‘Thanks for stopping by’: Biden fires back after Rick Scott flaunts toxic ‘Plan to Rescue America’

Our Illustrious Overlord Dark Brandon of House Biden—Vanquisher of Jabronis, Doter of Grandchildren, and Dread Scourge of Dandelions—has been a right saucy rogue lately.

Whereas in the past he’s appeared content to seek common ground with uncommonly gross Republicans, something has lit a fire under Joe Biden lately, and he’s come out swinging. And sometimes—even when he’s not speaking—you can detect a rakish glint in his eye.

The latest? Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Medicare fraudster extraordinaire, is sarcastically urging President Biden to spread the word about his 12-point “Rescue America Plan”—and Uncle Joe is sarcastically (and wisely) doing just that.

RELATED: Going into the midterms, Democrats can be seriously grateful that Rick Scott is on the other side

 Shot:

.@JoeBiden said he wished he had enough copies of my Rescue America plan, so I stopped by the White House today to make sure he did. Thanks for spreading the word, Joe! Check it out at: https://t.co/7ZLQG7dZy3 pic.twitter.com/XcoHKktDNm

— Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) September 13, 2022

Chaser:

Couldn’t agree more, Rick. And if anyone else wants to read your plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, they should go to https://t.co/xDudwYX85v. Thanks for stopping by. https://t.co/9YXhMisGf5

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 14, 2022

Wait, why would both these guys—one who loves America and one who loves stealing Medicare funds from America—want you to read a Republican plan to “rescue” America? Well, because the plan is arboreal ape shit. And not the top-shelf variety.

And while the plan isn’t nearly as noxious as it used to be—when pretty much everyone from across the political spectrum panned it—it’s still pretty bad.

RELATED: Rick Scott made the mistake of telling voters what Republicans stand for. It's a polling disaster

The major revision Sen. Scott made to his plan involved removing a policy plank insisting that everyone—including people who make little to no money—should be forced to pay income tax. (Guess that’s more important than requiring that all corporations pay a little something in taxes, huh?)

But the plan is still problematic, particularly if voters figure out that it’s an existential threat to Social Security and Medicare, which Sen. Scott probably sees as a corrupt boondoggle because it’s so comically easy to defraud.

Of course, Moscow Mitch McConnell, who understands better than most how to gaslight the plebes, did not like Scott’s plan one bit. Scott rolled it out in February, and fled a GOP press conference on March 1, moments before McConnell addressed what are arguably its two most worrying proposals: 

“If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader. I’ll decide in consultation with my members what to put on the floor,” McConnell said.

[...]

McConnell continued: “Let me tell you what will not be on our agenda. We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda.”

RELATED: Rick Scott kicks off final push to midterms by escalating his war with Mitch McConnell

Yet six months later, the part about sunsetting the vital programs millions of seniors and others depend on to keep eating and breathing? That’s still in there.

As Democratic political analyst and columnist Ed Kilgore noted in in New York magazine:

In any event, Scott was so worried about the stink of the tax-hike idea that his revised plan has 12 points rather than 11; the new one loudly advertises hatred of all taxes and includes the very dumb idea of making it even harder than it already is to avoid an economy-crushing debt default. But what interests me is the fact that he did not take the time to get rid of some of the other howlers in the original plan while he was at it. The five-year sunset on all federal laws that McConnell considered as bad as the minimum tax is still there. So is the truly stupid idea of a 12-year “term limit” on all federal nonmilitary employment, which would impose costs and inefficiencies nearly as severe as Scott’s other proposal to force the relocations of federal agencies outside Washington.

Also, while Lindsey Graham and friends are doing their best to keep the toxic (for Republicans) abortion issue front and center, vaporizing long-held reproductive rights remains an integral part of Scott’s plan:

  • Abortion kills human children. To deny that is to deny science.
  • Whether you believe in God or not, as a civilized people who accept science, we must protect babies, born and unborn, from all acts of violence.
  • All government policies will favor having more babies adopted, not aborted.

This reminds me of the good old days during Trump’s first impeachment, when Neck-Wattle Nero kept telling his followers to read the transcript, and we were all, “Yes, by all means, read the transcript! It shows Trump blackmailing a foreign head of state in order to manufacture dirt on a political opponent!”

Meanwhile, even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now getting in on the act, effusively thanking Republicans for punching themselves in their own arrogant faces. 

Schumer: What are Democrats doing? Talking about new jobs.. What are the MAGA Republicans doing? A nationwide abortion ban. pic.twitter.com/Johu6hyHn1

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2022

(Partial) transcript!

SCHUMER: “… Americans from every walk of life are seeing the contrast: What are Democrats doing? Talking about new jobs, cheaper costs. What are the MAGA Republicans doing? A nationwide abortion ban.

“That’s the contrast between the two parties, plain and simple. … Republicans are twisting themselves in a pretzel trying to explain their position on abortion. Let me be clear: Again, what Sen. Graham is introducing is a MAGA Republican nationwide abortion ban. If it walks like a nationwide abortion ban and talks like a nationwide abortion ban, it is a nationwide abortion ban.

“So, that’s the contrast. The split screen is unmistakable for all Americans to see for themselves. We’re focused on job creating, inflation fighting. They’re focused on an extreme agenda that hurts women.”

Sen Schumer is right. There are clear and striking differences between the two parties right now, and Democrats seem keen to highlight them. For some reason, Republicans do, too. And that may finally be their downfall. 

Donate now to help expand Democrats’ Senate majority in November!

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.

Jan. 6 probe seeks Newt Gingrich; questions role in Trump’s attempt to overturn election

The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday asked Newt Gingrich to come forward voluntarily and answer questions about evidence investigators obtained highlighting the role he played promoting former President Donald Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election both before and after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. 

According to the committee, the emails that piqued their interest were between Gingrich and Trump’s advisers, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, communications strategist Jason Miller, and others, like Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, all of whom have cooperated at length with the congressional investigation.  

Gingrich, a Georgia Republican and former House speaker, had cozied up to the White House as Trump’s impeachment-marred and scandal-ridden term came to an end. In the process, the committee contends, Gingrich ended up providing Trump’s team with significant input on television advertisements that propagated conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud. 

Jan 6 Cmte Letter to Newt Gingrich by Daily Kos on Scribd

Further, House Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson noted, mere days after the election in November 2020, Gingrich peppered Meadows and Cipollone with questions about who was in charge of coordinating an elector bid that would put fake pro-Trump “electors” in states demonstrably won by now-President Joe Biden. That fake elector bid was at the very core of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. 

A month later, Gingrich proposed that ads should encourage the public to pressure state officials to investigate conspiracy theories. Those included the now long-debunked claim of Trump ballots being smuggled in suitcases out of voting centers in Georgia by nefarious election workers.

Those conspiracy theories latched on to by Gingrich and others ultimately upended the lives of election workers. 

But persuasion was not enough. 

Gingrich wrote Kushner, Miller, and consultant Larry Weitzner in a Dec. 8, 2020 email that “the goal is to arouse the country’s anger through new verifiable information.” 

“If we inform the American people in a way they find convincing and it arouses their anger, they will then bring pressure on legislators and governors,” Gingirch wrote. 

But that “new verifiable information” was bunk. 

Gingrich also did this just after Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia deputy secretary of state, issued an impassioned public plea begging that the disinformation and character attacks on election workers and election officials cease. 

“Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed,” Sterling said. 

Literal hours after the insurrection, investigators on the committee say Gingrich opted to keep pushing Trump’s agenda.

Thompson described Gingrich as “relentless.” 

In an email sent at 10:42 PM on Jan. 6—former Vice President Mike Pence had only reopened the Senate around 8 PM—Gingrich asked about the fake electors for Trump in an email to Meadows:

“[A]re there letters from state legislators about decertifiying electors?” Gingrich wrote.

The committee asked Gingrich to appear for a transcribed interview beginning the week of Sept. 19. 

As the summer winds down, the Jan. 6 committee’s public-facing activities are expected to ramp up. As committee member and Rep. Jamie Raskin recently told Daily Kos, the Jan. 6 probe would continue to gather and assess new evidence it received over the course of its public hearings and work to tie up loose ends before issuing an interim report.  

RELATED STORY: Pulling back from the ‘appalling descent’: An interview with Jan. 6 investigator Jamie Raskin

Meanwhile, on Friday, according to The New York Times, Cipollone and his deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin are expected to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack. 

John Eastman’s attorneys advised him not to testify in Georgia’s presidential election probe

The Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney’s office is demanding that John Eastman answer questions for the special grand jury investigating election tampering in the state in 2020. The former attorney for Donald Trump is pleading the Fifth.

According to USA TODAY, Eastman’s lawyers issued a statement stating that they had advised him to “assert attorney-client privilege and the constitutional right to remain silent where appropriate.”

“By all indications, the District Attorney’s Office has set itself on an unprecedented path of criminalizing controversial or disfavored legal theories, possibly in hopes that the federal government will follow its lead,” the statement reads. “Criminalization of unpopular legal theories is against every American tradition and would have ended the careers of John Adams, Ruth Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall and many other now-celebrated American lawyers."

RELATED STORY: Lindsey Graham believes he’s above the law, tells judge that Georgia DA must explain her questioning

The attorney, infamously known for creating the bogus falsehood that Joe Biden didn’t actually win the election, is among such MAGA notables as former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and whiny Trump lapdog Sen. Lindsey Graham. All were called to testify in front of the Georgia grand jury and all have put up a fight—mostly to no avail.  

Eastman was behind the idea of sending a group of fake electors out into swing states in hopes of blocking the congressional certification of the 2020 election.

The New York Times reports that Eastman continued looking for election irregularities long after Trump was out of office. In one of a slew of previously uncovered emails, Eastman wrote, “A lot of us have now staked our reputations on the claims of election fraud, and this would be a way to gather proof… If we get proof of fraud on Jan. 5, it will likely also demonstrate the fraud on Nov. 3, thereby vindicating President Trump’s claims and serving as a strong bulwark against Senate impeachment trial.”

Kemp’s attorneys tried everything to save the incumbent governor from giving a sworn statement. But according to reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney refused to allow the governor to skirt his testimony but did allow him to push it off until after the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Giuliani tried to play the “too sick to testify” card but was staunchly shut down by McBurney and appeared in Atlanta on Aug. 17 to give testimony.

Graham is doing everything he can to avoid testifying to the special grand jury in Georgia, including filing a brief on Aug. 24 that reasons that the subpoena to testify is invalid based on a rarely used section of the U.S. Constitution.

“The Constitution guarantees that a Senator ‘shall not be questioned’ about his protected ‘Speech or Debate’—and yet the District Attorney insists that Senator Graham must submit to questioning to ascertain whether he can be questioned or is immune from questioning. That makes no sense,” Graham’s motion reads.

Eastman also pleaded the Fifth in refusing to answer questions from the House committee investigating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, per USA TODAY.

Rudy says Trump didn’t actually steal top secret docs, he was simply ‘preserving’ them

So if you or I had worked for the government and, upon leaving, squirreled away a few top secret nuclear documents in a Six Million Dollar Man lunchbox that we kept under a basement foosball table, we’d be sitting in brightly lit rooms asking if we could please get some unscented udder cream for our serially brutalized nipples. It’s unlikely we’d be able to trot out numerous contradictory excuses for our crimes and have roughly a third of the nation believe them. But Donald Trump is special.

And since his followers are 100% convinced he’s the bestest prezident since George Jefferson, anything he does must be holy, pure, and in the interest of all Americans. And when you have a stable of reliable sycophants like Tickle Me Nosferatu (the bullshit artist formerly known as Rudy Giuliani) at your beck and call, “creative” (read: terrible) rationalizations will flow like black-tar brain effluent down the withering cheeks of a weary nation.

So, yeah—this is the kind of excuse you come up with when you’re completely out of excuses:

Rudy Giuliani tells Newsmax that Trump was just trying to preserve documents by putting them in a safe place. pic.twitter.com/tDJag4loW4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2022

GIULIANI: “And now they want to make him responsible for having taken classified documents and preserved them. Really, if you look at the Espionage Act, it’s not really about taking the documents, it’s about destroying them, or hiding them, or giving them to the enemy. It’s not about taking them and putting them in a place that’s roughly as safe as they were in in the first place.”

Yup, securing top secret nuclear documents in restricted, heavily guarded government facilities is exactly the same as leaving them in the hands of a guy well known for blurting out highly classified secrets in front of the Russian foreign minister, making calls on an unsecured cell phone, and tweeting sensitive satellite photos against the advice of every member of the intelligence community. Just like most of us prefer to store our life savings in a Folgers can instead of depositing it in a bank. Makes total sense.

Okay, so clearly, we’re not on the same page as Rudy. For one thing, we don’t hang out with pages. They’re minors, Rudy, and the musky melange of English Leather and Sanka breath is not the aphrodisiac you think it is. But—surprise!—what Rudy is blabbering here is simply not what the Espionage Act says. 

As Vox explained in the wake of this kerfuffle, “The Espionage Act is actually a series of statutes under 18 U.S. Code Chapter 37 related to the collection, retention, or dissemination of national defense or classified information. The Mar-a-Lago search warrant referred to Section 793—‘Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information,’ which doesn’t just cover ‘spying’ in the sense that many think of when they hear the term. Section 793 specifically states that people legally granted access to national defense documents—people like the former president—are subject to punishment should they improperly retain that information.”

Trump “retained” this information and refused to give it back, and in June, his lawyers told the government that he no longer held any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago—even though he clearly did

So how many excuses does this make now? At first, Trump wanted us to believe the FBI planted these documents. Then he claimed he’d declassified them—which only makes sense if he knew which documents the FBI had decided to plant. For a hot minute, Trump also tried to claim some of the documents fell under attorney-client privilege, and like the feckless fucknut he is, he demanded their return

Then there was the “standing order” excuse, wherein Trump tried to claim that anything he took home with him automatically alchemized from a closely held government secret into a public domain document every American has a right to see—unlike, say, the former pr*sident’s tax returns.

CNN made short work of that one:

And now—according to Rudy—it’s all good since Trump didn’t destroy the documents or, as far as we know, give them to Russia or Saudi Arabia. Though I assume if we find out he did give them to Saudi Arabia, they’ll move the goalposts again—most likely next to a Krispy Kreme for our ex-POTUS’ convenience.

Of course, if all of this weren’t so horrifying, it would be endlessly amusing. But this is the safety and security of our planet we’re talking about now.

We are not amused.

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

Alan Dershowitz whines that he’s now a pariah on Martha’s Vineyard just because he enabled Trump

You defend one wannabe fascist dictator by saying his boundless lust for power means he should be able to do anything he wants, and all of a sudden progressives don’t like you anymore. It’s brutally unfair, and we shouldn't stand for it. Every American has an inalienable right to be invited to exclusive dress-formal cotillions on Martha’s Vineyard, no matter how many absurd arguments they’ve trotted out on behalf of lawless autocrats.

What has the world come to?

Alan Dershowitz—who, according to Alan Dershowitz, definitely did not rape any underage girls with connections to Jeffrey Epstein—defended disgraced former Pr*sident Donald Trump during the latter’s first impeachment by saying Trump was allowed to use any corrupt methods he chose in order to stay in office, including pressuring a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a political opponent, because he thought he was a great president.

No, really, that was his argument. It’s sort of like saying it’s okay for me to steal a suit from Macy’s because I look so much cooler in it than the peasant who was going to buy it. 

Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." https://t.co/jKErQcS1Iy pic.twitter.com/zo4rL6Zbla

— ABC News (@ABC) January 29, 2020

DERSHOWITZ: “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest, and mostly you’re right. Your election is in the public interest. And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

Okay, first of all, Donald Trump has never done anything in the public interest—unless that public interest happens to align with his own pubic—or similarly id-related—interest. Trump wanted to be president again because Attorney General Bill Barr kept telling him it made him untouchable. And maybe because he didn’t want future presidents to beat his high score on video golf. Serving the public interest is way, way down the list of Trump’s motivations, well behind “free four-year maintenance warranty on the Resolute Desk Diet Coke button.”

Also, really? This is really his argument? What if that president is so emboldened by nonsense like this that he launches a full-blown coup attempt and gets people killed—you know, because he cares so much about America and the public interest?

Well, apparently Dershowitz’s fellow liberals were a bit peeved at his efforts to lay the groundwork for Adderall Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich, so like the dedicated progressive he is, Dershowitz scurried over to the far-right bullshit confectionery Newsmax to whine about his “lost” party invitations.

The following clip is from Newsmax. I won’t link to it because I don't want to give them the page views. I also don’t want to give your computer any excuse to kill itself. I know you’ve been Googling “Chuck Grassley baby oil massage” + “rhinestone Speedo” all morning and your computer is already at the end of its rope, so I’m doing you a solid.

Dershowitz, via Newsmax:

“I have essentially been excluded from the Democratic Party. There was recently an event on Martha's Vineyard for Jewish Democrats – who would be the first person you would think of as a Jewish Democrat on Martha’s Vineyard – me, but I wasn't invited because I'm now cancelled essentially from the Democratic Party.

“The library won't allow me to speak on Martha's Vineyard, the Community Center, the major synagogue, all of them have canceled me because I had the chutzpah to defend the constitution on behalf of a president of the United States that they all voted against – the fact that I voted against him, too, and then I remain — in my mind a Liberal Democrat doesn't much matter. If I don't follow the party line down to the extreme, I am cancelled. People refuse to attend events if they know I'm gonna be there and that's why several friends of mine have who have invited me for years to events in their home or concerts that they've sponsored have apologetically said, ‘We're sorry we can't invite you because if you come everybody will leave,’” he added.

“If people don't think there's a cancel culture, I welcome them to Martha's Vineyard and I welcome them to see it with their own eyes.”

Yeah, that’s not cancel culture. It’s “we don’t invite assholes to our parties because they’re assholes and everyone hates them” culture.

You know what this is? It's the world's smallest violin. And it's playing the Benny Hill theme song as you're running around Jeffrey Epstein's island in your underwear. https://t.co/x7e6jLr6Fp

— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) July 17, 2022

I guess helping democracy-hating autocrats desperately cling to power is lonely work on Martha’s Vineyard.

Who knew?

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.

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?

Donate now to help strong progressive candidates prevail in November!

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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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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.

MTG touts climate change ‘benefits’ while bizarrely claiming no one can see Jan. 6 video footage

You may not have heard of Right Side Broadcasting Network, and if that’s the case—congratulations! You live a rich, full life unadulterated by brain weevils. Obviously, you’re not part of the network’s target demographic, which appears to consist almost entirely of Scott Baio getting shambolically drunk on Boone’s Farm.

But what the network lacks in gravitas it more than makes up for in goofy-ass displays of meretricious nonsense. Enter the ever-benighted Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s modest contribution to our slow-rolling apocalypse.

In a recent interview with RSBN’s Brian Glenn, Greene was so gobsmackingly weird, for a moment I thought my Jewish space LASIK surgery was making me hallucinate.

Watch: 

“I thought the Capitol was the most secure building in our country ... There are lots of cameras, but you can’t see the video footage. I don’t know why you can’t.” — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who apparently missed the January 6th committee’s first public hearing pic.twitter.com/OSzcEZhcow

— The Recount (@therecount) June 13, 2022

Transcript!

GREENE: “My third day on the job, the Capitol gets breached and then they blame me and President Trump and many other Republican members of Congress for doing it. I was so shocked, and I’ll tell you what was so shocking, I thought the Capitol was the most secure building in our country at least.”

GLENN: “Right, with thousands of cameras.”

GREENE: “Well, there are lots of cameras, but you can’t see the video footage. I don’t know why you can’t ....”

And in case you haven’t been waterboarded recently, here’s the full hour-plus interview

So how does one respond to this? 

For one thing, there is video footage of the attack—including lots of Capitol security footage—and it’s definitely viewable to anyone who cares to look at it. For instance, there’s this NBC News video from Trump’s second impeachment, helpfully titled “Impeachment Managers Show New Graphic Security Footage Of Capitol Riot”:

Meanwhile, Greene is also convinced that humans aren’t actually hurting the planet by burning fossil fuels—we’re enhancing it! Think of it as our new, improved operating system, Earth 2.0—only without all the usual bugs. No, really. There will be no bugs. They can’t possibly survive what’s coming. Earth 2.0 will be a fungus-and-lungfish paradise, which gives MTG a fighting chance, come to think of it.

Marge Greene presents her scientific argument why global warming is a good thing: “This earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us.” pic.twitter.com/fw5DMMeSJN

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 13, 2022

Transcript:

GREENE: “We’ve already warmed 1 degree Celsius, and do you know what’s happened since then? Here, let me tell you. We have had more food grown since then, which feeds people. We are able to, producing fossil fuels, keep people’s houses warm in the winter. That saves people’s lives. People die in the cold. This Earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us. It helps us to feed people, it helps keep people alive. … The Earth is more green than it was years and years ago, and that’s because of the Earth warming, that’s because of carbon.”

Uh huh. People do die in the cold, and those deaths are strongly correlated with both climate change and Ted Cruz wearing flip-flops in airports. Meanwhile, plenty of people also die in the heat, but never mind those jabronis.

In January 2021—with a big assist from our worst-ever president—Georgia was kind enough to gift us two Democratic U.S. senators. They also gave us this moist, quavering mound of peach tree-dish detritus.

Do better, Georgia. You can start by making wiser choices this November.

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.

We talk to gun control advocate and executive director of Guns Down America, Igor Volsky on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast

Liz Cheney had strong words for Republicans in first Jan. 6 committee hearing. Here’s a transcript

In case you missed Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s powerful opening remarks as prepared for the Jan. 6 select committee’s initial public hearing Thursday evening, we’ve provided her full statement below, courtesy of Politico. 

The Wyoming congresswoman is the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney; as one of only two Republicans on the committee, she serves as vice-chair. 

Almost every Republican has chosen to side with former President Trump’s version of events on that fateful day. Cheney is not one of them, and she is paying the price in her pursuit of the truth of what happened and who was behind the events of Jan. 6. 

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Dana Milbank writes that “Republican members of Congress forced Cheney out of her party leadership position and are trying to oust her in a primary.” 

It’s worth noting that while we appreciate Cheney's presentation and performance last night, she remains diametrically opposed to a lot of progressive ideology and has actively worked (and voted) against racial and economic justice. 

RELATED STORY: Capitol Police Sergeant Gonell talks about Jan. 6 hearings and what really happened that day

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me echo those words about the importance of bipartisanship, and what a tremendous honor it is to work on this committee.

Mr. Chairman, at 6:01pm on January 6th, after he spent hours watching a violent mob besiege, attack and invade our Capitol, Donald Trump tweeted. But he did not condemn the attack. Instead he justified it:

“These are the things and events that happen,” he said, “when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”

As you will see in the hearings to come, President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol, and I quote, “were doing what they should be doing.” This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave. Over a series of hearings in the coming weeks, you will hear testimony, live and on video, from more than a half dozen former White House staff in the Trump administration, all of whom were in the West Wing of the White House on January 6th. You will hear testimony that “The President didn’t really want to put anything out” calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave. You will hear that President Trump was yelling, and “really angry at advisors who told him he needed to be doing something more.” And, aware of the rioters’ chants to “hang Mike Pence,” the President responded with this sentiment: “maybe our supporters have the right idea.” Mike Pence “deserves” it.

You will hear evidence that President Trump refused for hours to do what his staff, his family, and many of his other advisors begged him to do: immediately instruct his supporters to stand down and evacuate the Capitol.

Tonight, you will see never-before-seen footage of the brutal attack on our Capitol, an attack that unfolded while, a few blocks away, President Trump sat watching television in his dining room off the Oval Office. You will hear audio from the brave police officers battling for their lives and ours, fighting to defend our democracy, against a violent mob Donald Trump refused to call off.

Tonight and in the weeks to come, you will see evidence of what motivated this violence, including directly from those who participated in this attack. You will see video of them explaining what caused them to do it. You will see their posts on social media. We will show you what they have said in federal court. On this point, there is no room for debate. Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful President. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.

You will also hear about plots to commit seditious conspiracy on January 6th, a crime defined in our laws as “conspir[ing] to overthrow, put down or destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to oppose by force the authority thereof.” Multiple members of two groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, have been charged with this crime for their involvement in the events leading up to and on January 6th. Some have pled guilty. The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot. Intelligence available before January 6th identified plans to “invade” the Capitol, “occupy” the Capitol, and take other steps to halt Congress’ count of Electoral Votes that day. In our hearings to come, we will identify elements of those plans, and we will show specifically how a group of Proud Boys led a mob into the Capitol building on January 6th.

Tonight I am going to describe for you some of what our committee has learned and highlight initial findings you will see this month in our hearings. As you hear this, all Americans should keep in mind this fact: On the morning of January 6th, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain President of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his Constitutional obligation to relinquish power. Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.

In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisors knew that he had, in fact, lost the election. But, despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information – to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him. This was not true.

Jason Miller was a senior Trump Campaign spokesman. In this clip, Miller describes a call between the Trump campaign’s internal data expert and President Trump a few days after the 2020 election:

A: I was in the Oval Office. At some point in the conversation, Matt Oczkowski who was the lead data person was brought on and I remember he delivered to the President in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose.

Q: And that was based, Mr. Miller, on Matt and the data team’s assessment of this sort of county by county state by state results as reported?

A: Correct.

Alex Cannon was one of President Trump’s campaign lawyers. He previously worked for the Trump Organization. One of his responsibilities was to assess allegations of election fraud in November 2020. Here is one sample of his testimony -- discussing what he told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows:

A: I remember a call with Mr. Meadows where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything and I remember sharing with him that we weren’t finding anything that would be sufficient to um change the results in any of the key states.

Q: When was that conversation?

A: Probably in November, mid to late November, I think it was before my child was born.

Q: And what was Mr. Meadows’ reaction to that information?

A: I believe the words he used were “so there’s no there there.”

There’s no there there. The Trump Campaign’s General Counsel Matt Morgan gave similar testimony. He explained that all of the fraud allegations and the campaign’s other election arguments taken together and viewed in the best possible light for President Trump, could still not change the outcome of the election.

President Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr also told Donald Trump his election claims were wrong:

A: And I repeatedly told the President in no uncertain terms that I did not see evidence of fraud, you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election. And frankly, a year and a half later, I haven’t seen anything to change my mind on that.

Attorney General Barr also told President Trump that his allegations about Dominion voting machines were groundless:

“I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn’t count, and that these machines, controlled by somebody else, were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. And it was being laid out there. And I told him that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that and that it was doing great, great disservice to the country.”

But President Trump persisted, repeating the false Dominion allegations in public at least a dozen more times even after his Attorney General told him they were “complete nonsense.”

And after Barr’s resignation on December 23rd, the Acting Attorney General who replaced him, Jeff Rosen and the acting Deputy, Richard Donoghue told President Trump over and over again that the evidence did not support allegations he was making in public.

Many of President Trump’s White House staff also recognized that the evidence did not support the claims President Trump was making. This is the President’s daughter, commenting on Bill Barr’s statement that the Department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election:

Q: How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement?

A: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he was saying.

As you will hear on Monday, the President had every right to litigate his campaign claims, but he ultimately lost more than 60 cases in state and federal courts. The President’s claims in the election cases were so frivolous and unsupported that the President’s lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, not only lost the lawsuits, his license to practice law was suspended. Here is what the court said of Mr. Giuliani:

Giuliani “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.”

As you will see in great detail in these hearings, President Trump ignored the rulings of our nation’s courts, he ignored his own campaign leadership, his White House staff, many Republican state officials, he ignored the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information, running ads he knew were false, and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and he was the true President. As you will see, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th.

In our third hearing, you will see that President Trump corruptly planned to replace the Attorney General of the United States so the U.S. Justice Department would spread his false stolen election claims. In the days before January 6th, President Trump told his top Justice Department officials “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.” Senior Justice Department officials, men he had appointed, told him they could not do that, because it was not true. So President Trump decided to replace them.

He offered Jeff Clark, an environmental lawyer at the Justice Department, the job of Acting Attorney General. President Trump wanted Mr. Clark to take a number of steps, including sending this letter to Georgia and five other states, saying the U.S. Department of Justice had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election.” This letter is a lie. The Department of Justice had, in fact, repeatedly told President Trump exactly the opposite – that they had investigated his stolen election allegations and found no credible fraud that could impact the outcome of the election. This letter, and others like it, would have urged multiple states to withdraw their official and lawful electoral votes for Biden.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue described Jeff Clark’s letter this way: “This would be a grave step for the Department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political and social ramifications for the country.” The Committee agrees with Mr. Donoghue’s assessment. Had Clark assumed the role of Attorney General in the days before January 6th and issued these letters, the ramifications could indeed have been grave. Mr. Donoghue also said this about Clark’s plan:

“And I recall towards the end saying, what you’re proposing is nothing less than the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a Presidential Election.”

In our hearings, you will hear first-hand how the senior leadership of the Department of Justice threatened to resign, how the White House Counsel threatened to resign, and how they confronted Donald Trump and Jeff Clark in the Oval Office. The men involved, including Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, were appointed by President Trump. These men honored their oaths of office. They did their duty, and you will hear from them in our hearings.

By contrast, Jeff Clark has invoked his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify. Representative Scott Perry, who was involved in trying to get Clark appointed as Attorney General, has refused to testify here. As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a Presidential Pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought Presidential Pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

In our fourth hearing, we will focus on President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th. Vice President Pence has spoken publicly about this:

“President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”

What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional. You will hear this in great detail from the Vice President’s former General Counsel. Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former Vice President and his staff informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal.

As you will hear, President Trump engaged in a relentless effort to pressure Pence both in private and in public. You will see the evidence of that pressure from multiple witnesses live and on video. Vice President Pence demonstrated his loyalty to Donald Trump consistently over four years, but he knew that he had a higher duty – to the United States Constitution. This is testimony from the Vice President’s Chief of Staff:

A: I think the Vice President was proud of his four years of service and he felt like much had been accomplished in those four years. And I think he was proud to have stood beside the President for all that had been done. But I think he ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath, and that’s – that’s what he articulated publicly and I think that’s what he felt.

Q: His fidelity to the Constitution was more important than his fidelity to President Trump and his desire …

A: The oath he took, yes.

You will also hear about a lawyer named John Eastman. Mr. Eastman was deeply involved in President Trump’s plans. You will hear from former Fourth Circuit Federal Judge Michael Luttig, a highly respected leading conservative judge. John Eastman clerked for Judge Luttig. Judge Luttig provided counsel to the Vice President’s team in the days before January 6th. The Judge will explain how Eastman “was wrong at every turn.” And you will see the email exchanges between Eastman and the Vice President’s Counsel as the violent attack on Congress was underway. Mr. Jacob said this to Mr. Eastman: “And thanks to your bullshit, we are under siege.” You will also see evidence that John Eastman did not actually believe the legal position he was taking. In fact, a month before the 2020 election, Eastman took exactly the opposite view on the same legal issues.

In the course of the Select Committee’s work to obtain information from Mr. Eastman, we have had occasion to present evidence to a federal judge. The judge evaluated these facts and he reached the conclusion that President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act illegally by refusing to count electoral votes likely violated two federal criminal statutes. And the judge also said this: “If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6th will repeat itself.” Every American should read what this federal judge has written. The same Judge, Judge Carter, issued another decision on Tuesday night, indicating that John Eastman and other Trump lawyers knew that their legal arguments had no real chance of success in court. But they relied on those arguments anyway to try to “overturn a democratic election.”

And you will hear that while Congress was under attack on January 6th and the hours following the violence, the Trump legal team in the Willard Hotel war room continued to work to halt the count of electoral votes.

In our fifth hearing, you will see evidence that President Trump corruptly pressured state legislators and election officials to change election results. You will hear additional details about President Trump’s call to Georgia officials urging them to “find” 11,780 voted – votes that did not exist, and his efforts to get states to rescind certified electoral slates without factual basis and contrary to law. You will hear new details about the Trump campaign and other Trump associates’ efforts to instruct Republican officials in multiple states to create intentionally false electoral slates, and transmit those slates to Congress, to the Vice President, and the National Archives, falsely certifying that Trump won states he actually lost.

In our final two June hearings, you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the U.S. Capitol. While the violence was underway, President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.

As we present these initial findings, keep two points in mind. First, our investigation is still ongoing, so what we make public here will not be the complete set of information we will ultimately disclose. And second, the Department of Justice is currently working with cooperating witnesses, and has disclosed to date only some of the information it has identified from encrypted communications and other sources.

On December 18, 2020, a group including General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and others visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections. You will also hear that President Trump met with that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there, and rushed to intervene.

A little more than an hour after Ms. Powell, Mr. Giuliani, General Flynn and the others finally left the White House, President Trump sent the tweet on the screen now, telling people to come to Washington on January 6th: “Be there,” he instructed them. “Will be Wild!”

As you will see, this was a pivotal moment. This tweet initiated a chain of events. The tweet led to the planning for what occurred on January 6th, including by the Proud Boys who ultimately led the invasion of the Capitol and the violence that day. The indictment of a group of Proud Boys alleges that they planned to “oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States.” And according to the Department of Justice:

“On Jan. 6, 2021, the defendants directed, mobilized and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol, leading to dismantling of metal barricades, destruction of property, breaching of the Capitol building, and assaults on law enforcement.”

Although certain former Trump officials have argued that they did not anticipate violence on January 6th, the evidence suggests otherwise. As you will see in our hearings, the White House was receiving specific reports in the days leading up to January 6th, including during President Trump’s Ellipse rally, indicating that elements in the crowd were preparing for violence at the Capitol. And, on the evening of January 5th, the President’s close advisor Steve Bannon said this on his podcast: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this, all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.

As part of our investigation, we will present information about what the White House and other intelligence agencies knew, and why the Capitol was not better prepared. But we will not lose sight of the fact that the Capitol Police did not cause the crowd to attack. And we will not blame the violence that day, violence provoked by Donald Trump, on the officers who bravely defended all of us.

In our final hearing, you will hear a moment-by-moment account of the hours-long attack from more than a half dozen White House staff, both live in the hearing room and via videotaped testimony. There is no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed. White House staff urged President Trump to intervene and call off the mob. Here is a document written while the attack was underway by a member of the White House staff advising what the President needed to say: “Anyone who entered the capitol without proper authority should leave immediately.”

This is exactly what his supporters on Capitol Hill and nationwide were urging the President to do. He would not. You will hear that leaders on Capitol Hill begged the President for help, including Republican Leader McCarthy, who was “scared” and called multiple members of President Trump’s family after he could not persuade the President himself.

Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the U.S. government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. But Vice President Pence did each of those things. For example, here is what General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to this committee:

A: There were two or three calls with Vice President Pence. He was very animated, and he issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders. There was no question about that. And I can get you the exact quotes from some of our records somewhere. But he was very animated, very direct, very firm to Secretary Miller. Get the military down here, get the guard down here. Put down this situation, et cetera.

By contrast, here is General Milley’s description of his conversation with President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 6th:

A: “He said: We have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions. We need to establish the narrative, you know, that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable, or words to that effect. I immediately interpreted that as politics. Politics. Politics. Red flag for me, personally. No action. But I remember it distinctly.”

And you will hear from witnesses how the day played out inside the White House, how multiple White House staff resigned in disgust, and how President Trump would not ask his supporters to leave the Capitol. It was only after multiple hours of violence that President Trump finally released a video instructing the riotous mob to leave, and as he did so, he said to them: “We love you. You’re very special.”

You will also hear that in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, members of the President’s family, White House staff and others tried to step in to stabilize the situation “to land the plane” before the Presidential Transition on January 20th. You will hear about members of the Trump cabinet discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, and replacing the President of the United States. Multiple Members of President Trump’s own Cabinet resigned immediately after January 6th. One member of the Cabinet suggested that remaining Cabinet Officers needed to take a more active role in running the White House and the Administration. But most emblematic of those days is this exchange of texts between Sean Hannity and former President Trump’s Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Sean Hannity wrote in part: “Key now, no more crazy people.” “No more stolen election talk.” “Yes, impeachment and 25th amendment are real, and many people will quit.” Ms. McEnany responded in part: “Love that. That’s the playbook.”

The White House staff knew that President Trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. They knew the President needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone. At least until he left office on January 20th. These are important facts for Congress and the American people to understand fully.

When a President fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union, or worse, causes a constitutional crisis, we are at a moment of maximum danger for our Republic. Some in the White House took responsible steps to try to prevent January 6th. Others egged the President on. Others, who could have acted, refused to do so. In this case, the White House Counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity, that he threatened to resign, multiple times. That is exceedingly rare and exceedingly serious. It requires immediate attention, especially when the entire team threatens to resign. However, in the Trump White House, it was not exceedingly rare and it was not treated seriously. This is a clip of Jared Kushner, addressing multiple threats by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his team of White House lawyers to resign in the weeks before January 6th.

Q: Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign?

A: I kind of, like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done, and I know that he was always, him and the team, were always saying oh we are going to resign. We are not going to be here if this happens, if that happens … So, I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you.

Whining. There is a reason why people serving in our Government take an oath to the Constitution. As our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. People in positions of public trust are duty-bound to defend it – to step forward when action is required.

In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

Finally, I ask all of our fellow Americans as you watch our hearings over the coming weeks, please remember what’s at stake. Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the Rule of Law, not the rule of men. I ask you to think of the scene in our Capitol rotunda on the night of January 6th. There, in, a sacred space in our constitutional republic, the place where our presidents lie in state, watched over by statues of Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant, Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan, against every wall that night encircling the room, there were SWAT teams, men and women in tactical gear with long guns deployed inside our Capitol building.

There in the rotunda, these brave men and women rested beneath paintings depicting the earliest scenes of our Republic, including one painted in 1824 depicting George Washington resigning his commission, voluntarily relinquishing power, handing control of the Continental Army back to Congress. With this noble act, Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power. What President Reagan called, “nothing less than a miracle.” The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president...Except one.

As Americans, we all have a duty to ensure what happened on January 6th never happens again, to set aside partisan battles to stand together to perpetuate and preserve our great Republic.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LIVE: Follow along with the Jan. 6 committee hearings

The Jan. 6 committee launches its public hearings tonight. For the first hearing—a total of six are currently slated—the panel is expected to present its findings to the American public about former President Donald Trump’s role in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election and more specifically, how extremist elements were involved in efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power. 

Daily Kos will post live updates from tonight’s hearing starting at 8 PM ET.

Watch live here:

For in-depth information about the committee’s investigation so far, check out the related story links below. There’s a BIG Guide to help you stay on top of who’s who plus Daily Kos interviews with one of the committee’s first witnesses as well as members of law enforcement who fought off the mob on Jan. 6. 

The next hearing is scheduled for June 13 at 10 PM ET. Additional hearings are expected on June 15 at 10 PM ET. and June 16 at 1 PM ET. A time for the June 21 hearing has not yet been confirmed.  A final presentation is anticipated on June 23 and that hearing will be in primetime, like tonight, at 8 PM. 

Witnesses on Thursday night are filmmaker Nick Quested, who embedded with the Proud Boys in the lead-up to Jan. 6, and U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after being assaulted by members of the mob. 

New video footage from Jan. 6 is expected to be released during tonight’s hearing, putting the extremist elements that were at play that day in sharp relief. Heavy attention will likely be paid to the speech that Trump delivered from the Ellipse as well. It was those remarks that earned him his second impeachment for incitement of insurrection. 

Next week, witnesses reportedly in the mix include Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who once fielded a call from Trump to “find” 11,000 votes so he could beat now-President Joe Biden’s victory in that state. Members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s office, including onetime chief of staff Marc Short and former chief counsel Greg Jacob, have been invited to testify. Other witnesses reportedly invited include officials who worked at the Department of Justice under Trump, including Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue. More details to come on that in the days ahead.

RELATED: Jan. 6 public hearings begin, Daily Kos interviews witness Nick Quested

RELATED: The BIG Guide: Who’s who in the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation

RELATED: Three Big Lies about Jan. 6: A quick fact check

RELATED: Exclusive: USCP Officer Harry Dunn shares notes, personal artifacts of the insurrection

RELATED: Reflections on the Jan. 6 insurrection from U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn

RELATED: Capitol Police Sergeant Gonnell talks about Jan. 6 hearings and what really happened that day 

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 11:36:04 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

We are roughly a half-hour away from tonight’s hearing.

I will post updates here and on Twitter tonight. Don’t forget to follow Daily Kos!

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 11:57:40 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

The hearing will get underway tonight at 8:02:30 PM ET, if you take CSPAN’s word for it—and since they are the only cameras in the room tonight, we will. Live updates to post soon.

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 11:59:10 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

USCP Officer Harry Dunn is in the chamber tonight: 

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn is here and delivering a not so subtle message. pic.twitter.com/EBonZOV4fo

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 9, 2022

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:01:59 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

The members of the committee have entered the chamber and are taking their seats.

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:04:18 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Chairman Bennie Thompson begins tonights hearing by thanking everyone for their attention. 

“I’m Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Jan. 6 Committee, I was born raised and still lived in Bolton, Mississippi,” he says, explaining his background, a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the KKK and lynching. 

“I'm reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try to justify the actions of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021,” Thompson says.

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:08:57 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

In his opening remarks this evening, Chairman Thompson outlines how in 1862, after citizens took up arms against the country, Congress adopted a new oath that no person who supported a rebellion could hold an office of public trust. Members swear an oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

He praises the officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

They did this to defend “your vote,” Thompson said, to protect the peaceful transfer of power. 

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:16:35 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Chairman Thompson says the truth must be confronted with resolve and determination and delivers a barn-burner of a speech. He has made it plain what the committee believes it has uncovered: overwhelming evidence that the 45th president attempted to overthrow the election. We move now to remarks from Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee. She is just one of two Republicans, including Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger.

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:23:24 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

In her opening remarks, vicechair Liz Cheney says that the public will hear extensive evidence tonight and in the coming weeks about the overarching conspiracy by Trump to overturn the 2020 election 

Cheney: "Jan. 6 was not a spontaneous incident." Intelligence has revealed that this was a well-orchestrated plan. The committee will identify elements of those plans and will show how Proud Boys led a mob into the Capitol on Jan. 6”
She continued: “On the morning of Jan. 6, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain POTUS despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power.”
Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the election and prevent a presidential transfer of power.
In the 2nd hearing, evidence will be shown demonstrating how Trump knew he lost the election but he perpetrated fraud, they argue, by promoting the lie that he won.
Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:26:03 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Recorded deposition from Attorney General Bill Barr: 

WATCH: Attorney General Barr declares that Donald Trump lost the Presidential election in 2020. There is no doubt that the American people voted Trump out of office and the Select Committee has found no evidence of election fraud. pic.twitter.com/qa5qNyMXqS

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:30:10 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

In a recorded deposition of Ivanka Trump before the Jan. 6 Cmte where she faced questions about AG’s Barr's conclusion of no widespread fraud, she says Barr's determination "affected her perspective.

"I accepted what he was saying," Ivanka Trump said.

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 10:37:04 PM +00:00 · April Siese

In an excerpt of his opening statement for tonight's @January6thCmte hearings, chair Bennie Thompson says what happened cannot be swept under the rug and that he appears tonight as an American first and one who swore to protect the Constitution. pic.twitter.com/pGX4BxScg1

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) June 9, 2022