One Subpoena, Two Subpoena, This Stops at DOJ’s Door

By Ken Zino

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheney’s summation to the jury of American voters:

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

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

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

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

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

______________________________________

Also on this page ...

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

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

_____
COMMENT: editors@thehustings.news

Trump Listened to “Team Crazy,” Raised Cash

By Todd Lassa

UPDATE -- The U.S. House Select Committee Investigation of the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol has postponed Wednesday's public hearing without giving a reason, NPR reports. The panel will reconvene as scheduled at 10 a.m. Thursday.

The lesson from Day Two of the House Select Committee’s public hearings of its investigation of the January 6 Capitol insurrection is that if you can convince enough followers about something like the Big Lie, you can make money off it. Or as committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) put it; “Not only was there the Big Lie, there was the big ripoff.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the panel’s vice-chair, quoted “one conservative editorial board” as writing, “Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters on January 6 and he is still doing it.”

In his live testimony, Chris Stirewalt, former politics editor for Fox News described how an exclusive formula for calling each state’s election results gave his cable network an edge in calling Arizona for Biden ahead of other networks – which led to his being fired for it.

Bill Stepien, Trump’s chief political advisor for the 2020 election, was excused from live testimony because his pregnant wife was in labor Monday morning. As part of a large inner-circle of the 45^th president who tried to tell him there was no credible evidence of results-changing voter fraud, Stepien described in videotaped testimony how “there was a surprise in the call” for Arizona by Fox News by “most everybody” in the room watching the returns from the White House that night.

Stepien tried to get Donald J. Trump and the rest of the group to agree not to call the election for either candidate that Tuesday night, as results would be counted for days. But Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, arrived at the White House later election night, “apparently inebriated,” and tried to talk the president and his advisors to reject that idea as “being weak.”

Stepien’s group became known as “Team Normal” while Giuliani and his circle were known as “Team Crazy,” according to Lofgren. (Much of Team Crazy’s early tactics focused on falsely accusing Dominion Voting Systems of fraud.)

The next day, Trump told a group of supporters in a nationally televised meeting “We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”

“Mr. Stepien, after the votes were counted, who won the election?” Lofgren asked in a video clip.

“Uh, Joseph Robinet Biden Jr., of the great state of Delaware.”

Asked by Lofgren to explain “Red Mirage,” ex-Fox News’ Stirewalt said it is the foundation of the Big Lie in that it is predicated on statistics that show Democrats use mail-in and absentee ballots far more than Republicans, and those ballots are only counted after election-day ballots.

“You expect to see Republicans with a lead (early on) but it’s not really a lead,” Stirewalt explained. “When you put a jigsaw puzzle together you see the same image – it doesn’t matter which pieces you put together first.”

The panel relied heavily once again on former Attorney General William Barr. (It doesn’t hurt he was seen as a fierce Trump loyalist after his “handling” of the Mueller Report.)

“Right out of the box on election night Trump claimed that there was major fraud,” he said, and it “seemed to be based” on a lot of Democratic votes coming in late, particularly from big cities in the states that mattered.

Lofgren launched into more video, including recordings of former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, and of Giuliani on Fox News describing hundreds of thousands of ballots in garbage trucks being dumped into vote counts.

Barr said of Trump; “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff. (There) wasn’t any interest in what the actual facts were.” Challenging states’ results was not the pervue of the Justice Department, Barr noted, but rather up to his campaign’s attorneys. And the 1/6 panel reiterated the results of 62 such cases the Trump campaign brought in nine states plus the District of Columbia, with 22 Republican-appointed judges, 10 by Trump, plus all three of his Supreme Court nominees, who rejected fraud claims. Of those, Trump scored 61 losses and one win.

And yet, Trump established the Official Election Defense Fund, which the 1/6 panel, questioning numerous ex-Trump officials and advisors concludes does not exist, according to Lofgren, though it has raised $250 million, nearly $100 million of it in the first week after the election. Trump’s Save America PAC created November 9, 2020, has paid $1 million of its donations to Mark Meadows’ Conservative Partnership Institute, $1 million to the America First Policy Institute, $204,857 to the Trump Hotel Collection and $5 million to Event Strategies Inc. according to the 1/6 panel.

(TUE 6/14/22)

_____
COMMENT: editors@thehustings.news

He Heard It. He Knew It.

By Stephen Macaulay

Let’s not get too fancy here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s going to happen to Trump?

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

The Justice Department can. And should.

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump is Culpable

Left-Column Tweets on the 1/6 Hearings

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

--Dr. Judith A. Miller

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

--lisadesanti

The truth is never a waste of time.

--debbie does moderna

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

--Daniel Garrix

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

--Mary Wooster

_____

…meanwhile…

Pictured: House Select Committee vice-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY)

1/6 hearings continue in earnest … Twenty million television viewers watched last Thursday’s House Select Committee public hearings on the January 6 Capitol insurrection, according to the Nielsen ratings organization. No doubt fewer people will watch when the hearings resume Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern (and again on Wednesday and Thursday). But most of those viewers will be watching replays of highlights along with analysis prime time Monday on all the major cable news networks and ABC, CBS and NBC and not on Fox News.

That’s a substantial number (The New York Times notes that “nearly” 13 million people watched the peak of Game 1 of the NBA championship series between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics, again per Nielsen).

It would be smart money to bet that much of that small but vocal minority who don’t see a violent attack on the Capitol in the videos presented Thursday and who don’t think former President Trump was so determined to hold onto power that he incited said attack will be part of the follow-up audience.

After Thursday’s hearings, The Hustings posted a poll on Twitter, asking followers whether they were a.) Making a case against Trump; or b.) Waste of time. We got just 254 votes, but admit we suffered a glitch in the timing between the poll and its paid (to Twitter) promotion. Select tweets in response to the poll are here, in the left and right columns.

The results?

•74.4% said the House Select Committee is making a case against Trump.

•25.6% said the public hearings were a waste of time.

•••

Gun legislation ‘progress’… Gun control advocates who emerged after Sandy Hook and the Stoneman Douglas High School shootings will not see much in the “compromise” legislation being negotiated by 10 Republican and 10 Democratic senators. As-yet unwritten legislation “increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can’t purchase weapons,” according to a statement by the 20 senators (per Roll Call).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is enthusiastic. The deal “could get a quick vote,” he said. Well in time for the midterms.

--Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Waste of Time

Right-Column Tweets on the 1/6 Hearings

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

--Rich Corbett

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

--Meredith

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

--Ultra Beautiful MAGA Queen AnneTony

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

--Ellen

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

--Britnee

Waste of time.

--Walter L. Jones

_____

Opening Argument Notices are In

Anatomy of a Coup by Eric Blair

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

///

A Smash Opening Act by Ken Zino

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_____

Another View to the Coup

(FRI 6/10/22)

By Todd Lassa

It wasn’t the Senate Watergate Committee of 49 years ago, though no reasonable Washington pundit should have expected as much. What we got in the House Select Committee’s first public hearings on the January 6 Capitol insurrection was a reminder of how assiduous and rather pathetic former President Trump was in his attempt to hold on to power … and how he is still trying to do so.

“January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said in his opening remarks.

The vice chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said the hearings will remind the country that “on the morning of January 6, Donald Trump’s intention was to remain president of the United States, despite the outcome of a fair election” … .

Thompson and Cheney introduced videotaped testimony made to the House panel including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and former Attorney Gen. William Barr, who warned the former president that his claims of November 2020 ballot fraud “were bullshit.”

“And that was one of the reasons I left when I did,” Barr said – December 23, just two weeks before the insurrection – the attempted coup – and with just four weeks left in the Trump administration.

In this their opening argument, Thompson and Cheney began to build a case that Trump and a close circle of supporters conspired to overturn the election and that their conspiracy engaged with the brute force of the Proud Boys (“stand down and stand by”) and Oath Keepers. They provided testimony that it was Vice President Mike Pence, holed up in the Capitol for the Electoral Vote count, and not President Trump, who called Joint Chief of Staff Chair Mark Milley and the Pentagon to try to get backup support to Capitol police that day.

And as the lame-duck president remained at the White House, watching the rioters chant; “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump said, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Maybe he deserves it.”

Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who embedded with the Proud Boys, including leaders Enrique Tarrio and Joseph Biggs (who were indicted along with three other members on federal charges of seditious conspiracy earlier this week) testified he was surprised that the group – about 250 to 300 men – did not stick around long enough to listen to Trump’s speech the morning of January 6. Rather, they left for the Capitol to check out the number of police in-wait.

In her testimony before the panel, Caroline Edwards of the U.S. Capitol Police spoke of finding herself in a “war scene.”

“I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I never thought as a police officer I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”

Far too many of those who believe Venezuelan voting machines threw the election to Joe Biden and that those Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were tourist to the Capitol that day were on Thursday night watching Tucker Carlson Tonight. For the rest of us, the next House Select panel’s public hearing is next Monday, June 13, at 10 a.m.

______________________________________

Whether you watched CNN, MSNBC, ABC-News, CBS News or Fox News Thursday evening, and whether you're left, never-Trumper right or full-on MAGA, we seek your civilly expressed comments on the House Select Committee's first public hearings. Click on one of the Comment tabs in these columns or email us at editors@thehustings.news and tell us whether you identify as "right" or "left" in the subject line.

_____

We Didn’t Start the Fire

By Stephen Macaulay

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

Let’s consider the absurdity of that.

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

///

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

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

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

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

///

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

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

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

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

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

Does that really matter?

///

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

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

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

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

They are admitting it by their acts.

And it is not merely wrong, but illegal.

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

///

The president-elect says this:

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

The vice president-elect says this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

///

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

_____

Prep for the Hearings

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

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

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

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

_____

…meanwhile…

(THU 6/9/22)

It’s 1/6 House panel day … Tune in at 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific Thursday on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Fox Business to watch the House of Representatives’ Select Committee’s first public hearing on the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Tune in to Fox News to watch counter-programming on Tucker Carlson Tonight, where its host will likely try to cast the violent attack on the Capitol meant to force then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden for president as some sort of populist “tourism.”

•••

House approves raising age to buy assault rifle … But it’s not likely to go anywhere in the Senate.

The House voted 223-204 to raise the age required to buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21 years old and to ban high-capacity magazines, NPR’s Morning Edition says. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) attacked the measure as an effort “to destroy the Second Amendment,” according to The Washington Post.

The vote followed wrenching testimony to Congress by survivors and relatives of victims of the Robb Elementary school attack in Uvalde, Texas, and the attack on Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, last month. An 11-year-old girl who smeared blood from classmates at Robb Elementary to make the shooter think she was dead gave video testimony.

And Dr. Roy Guerrero, of Uvalde, described seeing children so “pulverized” and “decapitated” by bullets “that the only clue as to their identities was their blood-splattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them” (WaPo).

Meanwhile: President Biden took advantage of his attendance at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles Wednesday to appear on ABC-TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he told the host that gun regulation will be the primary argument Democrats candidates use against Republicans candidates in the midterm elections this November.

“You’ve got to make it clear you say it’s going to determine whether I vote for you,” the president told Kimmel.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

_____________________________________

(WED 6/8/22)

Motorcade to 1/6 … Secret Service agents tried to secure a motorcade for then-President Trump so he could accompany his rally of 30,000 supporters to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, The Washington Post reports, quoting “two people briefed on witnesses’ accounts” to the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection.

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol,” Trump told his supporters before their 1/6 march. The lame duck president had hoped to convince resistant Republican Congress members to overturn the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden.

District of Columbia police refused to block intersections for a Trump motorcade, WaPo says, and the president’s Secret Service detail leader determined that the request was “untenable and unsafe.”

Buckle your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy Thursday.

•••

Four of five Republicans who favored 1/6 panel win … Five of 35 House Republicans who voted to establish the Select committee to investigate the January 6 Capitol insurrection were up in Tuesday’s primaries, and four won outright, Politico reports. The fifth, Mississippi’s Rep. Michael Guest trailed challenger Michael Cassidy, 45.4% to 48.5%, and with neither reaching 50% will face each other in a runoff. The four winners are …

•South Dakota – Rep. Dusty Johnson, who took 59% of the vote in a race against Taffy Howard.

•New Jersey – Rep. Chris Smith, who took 58% of the vote.

•California – Rep. David Valadao won his primary.

•Iowa – Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks ran for the primary uncontested.

In Iowa’s Democratic primary for Senate, Michael Franken easily beat the presumed favorite, Abby Finkenauer, 55.1% to 40% to face seven-term Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley, who beat challenger Jim Carlin 73.4% to 26.4%.

•••

California centered … San Franciscans voted 61.3% to 38.7% to recall progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Politicoreports. Former public defender Boudin took office following other progressive San Francisco district attorneys, but faced a campaign heavily financed by police unions that blamed him for an increase in the crime rate during the pandemic, according to NPR’s Morning Edition, while The New York Times notes that Boudin’s progressive initiatives included elimination of cash bail, a vow to hold police accountable and efforts to send fewer people to prison.

Mayor of Los Angeles: Republican billionaire developer-turned-Democrat Rick Caruso led the race for Los Angeles mayor with 41% to progressive Democratic U.S. Rep. Karen Bass’ 38%, the Associated Press reports. L.A. Councilman Kevin de Leon was a distant third with 7%, followed by nine other candidates. Caruso and Bass face off in a runoff this fall.

Governor: Incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom, who easily survived a recall last year after Boris Johnson-like pandemic partying, led 10 candidates in the non-partisan primary for governor, with 61.2% of the vote. This November Newsom will face Republican Brian Dahle, who scored 15.1% Tuesday, Ballotpedia reports.

U.S. Senate: Democrat Alex Padilla, appointed to fill Kamala Harris’ seat last year when Harris became vice president, will face Republican Mark Meuser in November. Padilla received 57.3% of the non-partisan primary vote to Mark Meuser’s 13%, according to Ballotpedia.

•••

FBI probes former general … The FBI has seized electronic data of former four-star Marine Gen. John R. Allen in connection with an investigation into efforts to help Qatar influence U.S. policy when the country faced a diplomatic crisis with its Middle-Eastern neighbors in 2017, the AP reports. Allen led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan before leaving to become president of the Brookings Institution, also in 2017. Last week, Richard G. Olson, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the case, and political donor Imaad Zuberi is already serving 12 years in federal prison on corruption charges in the case, AP says.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

_____________________________________

(TUE 6/7/22)

Proud Boys, Proud Boys, whatcha gonna do … Lead members of far-right group the Proud Boys are in federal custody on charges of seditious conspiracy for their planning of and participation in the January 6 Capitol insurrection (per NPR’s Morning Edition). Those charged include the group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who did not attend the riot, but allegedly led planning on the effort to halt Congress’ certification of Joe Biden as 46^th president.

The 33-page indictment, unsealed Monday, also charges Proud Boys members Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola who allegedly used a group chat called “MOSD Leaders Group,” which Tarrio described as a “national rally planning committee,” and produced a document to occupy “crucial buildings” entitled “1776 Returns” (per The Guardian).

A hint of what’s to come?: The charge of seditious conspiracy is said to be very rare and very difficult to prove. Meanwhile, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Monday that the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection and scheduled to begin public hearings Thursday evening has found evidence against ex-President Trump of “a lot more than incitement.”

‘Discrete’ in Georgia: The Washington Post Tuesday scoops it has uncovered a December 13, 2020, email from the Trump campaign elections operations director for Georgia Robert Sinners that instructed fake Republican electors planning to cast votes for the former president to operate in “complete secrecy.”

•••

Weaponizing food … Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya stomped out of a Security Council meeting Monday after European Council President Charles Michel accused the Kremlin of sparking a global food crisis with its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports. Russia and Ukraine normally supply nearly one-third of the world’s wheat supplies, and prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel, and fertilizer have skyrocketed since Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Michel also accused Russia in the meeting of the 15-member Security Council of war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to Reuters. Speaking directly to Nebenzya as he stormed out, Michel said; “You may leave the room, maybe it’s easier not to listen to the truth.”

•••

Democratic candidate on Fox News … Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee running for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Patrick Toomey, who is retiring, will air his first campaign advertisements on Fox News, Politico reports. Fetterman casts himself as a “political outsider who has pushed for pro-working-class policies,” according to Politico, which has previewed the ads.

Facing a potential midterm slaughter, the hapless Democratic Party has otherwise shunned political ads on the right-wing news and commentary cable channel. Fetterman faces Dr. Mehmet Oz, Donald J. Trump’s candidate, in November after Oz’s primary opponent, David McCormick, conceded the razor-thin race last week.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

When the Cameras Go Live: A Suggestion for the 1/6 Committee

By Stephen Macaulay

After the word About, there are 2,410 more.

That is the length of the self-description of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Readers of The Hustings aren’t going to read all that (e.g., “Notwithstanding clause 3(m) of rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Select Committee is authorized to study the sources and methods of entities described in clause 11(b)(1)(A) of rule X insofar as such study is related to the matters described in sections 3 and 4.”)

Writers for The Hustings (at least this one) aren’t going to read all that. (I nearly slipped into a snooze just inputting those words above.)

This coming Thursday night, at 8 p.m., the House 1/6 panel will be on prime time. The people on MSNBC are so excited that I’m afraid that some of them will pop a vein.

“Finally!” they and others think, “The American people are going to see and hear the Truth after months and months of the Big Lie.”

If only.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the committee’s chair said last month that the panel’s TV presentation will "use a combination of witnesses, exhibits, things that we have through the tens of thousands of exhibits we've [...] looked at, as well as the hundreds of witnesses we deposed or just talked to in general."

Here’s the thing: If this is orchestrated in any way, shape or form like either of the impeachment procedures for Donald J. Trump were, then the Committee’s show, in the parlance of entertainment, will be a stiff.

There is probably a thought among the Committee members that they must appear to be above reproach.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

But guess what?

They are never going to convince the people who embrace the Big Lie.

They are not going to dissuade the people who saw what happened — probably on TV — on January 6, 2020 and recognized that this wasn’t a group of wayward tourists in any way. And Fox News will not be covering it live.

The objective should be to go as hard at it as those who will be decrying the hearing.

Make it clear. Make it obvious. Make it something that simply states what happened without any whys and wherefores.

Don’t be any more complex than “Here are the dots. Here’s how they are connected.” Period.

The American public isn’t stupid. But the American public needs a simple explanation: Lay it out without trying to be prim, proper and ass-covering.

The Big Lie isn’t based on some Aristotelian logic. Just simple statements, their veracity notwithstanding.

The 1/6 Committee gets one opportunity because if they don’t get it right the first time, the subsequent shows will be overshadowed by any number of infomercials about products no one has any interest in.

_____

Left to You

Scroll down this column for …

•“Protect Us from the NRA” by Ken Zino.

•“Let’s Start with the Facts,” page 2, Ken Zino on expectations for the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Hit the comment button, this column, or email editors@thehustings.news to comment on these or any other recent issues.

We have just followed the advice of Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark to download The Brookings Institution's 100-page guide, Trump On Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality, by Norman Eisen, Donald Ayer, Joshua Perry, Noah Bookbinder and E. Danya Perry. Find it here: https://www.brookings.edu/research/trump-on-trial/

Watch the 1/6 panel’s public hearings this Thursday, and comment via the above.

_____

British PM Hangs On

(MON 6/6/22 PM)

Johnson wins no-confidence vote ... British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won a no-confidence vote of his party's parliament members, 211-148, which means he remains in office despite scandals involving crowded, alcohol-infused parties and cover-up of the same during England's COVID-19 shutdown. The Guardian notes however that the vote means a full 40% of British Parliament's Tories failed to back Johnson. After three years as PM Johnson's short-term future is less than solid. (6/6/22 PM UPDATE.)

•••

Day 103 of Russia’s invasion … President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Ukrainian troops in the city of Lysychansk Sunday in the eastern Donbas region, just south of the fiercest fighting on the main battlefield of Sievierodonetsk, The Guardian reports. Zelenskyy spoke to Ukrainian soldiers and handed out awards, saying “What you all deserve is victory – that is the most important job. But not at any cost.”

•••

U.S. and G.B. … The Senate returns from Memorial Day recess Monday, the House of Representatives comes back to the Capitol on Tuesday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a no-confidence vote by his party’s members of parliament to be held 6-8 p.m. London time (1-3 p.m. Eastern U.S.). Johnson, who has lost much of his party’s confidence over parties he attended during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, needs 180 of 359 of Conservative Party MPs’ confidence to retain his job, the BBC says.

•••

Tuesday primaries … this week are in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

Two-term Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-NY) said Friday he will not run for a third term, fearing a primary challenge from the GOP’s hard-right after he said he’d support a ban on assault weapons and limits on high-capacity magazines following the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, Roll Call reports. Jacobs believes he could not win an August primary challenge in his re-drawn 23^rd District, though he will remain in office to the end of his term in January, and thus will vote on gun regulation legislation expected on the floor of the House next week.

•••

Summit of the Americas … President Biden and Vice President Harris travel to Los Angeles Wednesday to attend the Summit of the Americas, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Biden has banned Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from attending because of their anti-Democratic regimes, which has prompted Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador to boycott the summit.

•••

Prime Time Thursday … The much-awaited -- in some circles -- public hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection begin at 8 p.m. Eastern (5 p.m. Pacific). The committee hopes to break through to a wide swath of Americans to show how close all The Donald’s men (and women) came to bringing down our democracy that day.

ICMYI: The Justice Department announced last Friday it will not issue contempt of Congress charges against Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows or former aide Dan Scavino, prompting 1/6 panel chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and ranking Republican Liz Cheney (WY) to issue a statement that the decision is “puzzling” and asking for more clarity.

Also Friday former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro was charged by federal prosecutors on contempt charges and arrested by the FBI before he could get on a plane to Nashville.

This came three days after a Washington jury quickly acquitted attorney Michael Sussman of making a false statement to the FBI under Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the 2016 Trump-Russia “witch hunt.” Durham was appointed by Trump Attorney Gen. William Barr days before the 2020 presidential election to overturn the narrative on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s influence on Trump’s presidential election victory.

Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) reacted to all this with this in an appearance on Newsmax (per Newsweek): “If you’re a Republican you can’t even lie to Congress or lie to the FBI or they’ll come after you.”

--Todd Lassa

COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Right at You

Scroll down this column for …

•“Guns & Money,” and “A Bullett Doesn’t Acknowledge Political Affiliation,” by Stephen Macaulay.

•“Time to Move On” by RJ Caster and “Servant Cheaters” by Stephen Macaulay, page 2, on expectations for the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Hit the comment button, this column, or email editors@thehustings.news to comment on these or any other recent issues.

Watch the 1/6 panel’s public hearings this Thursday, and comment via the above your opinion.

_____