(Photo: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States)

UPDATES … 

Next hearing announced … The U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol has scheduled its next hearing for 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday, July 12.  … 

Meanwhile, in Fulton County: Judge Robert McBurney has granted a petition by District Attorney Fanni Willis to subpoena Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), close political ally of Donald J. Trump, personal attorney to the ex-president Rudy Giuliani, Trump campaign staff John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, and attorney and podcast host Jacki Pick Deacon for advising “the Trump campaign on strategies” for overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia and other swing states, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The subpoenas direct the witnesses to appear before a special grand jury also on Tuesday, July 12. 

Shooter charged … The young white male suspected of shooting at a July 4 parade in Highland Park, Illinois with a high-powered rifle has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder with “much more to come” according to Lake County District Attorney Eric Rinehart. 

Noted: A quick peak of as much as we could stomach of the Ingraham Angle Tuesday evening laid out the Fox News’ point of view on the Highland Park shooting. Democrats and the Biden White House are using the tragedy, Laura Ingraham said, to scare us from going to any more patriotic events, because liberals apparently do not like patriotic events and want them to cease. Really.

--Todd Lassa

(WED 7/6/22)

•••

Another turn of the coup? … The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal in its next term by North Carolina Republicans over a state congressional map that could affect lawmakers’ ability to pick electors in the 2024 presidential election. The North Carolina Supreme Court’s seven justices were split on whether the gerrymandered map by the Republican-majority state legislature were “unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to The Chronicle of Duke University. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to rule in the Republican lawmakers’ favor in Harper v. Hall it could potentially remove state courts’ limits on gerrymandering and the allow state legislatures authority to choose its own slate of electors regardless of the popular vote, says reporter Hansi Lo Wang on NPR’s Morning Edition. 

SCOTUS will hear the case in the next term, beginning in October. According to the NPR report, Justices Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch are interested in a legal theory that the Constitution gives legislatures such authority over the Electoral College.

Note: This could be “Originalism” taken to its extreme, and just in time for Donald J. Trump’s attempted return to the White House.

•••

SCOTUS’ term end in review … Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the 104^th associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday (pictured), just after the court handed down its ruling on Biden v. Texas (per SCOTUSblog). In that 5-4 ruling, SCOTUS affirmed the Biden White House’s authority to revoke a Trump-era policy that required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting a U.S. immigration court hearing.

Reeling in federal agencies: The Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions without authority from Congress, SCOTUS ruled. The court’s 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA applies to all federal agencies and will ease regulations for a wide variety of consumer and environmental protections.

•••

From the NATO Summit … Turkey has finally agreed to let Finland and Sweden join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, thus expading the western military alliance to Russia’s doorstep. President Biden returned from the summit in Madrid with a promise for another $800 million in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, plus plans for expansion of American forces in Europe, including two Navy destroyers in Rota, Spain and a new permanent headquarter for the U.S. Army in Poland.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Ken Zino

Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to former chief of staff Mark Meadows, was an entirely credible first-hand witness Tuesday about the chaos enveloping the White House staff during the final days leading up to the January 6 insurrection, at the twilight of the failed Trump dictatorship. She had firsthand details of what transpired in the office of the White House chief of staff just steps from the Oval Office, as the threats of violence became clear and violence ultimately descended on the Capitol in the attack on American democracy.

Moreover, Hutchinson was key to supporting the growing but clear body of evidence of Trump’s deranged state of mind that not only believed Mike Pence should be hanged, but also that the Capitol should be sacked. Furthermore, Trump knew without question that he was sending an armed and dangerous mob to the Capitol to interrupt an official proceeding. A seditionist mob that he wanted to lead there after his speech, security issues notwithstanding. 

Even the circumstances surrounding the speech point to Trump’s enraged state of mind. He didn’t like the size of the crowd on the Ellipse, because many of the armed participants could not pass through the metal detectors, or “mags.” Duh. “I don’t care if they have effing weapons, they are not here to hurt me,” Trump said. And “take the effing mags away. … They can march to the Capitol after this is over.”

The beast inside “The Beast” (slang for the presidential limousine, though for this ride the Secret Service used an armored Chevrolet Suburban) was Trump, who after his January 6 speech at the Elipse, got into that Beast thinking he was going to the Capitol since his inner circle wasn’t brave enough to tell him otherwise. That responsibility instead fell to his Secret Service detail. “I’m the effing president,” Trump raged, “take me to the Capitol.” At that point and the evening before, it was clear to Republican insiders and security people that they were dealing with a dangerous mob. 

An out of control, deranged Trump first reached over to grab the steering wheel from the Secret Service detail driving it, then got into a physical altercation with him. The charge here against Trump is indisputable: Assaulting a Secret Service officer. Will the Secret Service testify, or have they already done so?

The threat of violence was real, which was demonstrated during the hours that followed. Trump wasn’t going to the Capitol. Senior Republican staff, Republican Congress members, Fox News insiders as well as Trump family members urged an immediate reaction to call off the Capitol invaders. Trump tweeted that Mike Pence betrayed his supporters instead, then watched the mob from the secure Oval Office. 

Hutchinson noted that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called her that day. “Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy,” she has him saying. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we let that happen.”

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C-Col. HED: Hutchinson Testifies to Trump’s Intent

By Todd Lassa

Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows requested pardons from then-President Trump on January 7, 2021. Former White House Counsel Pat Cipolonne tried to warn Meadows to keep Trump from joining his followers to the Capitol January 6 or face legal charges, including obstruction of justice and defrauding the electoral count.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s knowledge of the January 6 “rally” began with a January 2 visit by Giuliani to the White House, the former aide to Chief of Staff Meadows (Trump’s fourth), told the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^thAttack on the United States Capitol Tuesday afternoon. 

“Gosh, are you excited for the 6^th?” Hutchinson recalled Giuliani asking. “It’s going to be a great day.”

Great indeed, for fans of political intrigue involving banana republics. When Hutchinson asked Giuliani what he meant, the reply was that Donald J. Trump was going to the Capitol that day, and “he’s going to look very strong.”

When Meadows later told Hutchinson how serious the rally could be, it was the “first moment I remember feeling scared and concerned for what could happen on January 6.”

She advised Meadows to avoid a January 5 planning meeting at the Willard Hotel with Giuliani, John Eastman and others. Meadows later told her he would “dial in” instead.

Hutchinson joined the White House contingent to the Elipse the morning of January 6, standing in the back of President Trump’s tent set up for his speech. Trump supporters had to pass through Secret Service magnetometers (“mags”) to see the speech, and their weapons kept many of them out. There had been reports of members of the rally mob carrying guns, including, as panel Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted, a man with a gun in a tree on the east side of Constitution Avenue, and others with AR-15s at 14^th Street and Independence Avenue. 

Trump was “very concerned” that photos of the Elipse crowd did not look full “and he thought the mags were at fault, not letting people in with weapons.” (Consistent, at least, considering Trump’s insistence that his 2017 inauguration crowd was “biggest in history.”)

The armed mob weren’t there to hurt Trump, the president said; “let the people in, take the effing mags away.”

After Trump’s speech, he still had planned to take the “Beast” – or rather an armored Chevrolet Suburban daily driver – to the Capitol to join his armed supporters. But his deputy chief of staff for security detail, Tony Ornato, and White House staff resisted because it would not be secure.

“It was becoming clear to us and [the Secret Service] that Capitol security were being overrun and were short of people to secure the Capitol,” Hutchinson said.

What happened next is well-detailed in both the left and right columns. Suffice to say the Secret Service prevailed, though not uninjured, on this one.

Back at the White House, Hutchinson told Meadows at 2:05 p.m. that rioters were getting close to the Capitol, she testified by video. “Do we want to talk to the president?

“He said ‘no, he wants to be alone.’”

The 1/6 panel outlined a series of text messages and calls from the likes of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Fox News commentators Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, who tried to get Trump to call off the riot mid-afternoon, before he wrote a tepid tweet at 4:17 p.m. telling the mob they’re “special” and “loved.” 

Hutchinson heard Trump watching chants of “Hang Mike Pence” on television in the White House dining room, where she delivered a text message from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to Meadows. There, she heard Meadows say to Cipolonne; “You heard him, Pat, he thinks the vice president deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

What, Cheney asked, was Hutchinson’s reaction to this day’s events?

“As a staffer that worked to always represent the president to the best of my ability and to always showcase the good things that he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed, and really, it felt personal. It was really sad. 

In her closing remarks Tuesday, Cheney said the 1/6 panel has evidence of witness intimidation by a former colleague or colleagues attempting to influence testimony. She produced two emails, with the sender(s) and recipient(s) redacted. Expect to learn more in Hearing VII next month.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Todd Lassa

UPDATE: The 1/6 House Select panel has subpoenaed former White House counsel Pat Cipollone in the wake of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, below...

Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows requested pardons from then-President Trump on January 7, 2021. Former White House Counsel Pat Cipolonne tried to warn Meadows to keep Trump from joining his followers to the Capitol January 6 or face legal charges, including obstruction of justice and defrauding the electoral count.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s knowledge of the January 6 “rally” began with a January 2 visit by Giuliani to the White House, the former aide to Chief of Staff Meadows (Trump’s fourth), told the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^thAttack on the United States Capitol Tuesday afternoon. 

“Gosh, are you excited for the 6^th?” Hutchinson recalled Giuliani asking. “It’s going to be a great day.”

Great indeed, for fans of political intrigue involving banana republics. When Hutchinson asked Giuliani what he meant, the reply was that Donald J. Trump was going to the Capitol that day, and “he’s going to look very strong.”

When Meadows later told Hutchinson how serious the rally could be, it was the “first moment I remember feeling scared and concerned for what could happen on January 6.”

She advised Meadows to avoid a January 5 planning meeting at the Willard Hotel with Giuliani, John Eastman and others. Meadows later told her he would “dial in” instead.

Hutchinson joined the White House contingent to the Elipse the morning of January 6, standing in the back of President Trump’s tent set up for his speech. Trump supporters had to pass through Secret Service magnetometers (“mags”) to see the speech, and their weapons kept many of them out. There had been reports of members of the rally mob carrying guns, including, as panel Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted, a man with a gun in a tree on the east side of Constitution Avenue, and others with AR-15s at 14^th Street and Independence Avenue. 

Trump was “very concerned” that photos of the Elipse crowd did not look full “and he thought the mags were at fault, not letting people in with weapons.” (Consistent, at least, considering Trump’s insistence that his 2017 inauguration crowd was “biggest in history.”)

The armed mob was not there to hurt Trump, the president said; “let the people in, take the effing mags away.”

After Trump’s speech, he still had planned to take the “Beast” – or rather an armored Chevrolet Suburban daily driver – to the Capitol to join his armed supporters. But his deputy chief of staff for security detail, Tony Ornato, and White House staff resisted because it would not be secure.

“It was becoming clear to us and [the Secret Service] that Capitol security were being overrun and were short of people to secure the Capitol,” Hutchinson said.

What happened next is well-detailed in both the left and right columns. Suffice to say the Secret Service prevailed, though not uninjured, on this one.

Back at the White House, Hutchinson told Meadows at 2:05 p.m. that rioters were getting close to the Capitol, she testified by video. “Do we want to talk to the president?

“He said ‘no, he wants to be alone.’”

The 1/6 panel outlined a series of text messages and calls from the likes of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Fox News commentators Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, who tried to get Trump to call off the riot mid-afternoon, before he wrote a tepid tweet at 4:17 p.m. telling the mob they’re “special” and “loved.” 

Hutchinson heard Trump watching chants of “Hang Mike Pence” on television in the White House dining room, where she delivered a text message from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to Meadows. There, she heard Meadows say to Cipolonne; “You heard him, Pat, he thinks the vice president deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

What, Cheney asked, was Hutchinson’s reaction to this day’s events?

“As a staffer that worked to always represent the president to the best of my ability and to always showcase the good things that he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed, and really, it felt personal. It was really sad." 

In her closing remarks Tuesday, Cheney said the 1/6 panel has evidence of witness intimidation by a former colleague or colleagues attempting to influence testimony. She produced two emails, with the sender(s) and recipient(s) redacted. Expect to learn more in Hearing VII next month.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Stephen Macaulay

“As an American, I was disgusted.”

Amen, Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testifying to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Disgusted.

“She’s one of them. Or was.” — John Karl, ABC News chief Washington correspondent, talking about Ms. Hutchinson in relation to the Republicans who, by and large, have heretofore been resistant to what has been explained and exposed, chapter and verse, about what Donald Trump and his enablers did before, during, and after January 6, 2021.

Disgusted.

“I said, ‘The rioters are getting really close. Have you talked to the president?’” Hutchinson recalled asking her boss, then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

“Meadows said, ‘No. He wants to be alone right now.’”

Mark Meadows. Profile in sniveling servility.

Disgusted.

Hutchinson on hearing a noise in the White House dining room in December 2020 and finding ketchup on the wall, a broken plate on the floor and a valet cleaning up the mess: “The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general’s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall.”

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr had told the Associated Press that an investigation by the Department of Justice had found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. If there was a “steal” it had been “stopped” before it happened in any measurable way, whether it was by Venezuelans, Italians or who knows who else.

Disgusted.

Trump was being taken back to the White House from the Ellipse in an armored SUV because his intended destination was deemed to be a dangerous place. Hutchinson says, she had been told by another White House aide, security official Tony Ornato, “The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now’ — to which Bobby [Engel, part of the president’s security detail] responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.’ The president reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’”

And then, Hutchinson testified (remember: she is under oath) that she was told by Ornato that Trump grabbed Engel as though he was going to strangle him.

Disgusted.

“I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down. Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn’t want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news!” -- Donald Trump on Truth Social, after Hutchinson’s testimony.

Let’s see: He doesn’t know who she is (other than being “a total phony and ‘leaker’”) yet he “personally turned her request down.” Seems somewhat at odds, but how is that any different than anything else Trump has said?

Disgusted.

During Hutchinson’s testimony, video was shown of portions of the testimony of Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor of the United States, being questioned by Liz Cheney. He repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment, as is his right.

Cheney:  "General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified?"

Flynn: "I said, I said the Fifth."

Flynn, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army resistant to talking about the transfer of power that he had sworn an oath to uphold.

Hutchinson, 26, or seven years fewer than Flynn had served in the military, was out there, defending democracy against those who would have twisted it to their own ends.

Disgusting.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

(TUE 6/28/22)

(Cassidy Hutchinson, former special assistant to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.)

•Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows sought presidential pardons.

•Trump complained that the Elipse crowd looked small because magnetometers kept armed MAGA supporters out.

•Giuliani told Cassidy Hutchinson at the White House January 3 of the 1/6 plans.

•White House Counsel Pat Cipollone warned Trump of potential obstruction of justice, defrauding the electoral count if Trump were to proceed to the Capitol.

•Donald J. Trump wanted to ride to the Capitol after his Elipse speech, tried to grab steering wheel, lunged at Bobby Engel, head of his security detail.

Check back for our analysis and commentary late Tuesday.

Surprise Witness: Cassidy Hutchinson

Suddenly, Hearing VI... Pat Cipollone? Ex-Veep Mike Pence? Punchbowl News scooped the surprise witness for Tuesday’s House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is Cassidy Hutchinson, who last week in video testimony named Republican Congress members who asked then-President Donald J. Trump for blanket pardons over participation in January 6. 

Hutchinson was special assistant to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who has refused to speak to the committee, and had “unique and constant access” to Meadows, Trump and the White House inner circle, “in the time up to, during and after January 6,” Punchbowl News says, while also having direct contact with dozens of Congress members. What’s more, she was in contact with Georgia officials after the November 2020 presidential election over an effort there to overturn the vote from Joe Biden to Donald J. Trump. Hutchinson switched lawyers earlier this month, in a possible explanation for her decision to appear live.

Butterfield VI: Without knowing, or at least naming Hutchinson Monday evening, Nixon White House counsel John Dean on CNN compared the surprise witness with Alexander Butterfield, who in the Watergate Hearings on July 13, 1973, revealed the existence of a White House taping system. 

Special security: CNN also reported Monday night that the 1/6 panel had secured extra security for its surprise witness.

•••

G7 to NATO … The G7 is wrapping up its annual summit, in Germany Tuesday. President Biden heads from the Bavarian Alps to Madrid for a NATO summit, where the organization will concentrate on China, NPR reports.

Bad news for necktie industry: G7 leaders are being criticized for a “sloppy look” in a group photograph in which Italy’s Mario Draghi, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, President Biden, Britain’s Boris Johnson and Japan’s Fumio Kishida were pictured wearing open-neck shirts with two-piece suits, and no neckties, Britain’s Independent reports.

•••

Tuesday’s primaries … Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma and Utah hold statewide primaries June 28, according to Ballotpedia.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

By Todd Lassa

(Go to The Gray Area for a link to the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.)

Republican House members Matt Gaetz (FL), Louis Gohmert (TX) and Scott Perry (PA) asked Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, for a blanket pardon. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH) and Andy Biggs (AZ) didn’t ask her directly, though they were named Thursday. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (GA) asked for a blanket pre-emptive pardon after January 6 as well.

“The only reason I know you ask for a pardon is that you think you committed a crime,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (IL), one of two Republicans with Liz Cheney (WY) on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, concluded after hours of testimony from then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Assistant Attorneys General Richard Donoghue and Steven Engel on their efforts to quash Donald J. Trump’s schemes to overturn the Electoral College count. 

“Justice Department lawyers are not the president’s lawyers,” Kinzinger said. 

And in their pushback against Trump’s efforts on January 3, 2021 to install Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer who had never handled a criminal case nor a court case, as acting AG in what would have been a more-intense, Watergate-like Sunday Night Massacre, Rosen, Donoghue and Engel had commitments from DOJ’s other assistant attorneys general – save one who would remain to prevent complete chaos – to resign under such circumstances.

Hours before Thursday’s public hearings, the 1/6 panel’s fifth, CNN reported that federal investigators had conducted a search on Wednesday of Clark’s home, and that panel members were not made aware of the search prior to the hearing.

Leading the hearing, Kinzinger introduced evidence and heard testimony of how Trump and his supporters tried to push Rosen’s DOJ to investigate several conspiracy theories to back the former president’s false assertion that the November 2020 election had been stolen from him. 

Clark’s only qualification to replace Rosen, Kinzinger said, was “that he would do anything the president wanted him to do to overturn the election.”

Between December 23, 2020, when William Barr resigned as attorney general, and January 3, when Trump threatened to replace Rosen with Clark, Rosen and Trump met “every day, with one or two exceptions,” on Christmas Day. Trump told Rosen he thought the Justice Department had not done enough to investigate “voter fraud,” wanted Rosen to meet with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and wanted the DOJ to file a suit in the Supreme Court to stop the January 6 Electoral College count. 

“The Justice Department declined all of them,” Rosen said. “We did not think they were appropriate considering the facts and laws as we understood them.” 

Among Trump’s fraud/conspiracy theories that Rosen, Donoghue and Engel had rejected – as described in earlier testimony by Barr -- included a report by the Allied Security Group that claimed Antrim County, Michigan’s “error” rate in counting ballots from Dominion Voting Systems was 68%. Yet the county’s election officials hand counted its 15,000 presidential election ballots and found “exactly one” miscount, or 0.0063% error, Donoghue said. 

In another theory derived from the Internet, a semi-truckload of ballots allegedly was driven from New York to Pennsylvania on November 3. “It was not true,” Donoghue said (the driver has never been identified.)

“There was a series of others, mostly in swing states,” he said. 

Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows called Rosen and asked him to meet with Bradley Johnson, described in an internet video as a retired CIA official, who claimed to have evidence that an Italian defense contractor uploaded software to a satellite that zapped votes to switch them from Trump to Joe Biden. 

Rosen told Meadows that Johnson could take his theory to any of 55 FBI field offices. Meadows “first accepted, then called back” and said he spoke with Giuliani, who said it was “insulting that (Johnson would) have to go to an FBI field office.” Kash Patel, chief of staff to the acting defense secretary, told Rosen that Johnson was in custody in Italy at the time under cyber-offense charges.

Unlike Rosen, Clark was willing to send the Georgia general assembly a letter calling on them to hold a special session and consider a new slate of electors (a draft letter first reported late last year). In the January 3 Oval Office standoff, Trump backed down when faced with Rosen and his assistant AGs resigning over Rosen’s refusal to sign the letter. Trump asked Rosen whether he should fire Clark.

After Kinzinger’s closing comments, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) addressed Trump supporters, saying the committee has heard from nearly a dozen Republicans, with more to come in next month’s hearings. “It can be difficult to accept that Donald Trump abused your trust,” she said, “that he deceived you. But that is a fact. I wish it weren’t true, but it is.”

(THU 6/23/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news