)

Sanders takes on Manchin … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is “intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what the majority of us in the Democratic caucus want,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)(pictured), told Martha Raddatz on ABC News’ This Week Sunday. “Nothing new about that.”

Indeed, Manchin, with his fellow centrist/center-right Democratic colleague, Krysten Sinema, of Arizona, put the White House and their party’s Senate leadership through the legislative wringer last year, just to get $1.2-trillion in spending passed in the bipartisan infrastructure bill before fully torpedoing President Biden’s Build Back Better social infrastructure proposal in the fall. All this came about after a last-minute Democratic win by Georgia’s two run-off candidates gave the party the vice president-tiebreaker majority on January 4, 2021.

“And the problem is we continue to talk about Manchin like he was serious,” Sanders continued. “He was not.”

The Vermont senator also criticized Biden himself for his just-concluded trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, where the big takeaway was the president’s fist-bump greeting with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Biden says he raised the issue of Riyadh’s dismal human rights record, including the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence investigations have pinned Khashoggi’s brutal killing on bin Salman, which the crown prince has repeatedly denied. Biden came away from his meeting with nine Arab leaders last weekend not with a deal for lower oil prices but with a commitment to the nations to counter Chinese, Russian and Iranian influence in the region, The New York Times reports.

•••

‘Multiple systemic failures’ … That’s the initial assessment of the bi-partisan three-member Texas House Investigative Committee on the Uvalde Shooting. More than 375 law enforcement officers from various federal, state and local agencies waited for more than an hour to take down the shooter in the Robb Elementary attack, in which 19 fourth graders and two teachers were killed.

“There was a lack of overall effective command that day,” said committee chairman Dustin Burrows, Republican state House member from Lubbock, in the panel’s first public press conference Sunday.

“That day, several officers in that hallway (at Robb Elementary) knew or should’ve known there was active shooting,” Burrows said. “They should have done more.”

Burrows, state Rep. Joe Moody (D-El Paso) and Eva Guzman, a former judge and the non-partisan member of the committee, began investigating the mass shooting 44 days ago. Guzman said one mistake already identified is the lack of a commanding officer to organize the response. The committee, going forward, will study which of the officers present were trained to understand that the shooter was active for as much as an hour after they arrived before they could put a stop to the shooting.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

On the Right

When Steve Bannon last week took a 180-degree turn and agreed to testify in his contempt of Congress trial beginning Monday, he promised a “misdemeanor from hell” for the Biden administration, confirming that the Trump confidant-turned-podcaster had indeed planned to represent for the former president. After all, Donald J. Trump was now lamenting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) refusal to appoint any MAGA-leaning Republicans to the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol.

But U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols late last week put the kibosh on the legal defense Bannon’s attorney had planned, The Washington Post reports. This was the judge’s “lawyerly way” of recommending Bannon take a plea deal rather than “face long odds at a short trial,” a law professor told WaPo.

Your civil, respectful comments, whether pro-MAGA or anti-Trump, on Bannon’s trial and the upcoming eighth hearing by the United States Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, and on any of the first seven hearings are welcome here. Just fill in a comment box in one of the columns (unlike Facebook or Twitter, subject to moderation) or email editors@thehustings.news.

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From the Left

Scroll down this page to read center-column coverage of the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol’s sixth and seventh hearings. Coverage of earlier hearings are on subsequent pages.

In this column below you will find contributing pundit Ken Zino’s comments on Hearing VII, “More than Every Crime Imaginable” and Hearing VI, “The Beast within the Beast.”

The 1/6 panel’s Hearing VIII is scheduled for prime time on Thursday, July 21. Tune in for our coverage and commentary.

Submit your own opinions in the column’s comments box or email editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

(FRI 7/15/22)

Secret Service erasure … The Secret Service erased some texts from January 5 and January 6, 2021, after the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general asked for them, the IG said in a letter to the House Select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. The letter was first sent to the House and Senate homeland security committees, according to The Intercept, which scooped the story. The Secret Service’s excuse is that the texts were deleted as the result of a “device-replacement program” and says they were not erased maliciously.

Note: Always back up your files.

•••

Manchin muscles out Biden agenda … After months of negotiations in attempt to save key parts of the White House agenda already watered down from last year’s Build Back Better, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has rejected most of President Biden’s economic plans, The New York Times reports. Manchin told party leaders he will not support the agenda’s energy and climate provisions, nor plans for raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

Reminder to progressive Democrats: No, you never did have a mandate.

•••

Trump’s in … Thursday we led off with an item from The Washington Post that Republicans are worried it would hurt chances of taking over the Senate and House if ex-President Trump were to announce for 2024 by this autumn. Well, he hasn’t announced – officially. But really he has.

“I’ve already made that decision,” Trump told New York magazine’s Olivia Nuzzihttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/donald-trump-2024-decision.html. Cue the Trump rallies.

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Obituary: Ivana Trump … Czech-American businesswoman and first wife of Donald J. Trump, Ivana Trump, died Thursday at her Manhattan home, the ex-president announced on his social media site, Truth Social. New York Police were investigating whether she fell down the stairs at her Upper East Side townhouse, The New York Times reports. Born Ivana Marie Zelnickova, she was married to “The Donald” (she came up with the moniker) from 1977 to 1990, when a highly publicized affair between her husband and Marla Maples (who became his second wife) contributed to divorce proceedings. The mother of Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, she was a critical part of building The Donald’s real estate empire, including Trump Towner Manhattan and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Ivana Trump was 73.

--Todd Lassa

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(THU 7/14/22)

Trump may announce for ’24 this fall … Ex-President Donald J. Trump is looking to this fall to announce his campaign for president in 2024, The Washington Post reports. Some Republicans have been urging him to wait until after the midterms to avoid diminishing the GOP’s chances of retaking majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Trump’s slate of endorsed primary candidates have had mixed results at best, so far. WaPo sourced two Trump advisors who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

It’s all about timing: The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection has scheduled Public Hearing VIII for prime time Thursday, July 21, but chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says there may be more hearings in August. Does Trump believe he can invoke some form of executive privilege as a candidate before the Justice Department might issue any indictments?

Good news for Biden?: With the president’s polls at record lows, inflation at record highs, and even a majority of Democrats looking for a different presidential candidate in two years, Trump’s announced candidacy may be the only savior for Biden, writes Charlie Sykes <https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/the-one-thing-that-could-save-joe?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> in The Bulwark.

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Not waiting ‘forever’ on Iran deal … The U.S. “is not going to wait forever” for Iran to rejoin the dormant nuclear arms deal, President Biden said Thursday in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem at the beginning of his visit to the Middle East. On Wednesday Biden said he would be willing to use force against Tehran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons, a statement pounced on by conservative commentators in the U.S.

“I continue to believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome,” Biden said, according to NPR. The White House has made it a priority to revive a nuclear arms deal with Iran after then-President Trump abandoned the two-year-old Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018.

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Russia has deported 900,000 Ukrainians, U.S. says … Russia has deported “at least” 900,000 Ukrainians from Russian-occupied regions, including about 260,000 children, many of whom may be placed for adoption, WaPo reports. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called the deportations a “filtration” of opponents in the regions of Ukraine held by Russian forces.

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CPI up 9.1% annually … By now you’ve been bombarded with all sorts of reasons why the Consumer Price Index hit another new high of 9.1% for June, with gas/diesel, shelter and food the biggest contributors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (reported Wednesday). There now is speculation among business media outlets that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates by a full point when it meets again before the end of the month.

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First Black person’s statue … Dr. Mary McCloud Bethune (1875-1955) became the first Black person represented in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Wednesday (pictured above), replacing a Confederate general’s likeness. Bethune was an educator, philanthropist and civil rights organizer who founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and led other Black women’s organizations.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

To the Right

Whether you agree with never-Trump pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s right-column opinions on the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol’s hearings or want to defend the former president, we want to hear from you.

Submit your opinions in this column’s comments box or email editors@thehustings.news.

Scroll down for center-column coverage the 1/6 panel’s sixth and seventh hearings on this page, and coverage of earlier hearings on subsequent pages.

In this column below, scroll down for Macaulay’s comments on Hearing VII, “Enough” and on Hearing VI, “What Real Americans Think and Do.”

Coverage of earlier hearings are on subsequent pages.

The 1/6 panel’s Hearing VIII is scheduled for prime time on Thursday, July 21. Tune in for our coverage and commentary.

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