2020 Election Fallout Part 16: Public Hearings Are Underway

[47of74]

One of fuck knob's buddies lost in Federal court

Quote

A federal judge in New Mexico won't step in to protect Trump attorney John Eastman's seized cell phone from Justice Department investigators, after Eastman was searched as part of a January 6-related criminal inquiry.

US District Judge Robert Brack rejected Eastman's arguments for emergency help from the court in an opinion Friday. Eastman had asked the court to block federal investigators from using the contents of his phone in their probe.

Brack validated the court-approved warrant that had enabled the FBI to take and unlock Eastman's phone when agents approached him outside a restaurant in New Mexico last month.

The judge noted that the Justice Department said it would get a second warrant before searching the phone. It's unknown whether the DOJ has taken that step.

 

[Becky]

17 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Secret Service erased texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, official says"

 

Well, that's not at all suspicious.  

[Xan]

I remember Watergate and this is just so much worse.  Every day there's a new revelation.  Today I read that lawyer William Olson advised Trump and his people to declare martial law.  (Olson is now one of the lawyers being used by Mike Lindell.)  We have actual evidence that they were planning on declaring martial law.  Holy fuck.  And the Secret Service guys were probably in on it and that's why Pence wouldn't go with them.  For the record, Tony Ornato (previously temporarily assigned as a "political advisor" to Trump) is still an assistant director in the Secret Service.  If I were Biden, I'd really start cleaning house.

I get that Merrick Garland really doesn't want to have to prosecute Trump.  He understands that Trump's people are crazy and he doesn't want to be responsible for civil war.  Even President Ford admitted that he pardoned Nixon to keep the nation from erupting.  But Garland could at least indict enough higher-ups to inflict serious damage on Trump and his inner circle.  There needs to be enough dirt to stick to the religious leaders who supported Trump.

 

[ADoyle90815]

As for that grandma, if she hadn't broken the law, she wouldn't have gone to jail.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, Xan said:

I get that Merrick Garland really doesn't want to have to prosecute Trump. 

There are debates raging on twitter - one side is "Garland is in over his head, he's afraid to prosecute Trump or is an institutionalist who won't prosecute Trump. 

The other side, just as certain, is "Garland is a true professional, he doesn't leak, he just has to get his ducks on a row before bringing charges against Trump." 

Never mind that the f**king MUELLER REPORT noted that there was sufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.  Did Garland act on that after he became AG? No. 

There's also the bottom up strategy -- charge the lesser people while working your way to the top.  There are also people sounding the alarm that if they haven't gotten to the top people by now, it isn't going to happen.  These are not idle comments - they are from people who have experience as Federal prosecutors at the highest level. 

Personally, my confidence in Garland is zero, but I'm hoping to be proven wrong. 

[Ozlsn]

10 hours ago, Howl said:

There's also the bottom up strategy -- charge the lesser people while working your way to the top.  There are also people sounding the alarm that if they haven't gotten to the top people by now, it isn't going to happen.  These are not idle comments - they are from people who have experience as Federal prosecutors at the highest level. 

The problem is that they are the people organising it, and if you don't charge and prosecute them they'll just do it again with more expendable patsys. Not, I think, that those who have already been charged think of it in that way, but they might after some reflection.

[fraurosena]

21 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

but they might after some reflection.

That would require some critical thinking skills though, and the chances are that they are rather lacking in that department.

[Ozlsn]

43 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

That would require some critical thinking skills though, and the chances are that they are rather lacking in that department.

I'm favour of giving them enough time to reflect on it.

[fraurosena]

Jan. 6 panel expects to get Secret Service texts by Tuesday, says new witnesses will appear in next hearing

Quote

The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot expects to receive erased Secret Service text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, by Tuesday, and will present testimony from new witnesses during Thursday's public hearing, its members said Sunday.

Fanning out on Sunday programs, multiple members of the committee discussed the latest developments in their investigation and plans surrounding the prime-time hearing this week, which will focus on what the panel has called the crucial “187 minutes” — the length of time it took for former President Donald Trump to urge his supporters to leave the Capitol after the attack began.

The panel on Friday issued a subpoena to the Secret Service after a Homeland Security Department official traveled to Capitol Hill and briefed all nine committee members about the federal agency erasing text messages from the day and eve of the riot.

Investigators gave the Secret Service until Tuesday to turn over the documents, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the committee, said on ABC News’ “This Week" that they expect to receive them on time.

“We need them. And we expect to get them by this Tuesday,” she said. “I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones — that’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be. But we need to get this information to get the full picture.”

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, has called allegations that the agency deleted messages categorically false. During a “pre-planned, three-month system migration,” he said, data on some phones was lost but that none of the text messages being sought was permanently deleted. Guglielmi also insisted that the Secret Service would respond “swiftly to the Committee’s subpoena."

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson last month delivered bombshell testimony that included a description of a physical altercation that Trump got into with a top security official when he learned he was being driven back to the White House instead of to the Capitol to join his supporters after his speech at the Ellipse, which preceded the riot. Relaying what she was told by then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, Hutchinson said that Trump had grabbed the steering wheel from the back seat and a bodyguard's throat.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who will lead Thursday’s hearing with Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that it’s unlikely the committee would hear more testimony from Bobby Engel, then the head of Trump’s security detail, or Ornato before Thursday. Both had spoken to the committee before Hutchinson's testimony.

Luria said this week’s hearing would feature more videotaped testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, whom Hutchinson said had asked Mark Meadows, then-chief of staff, for help in talking to Trump about calling off rioters during the attack. She also said the panel would present testimony from witnesses who have not been heard from in previous hearings.

“Cipollone’s testimony is very valuable ... but there’s actually more,” Luria said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s other witnesses we’ve spoken to who have yet to appear in our previous hearings, who will add a lot of value and information to the events of that critical time in January.”

All three members signaled that their investigation isn't nearing the finish line, telling the public that they're still gathering new evidence and learning more about the attack. And while Thursday’s hearing is the last in this “tranche” of eight hearings, Lofgren said the investigation could go past the elections this fall, and there might be another round of public hearings later this year.

"This is going to open people's eyes in a big way," Kinzinger said. "If I was a president sworn to defend the Constitution — that includes the legislative branch — watching this on television, I know I would have been going ballistic to try to save the Capitol. He did quite the opposite."

Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, has attacked the Jan. 6 panel and characterized its hearings as a political "witch hunt."

 

[GreyhoundFan]

On 7/15/2022 at 4:49 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

The reich wing is crying about this grandma with cancer.

 

She doesn't look like the "poor widdle granny with cancer" here.

 

 

 

And I agree with this 100%.

 

 

Don't break the law if you don't want to go to jail.

 

The daughter of the grown woman who should have known better is whining about how her mother isn't being given special treatment. Boo-hoo.

 

 

[Audrey2]

11 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The daughter of the grown woman who should have known better is whining about how her mother isn't being given special treatment. Boo-hoo.

 

 

Oh Jenifa, what is it that you tell people of color when they end up in the criminal justice system? Oh yes I remember. If you don't want to do the time don't do the crime.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is powerful:

 

[MedicineWoman]

On 7/16/2022 at 8:51 PM, Howl said:

 

There's also the bottom up strategy -- charge the lesser people while working your way to the top.  There are also people sounding the alarm that if they haven't gotten to the top people by now, it isn't going to happen.  These are not idle comments - they are from people who have experience as Federal prosecutors at the highest level. 

Personally, my confidence in Garland is zero, but I'm hoping to be proven wrong. 

I'm curious, which people are saying this? I don't except any indictment until after the J6 committee is finished. 

[Xan]

The Secret Service is now saying that all those texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 are erased and gone forever, never to be retrieved.  Well, the first rule of Coup Club is "don't talk about Coup Club".  I find it interesting that the same people that yammered on about Hillary's email are now silent on missing texts.

[MedicineWoman]

I was reading This today about the DOJ investigation and I found it more credible than the random lawyers on Twitter saying nothing is being done. Gives me some hope at least.

[formergothardite]

15 hours ago, Xan said:

The Secret Service is now saying that all those texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 are erased and gone forever, never to be retrieved.  Well, the first rule of Coup Club is "don't talk about Coup Club".  I find it interesting that the same people that yammered on about Hillary's email are now silent on missing texts.

My guess is that they realized that releasing them is going to make it obvious that the SS is extremely compromised, possibly to the point where they discussed how to kill the VP, and the higher ups don’t want to deal with the public fall out so they decided to claim they are just gone. 

[thoughtful]

3 hours ago, formergothardite said:

My guess is that they realized that releasing them is going to make it obvious that the SS is extremely compromised, possibly to the point where they discussed how to kill the VP, and the higher ups don’t want to deal with the public fall out so they decided to claim they are just gone. 

Sure does seem likely, doesn't it? Rose Mary Woods' 18 minutes redux.

[Alisamer]

On 7/15/2022 at 4:49 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

The reich wing is crying about this grandma with cancer.

 

She doesn't look like the "poor widdle granny with cancer" here.

 

 

 

And I agree with this 100%.

 

 

Don't break the law if you don't want to go to jail.

 

Where were these complainers when infants were being taken from their parents at the border? When immigrants with similar issues were locked up in basically cages?

Chanting "build the wall", that's where they were. As usual they want separate rules for the conservative white people than for everyone else in the world. 

[fraurosena]

 

 

[fraurosena]

Raskin's "How to deftly slay a GQP'er 101"

 

[fraurosena]

But will he still vote for Trump in 2024? 

 

[fraurosena]

In case the previous Garland vid's weren't clear enough:

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

Garland had better not be teasing with this rhetoric.  I would like to think he wouldn't make those comments unless he's ready to follow through on pursuing an indictment of Trump.  

[GreyhoundFan]

I wonder if Rudy is already sweating brown streaks down his face:

 

[Ozlsn]

11 hours ago, formergothardite said:

My guess is that they realized that releasing them is going to make it obvious that the SS is extremely compromised, possibly to the point where they discussed how to kill the VP, and the higher ups don’t want to deal with the public fall out so they decided to claim they are just gone. 

My opinion is that that is the wrong choice. It was the wrong choice when JFK was allegedly shot by the SS (and honestly this is the first time I've wondered if that was accidental, conspiracy ftw), and it is not a good look now. At the very least there should be an investigation into which phones these messages vanished from and who they belong to - and into why no back ups were done before an upgrade that would wipe phones.  I mean it is entire possible that the last was human screw up, but given the context not having an investigation and a very open one basically leaves the field for conspiracy theorists wide open.

At the very least Pence should be testifying as to why he refused to get into that car.