The January 6th Public Hearings <Thread #2>

Trump skirts testimony question in hostile 14-page Jan. 6 response
Fri, October 14, 2022 at 7:38 AM

Former President Trump on Friday skirted the question of whether he would testify under subpoena in a 14-page response to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, instead doubling down on his disproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump posted a letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee’s chairman, one day after the panel voted unanimously to subpoena him for testimony about his role in the events of Jan. 6, when supporters of the former president stormed the Capitol to halt the certification of the 2020 election results.

“This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt, and despite strong and powerful requests, you have not spent even a short moment on examining the massive Election Fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election, and have targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself,” Trump wrote in the letter, which is dated Oct. 13.

The document includes numerous photos meant to demonstrate the crowd size at his Jan. 6 rally, as well as a state-by-state breakdown renewing baseless claims of election fraud in five states Trump lost to President Biden.

There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election — something Trump’s own campaign concluded. Courts on 62 different occasions ruled against Trump when he brought suits seeking to challenge the election based on fraud claims.

Trump’s response is not a formal compliance with the subpoena, which has yet to be sent after the committee voted unanimously to compel testimony from Trump.

Such documents have to be served and, in the case of prior subpoenas sent by the Jan. 6 committee, include a list of topics the panel wishes to discuss in a formal deposition as well as a breakdown of documents and other evidence that must be turned over.

In taking the vote in a public setting, lawmakers on the panel stressed the importance of hearing directly from Trump.

“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the committee, shortly before the vote. “And every American is entitled to those answers.”

The subpoena is likely to kick off another legal battle for the former president. Others subpoenaed by the committee, including Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, have gone to court to block the subpoena.

And some of those who have refused to comply have landed in legal trouble as well — though often only after a lengthy back-and-forth between committee lawyers and representation for those who have been subpoenaed.

But in the face of refusal to comply, the committee has moved to hold in contempt of Congress those who have rebuffed them, a matter that has to be taken up by the full House in order to make a formal criminal referral to the Justice Department.

The House has done that four times since the committee has begun its work, but the Justice Department has only acted on two of the referrals: one for former White House strategist Stephen Bannon, and another for White House adviser Peter Navarro. Bannon was found guilty and is awaiting sentencing next week.

In other cases where the committee has subpoenaed high-ranking figures — including five Republican lawmakers — the panel has done little to enforce its subpoenas. It also remains unclear whether they will subpoena Vice President Mike Pence.

Thursday’s hearing synthesized much of the information already presented by the committee, underscoring that Trump’s early declaration of victory on election night 2020 was premeditated; that he was aware he had lost the election but publicly claimed otherwise; that he wanted to join his supporters at the Capitol; and that he stood by while the attack unfolded.

Trump’s letter rehashes many of the same claims he’s made in the more than 18 months since the riot. He claimed he had authorized thousands of National Guard troops to defend the Capitol, a claim that his former acting Defense secretary has refuted in testimony to the committee.

And he repeated his claims that election results in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were all dubious because of reports of irregularities or suspicion about movement of ballots. But in each state, officials certified the results after audits and recounts. Testimony from Justice Department officials to the committee laid out how the department looked into each of Trump’s claims and was able to debunk or explain each of them.

Trump closed his letter to Thompson by defending the rioters as “great American patriots” who questioned the election results, even as the Justice Department has prosecuted numerous members of the mob for their actions that day.

“The people of this Country will not stand for unequal justice under the law, or Liberty and Justice for some. Election Day is coming. We demand answers on the Crime of the Century,” Trump wrote.

Updated at 10:04 a.m.

WaPo, NY Times opinion pieces rip Jan. 6 Committee as 'ineffective,' 'tedious': Sermon that 'just won't end'
Published October 14, 2022 10:30am EDT

Both posts claimed the Jan. 6 Committee is not convincing anyone new, just 'preaches to the choir'

Two Thursday opinion pieces, one from The New York Times and the other from The Washington Post, torched the Jan. 6 Committee as "wholly ineffective," "tedious" and done only for the sake of politics.

The Washington Post opinion column likened the committee, which concluded its televised hearings Thursday, to an overlong church sermon still being preached while congregants are thinking about brunch or Sunday football.

The Times guest essay claimed the committee is not shifting views about former President Donald Trump’s behavior and has acted too partisan to convince people the committee is defending democracy.

Written by contributing columnist Gary Abernathy, the Post’s opinion column did not hold back in describing how bloated and overbearing the committee has become. His opening said, "There are few things as irritating as a preacher who just won’t end his sermon until someone, anyone, finally steps forward to confess and repent, regardless of how far most minds long ago drifted off to thoughts of football, afternoon naps and Sunday dinner."

He added, "That’s what the tedious Jan. 6 committee feels like, with committee members determined to convince everyone, no matter how tired, uninterested or skeptical, that former President Donald Trump is evil incarnate, that his followers are dangerously wayward enablers, and that renouncing them both is the only road to salvation."

Instead of praising the bombshell final hearing as others in the media have, Abernathy called it a "monotonous rehash of what committee members apparently felt was their most damning and convincing details."

Of course, Abernathy acknowledged that Trump’s "refusal to participate in the peaceful transfer of power was unpatriotic, dishonorable and dangerous," but, he said, "we knew those truths on Jan. 6, 2021. No congressional committee was needed to reveal them."

He then asked, "So now that the preacher seems finally out of breath, what was the point of it all?" And he answered his own question, writing, "Politics, of course, was the point, and from the Democrats’ point of view, that’s entirely understandable."

The Times' guest essay, published by contributing opinion writer Christopher Caldwell, gave a little more credit to the committee members but still admitted they’re not convincing many new people with the hearings.

He wrote that the committee "has been assiduous in its research, artful in its cinematography and almost wholly ineffective in shifting views about the storming of the U.S. Capitol in 2021 by a pro-Trump crowd."

Caldwell cited a Monmouth University poll to reinforce this claim, saying the poll "taken this summer during the committee’s hiatus found public opinion largely unchanged — even calcified."

To illustrate the point further, he added, "The 65 percent of Americans who in late June remembered Jan. 6 as a "riot" had become 64 percent a month later when the summer hearings ended. Twenty-nine percent thought Joe Biden had been fraudulently elected before, and 29 percent did after."

The piece threw cold water on the notion, asserted by the committee, that Trump led a coup attempt on the government. Caldwell wrote, "It was not a coup attempt. And even if you believe it was, Mr. Trump was not leading it. For someone supposedly bent on overthrowing the government, Mr. Trump did an awful lot of television-watching and surprisingly little seizing of broadcast centers, mobilizing of commando units and issuing of emergency decrees."

Yes, he noted Trump "certainly demeaned the office, embarrassed the country and behaved irresponsibly on Jan. 6. But to focus on that day distracts from his less dramatic but more consequential misdeeds."

Caldwell then blasted the role the committee’s members have given themselves, writing, "They have set themselves up less as investigators than as defenders of America’s democracy. This is the wrong venue for such a mission. The committee has wound up too partisan to carry it out."

He contined, "The fact is the committee has seven Democrats and two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both in open rebellion against their Trumpified party… The almost complete removal of oppositional checks leaves the committee ill suited to what is really a very delicate task."

IT WAS ALL STAGED! Pelosi Brought in Daughter, Camera Crew to US Capitol Before the Riot, Son-in-Law Was Set Up Outside to Film
By Jim Hoft
Published October 14, 2022 at 7:30am

It was all a setup.

From Ray Epps – to opening the magnetic doors from the inside – to the dozens of fed operatives in the crowd – to Ginger Gun – to firing flash bombs and gas canisters on unsuspecting grandmas and seniors – to the mass arrests of hundreds of innocent Trump supporters who were waved into the US Capitol.

Now we have the proof that it was all a setup and the entire thing was filmed by a pre-staged camera crew.

On Thursday CNN released never-before-seen footage of Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 — the two people who refused to call in the National Guard prior to that day and during the rioting.

The footage was filmed by Nancy’s daughter Alexandra. Nancy’s son-in-law was outside filming the insurrection.

It was all staged.

Julie Kelly tweeted out the CNN production on Thursday night.

The entire “insurrection” was planned and staged.

These people truly are demons.

Numerous tweets at https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/staged-pelosi-brought-daughter-camera-crew-us-capitol-riot-son-law-set-outside-film/

Jan. 6 committee zeroes in on central question: Should Trump be held accountable for Capitol attack?
USA TODAY
SUSAN PAGE
October 14, 2022, 2:01 AM

After an investigation that has lasted more than a year, the House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena former president Donald Trump, saying the demand for his testimony under oath was necessary to put down a marker, for history's ledger.

There is little doubt that legal challenges and the prospect the panel will soon be disbanded makes it unlikely it will ever hear from him. But the vote spotlighted the committee's tightening focus on the single biggest question ahead: Whether Trump should be held accountable for his role in the violent assault on the Capitol – and if so, how.

"He is required to answer for his actions," committee chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said before the somber, 9-0 vote. "We have left no doubt – none – that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of Jan. 6."

In response, Trump was defiant. "Why didn't the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago?" he demanded on social media. "Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total 'BUST' that has only served to further divide our Country."

At the panel's ninth hearing this year, new texts from Secret Service agents were released and new footage was aired showing congressional leaders after they had been evacuated to a secure location, pleading for police and National Guard reinforcements to regain control of the besieged Capitol.

Overall, though, the two-and-a-half-hour session had the air of a summation of the evidence, of a closing argument in a courtroom.

The panel's bottom line: Trump was the central thread from the start to the end of an effort to overturn the results of an election he lost. He began making plans to dispute the 2020 election as fraudulent before a single vote was counted. After Election Day, he acknowledged privately he had lost to Joe Biden but disputed that outcome publicly – and with increasing desperation.

"I don't want people to know we lost," Trump told his chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to testimony by Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson. "This is embarrassing."

He convened a rally on the Ellipse even though it was known law enforcement officials had been warned that some of his supporters planned to arrive armed and ready to occupy the Capitol. Indeed, he demanded to join them on the Hill, a move opposed by Secret Service officials who deemed it too dangerous.

Before the end of this year, the committee will take an even more explosive vote, on whether to recommend the unprecedented criminal prosecution of a former president. Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the panel had "sufficient information to consider criminal referrals for multiple individuals" – that is, not only Trump but also others.

'Central cause' of Jan. 6 was Trump, Cheney says

The decision of whether to pursue a criminal investigation will be made not by them but by the Department of Justice. There were moments when the committee members could have been talking directly to Attorney General Merrick Garland as they sought to methodically build the case for Trump's culpability.

"The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed," Cheney said. "None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it."

For the first time, the committee released text messages and other documents from the Secret Service, obtained since their last hearing. They showed that the Secret Service and other agencies knew 10 days before the riot that some protesters were planning violence. Committee member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the new information raised questions about previous testimony by some White House and Secret Service officials that they weren't aware of threats to those they protect.

That would be perjury.

The hearing was held just 26 days before Election Day, the midterm contests that will determine control of Congress next year. If Republicans win a majority in the House, as most political strategists in both parties predict, the Jan. 6 committee almost certainly will be disbanded. House GOP leaders refused to appoint members to the panel, calling it a political witch hunt.

Only two renegade Republicans, Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, agreed to join it.

For many supporters, the committee has had two overarching to goals: First, to make recommendations to ensure that the violent effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power doesn't happen again. Second, to hold accountable those responsible – not only the rioters who broke the windows and roamed the halls of the Capitol, but also those who incited them.

From tracking Trump to elevating Cheney: The Jan. 6 committee has changed the political world

In the day's most dramatic footage, the committee showed video of congressional leaders, evacuated to Fort McNair, a nearby military post, trying desperately to stop the mob so they could return to the Capitol and complete the Electoral College count.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was shown pleading on a cellphone with the the attorney general to convince the president to call off the protesters. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the secretary of defense and then the governor of Virginia to send help.

“It’s just horrendous," Pelosi told then-governor Ralph Northam of Virginia as she watched the rioters on a TV set, "and all at the instigation of the president of the United States."

Trump wants to testify to the January 6 committee, but only if they broadcast it live, NYT reports
Tom Porter 23 hours ago

Former President Donald Trump discussed the Jan. 6 committee subpoena with aides, a report said.
He said he might do it, if it could be broadcast live on TV.

Trump is likely to seek to spin the subpoena into propaganda victories.
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Former President Donald Trump has told aides he might comply with a subpoena to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, as long as he can do so live, The New York Times' Maggie Haberman reported.

According to Haberman, Trump has told aides he's not opposed to the idea of testifying before the committee, as long as it's on his terms.

The information was a contribution by Haberman to The Times's live coverage of Thursday's committee hearing.

Some of his aides appear not to be enthusiastic about the idea.

"He should not," a Trump adviser bluntly told The Daily Beast.

Most witnesses has testified behind closed doors, with the committee presenting clips prepared in advance to play in live hearings.

Those with particularly notable testimony, such as former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, testified live after initially submitting evidence in private.

If Trump testified he would have to do so under oath, risking perjury charges if were to lie.  

In a series of live hearings in recent months, the committee has argued that Trump was central to a plot to overturn his election defeat in 2020.

This culminated in the chaos on January 6, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a bid to halt Joe Biden's certification as president.

"He is required to answer for his actions," Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the committee said in announcing the subpoena at Thursday's hearing.

Trump has repeatedly characterized the committee as a partisan witch hunt, while continuing to praise the rioters and push the election-fraud conspiracy theories that inspired them.

In a Truth Social Post on Thursday, he described the committee is a "a giant scam, presided over by a group of Radical Left losers, and two failed Republicans."

GOP leadership turned down the opportunity to select members of the party to take part.

Some analysts expect Trump to challenge the subpoena in courts, a process that could take months.

The committee's power to seek legal penalties against a former president if he refuses to comply are unclear. If Republicans win back control of the House in November's midterms they are all but certain to annul the committee and cancel its subpoenas.

Trump is under increasing legal pressure. There are multiple investigations around his bid to overturn the 2020 election, the New York attorney general is probing his business practices in the state, and the FBI is examining his retention of government records after leaving office.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-would-testify-to-jan-6-committee-if-he-can-do-it-live-nyt-2022-10

ABC Panel Erupts Into Chaos After Chris Christie Dismantles the Credibility of Jan. 6 Committee
By Nick Arama | 5:15 PM on October 16, 2022

Former Gov. Chris Christie created a firestorm on ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, with what he had to say about the Jan. 6 Committee. Christie pointed out that, to many Republicans, the Committee doesn’t have any credibility. That’s because they don’t have any real Republicans on the Committee to make any points against the Democratic narrative.

The January 6 committee was “resigned to having a credibility problem because of the membership of the committee and the way that was done,” Christie opened by saying.

“There are lots of Republicans across this country who just say, there’s nobody there to argue the other side. Kinzinger and Cheney don’t argue the other side to the extent that there is [sic] some arguments there,” Christie added before both anchor George Stephanopoulos and Brazile jumped down his throat.

That comment sparked outrage from host George Stephanopoulos and fellow panelist Donna Brazile, both of whom have been Democratic operatives.

Stephanopoulos claimed there was “no other side,” and Brazile demanded to know, “What is the other side?” Christie spoke about the ability to grill the witnesses, something they would normally have at a hearing, which is missing here. Instead, he said, accurately, it was a television production. Brazile just kept shouting at Christie and would barely let him get in a word edgewise.

When he finally got the chance to speak, Christie said, “There are lots of people inside the White House who now have convenient memories about things that didn’t have memories about them before.” But, the Trump team/Republicans weren’t given that option because that’s not allowed, to challenge the narrative. You’re not allowed to know that Trump spoke about acting “peacefully and patriotically” at his rally before the riot. You’re not allowed to question why Democrats didn’t conduct this like a normal hearing.

But this is the Democrats’ view in general. Trump is guilty of pushing an “insurrection”–because they say so. He isn’t entitled to a defense. It doesn’t matter what he said, or what evidence might rebut their presumptions. They don’t believe in the rule of law, just the rule of the narrative. That’s why everyone on the Committee — including the Republicans — was already solidly anti-Trump, picked for their bias. That’s why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in an unprecedented move, rejected members who were picked by the Republican side who might have questioned the Democrats.

The last person who should be talking about “credibility” is Donna Brazile. Can anyone forget how Brazile divulged debate questions to Clinton camp officials during the Democratic primaries in the 2016 race? Even the left excoriated her with headlines like this:



But Christie accurately noted it’s because of that basic unfairness about the formation of the Committee, that most of America have turned the Committee off. They know it’s about trying to get Trump, not about the riot or the rule of law.

“[I]t’s very hard for Democrats to be able to make this a cutting issue, especially in the light of huge inflation, gas prices, crime in the streets, open borders, drug overdoses, those things are things that are affecting people’s everyday lives and they don’t see it that way,” Christie reasoned.

That’s the bottom line. Democrats are pushing issues that aren’t the top issues of concern to voters. They thought they would use Jan. 6 to smear Republicans. But people know it’s a biased show; it’s backfiring on them because voters don’t think they care about anything else, including the issues that are most important to Americans.

Roberts delays handover of Trump tax returns to House panel
MARK SHERMAN
Tue, November 1, 2022 at 7:55 AM·

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday put a temporary hold on the handover of former President Donald Trump's tax returns to a congressional committee.

Roberts' order gives the Supreme Court time to weigh the legal issues in Trump's emergency appeal to the high court, filed Monday.

Without court intervention, the tax returns could have been provided as early as Thursday by the Treasury Department to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

Roberts gave the committee until Nov. 10 to respond. The chief justice handles emergency appeals from the nation's capital, where the fight over Trump's taxes has been going on since 2019.

Lower courts ruled that the committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Trump’s claims that it was overstepping.

If Trump can persuade the nation’s highest court to intervene in this case, he could potentially delay a final decision until the start of the next Congress in January. If Republicans recapture control of the House in the fall election, they could drop the records request.

The temporary delay imposed by Roberts is the third such order issued by justices in recent days in cases related to Trump.

The court separately is weighing Sen. Lindsey Graham's emergency appeal to avoid having to testify before a Georgia grand jury that is investigating potential illegal interference by Trump and his allies in the 2020 election in the state.

Also before the court is an emergency appeal from Arizona Republican party chairwoman Kelli Ward to prevent the handover of phone records to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The House Ways and Means panel and its chairman, Democrat Richard Neal of Massachusetts, first requested Trump’s tax returns in 2019 as part of an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s audit program and tax law compliance by the former president. A federal law says the Internal Revenue Service “shall furnish” the returns of any taxpayer to a handful of top lawmakers.

The Justice Department, under the Trump administration, had defended a decision by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to withhold the tax returns from Congress. Mnuchin argued that he could withhold the documents because he concluded they were being sought by Democrats for partisan reasons. A lawsuit ensued.

After President Joe Biden took office, the committee renewed the request, seeking Trump’s tax returns and additional information from 2015-2020. The White House took the position that the request was a valid one and that the Treasury Department had no choice but to comply. Trump then attempted to halt the handover in court.

Then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. obtained copies of Trump’s personal and business tax records as part of a criminal investigation. That case, too, went to the Supreme Court, which rejected Trump’s argument that he had broad immunity as president.

Trump had most recently sought the justices’ intervention in a legal dispute stemming from the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August. The court rejected that appeal.

Quote :

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, said Sunday that the panel will release__
"all the evidence" __ it has collected over the course of its probe "within a month," before Republicans take control of the House.

"Titillating"..heheh... So apparently the democrat's TV series was just to raise public interest and they've yet to divulge their 'findings' from their 18+ long month "probe" into Jan 6
... I hafta wonder WTF republicans winning house majority -has to do with democrats finally releasing "all the evidence" of their lengthy investigation that was followed by a fucking TV series that was specifically aired to show the public "all the evidence" they found in their investigation

.... Their TV series ran for what,- 7-8 episodes?.. I heard they were like THREE HOURS LONG and interrupted regular broadcasting during prime time, on all the major networks... But they're STILL withholding evidence that (for some reason) they didn't feel necessary to divulge during their TV series?
.... So now i hafta ask - Why did they end their TV series while they still have significant information necessary to divulge to the public? ... Shit, they still have plenty of time for a Season Two or a sequel, maybe an encore to Season One...
...Maybe they *were* planning on a Season Two until they lost house majority in the midterms..and now they're just gonna divulge "all the evidence" without all the grandstanding with a prime time TV show over it

...I hafta wonder now too.. Is there a rule or law that doesn't permit TV shows/series performed by congressional committees that don't hold the house majority?

Jan. 6 committee plans to issue criminal referrals to DOJ, chairman says
Yahoo News
CHRISTOPHER WILSON
December 6, 2022, 9:32 AM

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection plans to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on its findings, Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters on Tuesday.

Speaking on Capitol Hill, Thompson, D-Miss., didn’t provide details on who would be implicated for charges based on the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump attempting to stop Joe Biden from being formally recognized as the winner of the 2020 election. The committee is set to meet Tuesday afternoon.

With the panel’s work set to end in weeks, the question of whether charges would be recommended against Trump has loomed over the public proceedings, which began in June. Last month the Washington Post reported that some of the committee’s staff members were upset with the focus in the final report on Trump and not the failures from law enforcement and the intelligence community, blaming the committee’s Republican vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Of the people who protested Biden’s win in D.C. on Jan. 6 and ran for office in last month’s midterms, most were defeated, although Derrick Van Orden — who said he attended Trump’s speech but did not set foot on Capitol grounds or participate in the violence — won a race for the U.S. House in Wisconsin, while Max Miller, a former Trump White House staffer who helped plan Trump’s rally that preceded the riot, won a congressional race in Ohio.

Last week the leader of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the events of Jan. 6, a charge that carries a 20-year prison sentence. Stewart Rhodes and a number of his allies were also convicted of obstructing an official proceeding.

The committee is expected to publish its final report by Christmas. Formed in July 2021 with only two Republican votes (Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois), the panel held more than a half-dozen public hearings this year highlighting the efforts to overturn the election in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and the events of the day, from the actions of rioters in the Capitol to Trump’s movements in the White House as the violence occurred.