2020 Election Fallout Part 16: Public Hearings Are Underway

[Dandruff]

3 hours ago, Satan'sFortress said:

That's probably what will be engraved on the Trump Memorial someday.

(may there be no memorial).

[Howl]

Some too-ing and fro-ing and a bit of jousting about Cassidy Hutchinson on twitter and is she this amazing, fabulous, brave shero or Nah. 

So, some background.  Her father was a politician and she interned in his office, then interned for Ted Cruz and Steve Scalise before going to the White House as a staff assistant with the Office of Legislative Affairs in 2019, then became Meadows' aide in 2020.   She seems to be super smart, hard working, competent. 

(One article noted that she had a falling out with Meadows in 2021, but offered no details)

She noted that she believed and supported what Trump was doing for the country (gack) and had to know exactly who Trump was; her office door was just down the corridor from the Oval Office.  I think she's also getting a lot of mileage out of being both beautiful and smart, like how could anyone so beautiful and smart hold horrible right-wing political beliefs and the answer is yes, yes she could. 

Her appearance was not voluntary and she showed up to testify because of subpoena. Was she credible? Yes, totally.  Did she volunteer any of this at the 2nd impeachment or at any other time? No. 

So, yeah, I'm insanely glad she showed up with utterly damning, insider testimony that may be pivotal in showing Trump was up to his neck in sedition. 

Like others who have testified, she's basically saving her ass.  She's no John Dean and deserves no pedestal.  Or at least that's my take at this time. 

One tweeter (Cheri Jacobus) noted that just showing up and giving testimony was cheaper, lawyer wise, than fighting a subpoena. 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Howl

[GreyhoundFan]

"Pro-Trump web raced to debunk Jan. 6 testimony. Then they got confused."

Quote

Former president Donald Trump’s supporters online sought to undercut stunning testimony Tuesday to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, seeking to belittle Cassidy Hutchinson’s claims that she was told Trump had lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle and attempted to throttle a member of his security detail when they refused to take him to the Capitol as rioters were besieging the building.

In sworn testimony, Hutchinson said she heard of the physical altercation from Tony Ornato, a Secret Service agent who served as the White House deputy chief of staff for operations. She said he told the story in front of Bobby Engel, the head of Trump’s security detail, who Trump reportedly lunged at during the altercation. Neither man has testified.

“I’m the f-ing president,” she said Ornato quoted the president shouting as they drove him to the White House and away from the Capitol.

Trump supporters quickly snapped back online that they’d found an obvious sign she was lying: The presidential limousine, known as “the Beast,” is so heavily fortified that they argued it would be “physically impossible” for Trump to cross from the back cabin to the driver’s seat.

But Trump was not riding in the limousine that day; videos show he actually rode in a Secret Service SUV, where the seats are closer together.

Even if he had ridden in the Beast, the rear and front seats have a glass window the president can lower whenever he’d like — a detail noted even in the same infographic that Trump supporters shared as proof that Hutchinson’s story couldn’t be right.

Trump made the same argument on Truth Social, the Twitter clone his allies created after he was banned from Twitter following the Jan. 6 attack. “Her Fake story … is ‘sick’ and fraudulent,” he wrote, adding it “wouldn’t even have been possible to do such a ridiculous thing.”

But two Secret Service agents who have worked in the Beast told The Washington Post that such a move from the president might have been tough, given the limo’s interior equipment — but not impossible.

The quibbling followed an aggressive campaign before the testimony by pro-Trump commenters on social networks, blogs and message boards seeking to portray Hutchinson, an aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, as an irrelevant attention seeker.

The pro-Trump blog Gateway Pundit called Hutchinson “another grifter … using Tuesday’s show trials to audition for a spot on CNN or MSNBC.” The conservative media firebrand John Cardillo tweeted that she was “a glorified receptionist and coffee fetcher in Meadows’ office … relaying boring office gossip, acting as if she had more access and input than she ever actually did.”

But as she recounted stunning details on Tuesday, including in-the-room and previously unreported accounts of Trump’s and Meadows’s actions before and during the insurrection, Trump defenders tried a different tack, saying she was just a rumormonger — even though much of her testimony was supported by written notes and text messages, and all of it was made under oath.

More than 4,000 accounts liked a tweet from a pro-Trump Twitter account calling her “Amber Heard 2.0” — a reference to the actor who recently lost a defamation lawsuit filed by ex-husband Johnny Depp. By Tuesday night, the phrase “Amber Heard 2.0” was trending on Twitter.

Trump supporters, including Donald Trump Jr., also widely echoed a right-wing meme suggesting Hutchinson was like Jussie Smollett, the actor who falsely reported to police that he had been attacked by men screaming “This is MAGA Country.”

On the pro-Trump message board patriots.win, one poster said, “She sounds like a child gossiping.” Some patriots.win posters said the testimony showed how unfairly Trump had been treated. One poster said the story showed that “the Deep State coup plotters” of the Secret Service had “effectively kidnapped the President of the United States of America against his wishes” as part of a “C.I.A. Military Industrial Complex coup d’etat.”

Some there argued she should be “locked up for lying under oath,” while another poster there suggested her wild testimony was just Washington as usual.

“Even if she’s telling the truth,” the anonymous patriots.win poster said, “where’s the f---ing problem?”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Of course Laura and the vampire are trying to discredit yesterday's testimony. For those who don't know, EEOB is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It is next to the White House and houses many staffers associated with both the president and VP.

 

[47of74]

Someone responded to Gym's bullshit claims

Quote

An attorney on Twitter clapped back at an account closely linked to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that suggested Tuesday’s shattering testimony before the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot was “all hearsay.”

Twitter account Popehat, an account for attorney Ken White’s law-centric blog of the same name, disagreed with the GOP account.

The account proceeded to offer examples of what could and couldn’t be considered hearsay.

One of the examples throws shade at Jordan for his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, when he allegedly knew of sexual abuse claims by students.

 

[libgirl2]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Of course Laura and the vampire are trying to discredit yesterday's testimony. For those who don't know, EEOB is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It is next to the White House and houses many staffers associated with both the president and VP.

 

God, that woman is slime. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good interview:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This worries me. I agree that an unintended consequence of the J6 hearings is that they might enable trump 2.0 -- DeathSantis.

 

[Howl]

One more thought about Cassidy Hutchinson testimony.  Once ONE person tells the truth, everyone else waiting in the wings oozing flop sweat and desperation know they cannot lie or spin to DoJ, Jan 6th Committee, any judge, because the truth has been told.  It's out there.  It is corroborating other testimony and is being corroborated by other testimony. 

So glad Jan 6th Committee decided to hold this emergency hearing.  It was captivating bombshell testimony and put the hearings back in the headlines, literally: it's banner headlines above the fold in Wall Street Journal and New York Times that Trump knew the mob was armed and sent that armed mob to the Capitol. 

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This worries me. I agree that an unintended consequence of the J6 hearings is that they might enable trump 2.0 -- DeathSantis.

Oh hell to the yes.  It's a terrifying prospect. 

[Xan]

The main pushback against Hutchinson's testimony appears to be Trump grabbing the SS guy's neck.  Trump and his minions are hopeful that if they can prove it's a lie, then the rest of what she said can be discounted.  My take on it:

1) It's true but Trump feels that the other people involved are so loyal that they'll swear she's lying.

2) It's true but Trump has threatened the other people involved so that they're scared to admit the truth.

3) It's false because it was made up as a poison pill so that, if she repeated it, she could be minimized.

Any way you look at it, the rest of her testimony still stands.  The louder Donny yells, the more we know that she hit a nerve.

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s silly new ‘defense’ against Hutchinson is full of holes"

Quote

Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony about Jan. 6 continues to drive brutal headlines for Donald Trump across the country. Leading analysts are describing her revelations as alternately devastating, emotionally powerful and historic. Others are comparing her depiction of the former president’s insurrection to the most deranged presidential moments in U.S. history.

Yet Trump’s propagandists have found an answer. They are claiming Hutchinson’s appearance was a flop, based on the fact that a single anecdote about Trump — one barely related to the central allegations against him — is now being questioned by a handful of bit players in this saga who aren’t even offering this pushback publicly, let alone under oath.

In addition to providing an object lesson in how pro-Trump propaganda functions, this buffoonery reveals just how weak Trump’s defenses have become. The pushback is shriveling into meaningless trivialities even as the enormity of this scandal grows overwhelming.

Trump’s spinners have seized on Trump’s episode with the Secret Service. Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 select committee on Tuesday that Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff, told her Trump erupted in fury as his detail refused to take him to the Capitol to join the mob, cursing and lunging for the steering wheel.

The Secret Service now says it will offer a response. A source close to the agency leaked word that Robert Engel, the agent in charge of Trump’s detail that day — along with the vehicle’s driver — are prepared to say under oath that Trump never lunged for the wheel.

This has caused an outpouring of glee among Trump’s propagandists and online warriors. They called Hutchinson everything from a “grifter” to a “glorified receptionist,” which is funny, because as a top aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, she had a front-row seat at the highest levels of power.

Meanwhile, Trump himself raged that Hutchinson’s story was “sick” and “fraudulent.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insisted that people in the car must be permitted to testify to the committee and that major networks should carry it live.

By all means, let’s do that. Ornato, Engel and the driver absolutely should testify under oath on live television.

Here’s why this pushback is so preposterously weak. First, Hutchinson was not relating her firsthand experience of that episode. As Hutchinson recounted, she, Ornato and Engel were outside Meadows’s office after this episode, and Ornato described it to her. Asked whether Engel disputed this account at the time Ornato delivered it, Hutchinson said Engel did not.

The leaks in Trump’s favor don’t address this point. They simply say Engel and the driver will dispute that Trump lunged for the wheel. Ornato can deny ever recounting this episode to Hutchinson. He hasn’t.

Which brings us to the more fundamental point. If Ornato wants to respond under oath to Hutchinson’s testimony, guess what: There are many other things he can be asked about as well.

For instance, Ornato was the person who informed Meadows that Trump supporters attempting to enter the rally were armed at a meeting on the morning of Jan. 6, according to Hutchinson’s testimony.

Ornato also told Meadows he informed Trump of this, per Hutchinson. She went on to recount that Trump angrily demanded that armed supporters be let in, after which he directed the mob to the Capitol to intimidate his vice president into completing his coup attempt.

If Ornato wants to testify under oath, he could address all of those claims as well. Is that something Trump supporters want?

Similarly, Ornato and Engel can address the core assertion that Hutchinson made about the president’s alleged rage-fit in his vehicle. They can testify about whether Trump actually did want to go to the Capitol and what happened then.

Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official, notes that these officials would be well-positioned to shed light on Trump’s state of mind as this happened.

“What were his intentions that day?” Kayyem told me, characterizing what they could be asked. “What was he telling the Secret Service he wanted to do, and how were they pushing back?”

Right now, as Brian Beutler argues, the leaks in Trump’s favor appear designed to create a tangential dust-up precisely to remove the focus from Hutchinson’s core claims. Indeed, the leaks say Secret Service officials will not dispute that Trump demanded to go to the Capitol in irate language. So let’s hear from Ornato and Engel on what he said!

As it happens, a source close to the Secret Service told CBS News that Ornato and Engel have already testified to the committee behind closed doors. Of course, as Post reporter and Secret Service expert Carol Leonnig told Rachel Maddow, Ornato and Engel are known as “yes men” to Trump. So we don’t have any idea how cooperative they were.

Regardless, you would think they would leap at the opportunity to rebut Hutchinson’s testimony, now that it’s been made public. Unless that would do more harm than good.

When Greene insists she wants them to testify on live TV, the aim is not to make that actually happen. The real game is to project manufactured confidence that if it did, somehow truths being suppressed by Trump’s enemies would suddenly come to light, to inject a fog of uncertainty into mainstream media coverage.

But the revelations have been so overwhelming that the usual scams just aren’t working.

 

[Howl]

So not THE Jan. 6 Committee hearings, but five or so days ago, Ali Alexander (leader of Stop the Steal and organizer of Jan 6 and other Stop the Steal rallies), testified to a Federal Grand Jury for many hours. 

He claims he is a fact witness, rather than a target of the investigation, but take that as maybe/maybe not. 

Note that Ali Alexander went by his birth name, Ali Akbar, at the time this article was written.  At some point in his activist career, he changed to Ali Alexander, I think for obvious reasons.  For more info on Ali's bio, check out the Ali Alexander WIKI. 

As journalists digested this Federal grand jury information, some decided to do a little background refresher on Ali  and what would pop up but this article from June 27, 2012: Karl Rove's Bisexual Affair Might Have Sparked His Bizarre Rant on Fox News

So, "Rove's lover is Ali Akbar, president of the National Bloggers Club, an umbrella group that grew from the activism of the late right-wing publisher and pundit Andrew Breitbart. A left-leaning Web site called Breitbart Unmasked recently disclosed that Akbar has a criminal record that includes convictions for credit-card fraud, theft, and burglary."

Let me tell you right off the bat, this was not on my Wednesday "bat-shit crazy Republican operatives stuff"  bingo card and I don't recall even a whiff of "Karl Rove is bisexual" over the years.   However, it's obvious from the article that Rove was desperate that this fact not emerge, based on his behavior in an unhinged appearance on Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox on June 20, 2012, referenced in the article. 

Karl Rove is a sleaze bag Republican operative and into major ratfuckery, a la Roger Stone, an accomplice. 

So, a dark-skinned gay man of Arabic descent is big with the MAGA crowd, which includes a large number of very white White Nationalists. 

 

[47of74]

41 minutes ago, Howl said:

As journalists digested this Federal grand jury information, some decided to do a little background refresher on Ali  and what would pop up but this article from June 27, 2012: Karl Rove's Bisexual Affair Might Have Sparked His Bizarre Rant on Fox News

So, "Rove's lover is Ali Akbar, president of the National Bloggers Club, an umbrella group that grew from the activism of the late right-wing publisher and pundit Andrew Breitbart. A left-leaning Web site called Breitbart Unmasked recently disclosed that Akbar has a criminal record that includes convictions for credit-card fraud, theft, and burglary."

Let me tell you right off the bat, this was not on my Wednesday "bat-shit crazy Republican operatives stuff"  bingo card and I don't recall even a whiff of "Karl Rove is bisexual" over the years.   However, it's obvious from the article that Rove was desperate that this fact not emerge, based on his behavior in an unhinged appearance on Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox on June 20, 2012, referenced in the article.

Jesus I did not need to learn this about Karl Rove right after having lunch. 

[thoughtful]

12 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Jesus I did not need to learn this about Karl Rove right after having lunch. 

Aw, c'mon - you know Ham Rove is cute.

 

[Howl]

38 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Jesus I did not need to learn this about Karl Rove right after having lunch.

At first a curious part of my mind was going, "I wonder what Karl and Ali talked about when..." and then the rational part of my mind went, "Shut down this line of thought STAT! Like RIGHT. NOW!" 

So, all good. I can distract my self by contemplating an imminent plumbing bill in the lower 4 figures.  At first, replacing the faucets + vacuum breakers on the hose bibs was totally doable (and it was done pretty quickly), but then it was realized that a pressure reducing valve needed to be installed where the water line comes off the city main. The water pressure was 100 psi when it shouldn't be above 60. 

No problems have arisen YET, but if the high pressure coming off the city's water main isn't reduced, something will give in our plumbing at some point, so gotta be done.  We have one flush each because the water supply to the house is off while the repair is taking place. 

The poor plumber guy is out there sweating like a hog in a sauna in full sun.  Fortunately, our string of 100 degree days has paused for a bit

Edited June 29, 2022 by Howl

[47of74]

Something just occurred to me about Mr. and Mrs. Thomas.

Quote

In a concurring opinion to Friday’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” The rulings Thomas referred to guarantee the right to contraception, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages.

But those substantive due process precedents also include Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision that says that laws banning interracial marriage violate the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And Justice Clarence Thomas, a Black man, is married to Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, who is white.

Unlike Thomas, the other justices, both conservative and liberal, contended with what Friday’s decision could mean for cases that include Loving, and seven mentioned Loving by name.

But the only African American on the Supreme Court, and the only Supreme Court justice in an interracial marriage, doesn’t mention Loving at all. Though Thomas argues that all those other precedents should be reconsidered, he implies by his silence that the one that affects him personally is sacrosanct.

Maybe a certain someone doesn't want to touch Loving because if that got overturned and the marriage was invalidated there go the spousal immunity protections and they'd have to testify against each other. 

8 minutes ago, Howl said:

The poor plumber guy is out there sweating like a hog in a sauna in full sun.  Fortunately, our string of 100 degree days has paused for a bit

Yeah it's been fairly mild up here in the Twin Cities as well the past few days.  It's 84 right now, which is about the warmest it's been in about a week.  I'll take it.

[Dandruff]

44 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Jesus I did not need to learn this about Karl Rove right after having lunch. 

I was eating lunch and it's not happy.

 

[thoughtful]

40 minutes ago, Howl said:

No problems have arisen YET, but if the high pressure coming off the city's water main isn't reduced, something will give in our plumbing at some point, so gotta be done. 

Yeah, you don't want to end up like this guy:

Spoiler

 

 

[Howl]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Maybe a certain someone doesn't want to touch Loving because if that got overturned and the marriage was invalidated there go the spousal immunity protections and they'd have to testify against each other. 

You ARE a lawyer! 

[GreyhoundFan]

[Howl]

One more thing about Cassidy H. As noted,  her office was just a few steps away from the Oval Office. She accompanied Mark Meadows to all but a few meetings and aboard Air Force 1, to the extent that at least some people on the scene began to think, "What's up with that?"  She was basically his appendage.  (I'm not implying impropriety.) 

As the gateway to the president, the WH Chief of Staff is 2nd to the president in the importance of running the country. This brings into perspective the importance of the Chief of Staff's aide.  Cassidy H saw, heard, and knew EVERYTHING.  The Jan 6th Committee heard much more from Cassidy H, who testified for hours.  There is likely more to come + likelihood of  people being brought down by testimony from her we haven't heard yet. 

I'm wondering if part of her unheard testimony will include being pressured about her testimony (witness tampering) and that had to do with her last-minute change of lawyers away from her Trump-adjacent lawyer.

[Xan]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

I'm wondering if part of her unheard testimony will include being pressured about her testimony (witness tampering) and that had to do with her last-minute change of lawyers away from her Trump-adjacent lawyer.

I read today that a number of underlings had lawyers paid through Trump and his associates.  She apparently mentioned to a friend that she had info about which she had never been asked.  I assume that the lawyer was either objecting to the questions and not allowing her to answer them or else he got pre-approval for the questions.  Either way, she felt that she was being controlled.  Thus -- new lawyer.  It might be that other underlings jump ship and decide to do the same.

[Howl]

I know y'all will SHOCKED to learn that Donald Trump lied when he claimed he turned down Cassidy H for a job at Mar a Lago. 

The Pee Tape twitter account reported: 

Turns out, January 23rd 2021, the Washington Examiner reported Donald Trump had Five junior staffers, who previously worked at White House, follow him to his Mar a Lago resort in Florida to set up his personal office and plan his next moves.

These staffers were Margo Martin, a WH press assistant; Nick Luna, formerly the then-president’s body man (or personal assistant); Will Russell, director of the Trump White House advance team; Molly Michael, who worked as Oval Office coordinator; and... *Cassidy Hutchinson*

Edited July 1, 2022 by Howl

[Howl]

From CNN: Hutchinson was 1 of the witnesses Trump world sought to influence, sources say

How do we know it was Trump behind trying to intimidate witnesses?  Because that's a mob deal, and Trump has been mob adjacent his entire life. 

It would not surprise me if it was Donald Trump making the actual phone calls.  

Trump has a history in the 1990s of inventing fake personas to call in and brag about this and that to media.