While there remain hardline Trump supporters who still stand by the former president and dismissed Hutchinson's testimony as "hearsay," some others who previously defended him have started to change their tune.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former Acting Chief of Staff, explicitly stated that he can no longer support Trump in the wake of Hutchinson's testimony.
[...]
Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary in the Trump administration, tweeted that those who are attempting to downplay Hutchinson's role or her access in the West Wing "either doesn't understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they're scared of how damning this testimony is."
Even the Rupert Murdoch press, which includes some of the staunchest supporters of Trump, appeared to acknowledge the damage Hutchinson's testimony inflicted.
[...]
Conservative lawyer and frequent Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy wrote an opinion piece for the Murdoch-owned New York Post arguing that the case to charge Trump with a crime "appears to be getting stronger" following Hutchinson's testimony.
[...]
McCarthy previously defended Trump around the time of his first impeachment. He wrote a book attacking Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference at the 2016 election, as well as the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Obama administration, entitled Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.
The Washington Examiner, another right-wing news outlet, published an editorial arguing that Hutchinson's testimony shows that Trump is "unfit to be anywhere near power ever again."
[...]
On Tuesday, Fox News anchor Bret Baier described Hutchinson's claims as "compelling" while highlighting the alleged quote from Meadows, stating Trump "doesn't care" that his supporters were chanting "hang Mike Pence" at the Capitol because he believes the then-vice president "deserves it."
Baier went on to dismiss the series of posts Trump wrote on Truth Social while Hutchinson was delivering her testimony.
"Cassie Hutchinson is under oath on Capitol Hill. The president is on Truth Social making his statements," Baier said.
[...]
"For the first time since the hearings started, no one is dismissing this," [a] Trump aide said.
MSN
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Turning tide
Who pays the lawyers?
Good for her. And Trump had something to say about it, too.
'She changed lawyers a couple of days ago, and with it, her story totally changed! SHOCKER???' the ex-president alleged.
Daily Mail
She didn't change her story; she told it.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Why can't we get Pat Cipollone in a public hearing?
It would be so entertaining with cc turned on. Click these graphics for enlargements.
Thanks to Merrill Markoe for capturing these.
Biden changing tune
Do it.President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would support an exception to the Senate filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade and federally protect access to abortion.
“I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law and the way to do that is to make sure that Congress votes to do that, and if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights, it should be ‘we provide an exception for this’ — require an exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision,” Biden said during a press conference at the NATO summit.
Politico
Well I wouldn't go that far.The president has previously been opposed to getting rid of the filibuster — which establishes a 60-vote threshold to move most bills through the Senate — but said Thursday he would do “everything in my power” to protect the right to choose and the privacy of people seeking abortions.
“I’m the president of the United States of America — that makes me the best messenger,” Biden said.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE: Pressure works.
Justice Stephen Breyer's last day on the court is today
And, of course, today's decision on the EPA's authority was to limit it.Breyer, who had announced his retirement in January, sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday confirming that he will leave the high court as its current term ends on Thursday.
“The Court has announced that tomorrow, beginning at 10 am, it will hand down all remaining opinions ready during this Term. Accordingly, my retirement from active service… will be effective on Thursday, June 30, 2022, at noon,” Breyer wrote.
[...]
[Ketanji Brown] Jackson will join a heavily conservative court, where the liberal minority has been on the dissenting side in most major contentious cases.
[...]
The court’s next term is set to start early in October.
alJazeera
Come November, vote for more Democrats, especially to the Senate.The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a decision limiting the power of regulatory agencies within the federal government, saying the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority in 2015 when it tried to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants.
West Virginia led a coalition of Republican-leaning states and coal producers that asked the Supreme Court to weigh in and clarify the limits of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority, raising broader questions about how far the regulatory authority of federal agencies extends. The coalition said powerful and wide-reaching policies should come from Congress, not agency-level regulators.
WSJ
Surprisingly, the Court allowed Biden to end Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy. Next session, they will take up cases about voting districts in Louisiana and Alabama.
UPDATE:
January 6 Committee subpoenas Pasquale "Pat" Cipollone
So I'm guessing we will only see clips of his testimony, at best.The subpoena marked a dramatic escalation for the panel and showed its resolve in seeking to obtain inside information about how the former president sought to return himself to office from the unique perspective of the White House counsel’s office.
[...]
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, according to her public testimony, was told by Cipollone that “we’re going to be charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump went to the Capitol that day as he pressured Congress to not certify Biden’s win.
[...]
“The committee needs to hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations. Concerns Mr Cipollone has about the prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony.”
Cipollone was a key witness to some of Trump’s most brazen schemes to overturn the 2020 election results.
[...]
Cipollone has information about Trump’s push to send fake slates of electors to Congress, the subpoena letter said, a plot that would have given the then vice-president Mike Pence cover to supposedly refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election win.
He also has information about Trump’s foiled plan to pressure the justice department into falsely declaring the results of the 2020 election “corrupt”, the subpoena letter said.
[...]
Together with his deputy, Pat Philbin, and another White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, who has cooperated extensively with the select committee, Cipollone sought to restrain some of Trump’s most dangerous impulses, fearing Trump could face serious legal exposure.
[...]
Thompson acknowledged in the subpoena letter that Cipollone had spoken to House investigators in a more informal setting on 13 April. But, he said, recent evidence to which he was in a “unique position” to discuss necessitated on-the-record testimony at a 6 July deposition.
Guardian
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
The plot thickens
That isn't surprising.Investigative journalist and author Carol Leonnig [...] spoke to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow following testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson in the Tuesday Jan. 6 Committee hearing.
[...]
"There was a very large contingent of Donald Trump's detail who were personally cheering for [Joe] Biden to fail," she said.
Newsweek
"Some of them even took to their personal media accounts to cheer on the insurrection and the individuals rioting up to the Capitol, as patriots. That is problematic.
"I am not saying that Tony Ornato or Bobby Engel did that but they are viewed as being aligned with Donald Trump, which cuts against them.
[...]
"The second part I would stress is both of these individuals, Bobby Engel and Tony Ornato were very close to President Trump.
"Some people accused them of, at times, being yes-men and enablers of the President, particularly Tony Ornato.
"People who wanted to do what [Trump] wanted and see him pleased.
"That was frustrating to agents that were more focussed on security or being independent or good planning.
"So both of these individuals lose a little bit of credibility because of how closely they have been seen as aligned to Donald Trump
What a surprise
You don't say. Could she maybe provide emails to the committee?Mr. Paoletta’s letter suggested that the communications between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman, turned over to the committee after Mr. Eastman sued to try to avoid doing so, contain little of note.
“The only other email Mr. Eastman produced where he and Mrs. Thomas communicated directly is from Nov. 6 — a month before Mr. Eastman filed anything on President Trump’s behalf and two months before” the Jan. 6 riot, Mr. Paoletta wrote. “In that email, Mrs. Thomas merely forwarded a document with a few comments to Mr. Eastman and another person. Someone else drafted the document, which discussed ways to address the election fraud concerns held by millions of Americans.”
NYT
At least she has a smart lawyer.“Not a single document shows any coordination between Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Eastman,” he wrote, saying they all had been sent “on or before Dec. 9.”
“It is in this context that Mrs. Thomas has expressed a willingness to try to come before the committee as a means of clearing her name,” Mr. Paoletta wrote. “But, based on my understanding of the facts the committee has in its possession, I do not believe there is currently a sufficient basis to speak with Mrs. Thomas.” Mr. Paoletta allowed that if the committee revealed additional information, he could reconsider his position. But he expressed concerns about Ms. Thomas appearing before the committee amid what he described as a highly charged atmosphere in which Ms. Thomas had been criticized in the press for her political activity.
Squeezing John Eastman
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump’s last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, has dropped a lawsuit aimed at blocking the Jan. 6 select committee from obtaining his phone records.
In a late Tuesday filing, Eastman voluntarily dismissed the suit, claiming that he’d been assured the committee was only seeking his call logs — not the content of any messages held by his carrier, Verizon. The select committee has long contended that it lacks the authority to obtain message content.
Eastman’s move comes, however, as the legal threats he’s facing have begun to mount. Last week, FBI agents seized Eastman’s phone as part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation related to the 2020 election. Earlier this month, a federal judge forced Eastman to turn over hundreds of Trump-related emails to the Jan. 6 select committee, rejecting many of his claims of attorney-client privilege. That judge, David Carter, had already determined that Eastman and Trump “likely” entered into a criminal conspiracy to obstruct Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
Politico
Holy shit
Does he have stock in bottled water?
People, please. Stop watching this scam artist.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Oppose American mullahs
“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk — that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like they say it does,” [Rep. Lauren ] Boebert said.
[...]
Boebert (R-Colo.) says she is “tired” of the long-standing separation between church and state in the U.S., adding that she believes “the church is supposed to direct the government.”
[...]
The concept of a separation between church and state is derived from the establishment clause in the Bill of Rights, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
[...]
In 1802, then-President Thomas Jefferson penned a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, in which he wrote the American public had built “a wall of separation between Church and State.”
The Hill
The constitutional interpretation of separation of church and state comes from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
The Supreme Court applied this provision also to the states through the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits states from passing laws that restrict people’s “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
But the court has more recently signaled a willingness to allow religion in public spaces, striking down a law in Maine earlier this month that prevented religious schools from receiving tuition aid from public funds. It also ruled in favor of a high school football coach who was placed on leave for violating the school’s policy against staff encouraging students to engage in prayer.
[...]
[Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.)] condemned Boebert’s comments and compared them to the views of the Taliban, the militant Islamic fundamentalist group that rules Afghanistan.
“There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must oppose the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian,” he tweeted.
The Hill
Sweden and Finland joining NATO
Related:NATO leaders have called Russia the “most significant and direct threat” to the alliance’s peace and security, while officially inviting Sweden and Finland to join bloc.
The leaders of the 30-country bloc, in a joint declaration after meeting in Madrid, Spain on Wednesday, endorsed a new strategic framework and launch the largest revamp of its defence and deterrence capabilities since the end of the Cold War, strengthening its forces on its eastern flank and massively ramping up the number of troops it has at high readiness. The declaration also addressed the growing military and economic reach of China.
[...]
The summit opened with one of the bloc’s problems solved, after Turkey agreed on Tuesday to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
alJazeera
Not good
The Committee should have known before taking Hutchinson's testimony public whether these people would back her up.Senior Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to testify that Donald Trump did not lunge for the wheel of his vehicle or physically attack the chief of his security detail after his speech near the White House on January 6 – as a former aide said he did in sworn testimony on Tuesday.
[...]
CNN and other outlets reported the pushback on the alleged Secret Service incident from Tony Ornato, who was also a deputy chief of staff in the Trump White House, and Robert Engel, who was Trump’s security chief.
[...]
Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post, author of two books on the Trump administration and a history of the Secret Service, Zero Fail, said: “Sources tell me agents dispute that Donald Trump assaulted any agent or tried to grab the steering wheel on Jan 6. They agree Trump was furious about not being able to go to Capitol with his supporters. They offer to testify under oath.”
[...]
[According to Cassidy Hutchinson's Tuesday testimony,] Trump allegedly told Engel: “I’m the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now.”
When he was turned down, Hutchinson said, Trump tried to seize the steering wheel. Engel grabbed his arm and said: “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.”
Hutchinson said “Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel and when Mr Ornato recounted the story to me he motioned towards his clavicles”. Questioned by Liz Cheney, the committee deputy chair, Hutchinson said Engel did not dispute the account when Ornato relayed it.
The Guardian
I don't think she is, either. It seems much more likely that the Secret Service agents want to avoid any backlash in their employment for tattling on the president.Former White House chief of staff MICK MULVANEY: “This is explosive stuff. … I know her. I don’t think she is lying.”
Politico
UPDATE: Further evidence for the more likely scenario.
Let's get them into the hearings, under oath.Hutchinson’s attorneys, Jody Hunt and William Jordan of Alston Bird, issued a statement on Hutchinson’s behalf Wednesday defending her testimony.
“Ms. Hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” they said.
[...]
The Jan. 6 committee didn’t reach out to the Secret Service in the days before it aired explosive testimony about an alleged physical altercation between Donald Trump and his security detail on the day of the riot, according to an agency spokesperson.
[...]
“[W]e were not asked to reappear before the Committee in response to yesterday’s new information and we plan on formally responding on the record,” he wrote in an email. “We have and will continue to make any member of the Secret Service available.”
[...]
Earlier this year, the committee already asked the head of Trump’s detail on Jan. 6 — who was with Trump riding from the “Stop the Steal” rally to the White House that day — about that car trip. That agent, Robert Engel, gave testimony at the time that appears to be consistent with Hutchinson’s story but is not known to include the stunning details Hutchinson described.
Politico
But here's a more troublesome bit:
Maybe they both wrote similar notes, but shouldn't that be easy enough to determine? I mean, it was hand written. There was some mention of a word that was crossed out, and perhaps Herschmann asked for the note and edited it. The note was projected on the big screen behind the panel, and when asked, Hutchinson told the Committee at the hearing that it was her handwriting. I don't think it's likely she would lie about that.With respect to the handwritten note’s authorship, a spokesperson for Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann has disputed part of Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony. She told the select panel that she wrote the note about a statement for Trump to give on Jan. 6 calling for rioters to leave the Capitol, at the direction of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after he met with Herschmann. (The statement in question was never issued.)
“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on January 6, 2021,” said a spokesperson for Herschmann. “All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann.”
[...]
“While we understand that she and Mr. Herschmann may have differing recollections of who wrote the note, what’s ultimately important is that both White House officials believed that the President should have immediately instructed his supporters to leave the Capitol building,” [a Jan. 6] spokesperson said.
UPDATE:
The January 6 Committee posted a video of Trump leaving the ellipse in his limo. It is being said that it shows him moving his hands toward the driver. I can't make it out, only can see rapid movement inside the vehicle, but I feel sure the Committee has determined it backs up Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony.
UPDATE 7/1:
UPDATE 7/21:
We dissent
The final comments of the three dissenting justices (Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor) in the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood pulls no punches.
They purposefully omitted the traditionally used word "respectfully" in that last phrase. It's a good thing the Supremes now get a vacation from each other. I wonder if Ketanji Brown Jackson is having any buyer's remorse.In sum, the majority can point to neither legal nor factual developments in support of its decision. Nothing that has happened in this country or the world in recent decades undermines the core insight of Roe and Casey. It continues to be true that, within the constraints those decisions established, a woman, not the government, should choose whether she will bear the burdens of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.
[...]
Neither law nor facts nor attitudes have provided any new reasons to reach a different result than Roe and Casey did. All that has changed is this Court.
[...]
“[T]he Court,” Casey explained, “could not pretend” that overruling Roe had any “justification beyond a present doctrinal disposition to come out differently from the Court of 1973.” And to overrule for that reason? Quoting Justice Stewart, Casey explained that to do so—to reverse prior law “upon a ground no firmer than a change in [the Court’s] membership”— would invite the view that “this institution is little different from the two political branches of the Government.” No view, Casey thought, could do “more lasting injury to this Court and to the system of law which it is our abiding mission to serve.” For overruling Roe, Casey concluded, the Court would pay a “terrible price.”
The Justices who wrote those words—O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter—they were judges of wisdom. They would not have won any contests for the kind of ideological purity some court watchers want Justices to deliver. But if there were awards for Justices who left this Court better than they found it? And who for that reason left this country better? And the rule of law stronger? Sign those Justices up.
They knew that “the legitimacy of the Court [is] earned over time.” They also would have recognized that it can be destroyed much more quickly. They worked hard to avert that outcome in Casey. The American public, they thought, should never conclude that its constitutional protections hung by a thread—that a new majority, adhering to a new “doctrinal school,” could “by dint of numbers” alone expunge their rights. It is hard—no, it is impossible—to conclude that anything else has happened here. One of us once said that “[i]t is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” [...] For all of us, in our time on this Court, that has never been more true than today. In overruling Roe and Casey, this Court betrays its guiding principles.
With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent.
US Supreme Court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
A "smoking gun"
Former Attorney General Eric Holder said revelations that former President Trump told the Department of Justice (DOJ) to declare the election “corrupt” amounts to a “smoking gun.”
Former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection at its hearing on Thursday that Trump spoke to him by phone in late December 2020 to complain about the DOJ not acting on his claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Donoghue took detailed notes of the conversation.
“ ‘Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen,’ ” Trump said on the call, according to Donoghue’s notes.
Holder, who led the DOJ during the Obama administration, posted on Twitter on Thursday that statement could be considered evidence of a crime.
“This is the smoking gun,” Holder wrote. “Coupled with other testimony demonstrates Trump’s substantive involvement and corrupt intent, requisite state of mind.”
The Hill
UPDATE: New "smoking gun"
Start here for this thread:
January 6th hearing #6
Other notable points:
Renato is a former prosecuting attorney. (As is @Popehat.)
Joyce Vance was also a federal prosecutor:
Aaron Rupar's coverage of the hearing with video clips begins here:
Full hearing here.
Unsurprising GOP reaction, dismissive - and plain wrong:
And the totally expected response of Donald Trump:
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE:
Read the thread here.
*UPDATE: A more likely reason may be that Hutchinson was getting extreme pressure and/or threats:
This ought to make the July hearings viewer numbers rocket.
Next hearing (July 12)
UPDATE 6/29: Not good. It's being reported that the Secret Service agents involved in Hutchinson's story about Trump's actions in the limo are willing to testify in contradiction to her account.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Jan 6 Committee: NEW HEARING SCHEDULED
A spur of the moment hearing has been scheduled for 1 pm Eastern tomorrow Jan 28 due to "new evidence."
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Saturday, June 25, 2022
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