House Select Committee on 1/6

[pnwguy]

Jun 28, 2022 22:43:44 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jun 28, 2022 22:25:09 GMT pnwguy said:

Holy F*ck. Cassidy Hutchinson had plenty of reason to be worried about her safety. MAGAts will target her for death, for revealing what she did today.

Yeah I'm thinking the witness protection program could be in her future.

Maybe another country.  Dumpster 47 would call Putin up for a Polonium smoothie or his lover Kim, for some nerve agent face cream.  She just dropped a dime on the largest mob boss in the US.  He's likely to want to shoot her on 5th avenue himself, but after bludgeoning her to a pulp first.

[AnBr]

[andydp]

A small spark of sanity is emerging...

GOP Election Denier Tina Peters Loses Colorado Secretary Of State Primary

In March 2021, a grand jury indicted Peters on seven felony charges related to elections. Prosecutors alleged that Peters committed identity theft and other crimes after she used a Colorado voter’s name to provide someone else access to Mesa County’s voting machines, allowing them to download data from the electoral system.

Peters and her deputy, prosecutors said, later shared that information, as well as passwords to election files, with conspiracy theorists who’d promoted the idea that the 2020 election had been stolen from former Trump.



news.yahoo.com/gop-election-denier-tina-peters-022303642.html

[AnBr]

[goldenvalley]

This guy from The Atlantic might be right.

...I suspect that Trump committed serious crimes in the days or weeks after the election, and that no one would call those crimes sedition were it not for what came later. What came later was January 6, a real coup attempt, and on that day Trump outsourced all overt criminality. He avoided firing his own gun at the ceiling. He had bullied allies and enemies and made bad-faith arguments, and now welcomed the murder of the vice president. According to Hutchinson, he asked the Secret Service to remove obstacles to a coup. Does this act amount to insurrection? The Department of Justice, busily investigating Trump’s associates, seems to think the answer is maybe. The House committee has so far declined, wisely, to say either way.

Some people confront these facts and see a stone-cold political criminal. I see a lazy bastard who could not believe his luck—that he had yet again managed to get others to do what he dared not do himself. Maybe Trump will be charged, and maybe those charges will stick. My worry is that what saved American government from existential disaster was not its political institutions (which nearly collapsed) or the honor of its people (who were as nutty and bestial as any). It was the lassitude and cowardice of a single orange-tinted individual who spent most of the coup doing … nothing. The next bastard might not be quite as gutless.

He still conspired to commit insurrection.  I don't think competence is an element of the crime.

[indy]

Jun 28, 2022 17:59:42 GMT goldenvalley said:

Listening to the testimony of the Meadows staff person.  Some interesting stuff about armed folks being spotted during the rally and hearsay on Trump being mad that the rally space looked too thinly populated and asking that the metal detectors be removed from the perimeter because those were his people who wouldn't hurt him.  Lots of hearsay about what a Secret Service guy told her about Trump's behavior in the car on the way from his rally back to the White House when he demanded to go to the Capitol.  I wonder why the SS guy isn't testifying.  

Question answered:

According to the source close to the agency, both Ornato and Engel have appeared before the committee on the record and behind closed doors, at the committee's request. Those sessions were recorded, but not used in Tuesday's hearing.

www.cbsnews.com/news/secret-service-jan-6-committee-trump-cassidy-hutchinson-testimony

Seems likely to me they are already on the record concerning the things Ms. Hutchinson says she heard from them. I find it really hard to believe that they put her out there testifying about these things otherwise.

[LFC]

No wonder they felt yesterday's testimony was important. This is a big shift.

Former President Trump’s speech at the Ellipse was many things — low-class, loaded with conspiracy theories, reckless.

But to many legal elites, it fell short of incitement.

But after the Jan. 6 Committee hearings — and, specifically, after Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony on Tuesday — that view may be starting to change.

Multiple legal commentators and former DOJ officials who had publicly stated, before Tuesday, that Trump’s activities did not meet the exacting legal standard for incitement have now changed their views.

“There’s no question about intent. There are enough pieces of evidence about what Trump did that made this more likely than not,” said Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor at University of Minnesota Law and former attorney-adviser in the DOJ’s National Security Division. “He tried to get the magnetometers removed, tried to get them to march on the Capitol.”

The testimony paints the picture, he said, of knowing wrongdoing by the former president.

It marks a shift for Rozenshtein, mirrored by other legal observers across the political spectrum.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall thinks the House Committee now wishes to pursue further (now justified) investigations. (paywalled)

A number of you have written in to say about the hearings, “No, that wasn’t the big deal. This other thing was the big deal!” In almost every case I find myself agreeing with you. What it comes down to is there was just a huge amount of critical new detail in Hutchinson’s testimony. And it was a challenge to evaluate the significance of it all in real time or organize it on a rank of significance. So TPM Reader KB notes that all the stuff about a war room at the Willard with Rudy and the top crazies starts appearing in a very, very different light if the plan was that Trump was going to go to the Capitol to in some sense lead the confrontation. It definitely seems like that wasn’t just a possibility or something that was discussed but rather definitely Trump’s plan and, one would imagine, what Rudy and his crew thought was going to happen.

TPM Reader EG says that the real news was Giuliani’s role in the prep for January 6th. “The story centered around Giuliani and the preparation on the 2nd, as well as the set-up at The Willard. Trump had a very well-developed reason for wanting to grab the wheel. Sitting in the White House for 3 hours now is seen as the best he could do, having been thwarted by his Secret Service chief.”

We have this sense that Trump was there in the Oval Office watching the TVs, having a predatory thrill seeing the mob terrorize the folks who’d abandoned him. But Hutchinson’s testimony makes it seem like he was probably pissed because his Secret Service detail had ruined the whole plan. He was supposed to be up at the Capitol not stuck back at the White House.

Many of the things we’ve learned are things we basically already knew or strongly suspected. The difference is new testimony which adds more confirmation, something more like proof. The idea that Trump was dead set on going to the Capitol wasn’t my understanding of this at all. So that at least is pretty new to me.

Having sat with this a bit now I think the biggest impact of this testimony may be something different and more general. Many of us have assumed that the committee’s work will play out like this. They did their investigating. Now they are walking us through it in a series of hearings. The public will decide whatever they will decide. A report will be issued. And that’s it.

But the committee leaders have clearly been trying to use the public hearings to create a catalytic effect which furthers the investigatory process. Create a dynamic in which the impact of the hearings breaks loose more information, more testimony, more evidence. So the hearings become not just an account of what was found but a tool for advancing the investigation. They are already very focused on getting Pat Cipollone to testify.

We have all gotten used to how much the GOP and official Washington can absorb and normalize about Trump’s conduct and criminal behavior. But in this testimony today I think the committee may have gotten there. I’m not sure Meadows, Cipollone and others are going to be able to continue refusing to testify. The committee has also increased pressure on the DOJ, though we don’t know just what DOJ already had in the works. The pace had seemed to be quickening on that front before today. The law enforcement side of this remains largely a black box. But on the committee investigation I think they’ve put the holdouts back on their heels.

[LFC]

Gawd, Meadows is such a piece of shit.

As we noted several times in our live coverage of today’s hearing, Meadows responded to frantic alerts from White House and Secret Service officials about the details of what was unfolding with little more than a large shrug. My colleague Josh Kovensky unpacked it well here:

One way of reading his purported silence is sinister: that of a co-conspirator, someone with full foreknowledge of what was going to come, unsurprised by the day’s momentous events and mildly annoyed at those reacting.

The other way of reading him is perhaps more prosaic: too weak to fight back, intent on ignoring the disaster being perpetrated by his boss.

“Mr. Meadows did seek that pardon, yes ma’am,” Hutchinson confirmed, after revealing that Rudy Giuliani sought one as well. It’s hard to know in a super firm way what exactly everyone close to Trump at the time knew and when they knew it. The pardon requests do signal some awareness about the legality of what the crew was doing.

[LFC]

Wait, the DOJ was aware of the plot? W...T...F?

DOJ Was Aware Of Plans To ‘Invade’ Capitol Before Jan. 6

Rep. Cheney just showed fragments of an email sent from the DOJ’s National Security Division to acting Deputy Attorney General Rich Donaghue on Jan. 4.

The email, Cheney said, discussed “apparent planning” by people planning to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, with specific plans to “occupy federal buildings” and conversations about “invading the Capitol buildings.”

That’s uncanny.

Donaghue suggested in a video clip that his perception of the threat was more general: that “thousands of very upset people showing up in Washington D.C.” created the potential for violence.

[LFC]

F***ing Melania.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 30, 2022 18:43:30 GMT LFC said:

Wait, the DOJ was aware of the plot? W...T...F?

DOJ Was Aware Of Plans To ‘Invade’ Capitol Before Jan. 6

Rep. Cheney just showed fragments of an email sent from the DOJ’s National Security Division to acting Deputy Attorney General Rich Donaghue on Jan. 4.

The email, Cheney said, discussed “apparent planning” by people planning to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, with specific plans to “occupy federal buildings” and conversations about “invading the Capitol buildings.”

That’s uncanny.

Donaghue suggested in a video clip that his perception of the threat was more general: that “thousands of very upset people showing up in Washington D.C.” created the potential for violence.

There's more to learn about this I suspect.  But we may have a "failure of imagination" again...plotting is one thing...big 1st Amendment protected talk, no real action expected. Trump trades in hyperbolic speech, so did Bannon and a bunch of others. In hindsight it all looks more sinister.

[LFC]

Ginni Thomas, as big a steaming pile as her husband. (paywalled) Bold is mine.

Earlier this month, Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, made a big show of her willingness and desire to march right up to Capitol Hill and clear her good name before the Jan. 6th investigation committee. Yesterday, her lawyer said the committee just turns out to be too biased. So she won’t be testifying after all.

Two White House security officials who allegedly scuffled with the President in the presidential limousine are now denying through intermediaries what Cassidy Hutchinson said under oath in yesterday’s hearing. But Ginni Thomas’s switcheroo is a good reminder that talk — or rather claims through intermediaries — is cheap. People who claim they are just champing at the bit to testify usually end up refusing to testify.

Indeed, it’s fair to question the journalistic decisions behind some of these reports. Most of us had never heard of Cassidy Hutchinson until a few days ago. Her claims definitely deserve scrutiny. But testimony under oath is the price of entry to this conversation. Indeed, the two men in question, Tony Ornato and Bobby Engel, have been able to get denials into print without even agreeing to speak on the record. In other words, they’ve refused to call up reporters and say, “I never said what she claims and the incident did not happen.” They have been able to get reporters to report that people ‘familiar with their thinking’ say they will deny it. I assure you: They could get their on-the-record quotes into print at the drop of a hat. All it takes is a phone call.

It is worth noting that one of the men has already been accused of lying on Trump’s behalf and both had a reputation of working as Trump’s enablers during his presidency. Indeed, day two reports suggest that the purported denials are perhaps more semantic than substantive, denying that the President “assaulted” the lead Secret Service agent as opposed to denying that there was an irate confrontation in the limousine in which the President demanded to be taking to the Capitol.

Maybe these two will testify. Maybe the story is different than what Hutchinson claimed. But until the two are willing at least to speak on the record, it’s really all meaningless. And her claims are more credible until these two agree to testify about this incident under oath.

[jackd]

A serious question from the beginning has been why there were no back up plans in case of serious violence, either by Capitol Police/DC Police and/or the military with the National Guard. I recall some statements from "Pentagon spokesmen" that they didn't like the optics of the military being visible. This is an area needing lots of investigation.

[LFC]

I've seen that at least one Secret Service agent disputes Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about hearing the story of Trump freaking out in the limo, grabbing the wheel, and grabbing the agent. He actually has a bit of a credibility problem himself. Bold mine. There really is nothing that Trump won't try to corrupt for his own benefit.

A reporter who has written a book on the Secret Service shredded the credibility of a former agent who has pushed back against Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony.

The former White House aide testified that Tony Ornato, who moved from the Secret Service to deputy chief of staff, told her that Donald Trump became irate when his security detail would not take him to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and lunged for the steering wheel of his armored SUV and physically attacked his lead agent, and Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig poured cold water on his denials.

"This is a person who worked as President Trump's security detail leader, and the boss liked him so much he installed him in a political White House job," Leonnig told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "That broke every Secret Service tradition in the book because he stayed as a Secret Service employee, but Trump essentially had him directing the Secret Service to make sure that all of its campaigns events, all of his photo ops, everything that he wanted to do to get re-elected went off without a hitch."

"That included paid rallies that caused COVID surges and included the forcible clearing of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square," Leonnig continued. "Tony was the secret hand behind all of that, and that is what Trump wanted. Trump White House staffers and Secret Service agents have told me repeatedly, he's a Trump acolyte. He will defend the president to the end, and he remains in contact with Trumpworld, so I want to stress that also Tony Ornato has indicated that this story Cassidy Hutchinson told didn't happen. Well, Tony Ornato said a lot of things didn't happen. He tried to say to the press and to me indirectly that the clearing of Lafayette Square was not done for President Trump's photo op, that's not true. He was at the center of that, so I take the points because they're saying in their experience, things that we reported, Tony tried to deny."

[jackd]

Tony needs a good cross examining under oath.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 30, 2022 20:22:11 GMT LFC said:

I've seen that at least one Secret Service agent disputes Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about hearing the story of Trump freaking out in the limo, grabbing the wheel, and grabbing the agent. He actually has a bit of a credibility problem himself. Bold mine. There really is nothing that Trump won't try to corrupt for his own benefit.

A reporter who has written a book on the Secret Service shredded the credibility of a former agent who has pushed back against Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony.

The former White House aide testified that Tony Ornato, who moved from the Secret Service to deputy chief of staff, told her that Donald Trump became irate when his security detail would not take him to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and lunged for the steering wheel of his armored SUV and physically attacked his lead agent, and Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig poured cold water on his denials.

"This is a person who worked as President Trump's security detail leader, and the boss liked him so much he installed him in a political White House job," Leonnig told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "That broke every Secret Service tradition in the book because he stayed as a Secret Service employee, but Trump essentially had him directing the Secret Service to make sure that all of its campaigns events, all of his photo ops, everything that he wanted to do to get re-elected went off without a hitch."

"That included paid rallies that caused COVID surges and included the forcible clearing of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square," Leonnig continued. "Tony was the secret hand behind all of that, and that is what Trump wanted. Trump White House staffers and Secret Service agents have told me repeatedly, he's a Trump acolyte. He will defend the president to the end, and he remains in contact with Trumpworld, so I want to stress that also Tony Ornato has indicated that this story Cassidy Hutchinson told didn't happen. Well, Tony Ornato said a lot of things didn't happen. He tried to say to the press and to me indirectly that the clearing of Lafayette Square was not done for President Trump's photo op, that's not true. He was at the center of that, so I take the points because they're saying in their experience, things that we reported, Tony tried to deny."

Well Ornato seems to be saying the lunging didn't happen, but fails to recognize that all Hutchinson said was that he told her that Trump lunged.  And he apparently made a big point of telling her...calling her into a room to tell her.  Maybe he thought his tale of a forceful Trump would impress her about their fearless leader or that his tale of fending off Trump made Ornato look all manly and stuff.  She's a cute 25 year old after all. 

[LFC]

It appears that there may be a very strong wire fraud case to be made against a number of the Trumpies. And at $250M in fraudulently raised funds it would not be a minor case.

While the Jan. 6 hearings have delivered explosive testimony and evidence suggesting that a number of former administration officials may face criminal liability related to the attack on the Capitol—possibly all the way up to Trump—there’s another potential criminal liability that has largely been lost in the news.

That would be the sprawling wire fraud conspiracy which the Jan. 6 special select committee alleged in its second hearing, on June 13, a scheme which legal experts say contains the ingredients for possible federal charges against officials with the campaign and the Republican National Committee—as well as Trump himself.

The fundamentals of that case may have been lost under the hearing’s success—the instantly viral revelation that Trump had raised $250 million on the Big Lie, much of it for a legal fund that didn’t exist.

But the case they laid out that day is as simple as it is compelling:

• Campaign officials and lawyers eagerly testified that they had told Trump they didn’t believe the claims of fraud

• The campaign team then continued to blast out hundreds of emails raising money off claims that officials, by their own admission, knew to be false

On top of that, many of those emails told supporters that their money would go to a legal fund that didn’t exist.

Former U.S. attorney Barb McQuade, who teaches at the University of Michigan School of Law, called wire fraud prosecutions “bread and butter cases for federal prosecutors.”

“If it can be shown that Trump or others sent an email asking for money for one purpose, and then used it for another, that could constitute fraud, regardless of whether it can be proved that they knew the election had not been stolen,” she said.

Natalie Adams, a partner at Bradley LLP who prosecuted wire fraud cases as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, told The Daily Beast that “the committee’s definitely got something.”

“You don’t get to say things you know to be false,” Adams said, and the testimony of campaign officials copping to their true beliefs could trip the federal wire fraud statute.

[indy]

It appears the story about Trump demanding to go to the Capitol has been circulating for some time. This is the part that conspiracy nuts don't get. To quote something attributed to Benjamin Franklin: Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Then-President Donald Trump angrily demanded to go to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and berated his protective detail when he didn't get his way, according to two Secret Service sources who say they heard about the incident from multiple agents, including the driver of the presidential SUV where it occurred.

The sources tell CNN that stories circulated about the incident -- including details that are similar to how former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described it to the House select committee investigating January 6 -- in the months immediately afterward the US Capitol attack and before she testified this week.

While the details from those who heard the accounts differ, the Secret Service sources say they were told an angry confrontation did occur. And their accounts align with significant parts of Hutchinson's testimony, which has been attacked as hearsay by Trump and his allies who also have tried to discredit her overall testimony.

www.cnn.com/2022/07/01/politics/secret-service-lunging-incident/index.html

[LFC]

Jul 1, 2022 22:30:47 GMT indy said:

It appears the story about Trump demanding to go to the Capitol has been circulating for some time.

I suspect that Trump's pet Secret Service agent, who so quickly denounced Hutchinson's testimony, won't be real anxious to say the same under oath. You know, just like Ginni Thomas.

Hmmmm. I am now coining a new term. Any right-winger who spouts out publicly but refuses to testify under oath to the very same things is "pulling a Ginni." Sure there are lots of Trumpers who predated her but I think pulling a Ginni has a nice ring to it.

[jackd]

Well, the SS says that everyone involved is available for testimony. I hope the committee takes them up on it. Cross examination is a very useful thing!

[goldenvalley]

Jul 3, 2022 16:54:20 GMT jackd said:

Well, the SS says that everyone involved is available for testimony. I hope the committee takes them up on it. Cross examination is a very useful thing!

Ornato resigned from SS to be some sort of political operative for Trump. Unless he was reinstated/rehired I don't think he's part of SS anymore.

[indy]

What I read is that Engel was already deposed. In that deposition, he basically said that Trump demanded to be taken to the Capitol, but that it was BEFORE Hutchinson spoke up, so nobody thought at the time to ask Engel about a physical altercation.

[jackd]

I think that's right.

[LFC]

The prediction that Hutchinson's public testimony might encourage more people to come forth and do the same appears to be coming true.

More Bombshells On The Horizon?

The House Jan. 6 Committee has subpoenaed Sarah Matthews, the Trump White House’s deputy press secretary who resigned immediately after the Capitol attack, who’s agreed to testify publicly in front of the panel as soon as next week, according to CNN.

• Matthews has defended Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to Mark Meadows, as “anonymous sources” seek to downplay the Hutchinson’s blockbuster testimony.

• Matthews already appeared in front of the committee for a voluntary interview behind closed doors in February, according to several reports at the time.

Maybe we'll see more and more who find their patriotism and common decency. Hopefully the hearings will continue well into the fall, reminding real Americans just what the Republican Party represents.