The Hang Pence hearing was bad. The DOJ Insurrection hearing was bad. Yesterday’s hearings were brutal if you’re a former president trying to evade responsibility.
Donald Trump knew some in the crowd were armed. He was mad that magnetometers and Secret Service kept them out of his rally. He wasn’t in the least afraid for himself. Who were they there to hurt?
And evidence of trying to intimidate witnesses was also presented.
Politico:
How the Jan. 6 panel's star witness drew a roadmap for Trump’s culpability
Cassidy Hutchinson wasn’t a household name before Tuesday, but it seems unlikely she’ll remain in obscurity after her testimony.
With what may prove the most damning testimony about a sitting president’s actions in American history, the former right hand of ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows stitched together every element of the panel’s case against Donald Trump. The Capitol riot committee has painted the former president’s potential criminal culpability for his effort to overturn the election in stark hues: investigators have portrayed Trump fuming atop an increasingly conspiracy-addled West Wing and working to corrupt the peaceful transfer of power at any cost.
Charles Fishman/Twitter:
Carl Bernstein, who of course helped unravel Watergate, asks a simple but brilliant question:
‘Why was Donald Trump so intent on getting to the Capitol? Why did he want to be there with all those armed people?’
Bernstein (on CNN) goes on to point out…
Trump was so desperate to join the rioters — to lead the rioters — that he bullied his own Secret Service detail.
< Why was Trump so determined to get to the Capitol that day… >
A brilliant investigative reporter’s simple, revealing question.
Lots of twitter reactions to capture the moment.
More to be written about an extraordinary hearing. In the meantime, the real-time tweets capture the real-time amazement.
Jonathan V Last/Bulwark:
Rules and Power and Roe
Making sense of last week.
This is a thought you often hear:
Democrats are in trouble because whatever Joe Biden’s legislative achievements may be, he gives too much rhetorical ground to the left wing of his party.
This is a thought you never hear:
Republicans are in trouble because they attempted a coup on the American government and support for this coup is now an item of dogma for most GOP candidates, at every level of government, nationwide.
Christian Vanderbrouk/The Bulwark:
Notes on an Authoritarian Conspiracy: Inside the Claremont Institute’s “79 Days to Inauguration” Report
Claremont’s post-election war game provides a window into the group’s ambitions.
The sun rises on January 6, 2021 while a nation is in crisis.
Michigan’s presidential electors are in dispute after a mysterious fire in Detroit destroyed thousands of mail-in ballots, ultimately throwing the election to Congress.
The nation’s capital is overwhelmed by riots organized by left-wing radicals.
A Republican member of Congress is attacked and critically injured in the violence, potentially depriving Donald Trump of the decisive vote.
However, the representative heroically insists on being taken to the House floor. “With IVs and blood transfusions being administered, the member casts the deciding vote, giving Trump 26 state delegations and the needed majority.”
This is the grisly climax of a report published in mid-October 2020 by the Claremont Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation’s (TPPF) called “79 Days to Inauguration,” prepared by “Constitutional scholars, along with experts in election law, foreign affairs, law enforcement, and media . . . coordinated by a retired military officer experienced in running hundreds of wargames.”
Philip Bump/WaPo:
Four in five U.S. women never had to navigate the pre-Roe world
Roe v. Wade was in long enough that almost no American woman of child-bearing age experienced life before it
Only 35 million women in America were old enough to be within the childbearing window or older in 1973. That’s about a fifth of the population of female Americans.
Judd Legum/Popular Information:
Ron Johnson lied
Text messages released by the January 6 Committee last week revealed that Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) tried to deliver a list of fake electors directly to former Vice President Mike Pence. This was part of a broader scheme to use Pence's ceremonial role overseeing the certification of the Electoral College to install Trump for a second term.