Jan. 6th

[dorankj]

It will sure be interesting when the next President can release Joe’s records and deny executive privilege from advisors. Throwing away long standing principles just to get your political enemy is only ever good short term.

[pasayten]

The Jan 6th committee is uncovering some great facts and information leading up to and about the riot/insurrection for all to see... "ranking member" or not... Courts supporting it also...


Court rejects former President Trump's effort to withhold January 6 records
Duration: 08:42 47 mins ago

A federal appeals court judge denied former President Donald Trump's request to conceal documents related to the end of his presidency. CBS News correspondent Zak Hudak joins CBSN AM with more on this and the latest on the House select committee's investigation into the Capitol riot.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... vi-AAS4hR6

[Fun CH]

I ‘believe’ this committee is completely political and in no way searching for the truth. First off it has no ranking member and is therefore illegitimate from the get go. I’m sure the most popular President in history will be fine!

the question I asked was this;

"Want do you believe Ken? Do you believe that Trump really won the election?"

Nice deflection.

The committee was clear that they didn't want those ranking members who may have been complicit in the "big lie" and the January 6th riot to participate. Only two other Republicans stepped up after Trump wanted to freeze out the committee.

The public has already seen a few of the incriminating documents and we all heard Trump claiming election fraud if he looses even before the election.

Here is a quote before the votes were in.

"“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!”

Notice he is correct about one thing here, which is that votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed and they weren't.

But votes can be counted after the poles close, as always.

But the bottom line is, while those that broke into the capital on Jan 6th were being investigated and arrested, Trump was collecting millions of dollars by selling the "big lie".

He could have preemptively pardoned every one of those people.

He choose not to and now many are rotting in prison simply because they believed in a lie.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-do ... 44b979bcec

"Supreme Court rejects Trump election challenge cases"

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a handful of cases related to the 2020 election, including disputes from Pennsylvania that had deeply divided the justices just before the election.

The cases the justices rejected involved election challenges filed by former President Donald Trump and his allies in five states President Joe Biden won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Other than two Pennsylvania disputes, the justices’ decision not to hear the cases was unsurprising but ends months of legal wrangling. The court had previously taken no action in those cases and in January had turned away pleas that the cases be fast-tracked, again suggesting the justices were not interested in hearing them.

Some of the justices, however, had strong feelings about the court’s decision not to hear two cases from Pennsylvania that had been particularly contentious in the battleground state. The cases involved an appeal of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision requiring election officials to receive and count mailed-in ballots that arrived up to three days after the election. Three of the nine justices said they would have heard the case, which would not have affected the election’s outcome.

Justice Clarence Thomas called the cases an “ideal opportunity” to address an important question whether state lawmakers or state courts get the last word about the manner in which federal elections are carried out. And he called it “befuddling” and “inexplicable” that his colleagues were declining to weigh in.

“We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence,” he wrote.

Thomas cited the expansion of mail-in voting as another reason to take the case and said “fraud is more prevalent with mail-in ballots.” Trump had made claims of massive fraud in the vastly expanded use of mailed in ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic, but courts found no evidence to substantiate those claims.

Pennsylvania lawmakers, for their part, made changes to the state’s election laws in response to the pandemic but left in place a Nov. 3 deadline to receive absentee ballots. Democrats sued, and Pennsylvania’s highest court cited the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and United States Postal Service delays in extending the deadline for mailed-in ballots to be received.

Republicans had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put that extension on hold ahead of the election. But in October, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and before Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to her seat, the justices split 4-4 over doing so, keeping the three-day extension for receiving ballots in place.

In practice, however, because of the ongoing lawsuit, those late-arriving ballots were separated out and have not yet been counted. The state has said that ultimately, fewer than 10,000 ballots were received during those three days. That small number of ballots would not have altered the outcome of the presidential election in the state, which former President Donald Trump lost by some 80,000 votes.

Pennsylvania officials had argued that the case was moot because the state’s election results had already been certified. Republicans argued the justices should take the case to provide guidance for future elections. In addition to Thomas, two other justices — Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — agreed.

Those three justices and Justice Brett Kavanaugh had been the four justices who previously would have put the ballot deadline extension on hold. As is typical, neither Kavanaugh nor Barrett, each of whom might have provided a fourth vote needed for the court to take the case, wrote to explain why they declined to hear the case.

“A decision in these cases would not have any implications regarding the 2020 election...But a decision would provide invaluable guidance for future elections,” Alito wrote. He said the cases “call out for review.”

Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, wrote on Twitter after the court’s action: “It’s time to move on".

[dorankj]

Haha Ray, I’m saying our current President will be fine since he’s so popular (81 m, Obama and Clinton are green with envy!)

[pasayten]

I ‘believe’ this committee is completely political and in no way searching for the truth. First off it has no ranking member and is therefore illegitimate from the get go. I’m sure the most popular President in history will be fine!

Sorry Ken... Not the most bigly popular... Many other presidents have/had higher average appproval ratings for their presidency... Trump is down a ways...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... val_rating

[dorankj]

I ‘believe’ this committee is completely political and in no way searching for the truth. First off it has no ranking member and is therefore illegitimate from the get go. I’m sure the most popular President in history will be fine!

[Fun CH]

If you think there’s only one side ‘creating a narrative’ you show your bias. That article posted is certainly full of it, quite the ‘narrative’ there!

I don't think that only side is creating a narrative. And I know that my bias is always showing. But this isn't about me, is it?

This is about the "big lie" that was being planned before the results of the 2020 election were even in.

How do I know?

I look at the facts. And the fact is that Trump's COS gave the Jan 6th committee documents that shows that to be true. They are there for all to see.

Want do you believe Ken? Do you believe that Trump really won the election?

[dorankj]

If you think there’s only one side ‘creating a narrative’ you show your bias. That article posted is certainly full of it, quite the ‘narrative’ there!

[Fun CH]

Sad thing is that people believe that election lie he spins and weaves. One of the good things he did was fast track the vaccine and mentioned at a recent rally that he had received the booster (after his Covid infection and the first two shots).

The crowd booed him.

I guess when you create a narrative where up is down and down is up, that's what you can expect.

You reap what you sow. Nothing new there.

[pasayten]

Trump says he's holding a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 6, the anniversary of the Capitol riot

bmetzger@insider.com (Bryan Metzger) - 7h ago

Former President Donald Trump says he's holding a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 6, 2022.
Trump announced the event, which falls on the anniversary of the Capitol siege, in a statement on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced plans to commemorate the day as well.
Former President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he will be hosting a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on January 6, exactly one year after a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

"Why isn't the Unselect Committee of highly partisan political hacks investigating the CAUSE of the January 6th protest, which was the rigged Presidential Election of 2020?" Trump wrote in a statement.

Trump was apparently referring to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which has interviewed at least 300 people and recently uncovered shocking text messages from Donald Trump Jr., Fox News hosts, and lawmakers to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on the day of the attack.

The former president went on to say that the committee wants to "stay as far away from" claims of a rigged 2020 presidential election as possible, before asking supporters to "look at what is going on now" in several US states, though it was unclear what Trump was referring to.

He went on to castigate "RINOs" — an acronym for "Republican in Name Only" — presumably referring to his opponents within the party, such as Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who sit on the January 6 committee.

"In many ways a RINO is worse than a Radical Left Democrat," Trump said, "because you don't know where they are coming from and you have no idea how bad they really are for our Country."


"The good news is there are fewer and fewer RINOs left as we elect strong Patriots who love America," he added. Trump has endorsed a primary challenger to Cheney, while he and other Republicans have moved to punish 13 House Republicans who bucked party leadership and voted for a bipartisan infrastructure bill in November.

"I will be having a news conference on January 6th at Mar-a-Lago to discuss all of these points, and more," he concluded. "Until then, remember, the insurrection took place on November 3rd, it was the completely unarmed protest of the rigged election that took place on January 6th."

In contrast to Trump's claims, many of his supporters were armed when they stormed the Capitol nearly a year ago. Roughly 140 officers were injured in the attack, while 5 people died on that day. Officer Michael Fanone, a DC police officer who responded to the riot, detailed in July how he was dragged and beaten unconscious by Trump loyalists.

Over 700 people have been charged in connection with the riot.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a "Dear Colleague" letter on Monday that Congress would seek to commemorate the events of that day with a "full program of events."

Those events, according to Pelosi, will include a discussions with historians about "the narrative of that day," a chance for members of Congress to share experiences and reflections from that day, and vigils. She also said the events will be livestreamed.

"As always, we will continue to work with the House Historian to establish and preserve our records in this regard," Pelosi said.

The White House has also said it plans to commemorate that day, though no details have been provided as of now. The US Senate is scheduled to be in session on January 6, though at least one senator has expressed reservations about those plans.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AAS1I8w

[pasayten]

January 6: How the House select committee finally exposed Trump's empire of lies
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN - Yesterday 9:15 PM

If politics still turned on truth and facts, this would be the week when the lie-filled foundations of Donald Trump's movement imploded, destroying his apparent dream of a return to power after the 2024 election.

But it is the ex-President's greatest, most subversive victory that his empire of falsehoods will surely survive new disclosures that lay bare his own abuses of power and the voter-mocking deceit of his political and media enablers.

While there has already been a steady accumulation of shocking evidence of Trump's coup attempt on January 6 and the emptiness of his election fraud claims, recent days put the saga into a horrifying new light. They brought the clearest indicators yet that the entire Make America Great Again infrastructure and Trump's potential next White House campaign rest on hogwash and the whitewashing of history.

The House select committee probing the January 6 insurrection has released fresh details of the elaborate behind-the-scenes plot to subvert the certification of President Joe Biden's election. There's embarrassing new evidence of how conservative media stars were privately alarmed by the attack by Trump's mob but quickly reverted to amplifying his lies to millions of Americans they willfully deceived. And a major new Associated Press survey of 2020 swing states contested by Trump found cases of voter fraud were sparse and far from the nationwide conspiracy he claims. There are separate reports that three Florida residents were recently arrested and charged with election fraud -- two of whom were registered Republicans.

This week will be remembered for Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chair of the House committee, bringing receipts that exposed the hypocrisy of Trump's extended orbit.

Texts from Republican lawmakers, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News prime-time anchors to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows show that they knew the attack on the Capitol was a disaster and wanted it to stop.

Yet those same conservative heroes are part of a political media operation that spent the last 11 months obscuring what really happened, in many cases denying the truth of Biden's election win and fueling lies about voter fraud that are feeding anti-democratic extremism. All to preserve a meal ticket named Trump.

In another development fraught with chilling implications, the committee revealed that Meadows wrote in an email that the National Guard would be present to "protect pro Trump people" on January 6. It was the latest example of a habit of weaponizing sacred American institutions for Trump's political gain.

The former President, meanwhile, encapsulated perverted political values that now rule much of the Republican Party and will likely produce its next presidential nominee. He recently declared that former Vice President Mike Pence had been "mortally wounded" because he had refused to steal the election during his ceremonial role in certifying Biden's victory. The ex-President was giving voice to a GOP incentive system that now rewards coup attempts and despotic behavior over honoring the Constitution.

The scale of the evidence coming to light this week is remarkable. But daily bombshells about what happened on January 6 often have the effect of diminishing the shock value of Trump-related outrages. And voters have pressing concerns like the rising cost of living and a pandemic that will shortly drag into a third year. Yet this week's developments are important not just because they chart the staggering breadth of Trump's election conspiracy. They are also exposing the lies on which his future political prospects are built -- and on which multiple Republican-run states have passed laws that make it harder to vote and easier to steal future elections.

Trump's biggest confidence trick
There has always been an aura of a con man about Trump, from his days as a bankruptcy-plagued real estate chancer who adopted a persona as the master of the art of the deal. His presidency opened with false claims about the size of his inauguration crowd that in retrospect augured an administration constructed on untruths -- or what his former senior aide Kellyanne Conway once dubbed "alternative facts."

It is now clear that his big lie that "frankly, we did win this election" is the most audacious and damaging confidence trick of his career.

A few Trump supporters are seeing the light, including Dustin Stockton, one of the organizers of the January 6 rally that preceded the insurrection, who found himself subpoenaed by the House committee -- and lacks the means to wage a legal battle like Trump's wealthy political guru Steve Bannon.

"Essentially, he abandons people when the going gets tough for people. And, you know, in some ways, it's embarrassing to think that in a lot of ways, we bought into what essentially turned out to be a bluff or a con," Stockton told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday.

Yet Stockton is an outlier. Trump's popularity among Republican voters makes him the preemptive favorite for the GOP's 2024 nomination. He has the power to shape the political careers of those willing to accept his extremism -- as his raft of endorsements of midterm election candidates, nationally and in the states, shows. The Trump story, meanwhile, makes millions for conservative media outlets and stars -- giving them an incentive to promote a false alternative reality that has won over legions of viewers.

The mendacity of the conservative media propaganda machine was exposed by Cheney's reading aloud of texts sent to Meadows by several Fox News powerhouses, including Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, pleading with Meadows to get Trump to intervene on January 6.

"Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home," Ingraham texted. "This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy." Hannity asked the-then chief of staff whether Trump could make a statement that would tell the people at the Capitol to leave.

Both anchors later condemned the violence on January 6. But they have been among Fox News personalities who attack the investigation as a political vendetta against Trump rather than a probe into one of the worst assaults on democracy in American political history. And television disinformation is only a small part of the problem; social media networks teem with falsehoods about the election and boost Trump's lies in what is almost a fact-free zone.

Trump's Orwellian method
Trump's enablers have reacted to the disclosures of recent days by adopting the signature move of their leader -- spinning a false reality to excuse his behavior and mislead his supporters about what really happened.

Meadows, for instance, appeared on Hannity's show on Monday and concocted a story that contradicts reports that the former President had cooled his heels and watched on TV as his rioting supporters marauded through the Capitol.

"At the end of the day, they're going to find that not only did the President act, but he acted quickly," Meadows said. The former chief of staff has since been cited for criminal contempt by the House for refusing a subpoena to testify to the committee. His tactic was familiar from previous Trump scandals, as he pivoted away from the truth to create a more palatable tale for Trump supporters that absolved the ex-President of culpability.

The approach recalled Trump's own when his pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to open an investigation into then-candidate Biden and his son Hunter came out. The ex-President simply insisted that their call was "perfect," even though a White House transcript showed repeated abuses of power as he used military aid as a carrot -- a transgression that led to his first impeachment.

This Trump gambit -- also used by conservative news outlets every day -- recalls the party's reality-defying "War is Peace" slogan in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Trump explained his method in a less literal way in 2018 when instructing followers to distrust their own eyes and non-partisan media and to believe only him. "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening," he said.

This week's revelations have been damning for Trump, his former aides and the conservative media propagandists who sustain him.

But if history is any guide, the truth will not bring him down.

[dorankj]

And Alf, Meadows texts were altered by Shiff but don’t let truth get in the way of your righteous indignation, I’m sure “big cheese’s” aren’t burdened with actual facts.

[dorankj]

Those people texted exactly what they were saying publicly, consistent condemnation of lawless behavior like all the other riots and property destruction and killings that happened all 2020. You’ve fallen for an attempted outing that actually proves it wasn’t a coordinated ‘armed insurrection’ like certain media still pretends from a non-republican who’s hoping for blue support and is NOT a ‘ranking member’ as required to make this any sort of legitimate commission. Funny also, there are many people on video inciting entering the capital who haven’t been arrested, why is that? Maybe you all should really broaden your news sources, methinks some doth protest too much!

[mister_coffee]

You don't show up to a peaceful protest with spears, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and pepper spray.

I just don't see how you pass around your secret plan to overthrow the lawfully elected government on PowerPoint. And have outsiders briefing people who need to cooperate on the plan. It just offends my sense of professionalism and basic competence. If we are to have evil overlords, is it too much to ask that they at least be competent?

Also all of those people flunked basic constitutional law. Under the constitution and the electoral count act if we don't choose a new president by the end of their term, the current president is still out and the speaker of the house takes over. So this was a lot of work just to get Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office.

[Fun CH]

You may want to broaden your news sources to gain a little perspective.

took your advice and it did broaden my perspective.

[dorankj]

So it WASN'T a ‘armed insurrection’ worse than ‘9-11, Pearl Harbor or the Lincoln assassination’! You may want to broaden your news sources to gain a little perspective.

[pasayten]

Opinion: Trump’s PowerPoint coup plotters were crackpots. We may not be so lucky next time.

Washington Post
By Dana Milbank
Today at 5:42 p.m. EST

The revolution will not be televised. But it will be available in PowerPoint format.

This particular PowerPoint Plot will contain boxes and crazy arrows pointing every which way, the odd typo, a bizarre conspiracy involving a 1976 murder by “U.S.-backed police,” the wild allegation that “the Chinese systematically gained control over our election system constituting a national security emergency,” and the inevitable conclusion, highlighted twice in yellow and in all caps: “TRUMP WINS!!” And, above all, it will be based on the work of a treasure hunter who led an unsuccessful search for the biblical Ark of the Covenant and claimed a “magical” sword proved the ancient Romans sailed to Canada.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has discovered that a 38-page PowerPoint deck landed in the inbox of then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows suggesting that President Donald Trump announce a “national security emergency” and “declare electronic voting in all states invalid” — thereby overturning the 2020 election. Meadows is ignoring a subpoena to testify about matters including the PowerPoint and his email asserting that the National Guard was on standby on Jan. 6 to “protect pro Trump people.”


For that, Meadows is expected Tuesday to be held in contempt of Congress. But a review of a publicly available version of the PowerPoint similar to the one in the committee’s hands — as well as its authors — suggests Meadows would more properly be held in contempt of competence.

Not for the first time, we are reminded that American democracy was saved by Team Trump’s buffoonery. They had the will, and possibly the means, to overthrow the 2020 election, but the would-be coup was attempted by clowns: Sidney “Kraken” Powell, the MyPillow guy, Rudy Giuliani of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, and now one Jovan Hutton Pulitzer.

The New York Times reported that the Meadows PowerPoint “appears to be based on the theories” of Pulitzer, a “Texas entrepreneur and self-described inventor.” Pulitzer told my Post colleagues that he contributed material for the PowerPoint, which was circulated by a retired colonel who has worked in cybersecurity, firearms and distilleries — an example, the Post reported, of the “cast of fringe personalities” Trump deployed “to sabotage the U.S. democratic process.”


When it comes to eccentricity, Pulitzer takes the prize. Years ago, under the name Jeffry Jovan Philyaw, he invented the CueCat, a feline-shaped bar code scanner that was a brief sensation before it collapsed amid savage reviews by tech writers and earned a spot on Time magazine’s “50 worst inventions” and PC World’s “25 worst tech products of all time.”

Philyaw/Pulitzer then became a treasure hunter for the Lost Ark and landed on the History Channel for his claims about a Roman sword in Nova Scotia that many believe to be a hoax. He also sold quartz crystals of “powerful spiritual significance" and wrote a series of books called “Commander’s Lost Treasures,” including one titled “How to Cut Off Your Arm and Eat Your Dog: Plus, Other Recipes for Survival.” He kept up with his prolific career as an inventor, too (or at least as a patent applicant), proposing things we never knew we needed, such as “a vibrating finger cuff for use in performing a finger prick.”

But his greatest invention came after the 2020 election, when he pronounced himself a voting expert, claiming he could identify fraudulent ballots by detecting, among other things, Chinese ink and fibers. Trump allies in Georgia invited him to testify before the state legislature, where he claimed to have hacked into Georgia’s voting system. Georgia’s (Republican) secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, called Pulitzer a “failed treasure hunter” and his claims “patently false.”

But Trump’s chief of staff was happy to listen.


“KEY Issue: China has leveraged financial, non-governmental and foreign allies including Venezuela to acquire INFLUENCE and CONTROL US Voting Infrastructure in at least 28 States,” proclaimed the PowerPoint based on Pulitzer’s work. “KEY Issue in 2020: Critical Infrastructure control utilized as part of ongoing globalist/socialist operation to subvert the will of United States Voters and install a China ally.” The deck alleged without evidence that Jorge Rodríguez, a former Venezuelan vice president, was a “likely mastermind.”

After the failed coup, Pulitzer moved on — to the Arizona “audit,” for which he offered his services as a “document pattern recognition expert” who could sniff out fake ballots. Remember the search for “bamboo” fibers to prove fake ballots came from China? That was inspired by Pulitzer, who helped the “Cyber Ninjas” in their hapless Arizona exploits.

It’s tempting to dismiss charlatans such as Pulitzer, and Trump aides such as Meadows who relied on crackpots. But it’s little comfort that democracy was saved only by the bumbling of the coup plotters.

Next time, we may not be so lucky. And if you don’t think that’s a real threat, I’d like to sell you an ancient Roman sword I found near Halifax.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... -crackpot/

[Fun CH]

^ Articles like this always leave out the fact the in Trump's Jan 6th speech, he did call for a peaceful march.

His words.

"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard"

My opinion; Trump is very good at covering his tracks, throwing people under the bus, and employing fall guys to give the appearance of plausible deniability.

[pasayten]

Donald Trump claims his Jan. 6 speech in which he told supporters to 'fight like hell' was 'extremely calming'

Business Insider - ashoaib@insider.com (Alia Shoaib) - 15h ago

In the speech, the outgoing president told his supporters to march to the Capitol and "fight like hell."
The former president told Fox News said he had "nothing to hide" from the Jan. 6 congressional committee.
Former President Donald Trump claimed that a speech he gave to supporters on January 6 before the Capitol riot was "extremely calming."

"I have nothing to hide," Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Friday night, referring to the congressional panel investigating the Capitol riot.

"I wasn't involved in that and if you look at my words and what I said in the speech, they were extremely calming, actually."

In the 70-minute speech on January 6, Trump repeated false claims that the 2020 election had been "stolen" from him and encouraged his followers to march to the Capitol.

"You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong," Trump said in the speech.

"We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

In the interview with Laura Ingraham on Friday, Trump said the events on January 6 were a "protest" and that the hundreds of arrested rioters were "innocent."

"It was a protest. The insurrection took place on November 3rd, which was election day. This was a protest and a lot of innocent people are being hurt. A lot of innocent people are being injured," he said.

Trump also discussed his attempts to try and prevent the January 6 select committee from obtaining a tranche of executive branch documents relating to their investigation.

The former president asserted executive privilege over several of the documents.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled against Trump's request to block the committee from obtaining records.

Speaking to Laura Ingraham, Trump said he had "nothing to hide" but was asserting executive privilege as a principle.

"The biggest loser would be Biden, because if it ever changes, and I think it will, then he won't be able to use it with respect to Hunter [Biden] and all of the things that are going on that are so terrible. So I would think that he'd want to see this upheld, frankly," Trump said.

It's not clear what the former president was referring to about President Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

Trump also lashed out at congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is one of only two Republicans on the January 6 congressional committee.

The former president called her a "warmonger" and "not a Republican."

"I call it the un-select committee of Democrat partisans, it's ridiculous what's going on that," he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-c ... ws-2021-12

[mister_coffee]

I apparently am not an expert...

What I would think is that if you were committing a federal crime that you would be a little more discreet than having a 30+ page PowerPoint and hundreds of text messages about your plans.

And who even uses PowerPoint anymore? It is 2021, not 1994.

[pasayten]

Oh well... The Guardian... but interesting anyway...

Capitol attack panel obtains PowerPoint that set out plan for Trump to stage coup

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the House select committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack a PowerPoint recommending Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency in order to return himself to the presidency.

The fact that Meadows was in possession of a PowerPoint the day before the Capitol attack that detailed ways to stage a coup suggests he was at least aware of efforts by Trump and his allies to stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January.

The PowerPoint, titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan”, made several recommendations for Trump to pursue in order to retain the presidency for a second term on the basis of lies and debunked conspiracies about widespread election fraud.

Meadows turned over a version of the PowerPoint presentation that he received in an email and spanned 38 pages, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Guardian reviewed a second, 36-page version of the PowerPoint marked for dissemination with 5 January metadata, which had some differences with what the select committee received. But the title of the PowerPoint and its recommendations remained the same, the source said.

Senators and members of Congress should first be briefed about foreign interference, the PowerPoint said, at which point Trump could declare a national emergency, declare all electronic voting invalid, and ask Congress to agree on a constitutionally acceptable remedy.

The PowerPoint also outlined three options for then vice-president Mike Pence to abuse his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress on 6 January, when Biden was to be certified president, and unilaterally return Trump to the White House.

Pence could pursue one of three options, the PowerPoint said: seat Trump slates of electors over the objections of Democrats in key states, reject the Biden slates of electors, or delay the certification to allow for a “vetting” and counting of only “legal paper ballots”.

The final option for Pence is similar to an option that was simultaneously being advanced on 4 and 5 January by Trump lieutenants – led by lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, as well as Trump strategist Steve Bannon – working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC.

The Guardian revealed last week that sometime between the late evening of 5 January and the early hours of 6 January, after Pence declined to go ahead with such plans, Trump then pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place entirely.

The recommendations in the PowerPoint for both Trump and Pence were based on wild and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, including that “the Chinese systematically gained control over our election system” in eight key battleground states.

The then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, and his predecessor, Bill Barr, who had both been appointed by Trump, by 5 January had already determined that there was no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

House investigators said that they became aware of the PowerPoint after it surfaced in more than 6,000 documents Meadows turned over to the select committee. The PowerPoint was to be presented “on the Hill”, a reference to Congress, the panel said.

The powerpoint was presented on 4 January to a number of Republican senators and members of Congress, the source said. Trump’s lawyers working at the Willard hotel were not shown the presentation, according to a source familiar with the matter.

But the select committee said they did find in the materials turned over by Meadows, his text messages with a member of Congress, who told Meadows about a “highly controversial” plan to send slates of electors for Trump to the joint session of Congress.

Meadows replied: “I love it.”

Trump’s former White House chief of staff had turned over the materials to the select committee until the cooperation deal broke down on Tuesday, when Meadows’ attorney, Terwilliger, abruptly told House investigators that Meadows would no longer help the investigation.

The select committee announced on Wednesday that in response, it would refer Meadows for criminal prosecution for defying a subpoena. The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said the vote to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress would come next week.

“The select committee will meet next week to advance a report recommending that the House cite Mr Meadows for contempt of Congress and refer him to the Department of Justice for prosecution,” Thompson said in a statement.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... tol-attack

[dorankj]

‘Party on Garth’!

[Fun CH]

This article includes a link to one document given to the Jan 6th committee by Trumps COS, Mark Meadows.

Particularly troubling was the proposed power grab by the Federal Gov to "secure" the vote which is currently a State power.

"All ballots must remain locked and physically protected until directed by the federal government"

"US Marshals will immediately secure all ballots and provide a protective perimeter around the locations in all 50 states."

Read for yourself about the alternate reality you're being asked to believe without a shred of factual voter fraud evidence presented.

"Thompson released a document Meadows had provided to the committee and, WILL O’GOD!, it’s the damndest government record I’ve read since the transcript of the smoking-gun tape was released in August of 1974.

You have to wade through a bunch of Sidney Powell-Rudy Giuliani bilge about election ratfcking by China and Venezuela, and a timeline that apparently was put together by someone on blotter acid, to get to the real good stuff, which is about how to steal the election in Washington and to use the American military as your button men."



https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... -document/

[dorankj]

Eugene Robinson has proved himself a complete political tool a la ‘useful idiots’ titleing, I’m not sure you help your POV becoming widespread with this completely unjouralistic piece. But ‘party on Wayne’!

[pasayten]

Opinion: The Jan. 6 committee needs to get louder. Much louder.

Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson
Today at 5:35 p.m. EST

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol will fail us if it quietly goes about its important work. It needs to be louder. Much louder.

Eleven months ago, a seditious mob used brownshirt-style violence to prevent Congress from certifying the results of a free and fair election. This rip in the fabric of our democracy was patched within hours, but it was not fully mended — and cannot be until there is a full accounting of how and why the attack happened.

The committee, led by Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), is doing the right things. But most of its work is out of sight — which, for most Americans, means out of mind. Many Republicans would like to pretend Jan. 6 was just “one day in January,” as former vice president Mike Pence (whose own life the rioters threatened) shamefully put it. Nothing to see here, folks.


But the insurrection was an unprecedented event in our life as a nation, and we must not allow it to be minimized. Members of Congress hid under seats in the House chamber and put on gas masks as angry mobs tried to smash their way inside. Police officers defending the Capitol were savagely beaten. Our democracy’s citadel was defiled by rioters whose intent was to keep defeated incumbent Donald Trump in power. When I saw this sort of thing happen in other countries, it was called an attempted coup d’etat.

The committee has subpoenaed the right witnesses: Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s on-again-off-again Rasputin; Jeffrey Clark, the Justice Department official willing to concoct “evidence” to back up Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud; Mark Meadows, the chief of staff who spent Jan. 6 at Trump’s side.

Those witnesses and others, however, have decided to stonewall, hoping to delay the panel’s investigation, even to run out the clock until the next Congress convenes in January 2023 — perhaps with a Republican majority that could disband the committee. Look at Bannon’s case: The House held him in contempt, and the Justice Department properly filed criminal charges. He was arrested — but his trial won’t take place until July.


There is nothing the committee can do to make the wheels of justice grind faster. But so what if the marquee miscreants are afraid to testify? The committee reportedly has already interviewed hundreds of witnesses and collected thousands of documents. Why doesn’t it present more of its findings, and grab some attention doing so?

For example, Meadows is now taking the zipped-lip route after some initial cooperation. But we learned this week that the committee has texts and emails showing he was involved in discussions to appoint “alternate” electors who would cast their electoral votes for Trump rather than Biden, despite the voting results. “I love it,” Meadows reportedly wrote of such a plan.

That’s pretty explosive stuff. So why did we learn it from a letter the committee chairman sent to Meadows’s lawyer? Why didn’t the committee find some way to trumpet this information in a public hearing, with television cameras rolling and somebody, anybody, in the witness chair? It could be an aide to Meadows. It could be Meadows’s driver.


There’s no need to be as brazen as Republicans were when they decided to drive down Hillary Clinton’s approval numbers by staging endless hearings on the tragic Benghazi incident. There wasn’t any actual wrongdoing in that case, except by the terrorists who killed our ambassador and three other Americans. But constant repetition kept Benghazi in the headlines and forced everyone involved to answer endless questions.

On Jan. 6, by contrast, there was massive wrongdoing — wrongdoing that followed a script laid out in advance by people who should be held accountable. According to Thompson’s letter, Meadows’s text messages about the “alternate electors” scheme were exchanged with a member of Congress. Who?

The way to investigate a crime with an eye toward prosecution — and Jan. 6 was definitely a crime — is to gather information stealthily, step by step, making as little noise as possible until the time comes to pounce. That is what I hope and pray the Justice Department is doing right now. Not just the rioters, but also the planners should go to jail.

But the select committee has no power to prosecute. Its only job is to reveal — and to do so in a way that makes the nation pay attention.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... -publicly/