Tag: House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol

Final 1/6 Hearing? Final Accountability?

By Ken Zino

Pick your detective – Joe Friday of “just the facts” renown or Sherlock Holmes of “Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.” 

Both were present in spirit at the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Thursday afternoon. Chairman Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chair Cheney (R-WY) foreshadowed what was an inevitable move by the panel in their opening remarks after a summer filled with uncontested new information about extreme, pre-meditated and ultimately violent attempts to reverse the legal outcome of the 2020 election by former President Donald J. Trump and his political sycophants. 

First, Thompson: “So, I’ll say to you again as I did in June: this investigation is not about politics. It’s not about party. It’s about the facts, plain and simple. And it’s about making sure our government functions under the rule of law as our Constitution demands. … We will also take a step back and look at that evidence in a broader context providing a summary of key facts we have uncovered. Facts relevant to President Trump’s state of mind. About his motivations and about his intent.

“What did President Trump know? What was he told? What was his personal and substantial role in the multi-part plan to overturn the election?” Thompson said.

Thompson’s Points:

•Most of this evidence comes from Republicans, not from Democrats or Donald Trump’s opponents.

•They are aides who worked loyally for Donald Trump for years: Republican state officials and legislators. Republican electors. The Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Political professionals who worked at the highest levels of the Trump Campaign. Trump appointees who served in the most senior positions in the Justice Department. President Trump’s staff and closest advisors in the White House. Members of President Trump’s family. His own White House counsel.

Cheney’s points:

•“The violence and lawlessness of January 6th was unjustifiable, but our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol. Those who planned to overturn our election, and brought us to the point of violence, must also be accountable. With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former President, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic...

•“He admitted he had lost the election. He took actions consistent to that belief. Claims that President Trump actually believed the election was stolen are not supported by fact and lack evidence. There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped, or irrational. No President can defy the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional republic. Period.” Cheney said. 

No surprise then that at the close of the business meeting (formally, it was not a hearing) Cheney proposed the committee subpoena the ex-president. The resolution passed 9-0. 

Insurrectionist in Chief Trump no doubt will contest the subpoena. In the unlikely event he does appear, he will take the Fifth like the 30 other witnesses when asked about Trump’s role and their own in this plot to overthrow the government. 

No matter what occurs with the committee, yet another unresolved question lingers. It’s the biggest one now that the game is afoot in this Shakespearean tragedy. In my mind, it is only a matter of time before the Department of Justice indicts the Insurrectionist in Chief. Trump will fall into a pit of lies. The pit he dug to try and bury a lawfully elected current president will be his fate in court; United States v. Donald J. Trump.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

1/6 Panel Subpoenas Trump

By Todd Lassa

(PICTURED: Still from a video Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio shot before the January 6 Capitol insurrection, as presented by the Select Committee.)

Donald J. Trump has been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, which in its ninth public hearing (formally, a business meeting) Thursday showed that the former president began his scheme to deny peaceful transfer of power at least as early as July 2020, more than half a year before he lost re-election. Trump also acknowledged privately to White House aides and officials that he had indeed lost the election. 

Among nearly 1 million electronic messages retrieved from the Secret Service are two reports from the “rally” site that agents should wear protective gear to prepare for Trump riding the “Beast” limo to the Capitol after he had been driven back to the White House against his will, and another at 1:25 p.m. that the president “is planning on holding at the White House for the next approximate two hours, then moving to the Capitol.”

Based on the former president’s reputation, Trump’s attorneys will do all they can to fight and at least delay any appearance before the 1/6 panel, which will publish its report by the end of the year. Vice Chair Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) resolution, passed 9-0, subpoenas Donald J. Trump for documents and testimony under oath in connection with the attack. It will not take much legal maneuvering to delay such testimony to next year and the 118th Congress, when Cheney and fellow panel member Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) will no longer be members of the House of Representatives. 

As for Trump’s documents required in the subpoena, during Thursday’s hearing the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the former president’s request to overturn the 11th Circuit District Court’s ruling allowing the Justice Department to review confidential papers that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago last August 8.

It is both a testimony to the depth of evidence and material, which the panel has continued to collect as additional witnesses have come forth, and the lengths to which the former president was willing to go to subvert our democracy to avoid having to leave the White House that made Thursday’s hearing as news-infested as it was. There were no new live witnesses. But the panel does have those Secret Service emails and other electronic communications that were requested at the last hearing, July 21, after it was revealed most of them from January 5 and 6, 2021, were said to be lost after the agency updated its devices.

Secret Service emails on Trump supporters planning to come to the Capitol on January 6, from December 26, 2020:

•“They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped.”

•“Their plan is to literally kill people. Please, please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”

•“The proud boys have detailed their plans on multiple websites such as [Donald Trump-“wins” website].

Brad Parscale, advisor in the 2020 Trump campaign said in video testimony that “Trump planned as early as July he would say he won.”

Panel member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told of how campaign advisor Bill Stepien and White House advisor/son-in-law Jared Kushner wanted Trump to encourage Republicans to vote by mail-in ballot, “but the president’s mind was made up” to claim that mail-in ballots are a key contributor to voter fraud, according to Stepien’s video testimony. On election night, Trump declared victory early and then called on the vote-counting to stop, as ballots came in well into the morning from Democrat-heavy urban areas. 

Trump planned to “declare victory no matter the results,” Lofgren concluded. The panel also produced evidence that Trump did not believe his own Big Lie, even as he was doing all he could to prove his case. 

In another piece of video testimony, Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said Trump told Meadows “I don’t want people to know we lost.”

FRI 10/14/22
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news