The January 6th Public Hearings <Thread #2>

Previous thread:

https://ootikof.forumotion.com/t3954-the-january-6th-public-hearings

Oh great, two threads about something nobody cares about.

Liz Cheney says the House January 6 committee is 'certain' Trump doesn't want his former top White House lawyer to testify
C. Ryan Barber
Tue, June 21, 2022, 2:51 PM

Rep. Liz Cheney said the "American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally."

As White House counsel, Pat Cipollone pushed against schemes to undo the 2020 election, she said.

The House panel is "certain that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Cipollone to testify," Cheney said.

Rep. Liz Cheney publicly called Tuesday for the former White House counsel Pat Cipollone to testify before the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying the panel had evidence that he "tried to do what was right" as President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election.

"Our committee is certain that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Cipollone to testify here," Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who serves as the vice chair of the House select committee, said. "Indeed, our evidence shows that Mr. Cipollone and his office tried to do what was right. They tried to stop a number of President Trump's plans for January 6."

Previewing upcoming hearings, Cheney said the public would hear testimony from other Trump White House officials who would explain steps Cipollone took to push back against the president.

She added: "We think the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally."

Cheney's remarks came as the House select committee concluded its latest hearing, which highlighted Trump's efforts to pressure legislators and other elected officials in key battleground states to defy their oaths and go along with his scheme to overturn the 2020 election results.

The hearing also featured emotional testimony from Shaye Moss, a former election official in Georgia who said Trump's false claims of election fraud dramatically disrupted her life by exposing her and her mother to death threats and other forms of harassment.

In her closing remarks Tuesday, Cheney said it had been an "honor to spend time" with Moss and other witnesses who appeared, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. But from the dais of the hearing room, Cheney called out the more than 30 witnesses who "have not done what you've done" and instead invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Cheney listed the Trump allies Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and the conservative lawyer John Eastman as among the witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to subpoenas from the House select committee.

In the course of the committee's public hearings so far, Cheney said the American people had heard recorded testimony of former Attorney General William Barr and other onetime top Justice Department officials "who stood up and did what is right" in the face of Trump.

Cipollone's status as the former top White House lawyer complicates negotiations for him to testify about several key meetings in which he told Trump and his allies that their various schemes to undo the election results were unlawful.

But Cheney's remarks nonetheless raised the implicit choice: Would Cipollone join the ranks of Trump allies who have declined to speak with the committee or recount his experience as Barr and other administration officials have?

"He should appear before this committee, and we are working to secure this testimony," she said.

Takeaways from fourth day of Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot hearings
Richard Cowan and Patricia Zengerle | Reuters
Tue, June 21, 2022, 3:29 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fourth day of the hearings in the U.S. Congress on the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by former President Donald Trump's supporters featured testimony by election officials from the states of Arizona and Georgia.

Here are five takeaways from the fourth of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Jan. 6's hearings this month:

TRUMP CLAIM REJECTED

About an hour before the hearing started, Trump in a statement attacked Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, a Republican who had been a Trump backer in the 2020 election. Trump lost Arizona to Biden.

Trump said that during a November phone call, Bowers "told me that the election was rigged and that I won Arizona."

Bowers, speaking in forceful tones, rebutted Trump's statement.

"I did have a conversation with the president. That certainly isn't it," Bowers told the committee. "Anyone, anywhere, anytime who said that I said the election was rigged, that would not be true."

GIULIANI: THEORIES BUT NO EVIDENCE

Bowers also recounted attempts to get state legislators to hold public hearings into fraudulent voting.

Bowers said that during a meeting with officials in Phoenix after Biden was certified winning Arizona, Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani said, "We've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence" to prove election fraud.

An attorney for Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"I did not feel that the evidence, in its absence, merited a hearing and I didn't want to be used as a pawn," Bowers testified. He added, "You're asking me to do something against my oath and I will not break my oath," he said he told Giuliani.

At another point in the hearing, the committee played video of Giuliani saying Trump's camp had proof of illegal immigrants and dead people casting ballots in Arizona.

Witnesses said they never received evidence backing up those allegations.

ELECTION WORKER TARGETED

Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss, a former Georgia election worker, told the committee she faced repeated threats after Trump and his associates accused her of participating in a cover-up of the "stolen" election.

"A lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that I'll be in jail with my mother ... Be glad it's 2020 and not 1920. ... A lot of them (the threats) were racist. A lot of them were just hateful," Moss said.

She said Trump used her name 18 times on a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. "I felt horrible. I felt like it was all my fault," she said. She regretted having decided to be an elections worker.

TRUMP CRIMES?

One outstanding question is whether the select committee after the hearings will recommend criminal charges against Trump for his role in the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

In Tuesday's hearing, the committee expanded its case about possible criminal activity, such as conspiracy to defraud.

It presented testimony from Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, who recounted a conversation with Trump.

McDaniel said Trump mostly turned the call over to John Eastman, a Trump adviser, who talked about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather "contingent electors" in states where Trump was challenging results. Committee members have characterized them as "fake" slates of electors.

"I think more just helping them reach out and assemble them, but my understanding is the campaign did take the lead and we just were helping them in that role," McDaniel said in describing the RNC's role on behalf of Trump.

Representative Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the panel, quoted federal judge David Carter as saying Trump likely violated multiple federal laws, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

DELIVERING FAKE ELECTORS?

The committee showed texts from an aide to Republican Senator Ron Johnson to an aide to then-Vice President Mike Pence saying that the senator wanted to hand-deliver a fake elector certificate to Pence.

Asked for a comment, Johnson spokesperson Alexa Henning referred to a tweet she wrote:

"The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office," Henning said on Twitter.

U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, chairperson of the Jan. 6 committee, said "pressuring public servants into betraying their oath was a fundamental part of the playbook" to secure a Trump victory.

Temple wrote:

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Oh great, two threads about something nobody cares about.

Be nice-- it's mainly 4 of us here, sigh..
And, I care, so should you-

I don't care. As far as world events go January 6th was an amusing afternoon and nothing more.

Politicians don't care when a school full of kids gets shot up. They don't care when gas goes to six dollars a gallon. They don't care when the economy goes south and millions of people suffer.

Why is January 6th such a big deal to them? Because this time THEY suffered. THEIR world was invaded by the little people. THEIR sense of superiority and invincibility was shattered.

Every time they mention January 6th and have another hearing all they do is show their elitism and snobbery for all of America to see. They're the ones in charge, they're the ones on top and don't you ever forget it.

Sorry but I'm not going to be a nice serf and play along and then overflow with gratitude when they throw me a crust of bread.

Hoyer: More Jan. 6 hearings possible due to influx of new tips
Mike Lillis
Wed, June 22, 2022, 11:55 AM

The House panel examining last year’s mob attack on the U.S. Capitol might need to hold more hearings than initially expected due to public meetings this month that have resulted in new information being obtained by investigators, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said.

Hoyer said he spoke Wednesday morning with the select committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who indicated the panel has received a wave of new tips since it launched a series of public hearings in June. While Hoyer emphasized there’s been no final decision on staging additional hearings, the influx of new information might make that move necessary.

“There may well be a need for further hearings based upon information that they are now receiving. We will see,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol. “I’m not saying there are going to be. But there may well be a decision by the committee to have further hearings on the information that has been elicited because of the hearings.”

Created by a vote of the House in June of last year, the bipartisan committee spent almost a year investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol before launching the public hearing phase earlier this month. The investigation has centered on the role played by former President Trump as he sought to use the powers of his office to overturn his election defeat — a months-long campaign that led a mob of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s victory.

Investigators say they’ve already interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and examined roughly 140,000 documents as part of the process. But they’ve also acknowledged that their narrative remains incomplete, largely because a number of Trump’s closest allies — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarty (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — have refused to cooperate, even under congressional subpoena.

The committee has already staged four public hearings, with another one scheduled for Thursday. In each of the last two, Thompson has solicited help from viewers who might have additional insights into the Jan. 6 riot. According to members of the panel, the entreaties are bearing fruit.

“The original hearings would have wrapped up in June, but we are picking up new evidence on a daily basis with enormous velocity,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who sits on the committee, said after Tuesday’s hearing. “And so we’re constantly incorporating and including the new information that’s coming out. So certainly the hearings will conclude before the end of the summer, but I don’t know that we’re going to make it by the end of June.”

Thompson on Wednesday told reporters that Thursday’s hearing — which will examine Trump’s campaign to pressure the Justice Department to help him flip the election results — will be the last of the month, since the House is scheduled to leave Washington on Friday for the two-week Fourth of July recess.

Hoyer said the evidence presented by the committee has already revealed crimes that, in his eyes, amount to treason and insurrection. He suggested the influx of new information about the events of Jan. 6 might leave the committee no choice but to schedule more hearings, since a major objective of the select committee is to provide the public a window into exactly what happened that day.

“The American people are the ultimate protectors of our democracy,” Hoyer said. “As they get more information, there may well be need for additional hearings so that the public will have the most information it possibly can.”

Trump imeachment #3
https://fb.watch/dPBU5WqMaI/

5 takeaways from the fifth day of January 6 hearings
By Marshall Cohen, Jeremy Herb and Zachary Cohen, CNN
Updated 7:02 PM ET, Thu June 23, 2022

(CNN)The January 6 select committee's latest public hearing on Thursday shed considerable new light on former President Donald Trump's attempts to weaponize the Justice Department in the final months of his term as part of his plot to overturn the 2020 election and stay in power.

The hearing kicked off mere hours after federal investigators raided the home of Jeffrey Clark, who was one of the key Justice Department figures who was involved in Trump's schemes. He has denied any wrongdoing related to January 6.

Three Trump appointees testified in-person on Thursday, joining a growing list of Republicans who have gone under oath to provide damning information about Trump's post-election shenanigans. The witnesses were former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, his deputy Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, who led the department's Office of Legal Counsel.

Here are takeaways from Thursday's hearing.

Select committee has the goods on GOP congressional pardons

Thursday's hearing underscored the role that Trump's Republican allies in Congress played in furthering his efforts to try to overturn the election -- and how many of them sought pardons after January 6.
The House select committee in particular zeroed in on the efforts of Rep. Scott Perry, the Pennsylvania Republican who connected Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark to the White House in December 2020.
CNN has previously reported on the role that Perry played, and the committee in court filings released text messages Perry exchanged with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about Clark.

"He wanted Mr. Clark -- Mr. Jeff Clark to take over the Department of Justice," Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Meadows aide, said about Perry in a clip of her deposition that was played at Thursday's hearing.
The committee also unveiled new details about Republican members of Congress seeking pardons after January 6, including Perry and Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Matt Gaetz of Florida.

"President Trump asked me to send you this letter. This letter is also pursuant to a request from Matt Gaetz," said an email Brooks sent to the White House in January 2021, according to the committee. "As such, I recommend that president give general (all purpose) pardons to the following groups of people."
The email included a group of the names of "every congressman and senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania."

Thursday's hearing was led by Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who has largely been ostracized by the Republican conference for his role on the January 6 committee.

"My colleagues up here also take an oath. Some of them failed to uphold theirs and instead chose to spread the big lie," Kinzinger said before discussing pardons.

Kinzinger is retiring at the end of his term.

The hearing brought to life a high-stakes Oval Office meeting in December 2020, where Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and installing Clark, who was willing to use the powers of federal law enforcement to encourage state lawmakers to overturn Trump's loss.

Going into these summer hearings, we already knew a lot about the meeting. But on Thursday, for the first time, we heard live testimony from some of the Justice Department officials who were in the room, including Rosen, the then-acting attorney general. (He survived the meeting, after Trump was told that there would be mass resignations at the Justice Department if he replaced Rosen with Clark.)

Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Clark was repeatedly "clobbered over the head" during the meeting. He told the committee that he called Clark a "f---ing a--hole" and said his plans would've been illegal. He also said Clark's plan to send letters to battleground states was "nuts."

In videotaped testimony that was played Thursday, Donoghue said he eviscerated Clark's credentials during the meeting, explaining that Clark was woefully underqualified to serve as attorney general.

"You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill," Donoghue said in the deposition, describing what he told Clark at the White House meeting.
Donoghue said then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called Clark's plan a "murder-suicide pact."

Donoghue himself described Clark's plan as "impossible" and "absurd."

"It's never going to happen," Donoghue said of the plan. "And it's going to fail."

Thanks to the pushback from Rosen, Donoghue, Herschmann, Cipollone, and perhaps others, Trump didn't follow through with his plan, which would've put the country in uncharted waters, and would have increased the chances of Trump successfully pulling off his coup attempt.

Italian satellites and seizing voting machines: White House pushes conspiracy theory

The three witnesses who testified Thursday made clear that Trump had attempted to use all the levers of the federal government to help validate his claim that the election was stolen and ultimately overturn the legitimate outcome in the lead-up to January 6.

They described how top officials at the highest levels of government had been pushed to investigate conspiracy theories that originated from fringe corners of the internet as Trump sought to validate what were ultimately baseless claims about widespread voter fraud.

Then-Secretary of Defense Chris Miller even contacted a counterpart in Rome, at the White House's request, to investigate a conspiracy theory that Italian satellites had changed votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

The conspiracy theory, which CNN has previously reported was among those that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pushed top national security officials to investigate, was characterized as "pure insanity" by former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue, who was also asked to look into the claim.

The former Justice Department officials also detailed how Trump himself had urged them and senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines from state governments in pursuit of the same -- all without cause for taking such an unprecedented step.

"Why don't you guys just seize machines?" Trump said during a White House meeting in late December 2020, according to testimony from Donoghue.

Using the Justice Department, or any other federal agency, to seize voting machines would have been an unprecedented step but Trump made clear that he wanted his allies to pursue it as an option.

"Get Ken Cuccinelli on the phone," Trump yelled to his secretary after Justice Department officials told him that DHS had expertise in voting machines and determined there was nothing to warrant seizing them, according to Rosen.

Rosen confirmed Thursday he had never told Trump that DHS could seize voting machines. CNN has previously reported that Trump pushed the Justice Department and DHS to seize voting machines.

CNN has also previously reported that Trump allies had drafted executive orders that would have had the military and DHS seize voting machines had they been signed by Trump -- but they ultimately were not.

A toned-down hearing featured vivid description of Trump's pressure campaign

Thursday's proceedings featured testimony from three lawyers who described behind-the-scenes happenings at the Justice Department and White House. It was a departure from Tuesday's and earlier hearings, which featured emotional testimony from election workers, and included jarring video montages of the carnage at the Capitol.

But even if there weren't rhetorical fireworks, the substance of the testimony was essential to understanding the breadth of Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 election. The former Justice Department officials described what they saw and heard as Trump tried to enlist them to help him stay in power -- and how he tried to oust them when they refused to do his bidding.

The material was dense at times. The witnesses reconstructed White House meetings and phone calls with Trump. They were asked to dissect their handwritten notes of some of these interactions -- which is something you more often see at criminal trials, and less commonly at a congressional hearing.

Still, the witnesses' steady testimony shed new light on events that we've known about for more than a year. And the entire hearing evoked memories of the Nixon era, because it was all about how a sitting president tried to weaponize the powers of federal law enforcement to help his political campaign.

Shocking raid of Clark home preceded hearing

The raid by federal investigators of Clark's northern Virginia home preceded the revelations of Clark's 2020 actions at the hearing. Lawmakers were caught off guard, but for the first time in a while, it seemed like federal investigators may have been heeding their public calls to finally take some action.

The raid occurred on Wednesday but was reported on Thursday morning. It's unclear which government entity was behind the raid, and it's not publicly known what triggered the search of his home, or what investigators were looking for.

Even with these unanswered questions, it's significant that federal investigators took such an overt step -- raiding Clark's home -- against one of the most prominent figures in Trump's post-elections schemes.
The committee was hoping to turn Clark into a household name Thursday, by eliciting testimony from top Justice Department officials about how he tried to abuse law enforcement powers to help Trump overturn the 2020 results in states that he lost. With the raid, it looks like the committee got its wish.

A shitt is this where ya run ya mouth about politics?
I'll figure it out. Lol. Actually here to stay let the trolls rise. Reckon yall can't fight anyway and you politics are flawed as fuck anyway so w/e

Cheney On Verge Of Losing Her Seat in Wyoming As Jan. 6 Hearings Implode
Martin Walsh, July 21, 2022

Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney continues to get hit with bad news.

Cheney is reportedly furious with the January 6 Select Committee’s decision to not make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice for former President Donald Trump.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said the committee would not be sending criminal referrals for Trump, saying the committee does not have that authority, CNN reported.

“No, you know, we’re going to tell the facts. If the Department of Justice looks at it and assumes that there’s something that needs further review, I’m sure they’ll do it,” he said.

He was asked again and explained “No, that’s not our job. Our job is to look at the facts and circumstances around January 6, what caused it, and make recommendations after that.”

This was not what Cheney and other Democrats wanted to hear.

Cheney has bigger issues as her star witness is under heavy fire.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testified before the committee during a special hearing and many of her allegations against Trump have been refuted as being outright lies.

After Hutchinson’s testimony, many of her salacious claims were rebuffed by those with the knowledge of what actually happened.

Much of Hutchinson’s testimony was hearsay and second-hand information that she heard from someone else but did not witness herself.

One of the most spectacular parts of her testimony came when she accused Trump of grabbing for the steering wheel of the presidential limo after being told that he could not go to the Capitol on January 6, 2020, and then grabbing for the throat of Secret Service agent Bobby Engel.

But within hours of her testimony, Engel said that the incident she spoke of never happened.

Engel, the agent who was driving the presidential SUV, and Trump security official Tony Ornato both disputed Hutchin’s allegations and said they would testify under oath that no agent was assaulted and Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.

A third official, former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, disputed Hutchinson’s claim that she wrote a note for Trump to read on January 6.

Herschmann said the note was written by him, not Hutchinson.

Cheney’s bid to retain her seat in Wyoming is increasingly being seen as a bridge too far.

A new survey finds that she remains significantly behind her GOP primary opponent Harriet Hageman, who earned former President Donald Trump’s backing last fall.

The poll also found that Cheney is down a whopping 30 points to Hageman.

Wyoming voters are also fed up with Cheney.

“It’s time for a change,” said Jon Nicolaysen, who plans to vote for Cheney’s opponent, Harriet Hageman. “Liz has taken on kind of a vendetta against Trump, and she’s forgotten the things that are important today.”

“I think if it’s a fair election, that there’s no doubt, there is zero doubt, that Hageman will win and she’ll win by a lot,” said Rebecca Bextel, who runs a business services company in Jackson. “The enthusiasm for her is huge. People feel proud.”

Max Jacobson, who chaired last month’s Trump rally, said he and his family support Hageman because she had a similar upbringing, noting that she grew up on a ranch in Wyoming.

“I bet Harriet Hageman ran around and when they were castrating the cow, she was carrying the bucket,” Jacobson said. “That’s the difference. She leads by example.”

“People, for the most part, have made up their minds,” said Jim King, a political science professor at the University of Wyoming. “If you’re a Cheney supporter, you’re a Cheney supporter. If you’re a Hageman or [state Sen. Anthony] Bouchard supporter, I don’t think anything that is being said in the committee hearings is going to affect that.”

The only way Trump will be arrested is if they frame him with a fake crime. It will bite them in the ass hard if they ever do. They typically do not arrest anyone more prominent than a lawyer and will milk this as long as they can to try to sway public sentiment.

Hey Farmer remember Peaches/Spoon at the old C.O. board? Word is the guy just passed away.

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Hey Farmer remember Peaches/Spoon at the old C.O. board? Word is the guy just passed away.

Oh yeah, I remember him! I liked arguing with him. Sorry to hear he passed away though.

unemployedfarmer wrote:

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Hey Farmer remember Peaches/Spoon at the old C.O. board? Word is the guy just passed away.

Oh yeah, I remember him! I liked arguing with him. Sorry to hear he passed away though.

There's a fairly long thread about net personalities death over at https://stomping-groundz.com/index.php

You still have an account over there.

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

unemployedfarmer wrote:

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Hey Farmer remember Peaches/Spoon at the old C.O. board? Word is the guy just passed away.

Oh yeah, I remember him! I liked arguing with him. Sorry to hear he passed away though.

There's a fairly long thread about net personalities death over at https://stomping-groundz.com/index.php

You still have an account over there.

I don't know if I can remember my credentials but if I used my UF email address I might be able to get back in.

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

unemployedfarmer wrote:

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

Hey Farmer remember Peaches/Spoon at the old C.O. board? Word is the guy just passed away.

Oh yeah, I remember him! I liked arguing with him. Sorry to hear he passed away though.

There's a fairly long thread about net personalities death over at https://stomping-groundz.com/index.php

You still have an account over there.

I do remember going to that board a couple years ago. I just didn't remember the name. I was able to log in.