From the Left

Scroll down to read our coverage and analysis of the first four public hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, in the center column.

Read commentary by contributing pundits Ken Zino and Jim McCraw in this column. Tweets to @NewsHustings on the opening arguments from the first hearing are in the left and right columns on Page 2. 

We will have analysis and commentary on Thursday’s hearings in this space on Friday.

Join the conversation by writing your comment on this page, or via email to editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

(THU 6/23/22)

UPDATE -- The Senate has approved the bipartisan gun violence bill, 65-34. See "Gun regulation this week," below.

•••

SCOTUS expands Second Amendment rights … The Supreme Court struck down, 6-3 (you know the split) a New York State gun law requiring “proper cause” for obtaining a concealed-carry gun permit. The court ruled that the law prevents “law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense,” SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe writes. 

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that the Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for defense outside the home,” according to the AP, which notes the decision is expected to allow more people to carry guns in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and other major cities. 

The New York State law has been on the books since 1913. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island each have similar laws likely to be challenged as a result of the SCOTUS ruling, AP says. New Jersey’s acting attorney general, Matthew Platkin, told NPR’s Morning Edition prior to the ruling announcement that his state’s law is consistent with the Second Amendment, and that New Jersey has one of the lowest gun violence rates in the country.

“What works in Wyoming doesn’t necessarily work in the densest state in the country,” Platkin said of open carry laws.

•••

1/6 Committee Hearing V today … The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection holds its last hearing of the month at 1 p.m. Eastern Thursday. The committee will delay two more hearings initially scheduled for next week “to sometime in July,” says Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS). This gives the panel time to study new evidence: Documentary film footage taken by filmmaker Alex Holder, who had access to then-President Trump, his family members and associates before the insurrection.

Meanwhile: As Donald J. Trump continues to complain “there is no one to defend me” in the hearings, per Roll Call, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy openly ignores the 1/6 panel hearings after refusing to have pro-Trump representation on the committee. This continues to widen the rift between Trump and McCarthy, jeopardizing McCarthy’s prospects for becoming House Speaker if/when Republicans win a majority of the House this November, The Washington Post reports.

Next week: The July 4 holiday recess begins and Meanwhile will be on a reduced posting schedule. We do expect major Supreme Court decisions, including the court’s ruling on whether it will overturn Roe v. Wade.

•••

Can’t touch the gas tax … The 18.4 cents per-gallon federal gas tax has been untouchable since Congress raised it to that level in 1993. Over the years there has been some talk, primarily from Democrats, of raising the federal tax – which is 24.4 cents per-gallon for diesel fuel – particularly when oil prices were very low as a measure to wean the nation off fossil fuels and from dependence on foreign oil. Such proposals never went anywhere.

Now President Biden has called for a 90-day moratorium on the federal gas/diesel tax to ease prices at the pump for American consumers, particularly during the summer vacation season. Like those proposals for tax rate increases, Biden’s initiative is going nowhere, with Republicans on Capitol Hill arguing the White House should ease drilling restrictions instead – which would affect the global supply, but even then not for at least a few years. 

Some Democrats also are opposed. Saving 18 cents on $5 per-gallon gas isn’t the same as saving 18 cents on $2 per-gallon gas, and anyway, there is no way to assure that oil companies won’t pocket the extra cash as a windfall profit.

Meanwhile: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm meets today with Big Oil, including BP and Chevron, to discuss refining capacity, Roll Call reports. But just as with easing drilling rights, expanding refining capacity would not have any immediate effect on gas/diesel prices the way a federal gas tax holiday might.

•••

Gun regulation this week … The Senate passed a procedural hurdle to gun regulation Wednesday, 63-14, including 14 Republicans, indicating full passage is imminent, according to the New York Post. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to bring the legislation to the Senate floor before the end of the week. 

Touted as the most significant gun legislation since the 10-year assault rifle ban of 1994, it is not close to that. The bill would provide federal funds for state mental health programs and to implement “red flag” laws, expand background checks on those under 21 for assault rifles, increase penalties for “straw purchases” and close the “boyfriend” loophole – the latter the sticking point earlier in bipartisan negotiations. 

Note: The NRA, which does not support the legislation, will help its member gunmakers sell more weapons off fears it’s just the beginning of violations of the Second Amendment.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

From the Right

Scroll down to read our coverage and analysis of the first four public hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, in the center column.

Read commentary by pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay in this column. Tweets to @NewsHustings on the opening arguments from the first hearing are in the left and right columns on Page 2. 

We will have analysis and commentary on Thursday’s hearings in this space on Friday.

Join the conversation by writing your comment on this page, or via email to editors@thehustings.news.

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View of the 1/6 Hearings from the Left

What More Do You Need?

By Jim McCraw

I would like to ask of all those who voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election, what more do you need?  You were lied to, repeatedly, for months, about election fraud that didn’t happen. Lied to not just by the president, but by dozens of his political allies and members of his own family. He lost. Legally, and by a lot, whether in the popular vote or in the Electoral College. He lost. But he was so overcome by ego and power madness that he could not accept the loss, so he invented The Big Lie, and ensnared millions of people in it.

He and his minions tried every legal and extralegal method to get the election overturned. More than 60 cases alleging election fraud were thrown out of court. His own attorney general characterized Trump’s election fraud allegation as “bullshit.”

Then the pressure started on state elections officials to either recount the votes or, if that didn’t work, change the slate of electors. Tuesday, a trio of elected Republican officials from Arizona and Georgia testified that they had been pressured directly by Trump and/or his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to violate their oaths of office and try to change the outcome in their states.

In recent weeks, we have seen a bipartisan committee of the House investigating the January 6th Capitol riot show dozens of pieces of incriminating evidence that the sitting president of the United States of America lied to his audience again and again about a stolen election, then, when all other efforts failed to change the outcome of the election, he tried to pressure the vice-president to intervene in the Electoral College process to throw out the results and keep him in power. When Vice President Pence refused, he exhorted an army of his supporters gathered in Washington to overrun the Capitol. Violence and death followed the Big Lie into the building.

For me, that’s all that matters. He did it, we all know he did it, and we will all be either a lot older or dead by the time he is prosecuted for his crime against the American people, the American system, and the Constitution, the single worst crime ever perpetrated by a sitting president. Prosecutions of anyone else resulting from these hearings are gravy.

•••

Trump's Fake Electors, Threats of Violence and Death

By Ken Zino

In what was the most emotional hearing so far, the Select Committee presented a devastating case against ex-President Trump and the intimidation and mob violence that was central to the plan to overthrow President Biden’s legal election. There was and is an ongoing human cost to people who were trying to do the right thing. This includes a stunning number of Republican officials and officeholders who refused to violate their oath of office.  Thank goodness because that is what it is; Goodness. Civic goodness.

Here I yield to Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), who once again put the case against the ex-president clearly. “In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level…   

“First, today you will hear about calls made by President Trump to officials of Georgia and other states ... keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew at the time he made those calls -- he had been told over and over again that his stolen election allegations were nonsense…  

“Second, you will hear about a number of threats and efforts to pressure state officials to reverse the election outcome. Donald Trump didn’t care about the threats of violence.  He did not condemn them; he made no effort to stop them; he went forward with his fake allegations anyway.

“This is serious. We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence,” Cheney said.

Now, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): “Federal district judge David Carter, said former President Trump and others likely violated multiple federal laws by engaging in this scheme -- including conspiracy to defraud the United States. You will hear evidence of the former president and his top advisor’s direct involvement in key elements of this plot, or what Judge Carter called a coup in search of a legal theory.”

As I said earlier this despicable mess will need the Justice Department to act. So here we are: Was there a conspiracy to defraud the United States? 

It comes down to a reading of the DOJ manual that says it’s illegal for an individual to disrupt a government function by deceit, craft or trickery. 

The first person to be in indicted for fraud against the United States should be Donald Trump. Others should follow. 

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

1/6 Committee Public Hearings IV: From the Heart

By Todd Lassa

Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who warned Donald J. Trump on December 7, 2020 to “stop inspiring” his followers to violence against election officials who didn’t back the Big Lie, told the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection he thought his department’s message was getting through to the public. Poll workers counting ballots at the State Farm Arena in Fulton County did not pull out 12,000 ballots for Joe Biden from under their table. The ballots were placed into ballot carriers under the desk by the workers “in plain view” of election monitors and the press. 

“And what’s really frustrating is the president’s attorney had the same videotape,” but that attorney, Rudy Giuliani, tried to pass it off as massive fraud in a meeting with Georgia state senators. “It was frustrating, but at the same time I thought the message was getting out,” Sterling told the 1/6 panel’s public hearing Tuesday under questioning by committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA). 

But still, Sterling got pushback from Trump supporters, including members of his own family. And this is where the whole committee and its hearings runs into a wall.

“The problem you had was getting to people’s hearts,” Sterling said. Quoting unconvinced MAGA supporters; “’I just know in my heart that those people just cheated.’”

Whether the four public hearings so far have changed any minds is hard to determine, although Trump may be finally feeling some heat. 

“Unfortunately, a bad decision was made. This committee – it was a bad decision not to have representation on this committee,” Trump told right-wing podcast host Wayne Allen Root Monday, per the New York Daily News. Referring to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s refusal to set up a bipartisan committee, “That was a very, very foolish decision.”

It's hard, although perhaps not impossible, to imagine how a pro-Trump Republican Congress member like Ohio’s Jim Jordan would counter the testimony of Sterling, his boss Raffensperger, Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Russell Bowers or Tuesday’s final witness, former Fulton County election worker Wandrea ArShaye Moss who, with her mother Ruby Freeman, are seen in the television news video counting ballots at State Farm Arena past midnight that November 3. 

Moss said the best part of her job was helping older voters cast their ballots, especially during the pandemic, and she relished getting absentee ballots out to young students who were away at college on election day. But in the 67-minute call with Raffensperger in which he asked the secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes, Trump called out Moss by name 18 times. 

When her supervisors advised Moss to check her seldom-used Facebook account, she found death threats, threats she would go to jail along with her mother, and a message to “be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.”

“A lot were racist. A lot were just hateful. … I just felt it was my fault for putting my family in this position,” including her grandmother, who faced mobs who forced their way into her house.

Online attacks, doxing and death threats by Trump supporters also extended to Sterling, Raffensperger, and Arizona state speaker Bowers, who also took a call from Trump after the November 2020 presidential election. According to the committee, a staffer from Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) office offered to deliver fake electors directly to Pence from Wisconsin and Michigan. [Johnson’s office denied the account.]

Schiff Tuesday produced a statement Trump put out in which the former president called Bowers a “RINO” after claiming Bowers told Trump the election was rigged and that he won.

“I did have a conversation [with Trump] but that was not it. Anywhere, anyone, anytime someone would say I said the election was rigged, that is not true,” Bowers responded.

Trump and his team wanted Bowers to get the Arizona House to go along with a plan to provide “alternate” electors in Washington January 6. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said, “we’ve got lots of theories” of voter fraud, “we just don’t have the evidence…”

“I just don’t know whether that was a gaffe,” Bowers said of Giuliani’s admission.

Bowers told Trump, Giuliani, and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who also pressured him to decertify electors for Biden, that his oath made it impossible for him to do so. Bowers quoted Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inaugural address in which he called out how special it is that the U.S. allows its citizens to choose its leaders, and transfers power peacefully.  “I have a lot of admiration for him,” Bowers said of Reagan.

“The fact that we allow an election, support an election, and move on without disturbance and we choose to follow the will of the people – it means a lot to me and I know it meant a lot to him.”

That’s from the heart, too.

(WED 6/22/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Shame

By Stephen Macaulay

So there was the absolute thugishness.

  • Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers getting threats, including his family members, for not breaking the law on Donald Trump’s behalf.
  • Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s wife being harassed and his widowed daughter-in-law’s house being broken into, again because Raffensperger wasn’t going to violate his oath to “find” votes for Trump.
  • Shaye Freeman Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, both former Georgia election workers, were called out by Trump and Rudy Giuliani for unsubstantiated fouls in the counting of ballots.
  • Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson testified that she had protestors outside of her house which led her to think “Are they coming with guns, are they going to attack my house? I’m in here with my kid.”

Really?

This is what Donald Trump and his supporters caused because he lost the election.

The issue of election fraud is not an issue.

Team Trump has presented no evidence. Donald Trump — even before his loss —claimed that it would be a crooked election. Had he won, presumably those claims would have disappeared, just like he said COVID would.

What is going on? Trump had a job. He was fired. But he didn’t want to go. And he has a posse of sycophants who didn’t want to give up their access so they support the fictious “Stop the Steal.”

A consequence of this is that those who find it easier to chant than to think claim that they are “defending democracy” by supporting Trump, even though the fundamental definition of democracy has it that the ones in charge are determined by the majority, not by the loudest.

In the political sphere the term “putting country ahead of party” is often heard. Well, it used to be heard with some frequency.

We are presently in a situation where people are putting a person ahead of everything that they claim to be in favor of: Democracy, rule of law—things that make America great.

What I wonder about is this: where are the Republicans of pre-2016, Republicans who are still, in many cases, still in office? Do they stand for person over country?

Or are they simply worried about keeping their jobs long enough to get the sweet retirement benefits?

These men and women should be ashamed of themselves.

That’s something we don’t hear about anymore either. Shame.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Supreme Court to Rule on its Own Conflicts of Interest

By Ken Zino

Virginia Thomas is a clear and present danger to democracy, based on publicly available information about her lobbying role promoting the overthrow of the legally and fairly elected president. It’s just the latest twist of the seditionist plot that is unfolding as the House Select Committee’s docudrama continues.

Worse, Ginni Thomas’ husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has already ruled in a case* where he had distinct personal and financial conflicts of interest. He didn’t recuse himself, because the authority to decide such conflicts of interest lies within the Supreme Court. 

Perhaps, I shouldn’t be surprised over this latest travesty. No surprise that the January 6 Committee now wants Ginni Thomas to come forth and discuss her active role in the Stop the Steal Movement that led to the insurrection. 

“We have sent Ms. Thomas a letter, asking her to come and talk to the committee,” the chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told reporters after the three-hour public hearing last Thursday. Thompson and committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said it was time for her to come in voluntarily to provide testimony to the nine-member panel after investigators discovered communications between her and John Eastman, the Trump personal attorney that the panel painted last Thursday as a key architect in the attempt to get Pence to reject the Electoral College ballot count on January 6.

This occurs while The Department of Justice is apparently deep into its own criminal investigation of the insurrection. It has requested the January 6 Committee provide it with transcripts from more than 1,000 interviews. The committee has publicly said there is a “cooperative process” with the department. Presumably, if or when Gini Thomas is interviewed, the tapes or transcript will also be headed DOJ’s way. It’s looking to me that she too will need an effing-good criminal lawyer. 

It’s also clear more legal actions concerning the insurrection will be forthcoming. Moreover, the last stop before becoming a guest of the federal prison system is, ahem, the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court? The final say on all forthcoming insurrection matters will or could come from the same court that decided Dred Scott was property. The Supreme Court that also once claimed racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution if the facilities for each race were "separate but equal." 

The Supreme Court that Clarence Thomas now is on.

So here we are on the sane side of the looking glass, once again bewildered. Go ask Alice; How this can be? 

*In 2021, Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to block the turnover of documents from his White House to the January 6 House Select Committee, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the documents were vital to investigators. On January 19, 2022, the Supreme Court published its ruling, which said that of its nine members, only Justice Thomas had voted to approve the former president's request. This allowed the presidential records of former President Donald Trump to be transferred to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

(TUE 6/21/22)

Tune in your favorite news outlet (so long as it’s not Fox) 1 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday for the House 1/6 committee’s Hearings Part IV and see Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) explain how and why he did not ‘find’ the 11,780 votes necessary to turn over his state’s 16 electors to Donald J. Trump. 

Our democracy for a MAGA hat … Committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA) told the Los Angeles Times he will show evidence Tuesday that ex-President Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, wanted to send autographed “Make America Great Again” hats to people conducting an audit of the presidential election results in Georgia.

•••

Fascism of MAGA … In case the Texas GOP platform unveiled at its convention last weekend wasn’t a sufficiently scary warning about looming authoritarianism, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told ABC News This Week host George Stephanopoulos that his wife received a death threat in the mail. “I’m not worried personally,” said one of the two Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. “It threatens to execute me as well as my wife and my 5-year-old child.”

•••

Greitens’ ‘RINO hunting’ video de-Facebooked … Facebook has removed an ad from GOP Missouri senate candidate Eric Greitens in which he appears with a gun alongside other men in combat gear and says, “we’re goin’ RINO hunting.” The former Navy Seal concludes his campaign commercial with, “Join the MAGA crowd  -- get a RINO hunting license.” Twitter has let the ad remain, but with a warning, according to Forbes. 

Wonder whether an Elon Musk-owned Twitter would remove that warning. 

Greitens is running for retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s seat. Missouri’s primary is August 2.

•••

Gun legislation … The bi-partisan group of senators led by Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) working on gun legislation is expected to file legislative text today, already two days later than hoped for, according to Punchbowl News. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hopes to begin the process by the end of the day so the full Senate can vote on the bill before leaving for recess next week.

Federal gas tax holiday? … President Biden says he will decide by the end of the week whether to temporarily lift the 18.4-cents per-gallon federal gas tax as the price-per-gallon hovers around $5 per gallon. But such relief would face a vote in Congress, where it already faces opposition. 

•••

Primaries today … A Senate runoff race in Alabama, Republican runoffs in Georgia and House primaries in Virginia.

--Todd Lassa

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(MON 6/20/22)

Oh, do tell … Ginni Thomas, who apparently does not discuss such matters with her husband and “close friend” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions,” with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, which last Thursday announced it was planning to seek her testimony. “I look forward to talking to them,” the Murdoch-owned tabloid New York Post reports, quoting an interview Thomas gave with the considerably further-right Daily Caller. 

But first, up next: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who fended off then-President Trump’s efforts to get him to find 11,780 votes in order to overturn the state’s Electoral College votes from Joe Biden, is scheduled to appear in the fourth hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, CNN reports. Raffensperger’s deputy, Gabriel Sterling, also is scheduled to appear in the hearings, which begin 1 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, June 21. 

A second hearing this week is scheduled for Thursday, June 23, again beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

Meanwhile, in trade relations: Trump administration trade advisor Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty last Friday to two counts of contempt of Congress related to the January 6 insurrection (per Reuters). Navarro had “entirely ignored” a February subpoena by the House Select committee demanding he provide documents and appear for a deposition.

•••

Texas GOP pounds a nail into our democracy’s coffin … Holding its first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans approved a measure that President Biden “was not legitimately elected,” The Texas Tribune reports. Its 5,100 delegates and alternatives also voted to rebuke Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for taking part in bi-partisan gun regulation talks and voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and says Texas school children must “learn about the humanity of the unborn child.”

Meanwhile, in Colombia: Conversely, conservative presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernåndez had this to say when Gustavo Petro was declared the first left-wing candidate – ever – to win an election for leadership of the country: “Colombians, today the majority of citizens have chosen the other candidate. As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of the election.” That, Mr. Trump, is how it’s done in a free country. Petro, a former rebel and longtime senator, took more than 50% in Sunday’s election to Hernåndez’s 42%, The New York Times reports. 

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Scroll Down…

For our coverage and commentary on the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’s hearings so far, including:

•”Eastman Sought Trump Pardon,” from Thursday, June 16’s hearing.

•Ken Zino, left column, “Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall: Conspirators Face Legal Consequences.

•Stephen Macaulay, right column, “Truth and Consequences.”

•“Trump Listened to ‘Team Crazy,’ Raised Cash” from Tuesday, June 14’s hearing.

•Stephen Macaulay, right column, “He Heard It, He Knew It.”

•Ken Zino, left column, “One Subpoena, Two Subpoena, This Stops at DOJ’s Door.”

Whether right or left, never-Trump or pro-MAGA, we seek your civil comments. Email editors@thehustings.news or hit the comment button this column, and let us know whether you belong in the left or the right column.

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Humpy Dumpty Sat on a Wall; Conspirators Face Legal Reckoning

By Ken Zino

“What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional,” committee co-chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said in her opening statement last week. Given the testimony, videos and statements presented Thursday at the House Select Committee hearings, it seems that Donald Trump along with his legal advisor John Eastman and campaign advisors and supporters have stepped Through the Looking Glass into an insurrectionist wonderland that is completely baffling to those of us -- including Mike Pence, the White House Counsel, and a conservative federal judge -- who remain on the sane side. 

In the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Alice has a debate with Humpty Dumpty that roughly goes like this: Alice notes that Humpty looks "exactly like an egg." Humpty objects. Alice explains she said he looks like an egg, not that he is one. A debate ensues with Humpty declaring "When I use a word…" Humpty Dumpty replies "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." 

Donald Trump remains acting like he is Dumpty, rather than legally dumped by voters. Words mean what he chooses them to mean, and the constitutional crisis is still happening.

“Today, the Select Committee is going to reveal the details of that pressure campaign,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said in his opening statement.  “But what does the vice president of the United States even have to do with a presidential election? The Constitution says that the vice president of the United States oversees the process of counting the Electoral College votes -- a process that took place on January 6th, 2021” [and was extended to 3:42 a.m. on the 7th due to the insurrectionist breach]. Pence refused to leave until the electoral count was complete. Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done. “The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again. Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong,”  

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Note these words from a pragmatic – versus semantic -- viewpoint in a statement released just before the hearing, by respected conservative retired federal judge Michael Luttig: “A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge. America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other -- over our democracy. January 6 was but the next, foreseeable battle in a war that had been raging in America for years, though that day was the most consequential battle of that war even to date…

“Though disinclined for the moment, as a political matter of fact only the party that instigated this war over our democracy can bring an end to that war. Like our war from a distant time, these twin wars are testing whether this nation or any nation . . . so conceived in liberty . . . can long endure.” We must hope that January 6 was the final battle of at least the deadly war for America’s democracy. 

Oh, another problem the Committee has with these Looking Glass wars; It cannot indite Trump and fellow insurrectionists no matter what their actions and words mean in the real world. 

For more information I recommend a new Brookings report “Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Committee Hearings and the Question of Criminality.” 

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Eastman Sought Trump Pardon

By Todd Lassa

Attorney John Eastman (at left, in photo above), purveyor of the debunked theory then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to reject, or at least delay, certification of Electoral College ballots on January 6, after the coup attempt sought a presidential pardon from Donald J. Trump through his then-personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Trump did not grant one to Eastman, who after all was no longer useful to him.

As late as 11:44 p.m. Eastern time January 6, 2021, after the vice president had survived four hours in a secured room with rioters just 40 feet away outside, Eastman emailed the vice president’s counsel, Greg Jacob, arguing now that “precedent has been set … I implore you to consider one more minor violation” and suspend the vote count by 10 days in order for five to seven of the states to reconsider their electors. Pence by now already was proceeding with the count. 

The vice president earlier in the day had declined a Secret Service plan to drive himself and his staff out of the Capitol grounds to safety, despite the chants of “hang Mike Pence.” Member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) referred to testimony from an informant of the extremist group that the “Proud Boys would have killed Mike Pence given a chance” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) along with him.

Let’s start at the beginning of the 1/6 panel’s third public hearing, Thursday afternoon. Jacob testified that the first time he spoke with Pence about the 12th Amendment governing the Electoral College was “around December 7” 2020. In that conversation, Pence recalled that one of his first memories as a Congress member was in 2001, when Vice President Al Gore rejected calls from fellow Democrats to challenge the Electoral College vote to certify George W. Bush as winner – over himself -- of the 2000 election. 

“We concluded that what you have is a sentence in the Constitution that is inartfully drafted,” Jacob told the panel, referring to the basis for Eastman’s scheme. 

But the panel’s other in-person witness, retired federal judge Michael Luttig told the House Select committee that had Pence obeyed Trump’s order to reject or stop the electoral vote it "would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution … which in my view would have been the first Constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.”

Eastman had drafted a letter to President Trump before the election in October that Trump could use wording in the 12thAmendment to overturn the results, but on January 5, in a meeting with Jacob, Eastman agreed that such an attempt would be overturned, 9-0 by the Supreme Court. 

On the following January 4, Trump, Eastman, Pence, Jacob and the vice president’s chief of staff, Marc Short, met in the Oval Office where Eastman outlined two paths he saw to overturning the November election:

•Reject the electoral votes outright, or ...

•Suspend the January 6 electoral vote count for 10 days during which five to seven state legislatures re-examine their election results. 

“The vice president never budged in his initial position” that he did not have any such authority, Jacob said. 

But the next day, Eastman took a meeting with Jacob “to request that you reject the electors in the disputed states.” Eastman was pushing the second scenario, the 10-day delay, Jacob said. 

Trump began his pressure campaign on Pence with an early morning January 6 tweet; “Come through for us and send it back to the states,” and another at 8:17 a.m. that the vice president “could send it back to the states and we win…” Early drafts of Trump’s speech at his Elipse rally that morning made no mention of Pence, Aguilar said, but before the crowd that was about to head to the Capitol he reiterated his demand Pence reject the electoral count.  

A 2:24 p.m. Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done to preserve our Country (sic)or Constitution.” 

“Immediately after” that tweet, Aguilar said, “crowds outside and inside the Capitol surged.” At 4:19 p.m., with rioters within 40 feet of the office where Pence was being protected, Trump asked the rioters in a tweet to leave the Capitol.

Today’s Twitterverse is split between admiration for Pence and criticism that he has not appeared before the 1/6 panel in person. 

At the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing, Luttig, the highly regarded conservative retired judge again warned that “if the former president or his anointed successor” were to lose the 2024 election, “they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way they attempted to overturn the 2020 election but would succeed. I don’t speak these words lightly.”

Aguilar concluded saying that Trump put party “ahead of the country.”

But the ranking Republican on the 1/6 panel, Liz Cheney of Wyoming more accurately identified Trump’s priorities: “An honorable man, a man who loved his country more than himself, would have conceded.”

(FRI 6/17/22)

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Truth and Consequences

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

Scroll Down

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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…meanwhile…

(THU 6/16/22)

Hearing III begins 1 p.m. Thursday … The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection holds its third public hearing at 1 p.m., featuring a look at emails between Donald J. Trump attorney John Eastman and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and of a documentary video showing Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) giving a January 5 tour of the Capitol. One man in that January 5 tour (picture, above) was caught on video participating in the Capitol siege January 6. 

The 1/6 panel will center on former Vice President Mike Pence’s pushback on Trump’s demands he certify the Electoral College votes for the former president instead of Joe Biden. Thursday’s witnesses are Pence attorney Greg Jacob, and attorney and former federal judge Michael Luttig, whom Eastman once clerked for, and who tweeted numerous times January 5, 2021, that the Constitution does not give the vice president authority to alter or change the vote. 

Fun fact: It’s the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in.

•••

Palin’s return to politics … Sarah Palin, who stepped down as Alaska’s governor in 2009, about half a year after she and Republican presidential candidate John McCain lost to Obama-Biden, leads the top-four primary in a special election for her state’s single House seat, the AP reports. Donald J. Trump-backed Palin is ahead of moderate GOP businessman Nick Begich, scion of a prominent Alaska Democratic political family. Begich was challenging Republican Rep. Don Young before he died in March. Young had been in office since 1973.

Palin got 28.3% of the vote to Begich’s 19.3%. Independent Al Gross takes third with 12.8%. The fourth position hasn’t been determined, with Democrat Mary Peltola at 8.7% leading Republican Tara Sweeney at 5.5%. More than four dozen candidates were running for the four runoff positions, and Palin’s lead does not necessarily give her an advantage over the other three candidates in the ranked-choice special election August 16, according to Axios.

•••

Fed hikes interest rates by 0.75 point … The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates by 0.75 point Wednesday, the largest increase since 1994, The Wall Street Journal reports. Analysts were bracing for an 0.5-point increase to tamp down the heated economy and an 8.6% inflation rate that defied expectations by failing to decrease in May. The Fed signaled it would continue lifting rates at such a pace this year until inflation begins to decline.

Upshot: While economists worry the Fed’s aggressive anti-inflation measures will force a recession, PRI’s Marketplace notes the increase to 1.75% from 1.5% puts it where it was just before the pandemic.

•••

Biden sends $1 billion more to Ukraine … President Biden announced the U.S. will send an additional $1 billion “security assistance package” of artillery, coastal defense weapons and ammunitions to Ukraine to help fight off Russian forces, which are making gains in the invaded country’s eastern region. The U.S. also will send $225 million worth of drinking water, medical supplies, food and shelter (per The Hill).

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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(WED 6/15/22) Loudermilk Video Released

Photo: “During the tour, the man took photos of hallways, tunnels, and staircases within the Capitol complex.” – Caption in video of Rep. Barry Loudermilk’s January 5 Capitol tour.

Let’s go to the tapes … The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol has released documentary footage showing a man who took part in a tour of the Capitol with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) on January 5, 2021, and then on January 6 was filmed yelling threats at Congress members, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), The Hill reports.

View the entire 2-minute, 47-second video on Twitter @January6thCmte. 

The man in question has been interviewed by the committee, Punchbowl News reported earlier in a scoop about the footage, and it doesn’t appear he has been charged with any wrongdoing. 

Our take: As with everything else the 1/6 panel has made public so far, it’s not likely to move Loudermilk or Trump’s still-loyal supporters.

•••

Tuesday’s primaries … Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), one of 10 Republican congressmembers who voted in favor of Donald J. Trump’s second impeachment has said “it would be a badge of honor” to lose the GOP primary to a Trump-backed candidate, NPR’s Morning Edition notes. And so, Rice gets his badge, having lost to South Carolina state legislator and Trump endorsee Russell Fry, 51.1% to 24.6% (all figures per Ballotpedia).

As if the Democratic primary in South Carolina’s Senate race matters, three candidates were in a close race as of Wednesday morning, with Krystle Matthews leading at 34.4%, Catherine Fleming Bruce at 34.2% and Angela Geter at 31.5%.

Conversely: Freshman Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has openly criticized Trump, though she did not vote for his second impeachment, beat Trump-backed challenger Katie Arrington, 53.3% to 45%. 

Nevada: “President Trump Endorses Adam Laxalt for U.S. Senate!” Yes, that’s the one-term president who insists he’s still president endorsing the son of the former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and a moderate Republican, Pete Domenici – complete with requisite superfluous exclamation mark. Laxalt beat Sam Brown for the GOP nomination, 57.5% to 34.1% and will take on the incumbent Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, in November. 

Republicans believe this is one of the key races they can win in the midterms to retake control of the Senate. 

North Dakota: Incumbent John Hoeven easily defeated Riley Kuntz, 78.5% to 20.8%, for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. In the Democratic primary, Katrina Christianson took 76.2% of the vote to Michael Steele’s (no, not the former GOP chairman/current MSNBC pundit) 23.8%.

Texas: It’s lobbying firm 1, Democrats -1. On April 1, four-term Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela resigned from Congress to become a lobbyist for a top Washington firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, weeks after he announced he would not run again this November. Republican Mayra Flores, 51.0%, beat Democrat Dan Sanchez, 43.3%, for the seat in a special election. The House count is now 220 Democrats to 210 Republicans.

Note: “Trump” appears nowhere on Flores’ website homepage, but a tweet there from Elon Musk says she is the first Republican he has ever voted for. Flores’ victory is the latest sign of a shift by Hispanic and Latino voters to the GOP.

•••

Pro-authoritarian candidates … account for an overwhelming portion of GOP midterm candidates who have won primaries held through the end of May, The Washington Post reported in exclusive analysis Tuesday. The newspaper’s report says “at least 108 candidates” for Congress or statewide office nominated or chosen in conventions have repeated former President Trump’s Big Lie that but not for voter fraud he won re-election in 2020. On top of that, at least 149 candidates out of more than 170 races campaigned on a platform of tightening voting rules or more strictly enforcing existing laws, WaPo continues. 

The Republican candidates, nominees plus those facing runoffs, are running for the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state. WaPo singles out Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who was on Capitol Hill January 6, 2021, and “has asserted that the Republican-controlled legislature should have the right to take control of the all-important choice over which presidential electors to send to Washington.”

Note: This essentially affirms the Trump wing of the GOP, which still appears to be the majority of the Republican Party, as pro-authoritarian, willing to overturn popular vote in a state to assure its candidates win. Primaries that The Washington Posthas surveyed so far all occurred before the House Select committee on January 6 began its public hearings, and it promises to survey subsequent primaries through the season, but we don’t expect much of a change in this attitude.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

The American People Can Walk, Chew Gum at the Same Time

By Stephen Macaulay

The Wall Street Journal editorial board somehow imagines that the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th 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 6th. 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