dorankj wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 12:18 pm
Once again pot meet kettle! Just once example, you won’t accept the “constitutional processes and rule of law” when it comes to the Dobbs SCOTUS decision. Physician heal thyself!
Can I nominate this post for an award? Perhaps "nuttiest post ever"?
Nobody stormed the Supreme Court shouting "Hang Samuel Alito!" armed with clubs, bear spray, and spears used as flagpoles. No elected officials publicly supported such an action. Nobody was posting conspiracy theories about how Italian satellites were controlling Clarence Thomas' mind.
All people were doing is objecting to a ruling that they vehemently disagree with. Which I think is something that the first amendment allows them.
Your Nest thermostat is controlling your brain, Ken. Don't listen to it when it tells you to drink bleach.
As PAL likes to say “deflection”! You guys have been nuts to get Trump his entire time in office/limelight, we’ll talk when you actually get something real. So far other than political ‘impeachment’ votes you’ve had nothing! Happy hunting. Remember Schiff is a flat liar.
The rule of law is playing out in the J6 committee hearings, DoJ investigations, arrests and prosecutions, Georgia AG has convened a grand jury on Trump's intimidation tactic on his phone call to Rathensberger, Dominion voting machine has filed multiple lawsuits against not just Rudy G and Sydney Powell but against Fox and the courts have agreed to let the cases proceed, the IG of the IRS has opened up an investigation into the IRS auditing McCabe & Comey after Trump publically called them traitors, the false reportings of Trump Org for their real estate practices are under investigation with a grand jury and
all you can think of on a J6 thread is to say we should be focused on Dobbs which by all accounts was imperfectly handed down and is wrecking havoc on the rule of law across the nation.
You may try and walk your support of Trump out the back door but you lose credibility when you reiterate in your next breath a litany of his positions that you learned from Fox. btw, did you see Alex Jones' ex wife has contacted the J6 committee with 'inside information that is relevant'?
Once again pot meet kettle! Just once example, you won’t accept the “constitutional processes and rule of law” when it comes to the Dobbs SCOTUS decision. Physician heal thyself!
So what I hear you saying is that in spite of their contempt for a constitutional processes and the rule of law, we should vote them in because they can, in a way, make the trains run on time? More precisely, Republicans insist they can do better, but their recent track record indicates that they are more likely to open up diplomatic relations with people from the planet Venus than actually do anything constructive.
The above ‘ reasons’ illustrate why these crazy dems are going to be falling hard in elections. Real problems; inflation, energy policy, border, psycho school programs, horrible foreign policy etc., etc. these guys are in control and they they really suck at it and their positions are wildly out of step with most people and what concerns them. J/6, old Covid narratives and Trump, Trump, Trump aren’t going to distract enough to save them!
In the end, in spite of all the harm he has done, I find Trump a pitiful excuse for a human being.
His publicly visible inner circle, whether from "team normal" or "the crazies" were also pathetic failures at war with reality, which was rapidly catching up to them.
The whackadoodles who "stormed" the capitol were all people, who if you saw them shouting their screed on a street corner, are people you'd ignore and avoid.
And all of the millions of Trumpanzees out there are just as bad.
It is hard not to feel sorry for all of them. But not all that hard. So if you go around believing crazy $h1t don't expect us to take you, or your ideology, or even any ideas you might have had that actually were coherent, seriously again. That's what you get when you make up whacko stuff about Nest Thermostats, Italian satellites, and dead South American dictators.
So my approach going forward with any right-winger is going to first ask the question: "please explain how this ties in with Italian satellites and Nest thermostats?" That's what you get when you are a grifter, run with a grifter, or get grifted. Nobody takes you seriously ever again. Live with it.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to threaten witnesses while his legal team looks for a scapegoat for his actions/inactions. So far it's looking like Mark Meadows and John Eastman will be thrown under the bus in an effort to white wash Trump's seditious actions. But in the words of Liz Cheney, Trump is a 76 year old man not an impressionable child. His actions are his own and he must be held accountable.
Watching the hearing, reading the court filings of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers all lead toward the 'hub and spoke' premise that Trump was the chief insurectionist, the one who told people to come to the Capitol because 'it will be wild' and goaded the crowd forward J6 to overtake the Capitol. He did all this because he felt it was his last option after the DoJ and others had proven there was never fraud that culminated in the election being stolen by Biden, there were no Chinese thermostats that allowed Google to change ballots. Trump's 60 lawsuits had failed in the courts when Rudy told the various judges 'no sir we are not claiming fraud'. So, as Rudy told the AG and DAG, 'we have lots of ideas we just need evidence' or when Trump told the AG and DAG, 'I just need you to say there was fraud, the Rep Congress and I will do the rest'.
So Trump resorted to violence. The Capitol sustained millions in damage, people died, officers were physically maimed for life.
Members of the Proud Boys testified. They apologized for their role in the attack. They testified that Trump told them to come, told them to attack, told them he'd be with them. And they are joined by the 800+ that have been arrested who said in their court filings that Trump directed them.
Lucky that Orwell didn't get stuck in a thimble sized echo chamber. Try reading what he wrote. A gov't Ministry of "truth" would make him vomit!
Sadly, an education involves more than a spoiled child buying a piece of paper with second hand money then begging to be seen as one of the "good people".
You have NEVER lived under a democracy and would not survive long if you tried. The U.S. is a republic and I will fight tooth and nail to keep the tyrannical yoke of democracy off my neighbors, even the dull, ill informed hypocrites that pay no taxes because they have been reduced to hiding in Okanogan.
Please continue to campaign for the conservatives you are doing great by demonstrating the obvious end of weak minded propaganda.
"If you don't vote for me YOU AINT BLACK!!!"
Because the US Constitution - and all the founding documents - weren’t founded on the writings, ideas and principles of John Locke, Jean-jacques Rousseau and others. Or, on the ideals of the educated folks of the Scottish Enlightenment, etc.
It was instead founded by the superior knowledge of the beady eyed, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, biscuit eating, cousin fu*kers who eventually spawned todays trumpers…..
Yeah…I’m sure that’s how future Historians will write about this era.
dorankj wrote: ↑Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:37 pm
Wow! You’re literally a propagandist Al la 1984 or Animal Farm. Sure, Joe and the dems are doing great.
I always relish political discussion/debate with someone who can’t spell ‘ala’, doesn’t understand logic, mis-quotes Willy Shakespeare…. And, clearly hasn’t read a serious book in the last 30 years - since he mis-understands the ones he probably didn’t ‘read’ in the 10th grade.
And also, at least to me when a political party makes an organized effort to overturn an election and steal our democracy I have a pretty big problem with it. The fact that they basically brought street gangs in (which is exactly what the "Proud Boys" and "Oath Keepers" are) to make it all stick just shows how awful they are.
None of the people involved in that debacle should be allowed any position of responsibility ever again, including caring for a kitten or being allowed to handle a sharp object.
dorankj wrote: ↑Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:06 pm
Really? So you like inflation at 9.1%? Maybe discuss something that matters hack!
You brought up “Alzheimer’s”, then parry to ‘inflation’ while saying what you brought up isn’t important?
A Great example of ‘what-about-ism’
Any economist would agree that a large part of the inflation rates today is a DIRECT result of:
1 - fatso guilty little donnie’s tax cuts for the top 5% - which added EIGHT Trillion $$ to the National Debt; a 33% increase in just 4 years.
2. - the completely inept, un-coordinated, and lethal response, on the part of that same sad sack-of-orange-crap to covid -19. That mishandling, which didn’t need to happen like it did, required an economic response by Congress and later by the Biden administration.
The Trump GOP is in ruins and every Jan. 6 committee hearing digs the hole deeper
Opinion by Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY - Yesterday 2:38 PM
Nearly 20 years ago, Carl Bernstein of Watergate reporting fame called the Nixon presidency “absolutely sui generis” – utterly unique – in U.S. history. But then, as he and Bob Woodward wrote this year in their 50th anniversary foreword to “All The President’s Men,” along came Donald Trump.
Surpassing Richard Nixon’s notoriety, paranoia, insecurity and reckless flouting of rules, laws and the Constitution is tough, but Trump is already winning in a landslide.
Cassidy Hutchinson’s revelatory testimony last month to the House Jan. 6 committee prompted lawyers, pundits, onetime Trump aides and maybe even some rank-and-file Republicans to reassess how they view the former president, the threat he posed and his vulnerability to prosecution.
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There could be more of that after Tuesday’s hearing, with its focus on extremist groups and, as Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has said, “any connection between these dangerous groups and the White House.”
Reassessing Nixon instead of Trump
My threat assessment of Trump has been at red alert since he declared his candidacy in 2015, and it will never change. But I do find myself reassessing Nixon – in part because Trump’s Supreme Court just ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency needs permission from Congress to regulate the power plant emissions that are driving climate change and its consequences such as heat, droughts, floods and rising sea levels.
CLIMATE CHANGE? These five steps will help us kick our fossil fuel addiction and save the planet
The case reminded me that Nixon was the president who created the EPA, and that the court earlier this year curbed the authority of another agency Nixon signed into law – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – by ruling that OSHA could not impose a COVID vaccine-or-test requirement in workplaces.
Of course, Nixon is also the president who successfully subverted the 1972 electoral process with what Woodward and Bernstein call “a massive campaign of political espionage, sabotage and disinformation.” It produced a weak Democratic nominee and a Nixon victory over antiwar Sen. George McGovern, who won only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.
It also produced a cover-up of historic illegality and consequences.
Trump similarly attempted to subvert the 2020 election with his claims of fraud and bids for foreign help from Ukraine and Russia. When he lost, he opened a new chapter: insisting he won (“a deception that even exceeded Nixon’s imagination,” Woodward and Bernstein write) and encouraging an armed mob to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress was constitutionally required to finalize the presidential election. We all know what happened next: a violent insurrection that led to people dying and could have led to President-for-Life Donald Trump.
“When somebody keeps themselves in power regardless of the law and the votes, that is a dictatorship. That’s ultimately what he was trying to put in place,” Noah Bookbinder, president of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said in an interview.
The three articles of impeachment against Nixon outlined multiple egregious abuses of power that recall those against Trump. The first article alone, on obstructing justice, had nine examples of ways Nixon and his subordinates tried to cover up covert activities, among them the attempted theft of political intelligence from Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate. Hush money, false statements, misuse of the CIA, interference in federal investigations – the list is long.
Article II said he financed a “secret investigative unit” within his office that used the IRS, the FBI, the Secret Service and other agencies to violate the rights of U.S. citizens.
And then there’s Article III: He “willfully disobeyed” four subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee, “thereby assuming to himself” the power of impeachment that rests solely with the House of Representatives.
EX-TRUMP AIDE MICK MULVANEY: 'Things could get very dark for the former president'
So much was different then. Shame still existed and Republican tribal loyalties went only so far. Nixon never was impeached by the House: A day after three senior GOP senators told him he did not have the votes to stay in office, he announced he would resign. On Aug. 9, 1974, he stepped down, the only president ever to do so.
He is almost certainly the only president who told his administration to ignore requests for information from Congress, announced that “we’re fighting all the subpoenas” and keeps stonewalling as an ex-president. Nor was Trump shy about trying to obstruct justice – special counsel Robert Mueller’s April 2019 report alone offered 10 examples.
CREW, Bookbinder's group, released a report in March entitled “President Trump’s staggering record of uncharged criminal conduct” that found he "has been credibly accused of committing at least 48 criminal offenses" while president. The categories include campaign finance crimes and cover-up, obstruction of the Russia and special counsel investigations, destruction of presidential records, attempts to steal the 2020 election, attempts to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election, false public financial disclosure reports, and pressuring federal officers to use their official positions for partisan politics ("criminal violation of the Hatch Act").
Watergate overshadowed Nixon's legacy, but he was impressively constructive: creating EPA and OSHA, making historic overtures to China, and proposing major social advances such as universal health care coverage and a guaranteed minimum income for families with children.
Trump was more interested in profits and power. Because he did not divest from his business interests during his presidency (another first), CREW calculates he racked up 3,737 conflicts of interest, with potentially hundreds or thousands more. Trump visited his properties 547 times during his presidency and mentioned them 378 times. His golf courses, resorts and Washington, D.C., hotel raked in millions from politicians, political committees, senior administration officials, lobbyists and foreign visitors.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel and CREW, meanwhile, found dozens of civil Hatch Act violations by dozens of senior administration officials.
More from Jill Lawrence:
Is this the beginning of the end for Trumpism or the Republican Party?
Standing with Ukraine won't fix the GOP. Caring about democracy at home might help.
The big picture is frightening, especially in a Jan. 6 context. “All of those Hatch Act violations were Donald Trump trying to mobilize every power of the government, the authority of every official in the government, to keep himself in power,” Bookbinder told me. “The conflicts of interest, he was systematically using the power of government to promote himself and enrich himself.”
In a January 2021 Vanity Fair piece headlined “Trump pardons nearly 150 of his favorite criminals on the way out the door,” Bookbinder called the pardons one more way Trump had failed “to live up to the ethical standard of Richard Nixon.”
Now Trump is dangling pardons for defendants in the Capitol attack, should he run and win in 2024. More than 855 people have been arrested so far.
So many public scandals, so little time
The sheer volume of Trump scandals and outrages has made it hard to keep up with them, much less follow up in any meaningful way. Trump is also somewhat protected because he is so brazen.
“If you do it out in the open, people assume it must be OK,” Bookbinder said, adding that's part of Trump's appeal: "It fires up his supporters."
It almost makes a person miss Nixon. I am not going soft on him, but I do have nostalgia for that era. It was a time when a Republican president could create new agencies to deal with pollution and workplace hazards; when, less than two years after Nixon won 61% of the vote, 57% of Americans said he should be removed from office; when Republican senators could tell a president he was doomed and should resign, and that president was sufficiently humiliated and reality-based to take their advice.
What I would give to have those days back.
Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Trump GOP is in ruins and every Jan. 6 committee hearing digs the hole deeper
'Today the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol held its seventh public hearing. This one focused on how former president Trump summoned right-wing extremists to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, in a last ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Committee members reiterated that Trump’s advisors had told him repeatedly that there was no evidence for his claims that the election had been corrupt. Again and again, White House officials demanded of Trump’s allies that they produce evidence of their accusations of fraud, and they never produced anything, choosing instead to attack those demanding evidence as disloyal to Trump. There is no doubt that Trump knew quite well there had been no fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election, and that he was lying when he continued to insist the election had been stolen.
Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the committee’s co-chair, began the hearing by noting that there had been a change recently in those defending Trump’s actions as it has been established that Trump’s advisors had made it clear to him the election was not stolen. From arguing that he didn’t know the election was fair, they have switched to suggesting that he was misled by bad actors like John Eastman, who articulated the plan to have Vice President Mike Pence refuse to count certain of Biden’s electors, or Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
But, Cheney said in words carefully calculated to infuriate the former president: “This is nonsense. Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in this country, he is responsible for his own actions…. [He] [c]annot escape responsibility by being willfully blind.”
The focus in today’s hearing was on Trump’s actions between December 14, when the Electoral College met in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia to certify the ballots that elected Democrat Joe Biden, and the morning of January 6, when Trump pointed the rally-goers at the Ellipse toward the U.S. Capitol.
With the electoral votes certified for Biden on December 14, even then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell congratulated Biden publicly on his election, and numerous White House officials, including White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Attorney General Bill Barr, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, either urged Trump to concede or began looking for new jobs on the assumption the White House would change hands on January 20.
But Trump and his allies looked to January 6, when those electoral votes would be counted, as the last inflection point at which they might be able to overturn the election.
On December 18, 2020, four days after the electors met, Trump’s outside advisors, including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and Patrick Byrne, former chief executive officer of Overstock, got access to the White House through a junior staffer and met with Trump. They brought an executive order that had been drafted on December 15, the day after the electors had certified the votes for Biden. It called for Trump to order the Defense Department to seize state voting machines, and it appointed Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud, giving her broad powers. They wanted Trump to implement it.
Cipollone got wind of the meeting and crashed it about 15 minutes in. Over the next six hours, White House officials and the Trump team members who insisted the election was stolen faced off, exchanging personal insults, accusations of disloyalty to the president, even challenges to fight physically. Cipollone, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, and their team demanded evidence to support the theories Trump’s outside team insisted were true. In turn, the outside team repeated conspiracy theories and accused the others of being wimps: Powell told the committee the White House team all should have been fired, and Giuliani told the committee he told them all they were “a bunch of p*ssies.”
In the end, Trump was convinced not to follow the direction of the outside advisors. But he didn't take the advice of those officials telling him to concede, either. Instead, shortly after the meeting broke up, Meadows walked Giuliani out of the White House to make sure he didn’t sneak back into Trump’s company. Then, at 1:42 on the morning of December 19, Trump reiterated to followers that the election had been stolen and that there was no statistical way that he could have lost.
Then he typed the words: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6. Be there, will be wild!”
Immediately, his most loyal supporters recognized this tweet as a call for armed resistance. “Trump just told us all to come armed,” one tweeted. “F*cking A, this is happening.”
Far-right media, including Alex Jones of InfoWars, amplified Trump's tweet with calls to violence. The committee introduced testimony from a former Twitter moderator who said: “We had not seen that sort of direct communication before” in which Trump was speaking directly to supporters and inciting them to fight. After the December 19 tweet, it was clear, the person said, “not only were these individuals ready and willing, but the leader of their cause was asking them to join him in this cause and in fighting for this cause in DC on January 6 as well.”
Supporters wrote comments like: “Why don’t we just kill them? Every last democrat, down to the last man, woman, and child?” and, making the link between Trump’s determination to stay in office and white supremacy: “It’s time for the DAY OF THE ROPE! WHITE REVOLUTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!”
As Trump continued to post about January 6 on Twitter and continued to insist he had won the election, militias, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists began to work together to coordinate an attack on the Capitol. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, along with other extremists groups, worked with Trump allies to plan the attack. Those allies included Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne.
Another ally was Trump confidant Roger Stone, who talked both to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers “regularly.” The committee got access to an encrypted chat of the “Friends of Stone,” or “FOS,” including Stone, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and agitator Ali Alexander. Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Florida Oath Keepers, spoke directly with Stone about security on January 5 and 6. Stone was guarded on January 6 by two Oath Keepers who have been indicted for seditious conspiracy.
Stone was also close enough to the Proud Boys to have “taken their so-called fraternity creed required for the first level of initiation to the group.” The clip of that oath shows him saying: “Hi, I’m Roger Stone. I’m a Western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”
The committee made it clear that Trump deliberately created the crisis on January 6. Katrina Pierson, organizer of the Ellipse rally, was so worried about Stone, Jones, and Alexander as speakers at the rally, that she talked to Meadows on January 2 about them, warning a fellow organizer that Trump “likes the crazies.” On that same day, Meadows warned his assistant Cassidy Hutchinson that things could get “real, real bad” on January 6.
The committee produced evidence from a number of emails and tweets from Trump and other organizers saying that after the rally, Trump would urge attendees to march to the Capitol, undercutting the argument that the move was spontaneous. In fact, it was long planned.
The committee also introduced evidence that the White House coordinated with members of Congress to encourage the Big Lie and to fight the election results. Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) set up a meeting between members of Congress (and one member-elect) on December 21, with the subject line: “White House meeting December 21 regarding January 6.” That meeting included Trump, Pence, Meadows, Giuliani, and ten representatives: Brian Babin (R-TX), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Andy Harris (R-MD), Jody Hice (R-GA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Scott Perry (R-PA), and recently elected Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
This sheds light on Trump’s comment to officials from the Department of Justice in which he asked them just to say the election was corrupt and leave the rest up to him and the Republican congress members. A number of those involved in the meeting later asked for presidential pardons.
Some in Trump's inner circle were excited about what was to come. Phone logs show Trump spoke to confidant Steve Bannon at least twice on January 5. After the first call, Bannon said on his podcast that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.” “It’s all converging and now we’re on…the point of attack.” “I’ll tell you this: it’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen…. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different and all I can say is strap in.”
That night, as supporters gathered at Freedom Plaza to hear the extremist speakers who had been excluded from the event of January 6, including Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Alex Jones, and Ali Alexander, Trump was in a notably good mood for the first time in weeks. Stone told the crowd it was in an “epic struggle for the future of this country between dark and light, between the godly and the godless, between good and evil. And we will win this fight or America will step off into a thousand years of darkness.”
In his speech the next day at the Ellipse, Trump insisted on inserting attacks on Pence and urging his supporters to “fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a country anymore.” That rhetoric, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told Pierson, had caused people to die.
Today’s hearing ended with the testimony of former Oath Keepers social media manager Jason Van Tatenhove, who warned that the Oath Keepers are a danger to the country, and a Trump supporter, Stephen Ayers, who was not affiliated with any right-wing groups but who stormed the Capitol after Trump told him to. Both of them blamed themselves for being misled by Trump and extremism. Van Tatenhove warned that the danger is ongoing.
As if on cue, Cheney dropped the information that since the last hearing, Trump has tried to reach a witness with a personal phone call. The witness avoided the call and contacted a lawyer instead. This attempt smacks of desperation on Trump’s part, as well of isolation: no one would do the dirty job of intimidating a witness for him. The committee sent the information about this attempt, which involves someone the public has not yet seen testify, to the Department of Justice.
More and more, witnesses seem to be siding with transparency and the committee rather than with Trump. Today, Dan Friedman of Mother Jones published a tape of Bannon on October 31, 2020, laughing as he explains to a private audience that Trump will “win” in 2020 simply by declaring he won, even if he didn’t.
Trump knew that Democratic mail in ballots would show up in the vote totals later than Republican votes cast on election day, “[a]nd Trump’s going to take advantage of it,” Bannon said. “That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner…. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm,” he said. “You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. And Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting sh*t out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.'”
And, Bannon continued: “Here’s the thing. After then, Trump never has to go to a voter again…. He’s gonna say ‘F*ck you. How about that?’ Because…he’s done his last election. Oh, he’s going to be off the chain—he’s gonna be crazy.”
Next J6 hearings on tuesday 10 am PDT.
i have popcorn at the ready!
….’be there, will be wild’…
“…. Last Friday, July 8, Trump’s White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified before the committee for more than 8 hours under oath, privately but on video. According to Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who is a member of the committee, Cipollone did not contradict anything that Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said in her explosive testimony. Those who have suggested they disagree with that testimony have not, so far, testified under oath. Lofgren also suggested that Cipollone had given the committee new information that it would produce for the public later in a later hearing…..
… On Saturday, Trump confidant Steve Bannon, who is facing a trial for contempt of Congress on July 18, says he is now willing to testify before the committee. To add drama to that statement, former president Trump made a statement waiving the executive privilege Bannon has cited in his refusal to cooperate. This was pure theater: Trump no longer exercises executive privilege—President Joe Biden does—and since Bannon wasn’t an employee, he couldn’t have been covered anyway. Nonetheless, some media outlets fell for it and repeated it breathlessly, as if we might now hear honest testimony from Bannon.
Not happening.
Bannon’s “offer” to testify seemed clearly to be an attempt to muddy the increasingly clear waters of the committee’s hearings. In the first impeachment hearings, Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and John Ratcliffe (R-TX) used their positions to shout and badger witnesses and to create sound bites for right-wing media that put forward a completely misleading narrative of what the hearings were actually showing. As Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo pointed out today, Trump has complained bitterly that his people are unable to get their own narrative out, even as evidence against the president and his allies coming from his own inner circle is painting a damning picture of an attempt to overturn our democracy….”
David Bonn 
