Ready for Thursday’s eighth hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol? Read our coverage and analysis of the first seven hearings, with commentary by Stephen Macaulay and Ken Zino by scrolling down this page, and on to Pages 2, 3 and 4.
Leave your own comments on the hearings and/or other political news and issues in the comments sections or email us at editors@thehustings.news.
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The House Select Committee … concentrates tonight on ex-President Trump’s 187 minutes of radio silence during the January 6th attack on the Capitol, with the panel’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) tuning in virtually because he has COVID-19.
Hearing VIII: Begins 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday. Read our coverage/analysis and commentary Friday in this space. Add your comments in the boxes in any of these three columns, or email editors@thehustings.news.
Expected to testify live Thursday are Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security advisor, who resigned the White House on January 6, 2021, and Sarah Matthews, former press aide. The Select Committee has not confirmed these names.
Report due: The 1/6 panel has confirmed it will publish an interim report on the Capitol attack in September.
About those Secret Service texts: The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog Office of Inspector General learned last February that the Secret Service had killed most of the smartphone texts related to January 6, The Washington Post scoops, citing sources familiar with the situation. The Inspector General’s office also was ready to issue a public report in October 2021 that the Secret Service was stonewalling on requests for records and texts in connection to the Capitol insurrection, WaPoreports.
Can’t happen again?: Bipartisan groups of Senators proposed two bills designed to reform the 1887 Electoral College Act and end any doubt that an incumbent presidential candidate, like Donald J. Trump, could disrupt the Electoral College count (per Roll Call). The Electoral College Reform Act, sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) would require at least one-fifth of both the House and Senate to object to a single state’s Electoral College votes, up from the current requirement of a single Congress member, as per the 1887 law. The Collins/Manchin bill also would remove an 1845 law that allows a state legislature to declare a “failed election” and specify that the date of a presidential election could be moved for “extraordinary and catastrophic events.”
Eight more Republicans and five Democrats have joined Collins and Manchin in supporting this potential closing of loopholes that some historians warned of prior to the November 2020 presidential election. A second and complementary bill, supported by five Republicans and seven Democrats, would double the maximum federal penalty to two years in prison for anyone convicted of intimidating or threatening election officials, poll watchers, voters or candidates, and boost penalties for stealing, destroying, concealing or altering election results, to a $10,000 fine and two years in prison, Roll Call reports.
The two bills will advance through two different Senate committees.
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Speaking of the above … Donald J. Trump’s attorney and former America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney for District Attorney Fani Willis’ grand jury investigation of the former president’s alleged Electoral College tampering in Georgia, according to Politico. Queue the recording of Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; “I just want 11,780 votes … .”
Speaking of the above, Part II: The government rested Wednesday in its Contempt of Congress case against former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, after calling a congressional staffer and an FBI agent to the stand, The Washington Post reports. Defense countered that Bannon had been speaking with the House Select 1/6 panel as recently as last week, and that the defendant was negotiating, and not refusing, to hand in documents or testify.
--Todd Lassa
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...meanwhile...
(WED 7/20/22)
Georgia AG targets false electors … As Democratic frustration continues to build over U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s lack of action while the House Select Committee investigates the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis has deemed 16 Republicans who falsely signed Electoral College certificates in late 2020 to be criminal “targets,” (per Politico). Willis revealed the determination in a court filing to fend off a legal move to disqualify her from leading the grand jury investigating the effort to overturn Georgia’s Electoral College vote for Joe Biden. The filing was by one of the alleged false electors, Burt Jones, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor for the state.
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MAGA Republican wins Maryland primary … Term-limited Gov. Mark Hogan is a popular moderate Republican in an otherwise deep-blue state, but his hand-picked successor, Kelly Shulz, is projected to lose the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday to Trump-backed state legislator Dan Cox, the AP reports. Cox had criticized Hogan’s “restrictive and protracted” COVID-19 lockdown efforts, and unsuccessfully sought to impeach him over the issue.
With provisional and mail-in ballots yet to be counted, the Democratic race is too close to call, AP says, with Oprah Winfrey-backed celebrity author Wes Moore leading Tom Perez, Labor secretary for the Obama administration who served as Democratic National Committee chairman during the Trump administration.
Upshot: Hogan was an early moderate Republican critic of then-President Trump and is considered a likely candidate for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
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Latest on those Secret Service texts … The Secret Service claims deleted texts from January 6, 2021, are not recoverable, The Washington Post reports. The National Archives has called on the agency to report back within 30 days about their “potential unauthorized deletion.”
--Todd Lassa
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(TUE 7/19/22)
Georgia AG targets false electors … As Democratic frustration continues to build over U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s lack of action while the House Select Committee investigates the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis has deemed 16 Republicans who falsely signed Electoral College certificates in late 2020 to be criminal “targets,” (per Politico). Willis revealed the determination in a court filing to fend off a legal move to disqualify her from leading the grand jury investigating the effort to overturn Georgia’s Electoral College vote for Joe Biden. The filing was by one of the alleged false electors, Burt Jones, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor for the state.
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MAGA Republican wins Maryland primary … Term-limited Gov. Mark Hogan is a popular moderate Republican in an otherwise deep-blue state, but his hand-picked successor, Kelly Shulz, is projected to lose the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday to Trump-backed state legislator Dan Cox, the AP reports. Cox had criticized Hogan’s “restrictive and protracted” COVID-19 lockdown efforts, and unsuccessfully sought to impeach him over the issue.
With provisional and mail-in ballots yet to be counted, the Democratic race is too close to call, AP says, with Oprah Winfrey-backed celebrity author Wes Moore leading Tom Perez, Labor secretary for the Obama administration who served as Democratic National Committee chairman during the Trump administration.
Upshot: Hogan was an early moderate Republican critic of then-President Trump and is considered a likely candidate for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
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Latest on those Secret Service texts … The Secret Service claims deleted texts from January 6, 2021, are not recoverable, The Washington Post reports. The National Archives has called on the agency to report back within 30 days about their “potential unauthorized deletion.”
--Todd Lassa
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
And write this way, to add your civil comments on hearings by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. Hearing VIII begins 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday on most news channels and online (or check C-Span, like we do). You can find coverage and analysis plus commentary by Ken Zino and Stephen Macaulay by scrolling down this page, and by going to Pages 2, 3 and 4.
Submit your opinion, civilly, in the comments box in any of these columns, or email editors@thehustings.news.
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Scroll down this page and turn to Pages 2, 3 and 4 to read our complete coverage and analysis on all seven hearings held so far by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, featuring left-column commentary by Ken Zino and right-column commentary by Stephen Macaulay.
Leave your own comments on the hearings and/or other political news and issues in the comments sections or email us at editors@thehustings.news.
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
(Fauci, pictured ... scroll down for story)
PM UPDATE
Texts ‘unrecoverable?’ … The U.S. Secret Service delivered “thousands of pages of documents” but not the requested texts related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection to the House Select committee investigating the attack, The New York Times reports. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Gugliemi said the phone records are probably not recoverable.
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House marriage equality bill gets some GOP support … The House of Representatives passed the Respect for Marriage Act to protect LGBTQ+ rights by a 267-157 vote, with 47 Republicans voting with all the Democrats, The Hill reports. The bill is a reaction to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ warning that gay marriage rights are next, after the court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Considering that relatively strong support by House Republicans, the question now is whether at least 10 Republicans help move the bill through the Senate without threat of filibuster – which would deflate Democrats ability to use the issue in the November midterms.
--T.L.
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(MON 7/18/22)
Deleted text messages expected today … The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection expects to receive deleted January 5 and 6, 2021, text messages today from the U.S. Secret Service, according to committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), a committee member. The committee subpoenaed the texts last Friday after learning the messages had been deleted as part of a device-replacement program.
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Fauci retires … Hero of the pandemic maskers, foil of pro-MAGA media Anthony Fauci (above) announced he will “almost certainly” leave his job as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says The New York Times. Fauci, 81, the top medical advisor to presidents Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump says he has a time frame in mind for when to step down and it almost certainly will be prior to the end of Biden’s current term in January 2025.
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White House aides to testify … Matthew Pottinger, ex-President Trump’s deputy national security advisor and Sarah Matthews, a former press aide, will testify during Thursday in the House Select Committee’s eighth, and potentially final televised hearing into the January 6 Capitol attacks, the Associated Press reports, citing an anonymous source. The hearing scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday will investigate Trump’s actions or lack thereof as he sat in the White House and watched his followers beat police officers and breach the Capitol to stop the Electoral College vote procedings.
--Todd Lassa
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
Did the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, deserve the criticism and acrimony from Fox News and other right-wing media over his pushback on former President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic? Leave your comments on this or any other recent issues – including our coverage, analysis and commentary by Stephen Macaulay and Ken Zino on the January 6 hearings -- in the comments section, or email editors@thehustings.news.
Find coverage of and commentary on last Tuesday’s seventh hearing by scrolling down this page. Hearings V and VI are on page 2. Hearings III and IV are on page 3, and coverage of and commentary on the first two hearings are on page 4.
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Can Senate Democrats get anything done before the November 3 midterms? Does the party have any chance of holding on to its paper-thin Senate majority, or even expand it to overcome the blocking votes of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ)?
Let us know your thoughts, and whether you lean left or lean right, by hitting the comments box in any of these columns (unlike Facebook or Twitter, subject to moderation), or with an email to editors@thehustings.news.
Tune in Friday for our coverage and commentary on the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’s eighth public hearing, scheduled for Thursday, July 21, at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
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(MON 7/18/22)
Sanders takes on Manchin … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is “intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what the majority of us in the Democratic caucus want,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)(pictured), told Martha Raddatz on ABC News’ This Week Sunday. “Nothing new about that.”
Indeed, Manchin, with his fellow centrist/center-right Democratic colleague, Krysten Sinema, of Arizona, put the White House and their party’s Senate leadership through the legislative wringer last year, just to get $1.2-trillion in spending passed in the bipartisan infrastructure bill before fully torpedoing President Biden’s Build Back Better social infrastructure proposal in the fall. All this came about after a last-minute Democratic win by Georgia’s two run-off candidates gave the party the vice president-tiebreaker majority on January 4, 2021.
“And the problem is we continue to talk about Manchin like he was serious,” Sanders continued. “He was not.”
The Vermont senator also criticized Biden himself for his just-concluded trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, where the big takeaway was the president’s fist-bump greeting with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Biden says he raised the issue of Riyadh’s dismal human rights record, including the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence investigations have pinned Khashoggi’s brutal killing on bin Salman, which the crown prince has repeatedly denied. Biden came away from his meeting with nine Arab leaders last weekend not with a deal for lower oil prices but with a commitment to the nations to counter Chinese, Russian and Iranian influence in the region, The New York Times reports.
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‘Multiple systemic failures’ … That’s the initial assessment of the bi-partisan three-member Texas House Investigative Committee on the Uvalde Shooting. More than 375 law enforcement officers from various federal, state and local agencies waited for more than an hour to take down the shooter in the Robb Elementary attack, in which 19 fourth graders and two teachers were killed.
“There was a lack of overall effective command that day,” said committee chairman Dustin Burrows, Republican state House member from Lubbock, in the panel’s first public press conference Sunday.
“That day, several officers in that hallway (at Robb Elementary) knew or should’ve known there was active shooting,” Burrows said. “They should have done more.”
Burrows, state Rep. Joe Moody (D-El Paso) and Eva Guzman, a former judge and the non-partisan member of the committee, began investigating the mass shooting 44 days ago. Guzman said one mistake already identified is the lack of a commanding officer to organize the response. The committee, going forward, will study which of the officers present were trained to understand that the shooter was active for as much as an hour after they arrived before they could put a stop to the shooting.
--Todd Lassa
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
When Steve Bannon last week took a 180-degree turn and agreed to testify in his contempt of Congress trial beginning Monday, he promised a “misdemeanor from hell” for the Biden administration, confirming that the Trump confidant-turned-podcaster had indeed planned to represent for the former president. After all, Donald J. Trump was now lamenting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) refusal to appoint any MAGA-leaning Republicans to the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
But U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols late last week put the kibosh on the legal defense Bannon’s attorney had planned, The Washington Post reports. This was the judge’s “lawyerly way” of recommending Bannon take a plea deal rather than “face long odds at a short trial,” a law professor told WaPo.
Your civil, respectful comments, whether pro-MAGA or anti-Trump, on Bannon’s trial and the upcoming eighth hearing by the United States Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, and on any of the first seven hearings are welcome here. Just fill in a comment box in one of the columns (unlike Facebook or Twitter, subject to moderation) or email editors@thehustings.news.
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Scroll down this page to read center-column coverage of the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’s sixth and seventh hearings. Coverage of earlier hearings are on subsequent pages.
In this column below you will find contributing pundit Ken Zino’s comments on Hearing VII, “More than Every Crime Imaginable” and Hearing VI, “The Beast within the Beast.”
The 1/6 panel’s Hearing VIII is scheduled for prime time on Thursday, July 21. Tune in for our coverage and commentary.
Submit your own opinions in the column’s comments box or email editors@thehustings.news.
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(FRI 7/15/22)
Secret Service erasure … The Secret Service erased some texts from January 5 and January 6, 2021, after the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general asked for them, the IG said in a letter to the House Select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. The letter was first sent to the House and Senate homeland security committees, according to The Intercept, which scooped the story. The Secret Service’s excuse is that the texts were deleted as the result of a “device-replacement program” and says they were not erased maliciously.
Note: Always back up your files.
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Manchin muscles out Biden agenda … After months of negotiations in attempt to save key parts of the White House agenda already watered down from last year’s Build Back Better, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has rejected most of President Biden’s economic plans, The New York Times reports. Manchin told party leaders he will not support the agenda’s energy and climate provisions, nor plans for raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.
Reminder to progressive Democrats: No, you never did have a mandate.
•••
Trump’s in … Thursday we led off with an item from The Washington Post that Republicans are worried it would hurt chances of taking over the Senate and House if ex-President Trump were to announce for 2024 by this autumn. Well, he hasn’t announced – officially. But really he has.
“I’ve already made that decision,” Trump told New York magazine’s Olivia Nuzzihttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/donald-trump-2024-decision.html. Cue the Trump rallies.
•••
Obituary: Ivana Trump … Czech-American businesswoman and first wife of Donald J. Trump, Ivana Trump, died Thursday at her Manhattan home, the ex-president announced on his social media site, Truth Social. New York Police were investigating whether she fell down the stairs at her Upper East Side townhouse, The New York Times reports. Born Ivana Marie Zelnickova, she was married to “The Donald” (she came up with the moniker) from 1977 to 1990, when a highly publicized affair between her husband and Marla Maples (who became his second wife) contributed to divorce proceedings. The mother of Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, she was a critical part of building The Donald’s real estate empire, including Trump Towner Manhattan and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Ivana Trump was 73.
--Todd Lassa
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(THU 7/14/22)
Trump may announce for ’24 this fall … Ex-President Donald J. Trump is looking to this fall to announce his campaign for president in 2024, The Washington Post reports. Some Republicans have been urging him to wait until after the midterms to avoid diminishing the GOP’s chances of retaking majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Trump’s slate of endorsed primary candidates have had mixed results at best, so far. WaPo sourced two Trump advisors who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity.
It’s all about timing: The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection has scheduled Public Hearing VIII for prime time Thursday, July 21, but chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says there may be more hearings in August. Does Trump believe he can invoke some form of executive privilege as a candidate before the Justice Department might issue any indictments?
Good news for Biden?: With the president’s polls at record lows, inflation at record highs, and even a majority of Democrats looking for a different presidential candidate in two years, Trump’s announced candidacy may be the only savior for Biden, writes Charlie Sykes <https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/the-one-thing-that-could-save-joe?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> in The Bulwark.
•••
Not waiting ‘forever’ on Iran deal … The U.S. “is not going to wait forever” for Iran to rejoin the dormant nuclear arms deal, President Biden said Thursday in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem at the beginning of his visit to the Middle East. On Wednesday Biden said he would be willing to use force against Tehran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons, a statement pounced on by conservative commentators in the U.S.
“I continue to believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome,” Biden said, according to NPR. The White House has made it a priority to revive a nuclear arms deal with Iran after then-President Trump abandoned the two-year-old Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018.
•••
Russia has deported 900,000 Ukrainians, U.S. says … Russia has deported “at least” 900,000 Ukrainians from Russian-occupied regions, including about 260,000 children, many of whom may be placed for adoption, WaPo reports. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called the deportations a “filtration” of opponents in the regions of Ukraine held by Russian forces.
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CPI up 9.1% annually … By now you’ve been bombarded with all sorts of reasons why the Consumer Price Index hit another new high of 9.1% for June, with gas/diesel, shelter and food the biggest contributors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (reported Wednesday). There now is speculation among business media outlets that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates by a full point when it meets again before the end of the month.
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First Black person’s statue … Dr. Mary McCloud Bethune (1875-1955) became the first Black person represented in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Wednesday (pictured above), replacing a Confederate general’s likeness. Bethune was an educator, philanthropist and civil rights organizer who founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and led other Black women’s organizations.
--Todd Lassa
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
Whether you agree with never-Trump pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s right-column opinions on the U.S. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’s hearings or want to defend the former president, we want to hear from you.
Submit your opinions in this column’s comments box or email editors@thehustings.news.
Scroll down for center-column coverage the 1/6 panel’s sixth and seventh hearings on this page, and coverage of earlier hearings on subsequent pages.
In this column below, scroll down for Macaulay’s comments on Hearing VII, “Enough” and on Hearing VI, “What Real Americans Think and Do.”
Coverage of earlier hearings are on subsequent pages.
The 1/6 panel’s Hearing VIII is scheduled for prime time on Thursday, July 21. Tune in for our coverage and commentary.
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By Ken Zino
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack once again advanced its case that Donald Trump knowingly sent an armed and dangerous mob to the Capitol in furtherance of his Big Lie, abundantly refuted by his attorney general, and White House counsel, among many other senior aides.
Testimony today came after leaders and members of the Oath Keepers (ex-military veterans, many of them trained to kill), as well as the Proud Boys (an extremist hate group not known hitherto for a proclivity to cooperate with other groups) cooperated in the January 6 attack. How is it that they came to be working together?
Once again Rep. Elizabeth Cheney (R-WY) provided an enhanced timeline and more details culled from testimony that Trump was hell-bent on staying in power. Cheney ended with yet another challenge to the Department of Justice to indict Trump for seditious conspiracy.
For me it’s come to this: Our democracy has come off the rails. The wreckage is so devastating that the voice of reason is Cheney, a right-wing Republican with family genes that have shown a ruthless pursuit of power by questionable means. For this moment of constitutional crisis, though, she will do as a senior leader of whatever is left of the endangered GOP.
Video-recorded witnesses described how Trump tried to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate the election over the objections of White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Powell is an unqualified attorney and sycophant who would tell Trump whatever he wanted to hear, and apparently was ready to take whatever illegal steps were necessary to please him.
“We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that then-President Donald Trump lost in a free and fair election,” committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) said in her opening. “And yet, President Trump insisted that his loss was due to fraud in the election process, rather than to the democratic will of the voters. The president continued to make this claim despite being told, again and again, by the courts, by the Justice Department, by his campaign officials, and by some of his closest advisors, that the evidence did not support this assertion…”
President Trump relentlessly pursued multiple, interlocking lines of effort, all with a single goal: to remain in power despite having lost. The lines of effort were aimed at his loyal vice president, Mike Pence; at state election and elected officials; and at the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The evidence shows that, once this occurred, President Trump -- and those who were willing to aid and abet him -- turned their attention to the Joint Session of Congress scheduled for January 6th, at which the Vice President would preside. In their warped view, this ceremonial event was the next, and perhaps the last, inflection point that could be used to reverse the outcome of the election before Mr. Biden’s inauguration,” Murphy said.
Finally Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) likened the post-election events leading to the armed Jan 6th insurrection as “Three rings of interwoven attack…
“On the inside ring, Trump continued trying to work to overturn the election by getting Mike Pence to abandon his oath of office and assert the unilateral power to reject electoral votes. This would have been a fundamental and unprecedented breach of the Constitution that would promise Trump multiple ways of staying in office.
“Meanwhile, in the middle ring, members of domestic violent extremist groups created an alliance, both online and in person, to coordinate a massive effort to storm, invade and occupy the Capitol. By placing a target on the Joint Session of Congress, Trump had mobilized these groups around a common goal, emboldening them, strengthening their working relationships, and helping build their numbers.
“Finally, in the outer ring, on January 6th there assembled a large and angry crowd, the political force that Trump considered both the touchstone and the measure of his political power. For millions of Americans, that may be painful to accept. But it is true,” Raskin concluded.
Well, the rings that come to my mind are Dante’s rings of hell. Our democracy needs to be rid of Trump and his ilk so we all don’t end up in the nether inferno regions dictated by tyrants. DOJ what are you waiting for?
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
By Todd Lassa
Tuesday’s 1/6 panel hearing took us from an “unhinged” late-night post-election White House shouting match over a wild plan to overturn Joe Biden’s win to how extremist, white supremacist groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and QAnon tried to use force to back then-President Donald Trump’s attempt to make his vice president reject Electoral College results.
“What it was going to be was an armed revolution,” Jason Van Tatenhove (above, right), a former spokesman for Oath Keepers, told the committee in live testimony Tuesday afternoon. “I mean, people died that day.” Law enforcement officers were attacked and injured, he said. “There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the start of a new civil war, and no one would have won that day.”
Van Tatenhove was not at the Capitol January 6, 2021 — he left the extremist group’s employ years earlier after listening to members speak about the Holocaust not being real. But he described how a successful insurrection on January 6 would have given Oath Keepers founder and then-president Stewart Rhodes “a path forward” to become a paramilitary leader at Trump’s right hand.
The Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other extremist groups who had coalesced at the Capitol on January 6 had attempted to overturn the election by force only after Trump and his allies in the plot had failed to advance a plan for the lame-duck president to declare martial law and seize voting machines.
This hearing laid out how the desperation of Trump and his closest allies to overturn the election turned into a collaboration with violent racist, extremist groups on January 6. The House Select committee began by describing a late-night meeting December 18, 2020, in which Michael Flynn, the retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served as national security adviser for the first 22 days of the Trump administration; Sidney Powell, the former federal prosecutor who has emerged as central to Trump’s efforts to retain power; former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani; Trump official Emily Newman; and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne held a loud meeting with Trump and his White House aides arguing that the presidential election was stolen and that Venezuela, China, and other countries manipulated voting machines to change ballots to benefit Biden.
The group presented a draft order written two days earlier that said “effective immediately, the secretary of Defense shall seize voting machines.” Plans also would have named Powell special prosecutor to investigate voter fraud.
Various witnesses in videotaped testimony, including Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and senior adviser Eric Herschmann, described the meeting as a shout-fest, with administration aides exchanging insults with Flynn, Powell, Giuliani, Newman and Byrne.
Cipollone, from eight hours of video testimony taken last Friday, said he and other White House aides in the meeting reacted to repeated suggestions of voter fraud from the group by seeking evidence.
“Put up or shut up,” Cipollone said. To “have the federal government seize voting machines? That was a terrible idea. I don’t understand why we have to tell you that’s a bad idea, a terrible idea.”
On a plan to name Powell special prosecutor, Cipollone told the 1/6 committee, “I don’t think she should be appointed to anything.”
By the time this shouting match moved from the West Wing to the Yellow Oval room in the presidential living quarters Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who became a heroine with her live testimony in the sixth 1/6 hearing, texted Secret Service official Tony Ornato that the meeting had become “unhinged.”
It broke up after midnight.
Although the White House aides and their rational approach prevailed, Trump December 19 tweeted out an invite to the “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th … . Be there, will be wild!”
A former Twitter comments moderation employee, appearing anonymously by video, described how the social media company let through a flood of tweets describing a gathering of arms by Trump supporters ahead of the January 6 insurrection and how Twitter has culpability for a deadly riot.
Stop the Steal founder Ali Alexander, Infowars’ Alex Jones, and Oath Keepers’ president Stewart Rhodes led the way.
Rhodes considered himself the leader of a paramilitary group that would support Trump after overthrowing the government January 6, said Van Tatenhove, the former Oath Keepers spokesman, even though Rhodes described the group as “not a militia,” but a “community preparedness team” or “veterans’ support group.”
Stephen Ayres (above, left) of Warren, Ohio, who pled guilty to breaching the Capitol that day testified alongside Van Tatenhove, saying he did not plan to march to the Capitol until Trump told the crowd he would lead the way.
“I lost my job, pretty much sold my house,” Ayres told the committee. “It changed my life and not for the good… . I consider myself a family man and I love my country, and I don’t think any one man is bigger than (that).”
The committee’s vice chairman, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) used her closing remarks to warn again of potential witness tampering by former President Trump. She revealed that after last week’s hearing, Trump attempted to call a future witness who has not yet testified, but the witness passed the message on to their attorney.
“We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said.
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news
By Stephen Macaulay
It opened and should have closed at that point.
Liz Cheney pointed out that Donald Trump is 76 years old. And she added, “He is not an impressionable child.”
She further suggested that given the amount of information that Trump was given about his loss of the election, it is hard to imagine that a “rational or sane man” could conclude that it was otherwise.
Two points to keep in mind:
Let’s not overthink any of this: The man knew what he was doing and the man knew that he had lost. And the man showed a contemptuous disregard for the Constitution of the United States and what it stands for.
Make America Great Again?
He and his enablers should be ashamed of themselves.
“You guys are a bunch of pussies.”—America’s Former Mayor and now disgraced buffoon Rudy Giuliani talking to the White House legal team on December 18.
Giuliani said in testimony that he thought they weren’t being tough enough.
What does that mean?
Well, perhaps being tough enough referred to the draft memo that proposed the Department of Defense seize voting machines. That Sidney Powell become special counsel that would provide her with the means to prosecute. . .who?
December 18 gave way to December 19, the day that Trump put out the Tweet that concludes “Be there, will be wild!”
What is somewhat more troubling are the preceding words, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.”
Consider that for a moment. The President of the United States was calling for a protest in Washington, D.C.
What is it that they were to be protesting against?
Law and order? Congress doing its job? The vice president doing his job?
What?
The man is not a child. The man, assuming that he was telling the truth when he boasted that he passed the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (“I got a perfect mark. And the doctors were — they said: Very few people can do that. Very few people get that,” which is certainly a dubious claim given that the test is given for screening for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and more people don’t have those dread conditions than do, so obviously more than “Very few people get that”), knew what it was all about: Trying to keep his job, a job that the American people said that he no longer was meant to keep.
Alex Jones. Oath Keepers. A string of other extremist social media personalities. They were all-in for Trump. (And let’s not be naïve: These people will still be all-in regardless of whatever is exposed by the committee: Trump could probably confess to understanding what he did and they’d claim that it was either a Deep Fake or a clever coded message to stand back and stand by.)
There was the violence we all witnessed.
And there was his video: “We love you. You’re very special.”
Let’s say for the sake of argument that there is no legal liability that Trump faces.
(Although one thinks about sedition, which is defined in 18 U.S.C § 2384 as “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.,” it is hard to think about what they were plotting in the White House on December 18 if not that.)
When will those who swear an oath to defend the Constitution, when will those who want a strong and safe America, when will those who uphold decorum and decency, when will those who believe in reality and truth simply say, “Enough”?
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