Last Thursday's January 6th Committee hearing laid the groundwork for the committee’s argument that Trump played a central role in the planning of the insurrection and bears personal responsibility for the deadly attack. Yesterday's hearing buttressed that claim as one Trump inner circle member after the other spilled the beans on how deranged their master was on election night 2020. What was made even more clear is that Trump planned the "election rigging" meme from as early as April as he lashed out against mail voting - deranged outbursts I skewered as soon as they popped out of his pie-hole, e.g.
We were both especially anxious to see and hear Trump former campaign manager Bill Stepien spill it on Trump, but that was not to be. We were informed that Stepien's wife went into labor and he accompanied her to the hospital. Never mind, Stepien’s attorney, Kevin Marino, appeared on his behalf. while the video clips were shown with Stepien (in his earlier deposition). To us they were just as effective- especially given how deftly they were integrated with other accounts by Trump team members. We especially loved it when Stepien said he didn’t mind his team being categorized as ‘Team Normal’.” (Nicole Wallace later in her show, 'Deadline Whitehouse', coyly said: "In Trump World 'normal' is relative. But compared to Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, yes, Stepien's team was 'team normal'.")
Before that, Chairman Bennie Thompson delivered a devastating summation that Trump had an obligation to make court challenges if he believed there was fraud, but also to accept the decisions of the courts. Instead he lost virtually every case – but he instead chose to attack the “rule of law” - ungracious, entitled and deranged brat that he is. As Thompson put it:
“He didn’t have the numbers. He went to court. He still didn’t have the numbers. He lost. He betrayed the trust of the American people. He ignored the will of the voters.”
Adding:
"We’ll tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election and knew he lost an election and, as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy,”
Select committee member Zoe Lofgren also showed how Trump and the Republican political apparatus used the baseless claims of fraud to rake in $250 million from unsuspecting Americans in fundraising, and how the Capitol attack was fueled by those claims perpetuated by Trump.
Over the course of the two-hour hearing, committee members meticulously documented how several of Trump’s senior advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night, as votes were still being counted. The terrific aspect is that nearly all this documentation came from his aides and inner circle's own mouths - including Stepien, daughter Ivanka and Bill Barr - as well as Jason Miller. Former Trump AG William Barr was especially adamant, repeatedly telling the orange maggot that the claims were baseless and saying:
“I told him that the stuff that his people were shuttling out to the public was bullshit. I was somewhat demoralized, because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff … he’s become detached from reality.”
According to Barr, Trump became “indignant” when his lies about the election were contradicted, noting:
“The president was as mad as I’ve ever seen him, and he was trying to control himself. The president said, ‘Well, this is, you know, killing me. You didn’t have to say this. You must’ve said this because you hate Trump.’”
Note the 3rd person reference to 'Trump' which my tenured psychology prof niece Shayl agrees is the sure sign of a narcissistic sociopath. Meanwhile we were also pleased to see Chris Stirewalt, a former political editor for Fox News, unload on the orange baboon. This after he answered Zoe Lofgren's question on what exactly a "red mirage" was. (I.e. a seeming Repub lead early that later vanishes as Dem mail ballots get counted.)
Stirewalt (later fired by FOX for being too honest) testified that Trump had no basis declaring victory on election night. Stirewalt referenced his team''s model in cooperation with the AP and NORC out of Univ. of Chicago - tested repeatedly as real votes were counted against projected one. This gave his team the confidence to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night. Even though it later cost him his job after Trump exploded at the network and its honchos wilted under the orange fury. Once Trump lost Arizona, Stirewalt said, his odds of winning the election were virtually zero as it meant having to take 3 other states in succession "about like winning the Powerball".
But facing the reality of his defeat, Trump chose to behave like a true grifting slimeball, determined to "make lemonade from lemons". Thus he peddled baseless claims of widespread fraud in the election and insisted he needed money to pursue court cases. Between election day and the January 6th attack, the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails, encouraging supporters to donate to the “Election Defense Fund”. One former campaign aide described that fund as a “marketing tactic”, sparking accusations from Lofgren that Trump and his team had misled donors. The last fundraising email was sent just 30 minutes before the Capitol was breached, with Lofgren adding for good measure:
“The
big lie was also a big ripoff,”
The hearing on Monday, which saw Lofgren take a lead role in questioning witnesses instead of committee counsel, comes four days after the panel held its first hearing in prime time. At that first session, the select committee featured shocking and at times emotional testimony from key witnesses- such as officer Caroline Edwards- who have spoken to investigators over the past year.
What's been new to most of us - and which douses the idiocy of the Right's chronic whiners - like Kimberley Strassel about "bias" - is that members of Trump’s own inner circle have exposed him. They've uniformly testified that the brat was repeatedly told his claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that deprived him of victory over Biden were entirely baseless. But unable to be a man and suck it up he instead continued to spread those lies in the weeks leading up to the insurrection. This is the big tough guy that MAGA land loves and who they believe would be tougher than Biden against Putin and Russia. Yet Mr. Macho Orange Man lacked the intestinal fortitude to accept a painful election loss and move on.
If the committee is successful in building its case against Trump, the hearings could deliver a devastating blow to the traitor’s hopes of making a political comeback in the 2024 presidential election. But if Americans are unmoved by the committee’s findings, the country faces the specter of another attempted coup, Thompson warned. Alas that coup is already underway given the first step must be the takeover of congress. And the Reeps are going overboard trying to ding voters' brains into voting them in based on their misinformation about Biden and inflation (see my previous post). In Thompson's words which people need to remember:
“It
all comes down to the numbers. 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.”
Trump never accepted the will of the people the first time, and he doesn't merit any second chance to do so again. Never!
See Also:
by Joan McCarter | June 14, 2022 - 6:47am | permalink
Excerpt:
Remember that famous scene from All the President’s Men, with Deep Throat in the shadows of a parking garage, telling Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward to “follow the money” in order to unlock the conspiracy? Well, the Jan. 6 committee is most definitely following the money, and in doing so potentially building a wire fraud case against Donald Trump and members of his White House staff and campaign, who raised $250 million for a defense fund that did not exist to “fight election fraud”—which also did not exist.
And:
by Amanda Marcotte | June 14, 2022 - 7:11am | permalink
Donald Trump thinks you're an idiot.
That's the message that the Jan. 6 committee sent to Republican voters during Monday's hearing, the second of what could be as many as eight hearings through June. As Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., had promised, the hearing covered the first part of Trump's seven-part plan to steal the election, which was "a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to the American public claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him." Straight from the beginning, Trump voters were portrayed as the primary victims of his Big Lie. Cheney kicked things off by painting the people who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 as Trump's dupes, people who acted on Trump's lies and now are paying for it by going to prison. Quoting the Wall Street Journal, Cheney said, "Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on January 6th. And he is still doing it."
And:
Trump’s aides told him the truth. Now they are finally telling us.
And:
Trump and Fox News told the ‘big lie’ for profit
And:
4 takeaways from the second hearing
And:
by Brandon Gage | June 14, 2022 - 6:57am | permalink
Excerpt:
United States Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed on Monday that he and the Department of Justice are paying extremely close attention to the six public hearings hosted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Garland's remarks come as scores of legal experts express concern and frustration at his apparent reluctance to indict former President Donald Trump for orchestrating a multi-front criminal scheme to remain in power after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
DOJ has maintained virtual radio silence regarding if it is pursuing charges against Trump. Garland has previously stated, however, that he will follow the evidence, wherever it may lead.
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