Then-president Trump’s demand of Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on December 27, 2020 was simple: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” But the election wasn’t corrupt, and Rosen wouldn’t do as Trump asked.
I admire your clear and dramatic overviews of so many complex moving parts, which are very challenging to write with context and perspective — and on deadline. I say this after watching every minute of today's hearing and lengthy recaps, plus reading a slew of commentary.
The FBI's search of Jeffrey Clark's home seems like a momentous turning point. It should silence Merrick Garland's critics. Talk about a bad day: Clark, who we now know conspired with Trump to overthrow the election, found himself standing in the street in his PJs while agents seized among other things his electronic devices. Then he had see his scheme exposed on live TV.
What will they find on his electronic devices? Was Clark surprised? Who else will be implicated? Who collaborated with him? The answers will come. And all participants in this the greatest political crime in the nation's history now are confronting a stark truth: their crimes will be exposed and likely prosecuted.
Bam. A “barnburner”. Indeed. One would think Trump might contemplate being on the red-eye to Moscow. A total betrayal of trust of every American. One would “wish it weren’t true, but it is.”
I stand in grim awe of Richard Donoghue’s testimony today. And thank you, Professor Richardson, for your sobering summary. It is tempting and sad to pretend today’s hearing was an imagining. How can any citizen trust a mere man to ever be Commander-in-Chief again?
I’ll have to sit in all of it for a spell. And to think it wasn’t the only barrage today to suffer. Can the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Thomas regarding gun ownership be any more pernicious or loathsome?
A lot to bear for We the People…All of Us This Time. 🗽
"Consider a congressman, then consider an idiot. Ah, but I repeat myself." - Mark Twain, 1873
I don't know why it is so many "lessers" get elected to Congress while so few "betters" do.
Trump didn't pardon the congresscritters because when you get a pardon, it has to list the specific crimes you are being pardoned of, and your acceptance of the pardon is the equivalent of a guilty plea. And if you are later questioned about the crimes of which you were pardoned, you do not have a 5th Amendment protection to keep from having to testify. Trump knew listing what they were being pardoned for would expose his treason, and then they could be forced to testify against him. So he'd rather have them "take the 5th" as "jumped-up dweeb" Jeffrey Clark did. But I think Clark will be the first one to flip on Trump. Arrest him on a Friday afternoon and let him sit in prison for the weekend, scared shitless somebody's going to rip his pants off, bend him over a bunk bed and "initiate
his ass" (literally) amd je'll be squealing like a piglet come Monday morning.
And anyone who thinks "Rusty Bowels" is an honorable man after his testimony on Tuesday needs only to listen to him yesterday say that even knowing everything he knows and having experienced what happened to him, he would still vote for the traitor in 2024 "because he did so much good for the country" can now see that President Truman was right 74 years ago when he said: "the only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies."
1. That Clarence Thomas and his conservative brethren have unleashed a MAGA militia armed with AR-15s on our streets just in time for the midterms to intimidate and bully voters.
2. That our system of government was saved only by the concerted action of Rosen, Donoghue, Engel and the assistant attorneys at DOJ who stood up to Trump to prevent the Clark letter from being sent. Had it been delivered it would have put a gloss of legitimacy on the slates of alternate electors sufficient to upend the peaceful transfer of power. Barr was not a hero in this. He left at the critical juncture to save his own skin. A single utterance of “Bullshit” does not make you an American hero.
3. That there is a major flaw in the administrative procedures governing the use of “Acting” secretaries and attorneys in the executive branch that avoids the Congressional vetting of replacements and does not mandate replacements from the in-place chain of command. Trump used this to great potential effect at Defense, Homeland Security and Justice especially with Clark.
4. That Klukowski could be brought into Justice so easily at the last minute to apparently act as Clark’s handler and conduit to Eastman. My gut tells me that Eastman is the true author of the Clark letter to the States.
I do have some prayers for the night:
1. For Rosen and company for putting America ahead of Trump and possibly their careers.
2. For Nancy Pelosi for her wisdom in rejecting McCarthy’s proposed slate of committee members and preventing these hearings from being a circus, for McCarthy being stupid enough to walk away, and for Cheney and Kinsinger for stepping up.
3. For the members of the committee for unraveling the tangled web of this seditious conspiracy and presenting it with such clarity.
Here's what blows me away. Just after 54:16 on the C Span video of today's january 6th hearing MTG states in her taped testimony that she called Trump in late Dec and told him they needed to have a meeting about the stolen election. What the heck!?!? She hadn't even been sworn in yet and she calls Trump demanding a meeting? I'm trying to figure out how a pip squeak grunt like MTG has the audacity to ring a president and demand a meeting. And she hasn't shut up since.
The Special Committee on the Jan.6 invasion of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters to block the certification of Joe Biden as the lawfully elected President has produced original documents and testimony under oath by those Republicans who witnessed or participated in the conspiracy. That record will be preserved in the Congressional Record , in the Committee’s final report in the public media and in the history books.
Under the Constitution, the Congress is forbidden to indict, judge and punish citizens accused of crimes, including elected politicians and appointed members of of the Administration. That responsibility rests exclusively with the Federal Department of Justices and the Attorneys General of the states. The only except is Impeachment of the President, Vice President and Federal judges.
The inevitable question which the D.O.J. must answer is whether the case agains President Trump and other Republican politicians is so persuasive that at trial before a jury will that jury find them guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. The trials of more than a few mobsters and O.J. Simpson makes clear that jury verdicts are never certain.
Further in which venue will the President and his conspirators be likely to obtain a fair trial. On what grounds will jurors be justifyably excused by thejudge, the prosecutor and Mr. Trump’s defense. These are difficult questions with no certain answers. Whether the verdict were to be guilty or not guilty, half the population will be enraged and Americans will be more divided than the Trump Presidency has already made us. Thus the damage Trump and the Republican Party has done to American Politics may be irreparable by any court of law. If only Senator McConnell and his Republican majority had not blocked a fair Impeachment trial twice, this catastrophe need not have happened.
Great analysis. Clear as day the President conspired with elected legislators and appointed DOJ personnel to overturn our government. But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend when Barr and Bowers (and surely others) would help to expose the crime but then pledge to elect the criminal in 2024.
I'll watch with interest the reaction of the media of the state (Fox, Newsmax, et al.) to the move by the Justice Department to seize the records of Jeffrey Clark. I imagine the wailings of Tucker Carlson will be epic.
With each peel of the onion, the center is revealed to be even more rotten. I am both angry and sad.
It is one thing to know that something is vile and disgusting. It is an entirely different experience to see the depth and extent to which that thing is depraved, vile and disgusting. Knowing that Trump was a mendacious, misogynistic, vengeful con artist who craved power, money and had little respect for the law and even less for the norms and customs of civil society is one thing. But to see the evidence of this, the extent to which his sycophants willingly joined him in his attempts to destroy our constitutional government and replace it with authoritarianism leaves me in a state of apoplexy. That their coup attempt came so close to succeeding, that they duped so many into believing in them and donating their hard-earned cash to that cause is the frightening beyond words.
I thank the House Committee for their work in exposing such depravity to the light of day. And I thank you for reporting on their hearings with dispassionate clarity.
There remains not one scintilla of evidence of election fraud, a mountain of evidence and credible testimony that Trump et al vigorously tried to subvert the democratic process, and still Trump is the popular leader of the Republican Party, a majority of which reportedly still maintains the 2020 election was stolen.
It seems we are living in alternative universes. Lincoln said a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Will the next election settle which reality we all accept? The last one didn’t.
Thank you for your summary of the hearing and all that’s going on before and after. I really wonder how our nation was ever governed for four years by a failed president caring only for his title and not his oath. And his intense need for every underling to bow before him. Good to see todays panel of DOJ and hear how they resisted Trump but Trump found others to do his bidding. Still and then in his party so many repubs did just that and continue their allegiance. I wish I could be optimistic that we’ll be okay. But seeing how our courts are dismantling our protections possibly including Roe v Wade, and the ruling striking down NY’s law limiting concealed guns in public, combined with the senate gun law compromise. Definitely not nearly robust enough to prevent sales of military weapons for people over 21 (that’s still adolescents able to legally purchase) but really we are far from other countries that lead in gun restrictions. Scary. At least this: Gratitude for the panel and the hearings and trying to shed light on the truth. “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Ida B. Wells.
Then President Trump’s demand of Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on December 27, 2020 was simple: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
Sounds like a great opening line for a novel. Now, what genre? Sci Fi? Horror? Fantasy? Humor? Comic Book?
If only Clark (who was the head of the environmental division of DOJ) had listened to Richard Donoghue (acting Deputy Attorney General at the time) when he advised him, “How about you go back to your office and we'll call you when there's an oil spill."
What a sinister group of cohorts trump has with him. I think of those who requested pardons in advance. I think especially of a case like Gaetz. which seems pretty transparent--that is, "donald, I will lie and support you through anything; but don't forget that full pardon I need to avoid trial and prison for taking that underage girl across state lines and with MDMA." Now, there's the Greitens(?) case which has a similar quid pro quo. Woe is us if trump and his criminal band get out of the charges.
Serious comments to Heather's serious summary of yesterday's J6 hearing.
On the lighter side: Eric Herschmann was trending on Twitter thusly:
"Thanks Eric Herschmann for your candor, truthfulness, & patriotism. Apologies, but, you give lawyers a good name...Said another way, Thx for being a regular honest American, even if you are a lawyer. :o)"
****
"I love this guy, Eric Herschmann. There's absolutely no misunderstanding where you stand with him!"
****
"My favorite story about Eric Herschmann is how he told Mike Flynn to STFU, and Flynn did so." "Flynn: 'You're quitting! You're a quitter! You're not fighting' he exploded at the senior advisor. Flynn then turned to the president and implored: 'Sir, we need fighters.'"
"Herschmann ignored Flynn at first and continued to probe Powell's pitch with questions about the underlying evidence. 'All you do is promise but never deliver' he said to her sharply."
"Flynn was ranting seemingly infuriated about anyone challenging Powell, who had represented him in his recent legal battle.
"Finally Herschmann had enough. 'Why the f*ck do you keep standing up and screaming at me?' he shot back at Flynn. 'If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down.' Flynn sat back down."
****
"Eric Herschmann seems like the kind of guy you'd want to have drinks with after being adversaries in a trial or deposition."
****
(Love this one!)
"ex-*rump W.H. lawyer, on what he said to Jeffrey Clarke: 'I said good f*cking' - excuse me, sorry. 'F'ing A-hole. Congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you would take as Attorney General would be committing a felony and violating Rule 6(e).'"
****
"The best I can tell is the only thing you know about environmental and election challenges is they both start with 'e.'"
****
"Eric Herschmann is great at translating events into accessible Brooklynese." (Got some Brooklynites chiming in off this one!)
In the middle of my scrolling for Herschmann quotes, this popped into view:
"We were in Botswana when Trump was first running for President. I remember a young customs agent worrying that our country would become a dictatorship if he won. I wish I could meet that young man again and tell him he was wise beyond his years."
I admire your clear and dramatic overviews of so many complex moving parts, which are very challenging to write with context and perspective — and on deadline. I say this after watching every minute of today's hearing and lengthy recaps, plus reading a slew of commentary.
The FBI's search of Jeffrey Clark's home seems like a momentous turning point. It should silence Merrick Garland's critics. Talk about a bad day: Clark, who we now know conspired with Trump to overthrow the election, found himself standing in the street in his PJs while agents seized among other things his electronic devices. Then he had see his scheme exposed on live TV.
What will they find on his electronic devices? Was Clark surprised? Who else will be implicated? Who collaborated with him? The answers will come. And all participants in this the greatest political crime in the nation's history now are confronting a stark truth: their crimes will be exposed and likely prosecuted.
Bam. A “barnburner”. Indeed. One would think Trump might contemplate being on the red-eye to Moscow. A total betrayal of trust of every American. One would “wish it weren’t true, but it is.”
I stand in grim awe of Richard Donoghue’s testimony today. And thank you, Professor Richardson, for your sobering summary. It is tempting and sad to pretend today’s hearing was an imagining. How can any citizen trust a mere man to ever be Commander-in-Chief again?
I’ll have to sit in all of it for a spell. And to think it wasn’t the only barrage today to suffer. Can the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Thomas regarding gun ownership be any more pernicious or loathsome?
A lot to bear for We the People…All of Us This Time. 🗽
"Consider a congressman, then consider an idiot. Ah, but I repeat myself." - Mark Twain, 1873
I don't know why it is so many "lessers" get elected to Congress while so few "betters" do.
Trump didn't pardon the congresscritters because when you get a pardon, it has to list the specific crimes you are being pardoned of, and your acceptance of the pardon is the equivalent of a guilty plea. And if you are later questioned about the crimes of which you were pardoned, you do not have a 5th Amendment protection to keep from having to testify. Trump knew listing what they were being pardoned for would expose his treason, and then they could be forced to testify against him. So he'd rather have them "take the 5th" as "jumped-up dweeb" Jeffrey Clark did. But I think Clark will be the first one to flip on Trump. Arrest him on a Friday afternoon and let him sit in prison for the weekend, scared shitless somebody's going to rip his pants off, bend him over a bunk bed and "initiate
his ass" (literally) amd je'll be squealing like a piglet come Monday morning.
And anyone who thinks "Rusty Bowels" is an honorable man after his testimony on Tuesday needs only to listen to him yesterday say that even knowing everything he knows and having experienced what happened to him, he would still vote for the traitor in 2024 "because he did so much good for the country" can now see that President Truman was right 74 years ago when he said: "the only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies."
My fears for this night:
1. That Clarence Thomas and his conservative brethren have unleashed a MAGA militia armed with AR-15s on our streets just in time for the midterms to intimidate and bully voters.
2. That our system of government was saved only by the concerted action of Rosen, Donoghue, Engel and the assistant attorneys at DOJ who stood up to Trump to prevent the Clark letter from being sent. Had it been delivered it would have put a gloss of legitimacy on the slates of alternate electors sufficient to upend the peaceful transfer of power. Barr was not a hero in this. He left at the critical juncture to save his own skin. A single utterance of “Bullshit” does not make you an American hero.
3. That there is a major flaw in the administrative procedures governing the use of “Acting” secretaries and attorneys in the executive branch that avoids the Congressional vetting of replacements and does not mandate replacements from the in-place chain of command. Trump used this to great potential effect at Defense, Homeland Security and Justice especially with Clark.
4. That Klukowski could be brought into Justice so easily at the last minute to apparently act as Clark’s handler and conduit to Eastman. My gut tells me that Eastman is the true author of the Clark letter to the States.
I do have some prayers for the night:
1. For Rosen and company for putting America ahead of Trump and possibly their careers.
2. For Nancy Pelosi for her wisdom in rejecting McCarthy’s proposed slate of committee members and preventing these hearings from being a circus, for McCarthy being stupid enough to walk away, and for Cheney and Kinsinger for stepping up.
3. For the members of the committee for unraveling the tangled web of this seditious conspiracy and presenting it with such clarity.
Here's what blows me away. Just after 54:16 on the C Span video of today's january 6th hearing MTG states in her taped testimony that she called Trump in late Dec and told him they needed to have a meeting about the stolen election. What the heck!?!? She hadn't even been sworn in yet and she calls Trump demanding a meeting? I'm trying to figure out how a pip squeak grunt like MTG has the audacity to ring a president and demand a meeting. And she hasn't shut up since.
Y'all that just ain't right.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?521076-1/hearing-investigation-capitol-attack&live
The Special Committee on the Jan.6 invasion of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters to block the certification of Joe Biden as the lawfully elected President has produced original documents and testimony under oath by those Republicans who witnessed or participated in the conspiracy. That record will be preserved in the Congressional Record , in the Committee’s final report in the public media and in the history books.
Under the Constitution, the Congress is forbidden to indict, judge and punish citizens accused of crimes, including elected politicians and appointed members of of the Administration. That responsibility rests exclusively with the Federal Department of Justices and the Attorneys General of the states. The only except is Impeachment of the President, Vice President and Federal judges.
The inevitable question which the D.O.J. must answer is whether the case agains President Trump and other Republican politicians is so persuasive that at trial before a jury will that jury find them guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. The trials of more than a few mobsters and O.J. Simpson makes clear that jury verdicts are never certain.
Further in which venue will the President and his conspirators be likely to obtain a fair trial. On what grounds will jurors be justifyably excused by thejudge, the prosecutor and Mr. Trump’s defense. These are difficult questions with no certain answers. Whether the verdict were to be guilty or not guilty, half the population will be enraged and Americans will be more divided than the Trump Presidency has already made us. Thus the damage Trump and the Republican Party has done to American Politics may be irreparable by any court of law. If only Senator McConnell and his Republican majority had not blocked a fair Impeachment trial twice, this catastrophe need not have happened.
Great analysis. Clear as day the President conspired with elected legislators and appointed DOJ personnel to overturn our government. But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend when Barr and Bowers (and surely others) would help to expose the crime but then pledge to elect the criminal in 2024.
Have these people no shame or just no brains?
Yesterday, the lid was blown off!
I'll watch with interest the reaction of the media of the state (Fox, Newsmax, et al.) to the move by the Justice Department to seize the records of Jeffrey Clark. I imagine the wailings of Tucker Carlson will be epic.
With each peel of the onion, the center is revealed to be even more rotten. I am both angry and sad.
Thank you. I think the Committee is doing great work.
It is one thing to know that something is vile and disgusting. It is an entirely different experience to see the depth and extent to which that thing is depraved, vile and disgusting. Knowing that Trump was a mendacious, misogynistic, vengeful con artist who craved power, money and had little respect for the law and even less for the norms and customs of civil society is one thing. But to see the evidence of this, the extent to which his sycophants willingly joined him in his attempts to destroy our constitutional government and replace it with authoritarianism leaves me in a state of apoplexy. That their coup attempt came so close to succeeding, that they duped so many into believing in them and donating their hard-earned cash to that cause is the frightening beyond words.
I thank the House Committee for their work in exposing such depravity to the light of day. And I thank you for reporting on their hearings with dispassionate clarity.
There remains not one scintilla of evidence of election fraud, a mountain of evidence and credible testimony that Trump et al vigorously tried to subvert the democratic process, and still Trump is the popular leader of the Republican Party, a majority of which reportedly still maintains the 2020 election was stolen.
It seems we are living in alternative universes. Lincoln said a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Will the next election settle which reality we all accept? The last one didn’t.
Thank you for your summary of the hearing and all that’s going on before and after. I really wonder how our nation was ever governed for four years by a failed president caring only for his title and not his oath. And his intense need for every underling to bow before him. Good to see todays panel of DOJ and hear how they resisted Trump but Trump found others to do his bidding. Still and then in his party so many repubs did just that and continue their allegiance. I wish I could be optimistic that we’ll be okay. But seeing how our courts are dismantling our protections possibly including Roe v Wade, and the ruling striking down NY’s law limiting concealed guns in public, combined with the senate gun law compromise. Definitely not nearly robust enough to prevent sales of military weapons for people over 21 (that’s still adolescents able to legally purchase) but really we are far from other countries that lead in gun restrictions. Scary. At least this: Gratitude for the panel and the hearings and trying to shed light on the truth. “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Ida B. Wells.
Then President Trump’s demand of Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on December 27, 2020 was simple: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
Sounds like a great opening line for a novel. Now, what genre? Sci Fi? Horror? Fantasy? Humor? Comic Book?
Filed under: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda
If only Clark (who was the head of the environmental division of DOJ) had listened to Richard Donoghue (acting Deputy Attorney General at the time) when he advised him, “How about you go back to your office and we'll call you when there's an oil spill."
What a sinister group of cohorts trump has with him. I think of those who requested pardons in advance. I think especially of a case like Gaetz. which seems pretty transparent--that is, "donald, I will lie and support you through anything; but don't forget that full pardon I need to avoid trial and prison for taking that underage girl across state lines and with MDMA." Now, there's the Greitens(?) case which has a similar quid pro quo. Woe is us if trump and his criminal band get out of the charges.
Serious comments to Heather's serious summary of yesterday's J6 hearing.
On the lighter side: Eric Herschmann was trending on Twitter thusly:
"Thanks Eric Herschmann for your candor, truthfulness, & patriotism. Apologies, but, you give lawyers a good name...Said another way, Thx for being a regular honest American, even if you are a lawyer. :o)"
****
"I love this guy, Eric Herschmann. There's absolutely no misunderstanding where you stand with him!"
****
"My favorite story about Eric Herschmann is how he told Mike Flynn to STFU, and Flynn did so." "Flynn: 'You're quitting! You're a quitter! You're not fighting' he exploded at the senior advisor. Flynn then turned to the president and implored: 'Sir, we need fighters.'"
"Herschmann ignored Flynn at first and continued to probe Powell's pitch with questions about the underlying evidence. 'All you do is promise but never deliver' he said to her sharply."
"Flynn was ranting seemingly infuriated about anyone challenging Powell, who had represented him in his recent legal battle.
"Finally Herschmann had enough. 'Why the f*ck do you keep standing up and screaming at me?' he shot back at Flynn. 'If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down.' Flynn sat back down."
****
"Eric Herschmann seems like the kind of guy you'd want to have drinks with after being adversaries in a trial or deposition."
****
(Love this one!)
"ex-*rump W.H. lawyer, on what he said to Jeffrey Clarke: 'I said good f*cking' - excuse me, sorry. 'F'ing A-hole. Congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you would take as Attorney General would be committing a felony and violating Rule 6(e).'"
****
"The best I can tell is the only thing you know about environmental and election challenges is they both start with 'e.'"
****
"Eric Herschmann is great at translating events into accessible Brooklynese." (Got some Brooklynites chiming in off this one!)
******************************************************************
In the middle of my scrolling for Herschmann quotes, this popped into view:
"We were in Botswana when Trump was first running for President. I remember a young customs agent worrying that our country would become a dictatorship if he won. I wish I could meet that young man again and tell him he was wise beyond his years."