House Select Committee on 1/6

[goldenvalley]

Here's an interesting long read from NYT on the Select Committee workings.  I wonder at some of the decisions, like apparently not looking into the various House members and Senators who seem implicated in the fake elector slate thing and giving "tours" on Jan. 5.  

A moment of local pride too, a young woman from my town, my neighborhood, who was in one of my kids' graduating class is specifically mentioned in the article. She was a communications person and I'm looking forward to her tell all book someday.  I know her father made a game of trying to get her to talk about what she was learning...she resisted.

[LFC]

I do love watching them eat their own. It's almost as if they had no real principles at all, just opportunistic grift.

Jan 6. “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander tossed right-wing activist Charlie Kirk under the bus during his closed-door deposition with the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot over a year ago, newly released transcripts reveal.

In documents posted Tuesday, Alexander wasn’t shy about doling out blame to seemingly everyone but himself during the meeting with House investigators—while at the same time citing sudden memory lapses that clouded his recollection of the events leading up to that day.

He blamed Kirk and his conservative youth organization, Turning Point USA, for financing the travel of rioters from a number of points across the country to Washington, D.C., where they proceeded to violently break into the Capitol building and assault dozens of police officers in the process.

He cited the group’s bus network that transported Jan. 6th activists to Washington—and conveniently absolved himself of any blame for bringing hundreds of rioters to the scene.

“I think it was my understanding that it was ran through Turning Point USA,” Alexander said, according to the deposition transcript. He denied any involvement, except for the fact that TPUSA was using his “popular” Stop the Steal branding.

He went on to respond “yes” to a Jan 6. committee representative stating: “It sounds like you’re saying that to the extent that buses were paid for, with the exception of one possible one that you may have had for Stop the Steal, your involvement in the buses was basically to advertise Turning Point’s offering of the bus.”

But he didn’t stop there—on Tuesday night, Alexander doubled down on Kirk’s culpability for the riot.

“I wonder how Charlie Kirk escaped any scrutiny when he made us bus in all those people on his funded buses,” he told The Daily Beast. “Fortunately, he’s losing donors and popularity while gaining face weight. Disgusting!”

[LFC]

Mark Meadows needs to go to prison for a long, long, LONG time.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told Jan. 6 committee investigators that she saw then-chief of staff Mark Meadows burn documents in a fireplace several times after Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, according to a transcript released Tuesday. She said she witnessed the incidents between December 2020 and mid-January 2021, and that it happened “roughly a dozen times.” Hutchinson said the document-burning often happened in Meadows’ office after he’d had a meeting, at which point he’d toss documents into the fireplace and set them ablaze. Though she said she did not know what the documents were, she noted that the burnings had happened twice after Meadows met with Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania who has been linked to Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss.

[goldenvalley]

I wonder if any of the information gained from interviewing the people involved in various aspects of the insurrections is reaching the people who are inclined to believe Trump.  We have seen the "normies" that were stirred up enough by Trump rhetoric to get on those buses and travel to DC that day. Many of them broke no laws but they took time out of their lives to go support their hero and champion.  Are they and those like them reading the things we are reading?

[goldenvalley]

It's pouring rain today so I decided to read a transcript of an interview with a communications person in the Trump White House...Alyssa Farah Griffin.  Interesting reading from someone who I am sure is trying to make herself look like a good and a true professional amongst a lot of amateurs.  (She did comms for the Freedom Caucus and is on first name basis with some of the yahoos in it so I am skeptical about her judgment and perspective.) But she joined the Trump White House only in 2020 and resigned on Dec. 4.  Not much info on the run up to Jan 6 but a lot about the players and interactions among names we all recognize.  

[andydp]

Dec 28, 2022 17:33:13 GMT goldenvalley said:

I wonder if any of the information gained from interviewing the people involved in various aspects of the insurrections is reaching the people who are inclined to believe Trump.  We have seen the "normies" that were stirred up enough by Trump rhetoric to get on those buses and travel to DC that day. Many of them broke no laws but they took time out of their lives to go support their hero and champion.  Are they and those like them reading the things we are reading?

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

Soren Kierkegaard

[LFC]

This is an opinion piece on what the committee missed in their report from somebody who was in the thick of things.

Opinion | What the Jan. 6 Committee Report Left Out

The Capitol attack was a massive failure by law enforcement and intelligence. We can’t let it happen again.

Donell Harvin is a homeland security expert and educator with over 30 years of public safety service. He oversaw the Fusion Intelligence Center for the District of Columbia on Jan. 6, 2021. Follow him on Twitter @donell_harvin

The House Select Committee’s report on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack asks readers to suspend their belief in reality. Fault is found only with former President Donald Trump’s actions — no blame is given to the inactions of federal security officials.

But Jan. 6 was not simply the story of a failed politician and his supporters’ willingness to commit violence to keep him in power. It is also the story of the greatest security failure in Washington, D.C., since policeman John Frederick Parker abandoned his post near Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.

In his forward to the report, Chair Bennie Thompson exonerated the intelligence and security agencies for their failures with this sweeping claim: “But the shortfall of communications, intelligence and law enforcement around Jan. 6 was much less about what they did or did not know. ... Whatever weaknesses existed in the policies, procedures, or institutions, they were not to blame for what happened on that day.” And with that, a mere 11 pages into an 845-page report, the committee looks away from those who should have prevented Jan. 6.

On the day of the Capitol riot, I oversaw the Fusion Intelligence Center for the District of Columbia, which is tasked with the collection, analysis and dissemination of threat intelligence for the local government. I testified for the committee on three separate occasions. And it’s clear the report does not fully contextualize or analyze the vital security issues and failures that took place.

“Prior to Jan. 6, it was unimaginable” that a violent mob would attack the Capitol at the behest of the president, the report states. This premise is the critical flaw in the committee’s logic. The events of Jan. 6 represented the most telegraphed and predictable attack on the homeland in history.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 9, 2023 19:46:29 GMT LFC said:

This is an opinion piece on what the committee missed in their report from somebody who was in the thick of things.

Opinion | What the Jan. 6 Committee Report Left Out

The Capitol attack was a massive failure by law enforcement and intelligence. We can’t let it happen again.

Donell Harvin is a homeland security expert and educator with over 30 years of public safety service. He oversaw the Fusion Intelligence Center for the District of Columbia on Jan. 6, 2021. Follow him on Twitter @donell_harvin

The House Select Committee’s report on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack asks readers to suspend their belief in reality. Fault is found only with former President Donald Trump’s actions — no blame is given to the inactions of federal security officials.

But Jan. 6 was not simply the story of a failed politician and his supporters’ willingness to commit violence to keep him in power. It is also the story of the greatest security failure in Washington, D.C., since policeman John Frederick Parker abandoned his post near Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.

In his forward to the report, Chair Bennie Thompson exonerated the intelligence and security agencies for their failures with this sweeping claim: “But the shortfall of communications, intelligence and law enforcement around Jan. 6 was much less about what they did or did not know. ... Whatever weaknesses existed in the policies, procedures, or institutions, they were not to blame for what happened on that day.” And with that, a mere 11 pages into an 845-page report, the committee looks away from those who should have prevented Jan. 6.

On the day of the Capitol riot, I oversaw the Fusion Intelligence Center for the District of Columbia, which is tasked with the collection, analysis and dissemination of threat intelligence for the local government. I testified for the committee on three separate occasions. And it’s clear the report does not fully contextualize or analyze the vital security issues and failures that took place.

“Prior to Jan. 6, it was unimaginable” that a violent mob would attack the Capitol at the behest of the president, the report states. This premise is the critical flaw in the committee’s logic. The events of Jan. 6 represented the most telegraphed and predictable attack on the homeland in history.

Where is this guy going with this? Is he suggesting that there is some sort of whitewashing going on? Maybe the Senate will run an investigation to his liking. There is time for that.  Maybe the DC district attorney or someone in DOJ is already investigating it from the standpoint of possible criminal charges. Whatever failure occurred, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were, the root of the situation lies in the Big Lie and the machinations associated with it.

[LFC]

Another Trump lawyer is in trouble.

Thirty-plus prominent legal figures filed an ethics complaint with D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility on Monday to revoke Trump-world attorney Stefan Passantino’s license to practice law, claiming that he tried to influence his former client Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the House Jan. 6 select committee.

Hutchinson — a former White House aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and a key witness for the Jan. 6 committee — alleged that she withheld information during her first sit down with the lawmakers because Passantino pressured her to remain loyal to former President Donald Trump and tried to influence her testimony in order to protect the ex-president.

“We just want to focus on protecting the president,” Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her, during a separate interview she gave to the committee.

“We all know you’re loyal,” she said Passantino told her. “Let’s just get you in and out, and this day will be easy, I promise.”

The 22-page complaint, filed by Lawyers Defending American Democracy, accused Passantino — a Trump White House ethics attorney who was paid by the former president’s political action committee to represent Hutchinson — of violating at least four federal criminal prohibitions: subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery.

“The Office of Disciplinary Counsel should promptly initiate an investigation of Mr. Passantino’s conduct and, if the facts described above are confirmed, seek his disbarment,” the complaint read.

The House Jan. 6 Committee was aware of efforts from Trump and his allies to intimidate witnesses during last year’s investigation. Vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) addressed the allegations on multiple occasions, issuing stark warnings on live TV that the committee was taking any witness intimidation or pressuring attempts very seriously.

The Monday complaint is not the first or only effort to reprimand Passentino for his alleged behavior.

Lawyers Defending American Democracy also filed its complaint with disciplinary authorities in New York and Georgia — states where Passantino is licensed to practice law.

And last month, The 65 Project — a campaign targeting lawyers who aided attempts by then-President Trump and his supporters to overturn the 2020 election — filed a similar but narrower ethics complaint in Georgia.