The secret support system for former aides taking on Trump: The other women

As Cassidy Hutchinson sat alone at a long wooden table inside a Capitol Hill hearing room, her one-time Trump White House colleague Alyssa Farah Griffin, watched from the CNN green room.

Griffin felt nervous. And for good reason. Hutchinson’s testimony before the Jan. 6 committee had been kept largely secret up till a day or so before. When it was revealed, it was under the billing that it would provide bombshells about what had transpired inside the Trump White House on that day.

As Hutchinson began laying out those eye-popping revelations, Griffin texted another former colleague, Sarah Matthews, slated to soon testify before the same committee. And she reached out to Olivia Troye, a former Trump national security official who was sitting in the hearing room as Hutchinson testified.

The women felt mutually stunned as they watched. They were also concerned for Hutchinson, understanding that as soon as she left that hearing room, she’d face intense scrutiny from the media, nasty messages and encounters online and, at times, in person, and the loneliness of being a Republican in Washington who speaks out against former President Donald Trump. After all, they each experienced that themselves.

When the proceedings were done they each reached out to Hutchinson, too.

“I was so nervous watching her,” said Griffin. “But she immediately had such a commanding presence — I was beyond proud to see my friend stand up before the world and tell the truth when so many others were too cowardly to do.”

The Jan. 6 committee hearings have been among the most dramatic and significant congressional investigations into the conduct of a White House in our nation’s history. They reflect months of research, painstaking work by investigators, and testimony from dozens of Trump officials, law enforcement officers and election experts. But a key component has been a small club of women who have provided critical testimony and created a support structure for one another to combat the intense backlash it’s produced.

The small group includes a current and former member of Congress, aides long exiled from Trumpland and those who only recently decided it was time to make a break. In phone calls and text messages, they have shared tips on how to report social media harassment, passed along advice on safety and security measures — such as the benefits of wearing a baseball hat while walking through an airport — and calmed the nerves of each other’s family members.

“It is a lonely space to come forward and part of it for me was to make sure that they knew that even though it feels lonely – they bully, they intimidate, they want to make you feel like there’s no one left in the world, that’s kind of the point – for me it was important for them to know I wasn’t going to waver on them and there would be others,” said Troye.

The “small, lonely girls club,” as one woman described it, is composed largely of former Trump aides who became disillusioned with his presidency. Griffin, his onetime communications director, resigned in December 2020 and has been critical of Trump since. Troye broke earlier, amid the first impeachment process when it was revealed that Trump had pressured Ukrainian officials for dirt on Hunter Biden. Hutchinson’s fissure came after Trump left office, when she was subpoenaed by the committee for her direct knowledge of what happened in the White House Jan. 6. Matthews, who served as the deputy press secretary under Kayleigh McEnany, broke with the Trump White House that day as Trump failed to calm the riots on Capitol Hill.

Having found themselves largely in the same political space — persona non grata in the professional infrastructure through which they made their careers — they formed a quasi- support network of their own.

There is no central line of communication. But over phone and text, they have regularly kept in touch throughout the course of the Jan. 6 committee hearings. In interviews, they have stressed they aren’t digging for information or trying to influence the committee’s proceedings. Instead, they’re reminding each other constantly that, at one of the most intense moments of their young lives — Hutchinson is 26, Matthews is 27, Griffin is 33, and Troye and Grisham are 45 — they are not alone.

After Hutchinson’s testimony, several of the women said they formed what they called an informal kind of “rapid response” unit — defending her on TV and on Twitter from attacks from the right, who see the women as traitors to Trump, and the left, who question how they could have ever served a president whose shortcomings were so readily apparent to them in real time.

“It’s a very unique group that experienced such a specific, critical moment in history together and I think we feel bonded by it and are incredibly protective of one another,” said Griffin.

At the heart of the group’s formation is a belief — especially unique to these circumstances but true in other crisis points for Washington D.C. — that female political operatives carry different burdens than their male colleagues. It has been manifested in the death threats and smears they have faced, at times from random social media users.

“U are a f—ing traitor. U need to be raped. We know where you live bitch. Ur a f—ing Rino,” read one series of recent Instagram messages left on one of the women’s accounts and shared with POLITICO.

There also are the disparaging messages blasted out on social media by Trump himself.

"Her body language is that of a total bull…. artist. Fantasy Land!" Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social, during Hutchinson’s testimony.

But it’s also been internalized by the group in a form of frustration that women like Hutchinson and Matthews – who only recently started their careers wide-eyed and faithful to the conservative cause — are taking the heat for speaking up, while their more senior male colleagues have settled back into Washington life. In particular, it gnawed at them that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone dragged his feet on testifying (and only did so in private, although it was recorded) until after Hutchinson went first.

“It's empowering but also so disheartening to see these men in Congress who are so afraid of one man that they won’t do the right thing,” said Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s since-disaffected former press secretary, who has been in touch with Troye and appeared in media hits alongside other group members, too. “And then you’ve got this small group of us led in a way by Liz Cheney — not formally — knowing and experiencing threats of all kinds. I absolutely empathize with what every one of these women are going through. It’s a tough storm to face. You do feel it’s the world against you.”

To help them navigate these waters, the group has leaned on those who have seen rough waters before. Former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, an early Trump critic, said she has gotten to know Troye and Griffin as fellow conservative women over the past year. An attorney from Virginia, she told Griffin she would be happy to help Hutchinson with any legal support for speaking out.

“I’ve had women friends contact me to say they want to support these women because they are the kind of stand up women we’d all like to have as staff and hope we were as staff or members. And they know it can be lonely when you stand up,” said Comstock. She noted that as a mother she would have been “pretty ticked” that Cipollone, who has a daughter in Hutchinson’s age range, “had to be dragged to testify after Cassidy.”

“But I guess cleaning up Trump’s mess — ketchup and all — is assumed to be women’s work!” Comstock added, in reference to Hutchinson’s testimony that Trump, in a fit of rage on Jan. 6 threw a plate with ketchup to the floor, which Hutchinson tried to clean up. Trump denied the episode.

In addition to Comstock, the group has also viewed Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, as an inspiration. The congresswoman has talked with both Griffin and Hutchinson. And in a speech earlier this month at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., she praised them — though not in name — and others for speaking out.

“It is especially the young women, young women who seem instinctively to understand the peril of this moment for our democracy, and young women who know that it will be up to them to save it,” Cheney said. “And I have been incredibly moved by the young women that I have met and that have come forward to testify in the January 6th Committee. Some of these are young women who worked on the Trump campaign, some worked in the Trump White House, some who worked in offices on Capitol Hill, all who knew immediately that what happened that day must never happen again.”

Despite the support from Cheney, the experience has been altogether unenjoyable. The women have been accused of speaking out in order to advance their career or get opportunities to appear on cable TV. Their one-time colleagues — and even some family members — have stopped talking to them. Their job prospects have slimmed, though they said Comstock has been trying to help on that front. A thread of fear is now woven through their lives, like when associates offer their homes as a place of refuge to wait out the fallout from a hearing.

There are better, more uplifting moments, too. Troye said she’s been heartened by the random mothers who have reached out to her to relay how much they admire Hutchinson for testifying.

“Ms. Troye, please tell Ms. Hutchinson I want my two daughters to grow up with her courage,” read one Twitter direct message.

But mainly, as the Jan. 6 hearings have progressed, it’s been a sense of surrealness that has crept in. They’re young. In normal times, they’d be starting their careers or moving towards the arcs of their professional achievements. Instead, they’ve been thrust into central roles in a historical drama — one that could very well determine the future of U.S. governance.

They spent their careers as Republicans never conceived that they would get marooned on a political island by themselves — alienated from their party and largely alone.

“When I ran into Alyssa before an interview with Jake Tapper before I went to the hearing for Cassidy we talked about it,” recalled Troye. “‘Did you ever imagine we’d be sitting here in this situation like this?’ Never.”

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Take heart: Democrats will beat expectations this November

Remember when there was no way Democrats could win two Senate seats in Georgia to take control of the upper chamber? Remember when Ukrainian forces were going to crumble under Russia's elite military onslaught in a matter of days?

Things don't always go the way Washington analysts project they will, and it's going to take some time to talk ourselves down from the steady red-wave drumbeat we’ve endured for the last six months. But let's take a stab at it, shall we?

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Democrats—voters and lawmakers—have at least a handful of reasons (if not more) for some guarded optimism as we barrel toward November.

1) As halting as the White House response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade has been, President Joe Biden has started to step up. His support for a Senate filibuster carve out on abortion along with his pledge to immediately sign a bill codifying Roe into federal law once it hits his desk are the makings of an electoral rallying cry.

"We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe as federal law. Your vote can make that a reality," Biden said Friday at the White House as he vehemently denounced the Supreme Court ruling.

“We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy,” he said.

The president also framed the high court as a political entity acting outside of its rightful legal domain, teeing up the possibility that he could at some point take on court reform as an issue.

"What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment. It was an exercise in raw political power," Biden charged.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Biden gave a great speech on Friday, channeling activists' rage, pledging to codify Roe, promising to veto any GOP-passed federal abortion ban, encouraging Americans to register their rage at the polls this fall, and being specific about needing at least two more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House in order to pass federal abortion protections.

Biden hasn't delivered everything abortion activists want, but that's certainly enough to work for a midterm message.

2) House Democrats have keyed in on the only viable path for them to blunt losses this fall and just maybe salvage their majority: boldly attacking extremist GOP candidates.

Retiring Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky summed up the strategy best: “If we win, it’s because we scared the crap out of people about the maniacs who will be in charge.”

Democrats aggressively pounding extremist Republicans who are pushing a national abortion ban, clinging to 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories, and backing Jan. 6 rioters as patriotic protesters exercising First Amendment rights are the best plays Democrats have. They’re both base motivators and appeals to the few sane Republicans and swingy abortion supporters who still exist.

Political strategists vary between predicting the midterms will either primarily be driven by economic dissatisfaction or anger over the Supreme Court's gutting of abortion protections and other privacy rights down the road.

But in a telephone briefing last week, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg predicted November would mainly be another matchup between the MAGA movement and the anti-MAGA majority that has carried the day in the last two elections.

Running toward Donald Trump after his 2020 loss and failed January coup attempt "was always an enormous political risk," Rosenberg said of the GOP, adding that Republicans haven't done anything in the interim to sway swing voters.

3) The generic ballot has moved several points in the direction of Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

CNN's Harry Enten has counted eight different polls in which Democrats gained ground in a generic matchup since the Dobbs ruling.

"The average shift was about 3 points in Democrats’ favor," Enten writes. "This 3-point change may not seem like a lot, and it could reverse itself as we get further away from the ruling. Still, it puts Democrats in their best position on the generic ballot in the last six months."

4) Trump falling, DeSantis rising—that about sums up a dynamic that could increasingly begin to take center stage amid jockeying for position in the 2024 GOP presidential contest. While Trump is arguably still the most popular person within the Republican Party, even his voters have begun to sour on the idea of him making another run for the GOP nomination. And as Trump’s star begins to fall, DeSantis is increasingly gaining steam.

Democrats can only hope Trump does something impulsive, like make a surprise candidacy announcement before November as he feels the Jan. 6 panel (and maybe even the Justice Department) increasingly breathing down his neck. He would lose a ton of fundraising flexibility by announcing early, but hey, once you’ve orchestrated a coup to overthrow your own government, all bets are off.

But even if he doesn't, Trump is wounded—perhaps not fatally, but wounded nonetheless. Republicans and even the MAGA faithful are beginning to debate and sometimes doubt whether he should run again in 2024. That tinge of uncertainty could lead to fissures ahead of a midterm where Republicans had hoped their base would be singularly focused on inflation and rage against President Biden.

5) The Jan. 6 hearings are the best political thriller going. Forget House of Cards—that was kid stuff compared to this coup-dunit mystery unfolding in real time on screens across the country. Did the president of the United States really intend to get his vice president killed? Did he plan to personally do it himself, or did he just envision ordering his troop of ragtag domestic terrorists to hang Pence from the gallows? Who's going to tell us, who's talking, who isn't, and who's going to end up in jail?  

Every hearing seems to get more riveting and exponentially worse for Trump, his demented braintrust, and the GOP lawmakers who helped plot the attempted overthrow of the republic. Several headlines last month suggested not many people were watching the hearings in real time, but that’s not the measure of whether the hearings are breaking through. The progressive consortium Navigator Research released a poll Monday showing that 64% of Americans report having seen, read, or heard about the hearings (28% heard “a lot” while 36% reported hearing “some”)—perfectly consistent with the 63% who said they had heard some or a lot about last month's hearings. So interest hasn’t trailed off one bit.

So regardless of whether Trump announces a presidential bid before November, the Jan. 6 hearings are reminding all the people who voted against him in 2020 (more than 81 million Americans) exactly why they voted him out of office. And for Trumpers, the hearings are just making him look weak, out of control, and powerless. Unlike both of his impeachment proceedings, Trump doesn't have an entourage of talking heads defending him because the usual suspects are either ducking subpoenas or dodging cameras. So Trump's out there just dangling with an occasional statement on his spectacularly flailing Truth(er) Social, but that's about it.

Again, this isn't what Republicans were hoping for several months out from Election Day—a series of ongoing public hearings that they are powerless to stop and have no earthly idea of what will be uncovered.

All of these factors along with the GOP's field of D-list candidates should give Democrats fuel to fight another day. Just like every other election since 2016, this year's midterms will likely yield unprecedented results to match the unprecedented times in which we live.

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Morning Digest: Trump dumps on anti-Greitens alternative while hinting he might endorse Greitens

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

MO-Sen: Show Me Values PAC, a group that has spent $2 million so far to stop disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens from winning the Aug. 2 Republican primary, released an internal Friday from the Tarrance Group that found Attorney General Eric Schmitt leading Rep. Vicky Hartzler 28-24 as Greitens lagged in third with 16% and Rep. Billy Long struggled with just 6%. But if the super PAC was hoping that these numbers might inspire Donald Trump to join them in trashing Greitens, it quickly got a rude shock when the GOP master both declared that he won't back Hartzler and left open the possibility he'd endorse Greitens sometime in the next three weeks.

Trump, seemingly out of the blue, wrote that Hartzler "called me this morning asking for my endorsement, much as she has on many other occasions." He continued, "I was anything but positive in that I don't think she has what it takes to take on the Radical Left Democrats, together with their partner in the destruction of our Country, the Fake News Media and, of course, the deceptive & foolish RINOs." And in case that message was too subtle, he concluded, "I was very nice to Vicky on the call, but will NOT BE ENDORSING HER FOR THE SENATE!" Still, in perhaps a small relief to the congresswoman, the MAGA boss didn't actually implore his legions to vote against her in the race to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt.

Trump didn't elaborate on exactly what Hartzler, who sports an endorsement from Sen. Josh Hawley, had done to offend him, but a March Politico story sheds some light into their relationship. Trump, the story said, was told how she responded to the Jan. 6 attack by accusing him of "unpresidential remarks" and noting that "many" of the rioters "supported President Trump." Hartzler still joined the majority of her GOP colleagues in objecting to Joe Biden's victory, but that may not have been enough to get her back on Trump's good side.

Trump, though, has been far more forgiving when it comes to the scandal-plagued Greitens, whose ex-wife has accused of physically abusing both her and their children in 2018. Trump spoke to the far-right OAN over the weekend, where a host encouraged him to endorse Greitens because of the former governor's opposition to their shared intra-party nemesis, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump, in a very rare nod to political reality, acknowledged that Greitens is "the one the Democrats legitimately want to run against," but he quickly added, "Eric is tough and he's smart. A little controversial, but I've endorsed controversial people before. So we'll see what happens."

McConnell is one of those people who is waiting to see what happens, though the Kansas City Star notes that, despite his past aggressive efforts to stop unacceptable candidates from winning their primaries, he's "made no indication he would get involved" here. Indeed, McConnell has refrained from even discussing Greitens publicly even though the candidate can't stop talking about his would-be leader: Greitens has accused McConnell of being behind the abuse allegations, and he's also claimed that Show Me Values, which is funded largely by Schmitt ally Rex Sinquefield, is linked to McConnell.

Hartzler, for her part, is trying to make the best of her situation with a new commercial that dubs her two main foes, "Eric and Eric," as "too weak on China." The congresswoman then makes the case that "if you want a senator who fights China like President Trump did, stand with me," a statement that's accompanied by a photo of her shaking hands with Trump back in happier days. Both Schmitt and Greitens' allies have previously run commercials using anti-China messaging against the other, though they've yet to seriously target Hartzler this way yet.

Hartzler and the Erics, however, are united in ignoring Long, whose best moment in the race came in March when Trump not-tweeted, "Have the great people of Missouri been considering the big, loud, and proud personality of Congressman Billy Long for the Senate?," a question he added was "not an Endorsement, but I'm just askin'?" Every poll, though, has found that the answer to be a resounding no, which may be why Trump has stopped talking about Long. The congressman, who made news in 2019 by giving his colleagues fake $45 bills bearing Trump's face, hasn't given up trying to get his actual endorsement even as his campaign has struggled to raise real money.

2Q Fundraising

  • MO-Sen: Lucas Kunce (D): $1.1 million raised
  • NH-Sen: Don Bolduc (R): $85,000 raised
  • WA-Sen: Tiffany Smiley (R): $2.6 million raised, $3.5 million cash-on-hand
  • CA-45: Jay Chen (D): $980,000 raised, $2.1 million cash-on-hand
  • NC-14: Jeff Jackson (D): $650,000 raised, $1.2 million cash-on-hand
  • NY-17: Sean Patrick Maloney (D-inc): $850,000 raised, $2.5 million cash-on-hand
  • NY-18: Colin Schmitt (R): $340,000 raised, $600,000 cash-on-hand
  • VA-02: Elaine Luria (D-inc): $1.8 million raised, $4.3 million cash-on-hand

senate

OH-Sen: Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan's newest ad will not only air exclusively on Fox News, it features multiples clip of high-profile Fox figures offering what passes for praise of the congressman, including Maria Bartiromo, Brett Baier, Peter Doocy, and even Tucker Carlson.

The chyron shown during the Carlson segment reads, "NOT EVERYONE IN THE DEM 2020 FIELD IS A LUNATIC," a reference to one of Ryan's two debate appearances during his short-lived presidential campaign. During that debate, Ryan agreed that Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposals would "incentivize undocumented immigrants to come into this country illegally" and said, "[I]f you want to come into the country, you should at least ring the doorbell."

OK-Sen-B: On Saturday, Donald Trump provided his "Complete and Total Endorsement" to Rep. Markwayne Mullin ahead of the August 23 Republican primary runoff. Mullin lapped former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon 44-18 in the first round of voting in late June.

Governors

AZ-Gov: The Republican firm HighGround Public Affairs, which says it sponsored this poll itself, finds former TV anchor Kari Lake leading Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson just 39-35 in the Aug. 2 Republican primary, while 4% went for another option. The survey was conducted July 2-7, with termed-out Gov. Doug Ducey backing Robson on that final day.

Lake, meanwhile, appears to be running the first, though probably far from the last, negative TV ad of the contest. After telling the audience that she's Trump's endorsed candidate, Lake goes on to label Robson, "a real RINO." Lake insists, "She gave illegals tuition discounts and made us pay for it. She voted for abortion and gun control and refused to vote to end vax and mask mandates on our children."

LA-Gov: New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno did not rule out a 2023 bid for governor over the weekend after state Democratic Party chair Katie Bernhardt mentioned her as a possible candidate. Moreno instead told NOLA.com, "People have been encouraging me for a statewide run for some time, but since last week the calls have increased from people, mostly women, who are liberal and conservative." Moreno has been talked about for years as a likely candidate for mayor in the 2025 race to succeed termed-out incumbent LaToya Cantrell, though she'd still be able to campaign for the Crescent City's top job if a statewide bid failed.  

NH-Gov: State Sen. Tom Sherman, who has the Democratic field to himself, has released an internal from Public Policy Polling that shows him trailing Republican Gov. Chris Sununu 43-33, with Libertarian Karlyn Borysenko grabbing 8%. This result, while still not close, is considerably better for Sherman than his 55-29 deficit in an April poll from the University of New Hampshire, which is the most recent survey we've seen until now. Sherman's poll also argues he'll make up ground once voters are reminded that Sununu signed an anti-abortion bill in 2021.

OR-Gov: Legislative Republicans have publicized numbers from Cygnal that show Republican Christine Drazan edging out Democrat Tina Kotek 32-31, with independent Betsy Johnson grabbing 24%. The survey comes days after Johnson released her own internal from GS Strategy that put Kotek ahead with 33% as Johnson and Drazan took 30% and 23%, respectively.

House

NE-02: Democrat Tony Vargas has released an internal from GBAO that shows him with a 48-47 edge over Republican incumbent Don Bacon in an Omaha-based seat Biden would have carried 52-46; the National Journal, which first publicized the poll, says it sampled 500 likely voters. The last survey we saw was a Change Research survey for Vargas' allies at 314 Action done days before his May primary win, and it found the Democrat ahead 42-39.

NY-03: Rep. Tom Suozzi has endorsed Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan in the five-way Aug. 23 Democratic nomination contest to succeed him, though the incumbent's influence at home may not be as strong as he'd like it to be. According to Newsday, Gov. Kathy Hochul defeated Suozzi 57-37 in the new boundaries of the 3rd District in last month's primary for governor; Suozzi lost by a slightly smaller 56-39 in the existing incarnation of this Long Island seat.

Ballot Measures

MI Ballot: Michigan activists seeking to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall that would guarantee the right to an abortion submitted more than 753,000 signatures to the secretary of state's office on Monday—far more than the 425,000 required by law, and the most collected for a ballot initiative in state history. Officials must first verify the petitions, but given the huge cushion of extra signatures, it's all but certain the measure will go before voters in November.

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Meet the key players in the next Jan. 6 hearings

Phil Waldron. Bobby Engel. Sarah Matthews. They’re all key figures in the Jan. 6 select committee’s sprawling investigation, but there’s a fair chance you’ve never heard of them.

House investigators have named dozens and dozens of witnesses as they probe the tumultuous final weeks of former President Donald Trump’s administration. While some of those have become household names, there are many more offering consequential pieces of evidence behind the scenes, which the panel has gradually released at each public hearing.

This week, the select panel’s two hearings are expected to focus on the convergence between Trump’s allies and fringe groups who incited Capitol violence, as well as the former president’s 187 minutes of inaction as the mob breached the building. That means more recorded and live testimony to come.

Here’s who you should know:

Eric Herschmann
Former Trump White House lawyer

Eric Herschmann was in the room for a host of the administration’s most notable episodes. He was there for a Dec. 18 meeting with Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani where some participants discussed having the military seize voting machines. He was there for the Jan. 3 meeting where most of the Justice Department’s top leadership threatened to resign rather than work under Trump ally Jeffrey Clark. He was in the Secret Service tent during the Jan. 6 Ellipse rally. He confronted John Eastman on multiple occasions about his proposed strategy to throw out state electors who voted for President Joe Biden, and told him on Jan. 7 that he would need a great criminal defense attorney.

He also adamantly opposed Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) efforts to get a presidential pardon. And he was in the Rose Garden with Trump when he recorded his video statement during the attack. The select committee has played portions of his testimony in multiple hearings. He has generated chatter for his bluntness, colorful language and eclectic collection of modern art.

Herschmann’s first role in Trump World was helping shepherd David Friedman, his law partner at Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, through the confirmation process to be ambassador to Israel. He later represented Trump during his first impeachment trial, then joined the White House as a senior adviser to the president in 2020, with a wide remit and broad access.

Tony Ornato
FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE Political adviser


For much of his presidency, Tony Ornato was the top Secret Service agent protecting Trump. In late 2019, Ornato was detailed to the White House as deputy chief of staff for operations, according to The New York Times.

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then-White House chief of staff Meadows, testified to the Jan. 6 committee that Ornato described a stunning incident to her shortly after Trump returned to the White House from the Ellipse on Jan. 6. According to Hutchinson, Ornato said Trump lunged at Bobby Engel — who helmed his protective detail that day — and at the wheel of the vehicle he was riding back to the White House. Trump also demanded the driver take him to the Capitol building instead of the White House, Hutchinson testified of Ornato’s description of the incident. Ornato was not in the vehicle for the incident, but Hutchinson said he described it to her as Engel silently looked on.

Neither Ornato nor the Secret Service have commented on Hutchinson’s testimony. But anonymous Secret Service sources pushed back against her testimony to multiple news outlets. The committee did not ask Ornato about Hutchinson’s account in the week before her hearing.


Bobby Engel
Head of Trump's Secret Service detail on Jan. 6

On Jan. 6, Bobby Engel was the special agent in charge of Trump’s security detail. He accompanied the president throughout the day, and was with him during the Ellipse rally and for the drive back to the White House afterward. Hutchinson testified to the committee that Ornato told her Trump lunged at Engel during that ride.

Engel has not commented publicly on Hutchinson’s testimony. Earlier this year, he told the Jan. 6 committee that he and Trump discussed going to the Capitol while driving back to the White House. The committee is expected to bring him back for further questioning, given Hutchinson’s testimony.

Sarah Matthews
Former Trump White House deputy press secretary

A Trump White House press aide, Sarah Matthews resigned in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack in protest of Trump’s actions. She testified behind closed doors with the select committee in February, where she told them Trump’s tweet attacking Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 was like “pouring gasoline on the fire.”

The panel has played some of the footage of her closed-door interviews in its public hearings, and she is expected to play a role as a witness in one of the select panel’s upcoming hearings, according to CNN.

Matthews now works as a communications aide for the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. She also defended Hutchinson, the former Meadows aide who testified publicly before the select panel.

Nick Luna
Trump's body man on Jan. 6

On Jan. 6, Nick Luna was director of Oval Office Operations and Trump’s body man. At that point in the presidency, he was usually in close physical proximity to Trump. He had a variety of responsibilities, including producing White House addresses and making sure the president had his daily briefing materials. People would often ask him about how to broach challenging subjects to the president.

In its letter subpoenaing him, the committee noted that Luna was reportedly in the Oval Office the morning of Jan. 6 when Trump called Pence and urged him to block the Electoral College certification. After the president left office, Luna moved with him to Florida to help handle his post-presidential affairs, according to The Washington Examiner.

Ben Williamson
a longtime aide to Mark Meadows

A top aide to Meadows when he was White House chief of staff, Ben Williamson was also present at the White House on Jan. 6. In his closed-door testimony, investigators asked him about Meadows’ actions during the insurrection as they tried to determine when the White House was aware of the violence at the Capitol. On the afternoon of Jan. 6, as the attack was underway, Williamson texted the chief of staff to recommend Trump post a tweet “about respecting the police,” he told the select panel.

He’s now the executive director of the Freedom First PAC, which is affiliated with Meadows.

Judd Deere
Former Trump White House deputy press secretary

Deere also served as a Trump White House press aide. He’d been subpoenaed by investigators for documents and testimony earlier in January and met behind closed doors with investigators in March. The White House spokesperson had taken part in a Jan. 5 staff meeting where Trump had discussed the planned Jan. 6 Ellipse rally. The day after the attack on the Capitol, Deere tweeted he was “heartbroken” by the “violent, unlawful actions” of the mob.

Deere now works as an aide to Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).


Max Miller
former Trump White House aide

Max Miller served in several Trump White House roles including director of the advance operation, meaning he planned Trump’s public appearances away from the White House. He told the select panel Trump wanted to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to a clip of his closed-door testimony released during a public hearing, though he’s since called the clip selectively edited, reported Cleveland.com. Miller was also part of a Jan. 4 meeting at the White House between Trump, White House official Bobby Peede and campaign adviser Katrina Pierson where they discussed the Jan. 6 Ellipse rally and potential speakers.

Miller is now a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio and has been endorsed by Trump. He’d originally been mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection, but Miller switched his candidacy to a different seat after redistricting.


Pat Cipollone
former Trump White House Counsel

As White House counsel, Pat Cipollone was privy to the tumultuous final months of the Trump administration, weighing in and pushing back on Trump’s efforts at key moments. Hutchinson described him as raising legal concerns about plans to appoint alternate slates of electors, the plan to appoint Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate election fraud and Trump’s proposed march to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

He and deputy counsel Patrick Philbin were also part of a pivotal Jan. 3 meeting between Trump and Justice Department officials, where they made it clear officials would resign en masse if Trump removed Jeffrey Rosen as the head of the department and replaced him with Jeffrey Clark. Trump and his allies viewed Clark as more likely to investigate debunked claims of election fraud.

Cipollone threatened to resign at several points during those final weeks — Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner testified to the select committee that he viewed Cipollone’s protests as “whining” — but the attorney ultimately stayed on through the end of Trump’s term. The select panel wanted him to come and testify again after sitting for an informal interview in April, and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney began applying public pressure last month. Cipollone ultimately came in for a transcribed interview with the panel on July 8. He’s now a partner at the law firm Ellis George Cipollone.


Phil Waldron
Retired Army colonel who helped push election fraud claims

Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel, floated discredited claims about voting machines to top Trump White House officials and Trump allies. Bernie Kerik, an ally of Rudy Giuliani, previously testified to the select panel that Waldron had been first to propose the idea of Trump issuing an executive order to seize voting machines in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Waldron is also known for sending a PowerPoint presentation to officials, including Meadows, calling for Trump to declare a state of emergency after the election. He’s claimed to The Washington Post that he talked to Meadows about election fraud claims in the aftermath of the election and made a presentation to members of Congress on Jan. 5, 2021.

The select panel subpoenaed Waldron for documents and testimony in mid-December, though it’s unclear if he ever appeared before the committee. Investigators also subpoenaed Waldron’s phone records, prompting him to sue in an effort to block the select panel from obtaining them.

Sidney Powell
an attorney who drove Trump’s fraud claims

Sidney Powell was at the leading edge of some of Trump’s most extreme considerations ahead of Jan. 6 — from using the military or Justice Department to seize voting machines to appointing a special counsel to drive a false narrative about election irregularities. In fact, Trump considered appointing Powell to a special counsel role, and the Jan. 6 select committee has heard evidence that senior White House and DOJ attorneys threatened to resign to help stamp out that decision.

Powell was among those who assembled in the Oval Office for a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting that included former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne and other Trump associates to discuss those options. None were ever deployed.

Powell gained fame within Trump world after she, with an assist from the Justice Department, unraveled Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to the FBI during the 2017 Russia probe. More recently, she's found herself battling another controversy: The finances of her group Defending the Republic. Prosecutors have asked federal District Judge Amit Mehta to determine the extent to which Powell’s group is funding the legal expenses of multiple members of the Oath Keepers and other Jan. 6 defendants to seek out potential conflicts.


Joe Biggs
A Proud Boys leader

A Proud Boys leader from Florida, Biggs was one of a handful of leaders charged by prosecutors with seditious conspiracy for his role in fomenting the breach of the Capitol. Biggs, who previously was a correspondent for the conspiracy website InfoWars, has been held in pretrial detention since spring 2021 and is expected to face jurors in December, alongside other Proud Boys leaders, including former national chairman Enrique Tarrio.

Prosecutors say Biggs played an important operational role after Tarrio’s Jan. 4 arrest on unrelated charges. Messages among the Proud Boys obtained by prosecutors also show Biggs was at the upper end of the group’s hierarchy.

The Jan. 6 select committee has already singled out Biggs for his involvement in the Jan. 6 mob moments before it breached police lines. His brief conversation with another Jan. 6 defendant, Ryan Samsel, moments before Samsel charged at the barricades has become a point of interest for investigators.

Ethan Nordean
a proud boys leader

A Seattle-based Proud Boy, Nordean also became an on-the-ground leader for the group after Tarrio’s arrest. He’s been seen in famous footage leading a group of more than 100 Proud Boys from the Washington Monument toward the Capitol. Nordean also goes by the moniker Rufio Panman and is described in many of the group’s Signal chats as a leader.

Nordean is one of five Proud Boys, including Biggs, Tarrio, Zachary Rehl of Philadelphia and Dominic Pezzola of New York, charged with seditious conspiracy. Pezzola was the first member of the mob to breach the Capitol, using a stolen police riot shield to smash a Senate-wing window.

Kelly Meggs
Florida leader of the Oath Keepers

Kelly Meggs, a key ally of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, has emerged, in prosecutors’ view, as a central figure in the group’s decision to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6. But Meggs’ pre-Jan. 6 activities are also of keen interest to the select committee and Justice Department investigators. Meggs, like Tarrio of the Proud Boys, is among the members of the extremist group who has previously been acquainted with longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone. Several Oath Keepers, including Meggs, helped provide a personal security detail to Stone on Jan. 5 and 6. At least one member of that group, Joshua James, has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy.

Meggs’ private messages to other Oath Keepers have also shown what prosecutors say is a planning role he took on ahead of the group’s trip to D.C. He discussed forging an alliance with members of the Proud Boys. And during the Jan. 6 chaos — after Oath Keepers entered the Capitol — Meggs messaged associates that he was seeking out Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He and his wife, Connie Meggs, who is charged separately for her actions on Jan. 6, are suing the select committee to prevent the panel from obtaining their phone records.


Roger Stone
longtime Trump confidant

The longtime Trump confidant has been on the outskirts — and sometimes at the center — of nearly every Trump controversy in memory. He escaped prison in 2020 on charges that he lied to Congress after Trump commuted his sentence and later pardoned him. Stone was also a driving force behind false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Most interesting to congressional investigators is Stone’s direct ties to Proud Boys leader Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Rhodes, as well as other members of the groups. Stone has long rejected the notion that he had any awareness of either group’s plans to go into the Capitol on Jan. 6. Several members of the Oath Keepers involved in Stone’s security detail on Jan. 5 have been charged for later breaching the Capitol, and one of them has entered a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

Stone pleaded the fifth when he appeared before the select committee last year.


Matt Graves
U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

As U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves helms the Justice Department office responsible for prosecuting the bulk of Jan. 6 defendants. In other words, he’s a key player in the largest investigation in the department’s history. Graves had stints in the private sector and at DOJ before Biden nominated him for this post. He helmed the office’s Fraud and Public Corruption Section and represented a host of clients at the massive firm DLA Piper. At that firm, he represented Dr. Ben Carson, who served as Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development; and Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom Neft.

In his first days as U.S. attorney, Graves signed off on the prosecution of Trump ally Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress. Those charges stemmed from Bannon’s refusal to cooperate with the congressional probe of Jan. 6.

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Republicans aren’t worried about the midterms … as long as no one says the word ‘abortion’

Veteran Republican strategist Mike Madrid gets points for being honest about the current political landscape after the GOP’s radical Supreme Court majority upended 50 years of settled law on abortion rights.

“With inflation as high as it is, for the first time I think it’s a jump ball. The Democrats are now back in it,” Madrid told NBC News.

The high court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade was, Madrid said, "a massive gift to the Democrats and one they could not have conjured up for themselves."

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True enough—congressional Democrats couldn’t have dreamed up anything more enraging than conservatives taking a hatchet to the fundamental rights of some 50% of the country. Still, Republicans have only themselves to thank for putting Congress in play amid such a thorny political cycle for Democrats. They could have neutered Donald Trump's political future during his second impeachment following the deadly Jan. 6 coup attempt. But instead Republicans made Trump the epicenter of their party for at least another cycle or more. If Republicans had shown the fortitude to vanquish Trump, their entire slate of candidates would look entirely different heading into November. Imagine, for example, if word-challenged former football star and alleged wife abuser Herschel Walker weren’t the GOP's best shot at scoring a pickup in the Senate.

Republicans had hoped a uniquely unified party would head to the polls in November to register their disgust with soaring inflation and President Joe Biden's leadership after an election many Republican voters baselessly believe Trump won.

Instead, the abortion ruling upended the cycle by firing up Democrats and independent women, while the Jan. 6 probe has left a weakened Trump leading a party that is starting to fray at the edges. By November, GOP voters might already be duking it out over whether to stick with Trump in 2024 or toss him for a fresher face like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But Republicans are either still in denial about their shifting fortunes or they're lying through their teeth. NBC reports that on one hand, most GOP officials in Washington dismiss the fallout from the Dobbs ruling. At the same time, however, they are advising GOP candidates to steer clear of talking about abortion.

In other words, we're not worried … but whatever you do, don’t utter the word “abortion.”

Even politicians like former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who revels in controversy and hopes to recapture the governor's mansion this fall, said, "I don't have time for abortion" when questioned about it last week.

That type of dodge is a far cry from May just after the decision first leaked, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was assuring everyone the final decision would be a "wash" in federal races even if it might impact state contests.  

At the time, endangered GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin pooh-poohed the notion that overturning Roe would even register in the Badger State.

“It might be a little messy for some people, but abortion is not going away,” Johnson said, adding that Wisconsinites could still drive across state lines to Illinois for reproductive care. “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is, because it’s not going to be that big a change.”  

Easy for the white male conspiracy-pusher with the cushy job to say. But last month, Johnson got a little taste of reality when the Marquette Law School poll found him trailing three of his potential Democratic challengers.

DeSantis is taking a more circumspect approach, settling for the moment for a 15-week ban on abortion as he seeks reelection.

“The strategy is obvious,” one GOP operative told NBC. “Do it after the gubernatorial so as to not piss off suburban women, then screw them over after the election in order to appease fire-breathing pro-lifers in a presidential primary.”

In other words, the guy who took on Disney for political sport doesn’t want to get anywhere near abortion until he has secured another four years.

Trump White House lawyer Pat Cipollone to meet with Jan. 6 probe

Fresh off a subpoena requesting his cooperation, former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone is slated to testify before the Jan. 6 committee for a private, transcribed, and videotaped interview.

A committee aide did not immediately respond to a Daily Kos request for comment. The New York Times was the first to report the development Wednesday, citing a person briefed on the matter. 

Cipollone’s full compliance could be illuminating for the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. According to sworn testimony already delivered by former members of the Department of Justice under Trump, as well as Trump White House officials, Cipollone was often a firsthand witness to make-or-break moments in Trump’s attempted coup. 

RELATED STORY: Pat Cipollone’s chance to serve the country—not Trump—is now, Jan. 6 probe demands in subpoena

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Cipollone was privy to multiple conversations about the bunk elector scheme championed by Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, witnesses have said, and Cipollone was also present when Trump raised the question of seizing voting machines.

The former president’s counsel attended a meeting recently detailed at length—and under oath—by the nation’s former acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue.

Rosen and Donoghue testified that it was Cipollone who stood tall against Trump in the Oval Office during a meeting where Trump nearly fired Rosen and replaced him with yes-man Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level environmental lawyer at the Department of Justice who strongly supported Trump’s baseless election fraud claims.

Like Cipollone, Clark was subpoenaed by the committee. But Clark refused to answer any questions and instead pleaded the Fifth Amendment repeatedly during a private meeting with committee counsel.  

When Rosen and Donoghue testified, they described how the draft letter written by Clark rattled off a long series of bogus claims about election fraud in Georgia and urged that “alternate” electors be seated.

Rosen’s predecessor, Attorney General Bill Barr, had already declared publicly and in private meetings with Trump, that there was no evidence of fraud widespread enough that it would alter the outcome of the election. But Clark, Rosen and Donoghue said, pushed ahead anyway. 

When Cipollone saw the draft letter, Donoghue told the committee he remembered the counsel’s reaction vividly. 

If the DOJ cosigned it, Cipollone allegedly said, it would be a “murder-suicide pact.”

The draft letter never went out because Donoghue, Rosen, and others at the Department of Justice threatened to resign en masse if Trump insisted on replacing Rosen with Clark. 

According to sworn testimony already provided by former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Cipollone was also part of key conversations with Mark Meadows, then Trump’s chief of staff. 

Hutchinson said Cipollone pleaded with Meadows to act as the mob grew larger, gallows were erected on the Capitol lawn and chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’ reverberated on Capitol grounds. 

Hutchinson recalled Cipollone telling Meadows how desperate the situation had become on Jan. 6 and urged Meadows to understand that the mob was quite literally calling to kill then-Vice President Mike Pence.

“You heard him, Pat,” Hutchinson recalled Meadows saying. “He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

According to Hutchinson's recounting of the day, Cipollone was flabbergasted.

“This is f-ing crazy. We need to be doing something more,” Cipollone allegedly said. 

Cipollone has been a stalwart ally to Trump, representing the 45th president for both of his impeachments and in various other legal matters. When Trump was impeached for obstruction of Congress and abuse of power in 2019, Cipollone offered a vehement and sharp defense of Trump, taking up the “witch hunt” mantle at length and slamming the inquiry as meritless and part of a campaign by Democrats and those on the left to punish Trump for political differences. 

When Trump was impeached the first time, Cipollone notably called for cameras to be barred from proceedings, arguing it would create a circus-like atmosphere. The cameras would stay. 

Trump was ultimately quite pleased with Cipollone’s performance during the first impeachment, calling him a “Great White House counsel.” 

This latest decision to comply with the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena will put Trump’s relationship with Cipollone to the test and the extent of Cipollone’s cooperation will naturally hinge on what he actually discloses. 

When Trump attorney John Eastman tried to fend off the committee’s subpoena for his records, Eastman cited attorney-client privilege but was unable to overcome the crime-fraud exception to this assertion. The crime-fraud exception essentially says that confidentiality is not blanketed and if a client sought advice from an attorney that would help that client pull off or commission a crime, then work product or correspondence can be disclosed. 

A Washington Post profile of Cipollone from Jan. 2020 notes the counsel’s propensity to keep himself out of the national spotlight.

His profile was so low in Washington, D.C., in fact, that when Cipollone first took to the Senate floor during Trump’s impeachment, it was his first time ever appearing on C-SPAN.

Memorably, even while presiding over the inquiry, Chief Justice John Roberts introduced Cipollone and mispronounced his last name. 

TODAY: Cipollone's first time on C-SPAN. Sekulow's 44th time on C-SPAN (first in 1990 ... 1991 below) pic.twitter.com/XbWVBCJ5ek

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) January 21, 2020

 Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, told Yahoo! News in January 2020 that Cipollone was a “serious tactician” and described him as an “aggressive advocate” for the 45th president though “measured.”

In that same 2020 article, an unnamed Trump White House official said Trump saw Cipollone as “beyond loyal.” 

Cipollone will appear before the committee for his private session this Friday.

The committee’s next public hearing is July 12 at 10 AM ET and there will be at least one more hearing to follow. The committee is expected to focus on the extremist elements involved in the insurrection as well as unpack exactly what was going on during the 187 minutes of silence from the White House as the Capitol was under attack. 

Stop grooming our kids, you godbothering weirdos

In a decision remarkable mainly for how little effort the majority put in to convince us it even cared about the facts of the case, the conservative Supreme Court gave the go-ahead last week for schools to elevate religious zealotry alongside children's sports programs. The basic reasoning is conservative from top to bottom; the worst Christian person you know must have the right to make themselves a destructive public nuisance everywhere they happen to go, whereas The Children have no rights at all, not one, and must abide whatever the adults have in store for them.

The party of Jim Jordan and, well, Florida, is very clear on that last point and gets very prickly if you suggest otherwise. The Children must learn about conservative ideologies in schools, and must absolutely not learn anything their parents might object to. No learning about America's systemic racism; no learning what a uterus is; no learning about the existence of Jews, Muslims, Black authors, families with two moms, spouses in general, or rainbows.

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School football coaches, however, have generally been immune to such pressures. This is mostly because nobody thinks high school football coaches are in danger of teaching their kids a single damn thing, but it's also because there's no small town in America where parents' sole evening entertainment plans revolve around smuggling six packs into school stadiums to yell slurs at, for example, spelling bee contestants.

If the AP Biology teacher gets caught teaching children about the Forbidden Organs, there's no parent group that will launch itself into action to save them. If the school's athletic director gets caught raffling off tickets that allow the winner to hit the shower with his team of underage boys, then calls for justice will be responded to during school board meetings with feverish parent concerns about how the punishment might affect the team's winning season.

We're this close to the championships, after all. Is now really the time to rock the boat?

Well, I too am a parent, and I too have something to object to. I object to your religious practices, sports coaches that make a show of public prayer during school sports events. Your religion is wrong. Your religious beliefs are garbage, and you're a garbage person for having them. And, most importantly, I don't want my child or any of America's children to be anywhere near you.

Stop grooming our children, you freaks. Stop indoctrinating them to believe that the God they should believe in is a vapid entity that throws high school sports games based on the whims of abusive authority figures. Stop teaching them that God is a slot machine for them to put quarters in.

I don't care what religious sect you belong to: If you're leading children in prayer on the 50-yard line, your religion sucks. I don't care what you call God or how many gods you believe in; if you're leading a prayer on the field that ties the outcomes of sporting events to how the deities feel that evening, what is wrong with you.

Teaching kids about the history of lynching in America is not "grooming" them. Teaching our kids the formalities of praying in your religion is absolutely "grooming" them, and is in fact grooming them to be the worst kind of religious charlatans. Performative. Public. Hollow-headed. Insincere. Trivial.

Whatever your religion might be, you have no right to suggest to everyone else's children that if the sportball of the day did not go into the right net or hoop or zone it is because God did that. If you are teaching children how to hit other children as hard as possible while wearing worn-out protective gear that may or may not even fit them, you do not get to claim that an injured child is the result of God intervening to hurt them. Seriously: What the hell is wrong with you?

The role of Our Lord Almighty in American sports is a long and shady one, probably because many devoted sports fans are uninterested in any injustices around them that do not involve the team they are rooting for. But it always goes in one direction: God is always praised for making the Good team win, but is never grumbled about when the Good team loses.

You never hear a post-game interview in which a kicker says "yeah, I would have totally nailed that field goal but God screwed me. He totally moved my foot wrong at the last moment." You never hear a high school coach telling his team "Well, that was a great game but it turns out God doesn't love you. You should probably go home and reflect on that a bit."

The moment you are invoking an almighty deity as the guiding force behind how the evening's sports match turned out, you're grooming all the children forced to listen to you to believe that God is a vapid and bored entity that may not care about genocide or natural disaster, but absolutely has a stake in local team sports.

The children who belong to every religion that is better than yours, and that includes all of the atheist children, have every right to have you not insult their own religious beliefs by interjecting vapid, empty-brained thoughts like that.

If your school has just been the scene of a mass shooting and you, as an authority figure, announce to the children in your care that it is because God wanted their friends dead, I am going to personally book an airplane ticket, fly to your house, and punch you in the face. If your school is down three points in the fourth quarter and you call a risky play that results in an interception, then there are a hundred factors that have led to that outcome that are all more consequential than God deciding which children he loves best. I don't want my child or anybody else's child to hear your impotent, self-promoting bleating about how God shares the blame.

It is offensive! Genuinely offensive! How dare you groom my child to believe that the Creator of All Things is a pachinko machine that you toss prayers into and test your luck!

Football coach religion is the worst religion on the planet, and it doesn't matter which religion they belong to or how often they attend. Football coach religion is always, each and every time, terrible. It is inherently cultish.

It is also inherently coercive. This is such an obvious fact that it by itself proves the Supreme Court majority to be dishonest and hackish; a Supreme Court that claims it cannot possibly deduce how the school's most visible authority figure (especially in all the towns that have so few authority figures that "high school football coach" automatically gets bumped to near the top of their list) might be pressuring students to pray in the manner of his own religion rather than their own—that shows such clownish contempt for fact-finding that it should justify impeachment all on its own.

Did you know that different Christian denominations say the most famous Christian prayer differently, with different words? Many children find this out when they are obliged to offer a prayer in a public or semi-public setting and oops, find out that the words everyone else are tediously chanting aren't the same ones coming out of their own mouths. It's a bit of an awkward moment, to be sure, and one that is not likely to become less awkward when you are surrounded by peers whose main defining characteristic is that they are meatier and more aggressive than the rest of the class.

What will you do then? Will you bend the knee as the coach does, rather than as you were taught? Will you say his words, and not your own? Will you break your own religious belief that prayers should not be done for public show or for vapid, self-serving reasons in order to fit in with the compulsive grown man who makes every decision on who gets to play, and in what positions, and for how long?

That is what every child must decide, as they are groomed by a religious zealot who believes their own religious practices naturally supersede that of every other person on the field and in the stands. And if the coach is zealot enough to believe that, and to impose public pressure on children he holds power over so that they'll comply, that dude is not a football coach. He's just an aspiring cult leader who's lucked into his own captive audience.

American parents have every right to expect that their children, attending public school, will not face public pressure to adhere to a particular old coot's personal religious beliefs. We have every right to expect that public school officials will not teach our children to pray to an audience rather in private, and will not suggest to them that a deity each child may or may not believe in is Actually the force that controls each child's successes in at least equal proportion to their own hard work and choices. Get bent. Get out of here with that garbage.

I'm not worried about my child stumbling onto a book about Ruby Bridges and turning to a life of crime. But there's no way in hell I'd willingly leave my child alone for 10 minutes with a coach like that.

I don't care what religion my child chooses to be, just as long as they don't grow up praying to the God of Endzones and Conveniently Timed Knee Injuries. Three-quarters of American religious faith can be boiled down to that, and it doesn't need any help.

So there you go, Supreme Court conservatives who believe authority figures ought to be able to preach to children in a manner that displays those children's reactions for public view and possible community retaliation. I, an Actual Parent, am lodging an objection. You have violated my religion by exposing my child to a different religion which is in every way inferior, primitive, and stupid.

Since the decision was reached by lying about what was going on, however, we can assume that whatever religious beliefs Supreme Court conservatives might hold are demonstrably worse than even that of abusive football coaches, which takes some doing. Perhaps we could get some better Americans to take those reins. Perhaps even a few Americans whose religious beliefs do not specifically hinge on being able to pressure public school students into going along with their petty public stunts.

Retiring Sen. Toomey: Trump ‘disqualified himself’ and GOP will have ‘stronger candidate’ in 2024

Why is it that, with a few notable exceptions, prominent Republicans almost always wait until they’re on their way out the door to slag off Donald Trump? They’re like B-movie ninjas who attack an enemy one at a time. Or, perhaps more accurately, they’re like doctors who watch the mole on your back gradually morph into a Rorschach blot over the course of six years before telling you, on the eve of their retirement, that you should probably think about getting that looked at.

Sen. Pat Toomey is one of these folks. While he voted to convict Donald Trump following his second impeachment (though not after the first)—and never really warmed up to the ocher arschloch during his reign of whatever-that-was—Toomey had already announced his retirement when he voted to dump Trump into the dustbin of history. So while his impeachment vote was more courageous than his compatriots’ votes to acquit, it wasn’t like he was risking his political future or anything.

That said, he's making his position perfectly clear before he rides off into the sunset to work at some noxious conservative think tank that will craft an elegant intellectual rationalization—based on time-honored Jeffersonian principles—for pushing Medicare recipients out to sea on ice floes.

But to his credit, he thinks Trump is garbage. Just listen to his very measured and dispassionate case, which he relayed toward the end of a recent Bloomberg TV interview:

Sen. Pat Toomey (R) Pennsylvania: “He disqualified himself from serving in public office by virtue of his post-election behavior.” He also thinks the Republican Party will have a stronger candidate than Donald Trump in the next presidential election https://t.co/qlvvI3zrft pic.twitter.com/qp32wpfbiz

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) June 30, 2022

TOOMEY: “I think he disqualified himself from serving in public office by virtue of his post-election behavior, especially leading right up to Jan. 6. I think the revelations from this committee make his path to even the Republican nomination much more tenuous. Never say never, and he decides whether to throw his hat in the ring, but I think we’ll have a stronger candidate.”

Okay, it’s nice of him to state the obvious and everything, but how about showing some urgency? How about dropping napalm like GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are doing? Maybe he could out his fellow Republican senators who agree with him but are too craven to admit it lest Trump’s preternaturally wee Chucky Doll hands “Truth” out some scarcely comprehensible, ungrammatical, ALL-CAPS DIATRIBES to his flying monkeys in the heartland. It’s not like the future of our democracy is at stake or anything! Hello! McFly! 

Donald Trump is not more powerful than every single member of the GOP combined. They didn’t need the revelations from the House Jan. 6 committee to sink him. They could have done that literally dozens of times over the past year and a half by closing ranks with whatever pro-democracy forces managed to crawl out of the smoldering wreckage of Jan. 6.

But, well, a mealy closing statement about the GOP having “better candidates” than Trump is something, isn’t it? It’s not much, but it’s something

Of course the party has better candidates. No one on the face of God’s green globule could be a worse candidate. But what exactly are you going to do about it once you’re out of Congress, Toomey? Fire off a handful of press releases and call it a day?

We are at a crossroads. One fork of the road leads to Putin-style fascism, the other to a healthier and happier democracy that can continue to thrive on a planet that will at most be half Mad Max hellscape if we manage to reverse course in time.

The Republicans who know better—and I’d like to think there are a lot more than just Cheney, Toomey, and Kinzinger who do—need to do their sworn duty to our Constitution, or it will eventually be worth less than Donald Trump thinks it is.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Hollywood Conservative Jon Voight Calls On Joe Biden To Be Impeached

Conservative actor Jon Voight posted a video to social media earlier this week calling for the impeachment of President Joe Biden.

The two-minute clip focuses mainly on crime issues and wonders if the “darkness” of the Biden years can “be lifted.”

“We have a troubled nation with much horror from these criminals that are ruining lives,” Voight states, “We must stop this now. We must bring back our nation’s safety.”

The Academy Award-winning actor pointed the finger at Biden for taking “down our morals, our true gift of the land of the free.”

“He must be impeached,” he added. “Don’t let this President Biden tear down every inch that was sacrificed with blood, sweat, and tears for his dictation of lies.”

Watch:

RELATED: Ted Cruz: Biden Impeachment Likely If Republicans Win Back The House

Jon Voight: Impeach President Joe Biden

Polling consistently shows the American people are fed up with President Biden and his party’s soft-on-crime policies.

In a CBS News poll, 61 percent of voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of crime. Likewise, a Washington Post-ABC poll found Republicans hold a 12-point advantage on the issue of crime.

“We must protect this nation and bring back safety. We’re all feeling very unsafe,” Voight said before calling on Joe Biden to be impeached.

Aside from crime, there are several areas in which a Republican House could impeach the President or at least investigate the Biden administration.

Top of that list would be open borders.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) when asked if he believed similar to Jon Voight that Biden could be impeached said, “I do think there’s a chance of that.”

“Whether it’s justified or not, the Democrats weaponized impeachment,” Cruz continued. “They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him.”

Cruz went on to explain that the border crisis and Biden’s “decision to just defy immigration laws” are the most likely grounds for impeachment.

Republican Representative Claudia Tenney of New York also demanded Joe Biden be impeached after police video surfaced showing illegal immigrants being flown by federal contractors into Westchester County Airport.

RELATED: NY Rep. Calls For Biden To Be Impeached After Police Video Shows Feds Flying Illegal Immigrants Into NY

Voight Calls Trump a ‘Hero’

Roughly one year prior to his video calling on Biden to be impeached, Midnight Cowboy actor Jon Voight appeared in another video defending President Donald Trump and his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani as “heroes of the United States.”

“We as a nation will stand up for these men, heroes of the United States of America because my friends God is our witness and he will show who’s boss,” he said. “Pray for justice and truth!”

Voight said Trump, while Democrats spent four years viciously attacking him and calling for his impeachment, is “the greatest president of this century.”

Aside from open borders, President Biden easily could have been impeached over the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

The incompetence behind the withdrawal led to a suicide bombing killing 13 service members, a retaliatory drone strike by the United States that killed 10 civilians – including an aid worker and 7 children – and hundreds of Americans being left behind for a significant period of time in the Taliban-controlled country.

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The White House’s efforts to create a letter alongside the National School Boards Association (NSBA) that would spur an attempt to weaponize the FBI and DOJ against concerned parents whom they branded potential “domestic terrorists” also should have opened some eyes.

Biden’s bungling of the COVID response, where more Americans died under his watch with multiple vaccines and therapies available, should also prompt further scrutiny.

Democrats most certainly would have impeached Trump over it had he won in 2020.

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