Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

2021 Trump-Incited Insurrection at Capitol Building

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
    [SIZE=18px]

    I've wondered about this myself pretty much every day since 2016: How could so many of my friends, smart, worldly-wise, educated, savvy and shrewd people, be so completely taken in by such an obvious con artist that was so clearly full of a shit from top to bottom?
    You don't think the lies spewed out by right wing-nut talk radio, Fox "News," and the Former Administration itself had anything to do with it, do you?
    Perish the thought ...
    Trust me?
    I'm an economist!

    Comment


    • Originally posted by DOR View Post
      You don't think the lies spewed out by right wing-nut talk radio, Fox "News," and the Former Administration itself had anything to do with it, do you?
      Perish the thought ...
      Yeah but...it's Donald Trump ffs....
      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

      Comment


      • Fiona Hill said Trump's deadly Jan. 6 'self-coup' attempt showed the ways he'd made the US more like Putin's Russia

        Fiona Hill in a new Foreign Affairs op-ed said that President Donald Trump's deadly "self-coup" attempt on January 6 was indicative of the ways in which the US became more like Russia under his leadership.

        Hill, a National Security Council official during the Trump administration, wrote that Trump during his tenure "came to more closely resemble [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in political practice" than any of his US predecessors.

        "The event that most clearly revealed the convergence of politics in the United States and Russia during Trump's term was his disorganized but deadly serious attempt to stage a self-coup and halt the peaceful transfer of executive power after he lost the 2020 election to Biden," said Hill, who served as Trump's top Russia advisor and co-authored a biography on Putin.

        "Russia, after all, has a long history of coups and succession crises, dating back to the tsarist era, including three during the past 30 years," she added.

        The Capitol attack was the culmination of four years of "conspiracies and lies that Trump and his allies had fed to his supporters on social media platforms, in speeches, and on television," Hill said.

        The "Big Lie," or the false notion that the election was stolen from Trump, was "built on the backs of the thousands of little lies that Trump uttered nearly every time he spoke and that were then nurtured within the dense ecosystem of Trumpist media outlets," Hill added.


        This was yet another way that the US came resemble Russia under Trump, Hill wrote, in the sense that Putin has "long solidified his grip on power by manipulating the Russian media, fueling nationalist grievances, and peddling conspiracy theories."

        Hill, who was a central figure in Trump's first impeachment over his dealings with Ukraine, said that the former president also "aped Putin's willingness to abuse his executive power by going after his political adversaries."

        Trump told associates that he admired Putin over his wealth and for running Russia as if it was his "own private company," Hill wrote, because he wanted to do the same in the US.

        Putin and the Kremlin were filled with glee by Trump's 2016 victory, because he was a "populist, nativistic president with no prior experience in foreign policy and a huge, fragile ego."

        Tensions between Russia and the US reached historic heights after Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the animosity appeared poised to continue under Trump's 2016 rival - former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

        Hill wrote that Putin saw Clinton as a threat because of the ways in which she promoted "democracy and civil society to root out corruption in Russia" while she served as the top US diplomat in the Obama administration. Putin was concerned that if Clinton won, she would "have continued to hound him and hold him to task," Hill said. Trump, a divisive, ego-driven figure, was an ideal alternative for the Russian president.

        "Putin has to deter or defeat any opponents, foreign or domestic, who have the capacity to undermine his regime," Hill said. "His hope is that leaders in the United States will get so bogged down with problems at home that they will cease criticizing his personalization of power and will eschew any efforts to transform Russia."

        The US intelligence community concluded that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election - under Putin's orders - to boost Trump's chances of winning.

        Trump's amicable dynamic with Putin was therefore a constant source of criticism and speculation during his presidency. He went out of his way to avoid criticizing the Russia leader, despite rising tensions Washington and Moscow over Putin's aggressive actions both at home and abroad.

        Trump also downplayed Russian election interference, and during an infamous July 2018 press conference appeared to side with Putin over the US intelligence community over the matter. Hill, who was with Trump in Helsinki at the time, wrote that she considered "faking a seizure" and "hurling" herself into the journalists sitting behind her in order to derail the press conference.
        ___________

        A further quote from the op-ed:


        When Trump was elected, Putin and the Kremlin made no attempt to conceal their glee. They had thought that Clinton would become president and that she would focus on criticizing Putin’s style of governance and constraining Russia. They had steeled themselves and prepared for the worst. Instead, they got the best possible outcome from their perspective—a populist, nativistic president with no prior experience in foreign policy and a huge, fragile ego. Putin recognized Trump as a type and grasped his political predilections immediately: Trump, after all, fit a mold that Putin himself had helped forge as the first populist leader to take power in a major country in the twenty-first century. Putin had blazed the trail that Trump would follow during his four years in office.
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • Police Radio Calls Reveal Pro-Trump Mob Overwhelmed Cops Hours Before Capitol Riot

          U.S. Park Police radio recordings show that officers were overwhelmed by Donald Trump-supporting mobs in Washington hours before the violent breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

          Even before Trump whipped the crowd into a frenzy at a pre-riot rally on the National Mall, cops radioed that they were overwhelmed by mobs and by people they suspected were armed at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, and were unable to check numerous unattended bags for bombs or weapons. Hours later, pipe bombs were discovered in similar bags in front of the Republican and Democratic national committee headquarters.

          The recordings, obtained Thursday by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, renew questions of why law enforcement was so unprepared for the violence at the Capitol building hours later. The recordings also contrast the stunning lack of preparedness on Jan. 6 with the violent law enforcement response to peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in nearby Lafayette Square months earlier to make way for Trump to pose with a Bible in front of a church.

          Seven hours of recordings “make it abundantly clear that [the Park Police were] unprepared for the threat of a riot, lacking manpower, plans and supplies,” the watchdog group said in a statement.

          “People are refusing to leave,” said one radio caller early on at the Washington Monument, where officers were later forced to hunker down as they were surrounded by the angry crowd. “The only other thing I can think I can do is threaten arrest which is gonna incite the crowd, so unless we get some officers up here I’m gonna stand by,” the officer added.

          Another soon reported: “Units are backed into the monument, everyone’s breaking through the bike racks.”

          Another called in: “We’re not going to be able to hold that base and that fence line with the numbers we have.”

          Soon cops were ordered to “monitor only.”

          “Copy,” an officer responded. “We don’t have the full react squad coming up, we’re not gonna agitate them.”

          At one point, shortly before Trump spoke to the crowd and told them to march on the Capitol, one officer radioed: “Possible several individuals on the southwest quadrant of WaMo grounds that may be armed.”

          One call announced the beginning of the day’s true nightmare: “The Capitol has been breached. Protestors have entered the building.”

          Officers were so outnumbered by then that police couldn’t even risk making arrests when an officer was attacked with a pipe.

          “We cannot afford to lose the personnel up here,” said a person on one of the calls.
          ____________
          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

          Comment


          • Capitol Rioter IDed By Sleuths Pleads Guilty, Is Locked Up For Attacking Cops On Jan. 6

            Robert Scott Palmer, a Florida man who attacked cops with a fire extinguisher during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and was identified by online sleuths, pleaded guilty to a felony on Monday and was ordered incarcerated until sentencing.

            Palmer ― who was wearing a “Florida For Trump” hat and an American flag sweatshirt emblazoned with Donald Trump’s name on Jan. 6 ― pleaded guilty to count three of his indictment, a felony charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, inflicting bodily injury. Palmer was arrested in March, 12 days after HuffPost named him in a story.

            Online sleuths working under the moniker #SeditionHunters identified Palmer as the man who used a fire extinguisher to assault officers in a tunnel on the western side of the Capitol. Dozens and dozens of other Capitol rioters have been positively identified by online sleuths but have not yet been arrested by the FBI.

            Palmer entered his guilty plea before Judge Tanya Chutkan, who earlier in the morning had expressed concern about letting Jan. 6 defendants off with a “slap on the wrist” and sentenced a misdemeanor Capitol attack defendant to 45 days of incarceration. Federal prosecutors had sought three months of home detention in that misdemeanor case, while the defendant’s defense attorney sought probation.

            Palmer admitted before Chutkan that he threw a wooden plank at officers during the riot, that he sprayed the fire extinguisher at officers defending the Capitol, and that he chucked the fire extinguisher at the police line.

            “He surrendered and turned himself in shortly after your story,” Palmer’s attorney, Bjorn Brunvand, told HuffPost when Palmer indicated he planned to plead guilty. “We reached out to the FBI, and he turned himself in as soon as they were ready for him to. ... Consistent with what we’ve been doing since day one, he wants to accept responsibility for what he did.”

            Chutkan ordered Palmer be detained until sentencing. Brunvand said Palmer had sold his assets to prepare for the possibility that he would be locked up until trial. The attorney also said that Palmer’s sentencing guidelines would range between 46 and 57 months in prison.

            The FBI has made more than 600 arrests in connection with the attack on the Capitol, and hundreds of others are still wanted by the bureau. Federal authorities have referred to the Capitol investigation as the largest in FBI history, and the caseload will go well into 2023.
            ____________
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • TH Moderator Edit: Sorry, but no, not happening.

              I don't know if you're posting this conspiracy theory garbage as flame bait or because you genuinely believe it, but either way you won't be posting here.


              Like your "mysterious" inability to recognize Surfgun's dog whistle anti-Semitism, you seem to have also conveniently "forgotten" that we didn't allow this kind nonsense in the past.


              If you want to discuss this further, feel free to PM me.
              In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

              Leibniz

              Comment


              • Black Lives Matter comparison roils court in Jan. 6 cases
                Federal judges are wrestling with a dilemma as dozens of cases stemming from the Capitol riot move toward sentencing: Should they throw the book at everyone who streamed into the building on Jan. 6, or just those who committed violence and destruction?

                Many of the judges on D.C.’s federal bench have advocated for stiff sentences in most cases on the grounds that breaching the Capitol was an unconscionable crime against American democracy. And they’ve overwhelmingly rejected comparisons lodged by accused rioters that the violence of Jan. 6 is akin to the unrest that plagued Portland, Ore., and other American cities alongside last year’s racial justice protests.

                The dispute flared anew on Monday when Judge Tanya Chutkan pointedly rejected her own colleague’s comparison between the Jan. 6 mob and the rioters who exploited the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year.

                “Some have compared what took place on Jan. 6 with other protests that took place throughout the country through the past year and have suggested that the Capitol rioters are being treated unfairly,” Chutkan said during a sentencing hearing. “I flatly disagree.”

                Although she didn’t mention any names, it seemed unmistakable that Chutkan was responding — nearly point by point — to the analysis of Judge Trevor McFadden, who serves alongside her on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where more than 600 defendants are facing charges for their roles in the Capitol attack.

                On Friday, McFadden said federal prosecutors had undercut themselves on Jan. 6 prosecutions by doing little to impose legal consequences for those who rioted during the racial-justice protests last year.

                “I think the U.S. attorney would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in this city,” he said during another sentencing hearing, according to The Associated Press.

                The judges’ dueling comments reflect what appears to be a developing schism in the federal judiciary over how to treat the lower-level defendants who glommed on to the insurrection attempt by extremists who led the Jan. 6 charge.

                Attorney General Merrick Garland, who once worked in the same courthouse with the judges staking out positions in the Jan. 6 cases, defended prosecutors Monday against complaints that some Capitol rioters were allowed to settle their cases by admitting to misdemeanors.

                “I’m quite aware that there are people that are criticizing us for not prosecuting sufficiently and others complaining we are prosecuting too harshly,” Garland said during a video interview for The New Yorker Festival. “This is part of the territory for any prosecutor in any case.”

                While many of the most serious cases remain pending — and likely will extend deep into 2022 — dozens of misdemeanor cases are being resolved at a suddenly rapid pace. And it’s giving judges their first crack at weighing in on the broader character of the Capitol assault.

                McFadden, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, appears to be a lone voice, for now, on the D.C. bench. Several judges have expressed sentiment similar to Chutkan’s: that those who joined the Jan. 6 mob helped overwhelm police and stretch resources in a way that aided the violent extremists to threaten the transfer of power.

                “What happened … was nothing less than a violent mob trying to prevent the orderly, peaceful transfer of power as part of an election,” said Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. “That mob was trying to overthrow the government. … That is no mere protest.”

                Judge Emmet Sullivan, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, lamented last week that during the events of Jan. 6, a number of ordinary, law-abiding Americans “morphed into terrorists.”

                At sentencing hearings last week, Judge James Boasberg made clear he agreed that those who remained nonviolent on Jan. 6 effectively encouraged the violence.

                “There are few actions that are as serious as the one this group took on that day,” said Boasberg, an Obama appointee. “If there are five people or eight people or 10 or 15, there’s no riot. … The encouragement and incitement of other people is what led to the violence.”

                And Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee who sentenced Jan. 6 defendant Valerie Ehrke to probation, said he anticipated her light sentence would be the exception, not the norm, for crimes that threatened democracy.

                At the sentencing Monday for Matthew Carl Mazzocco, Chutkan acknowledged that the Texas resident hadn’t broken into the Capitol, damaged any property there or engaged in violence, but she said he and others who illegally entered the seat of Congress bore some responsibility for the mayhem that unfolded.

                “People who were committing those violent acts did so because they had the safety of numbers — one of whom was Mr. Mazzocco,” Chutkan said.

                McFadden’s statement echoed arguments that have been lodged by many of the defendants, by Trump himself and by his allies on Capitol Hill.

                During the Friday sentencing hearing, McFadden scolded the defendant before him, Danielle Doyle, for “acting like all those looters and rioters last year. That’s because looters and rioters decided the law did not apply to them.”

                The judge said Doyle’s behavior was not excusable, called it a “national embarrassment,” and again likened it to the police brutality protests following the death of George Floyd last year that made “us all feel less safe,” the AP reported.

                McFadden, notably, has taken a hard line with some Jan. 6 defendants. He ordered the pretrial detention of Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, an Army reservist who sported a Hitler mustache to his job on a naval weapons base, citing Hale-Cusanelli’s violent rhetoric and embrace of what he believed was an oncoming civil war.

                However, on Monday, Chutkan took exception to McFadden’s suggestion that Jan. 6 rioters were being treated unfairly harshly. She argued that, in fact, many of those charged in the unrest at the Capitol had been treated more gently than those arrested for rioting alongside the Black Lives Matter protests.

                For example, Chutkan said, the Capitol suspects weren’t arrested on the spot and were allowed to remain in their home districts for many of the proceedings. And prosecutors have agreed to allow many of them to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge, Chutkan noted, despite charging most with at least four offenses.

                Chutkan also said the basis for the Black Lives Matter protests — racial justice — differs sharply from the purpose of the Jan. 6 event, assembled by Trump as he promoted discredited claims that the 2020 election was stolen. The defendant she sentenced Monday, Mazzocco, traveled to the Capitol for Trump, not for a democratic cause, she said.

                “He went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country,” Chutkan said.

                McFadden and Chutkan didn’t differ in just their assessment of Jan. 6 misdemeanor crimes. The two also diverged on the sentences they handed down in the cases they handled.

                While McFadden gave Doyle a sentence of two months probation and a $3,000 fine, Chutkan hit Mazzocco with 45 days in jail — a stiffer punishment than the three months of home confinement prosecutors had asked for.

                “This court believes that a sentence of probation does not reflect the seriousness of the crime. … There have to be consequences for participating in an attempted violent overthrow of the government, beyond sitting at home,” Chutkan said Monday. “The country is watching. … If Mr. Mazzocco walks away with probation and a slap on the wrist, that’s not going to deter anyone from trying what he did again.”
                _________
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                  TH Moderator Edit: Sorry, but no, not happening.

                  I don't know if you're posting this conspiracy theory garbage as flame bait or because you genuinely believe it, but either way you won't be posting here.


                  Like your "mysterious" inability to recognize Surfgun's dog whistle anti-Semitism, you seem to have also conveniently "forgotten" that we didn't allow this kind nonsense in the past.


                  If you want to discuss this further, feel free to PM me.
                  FYI: Doubling and tripling down with public posts to "discuss" the problem =/= PMing me.
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • Trump to invoke executive privilege in Jan. 6 House probe
                    WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump intends to assert executive privilege in a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, a move that could prevent the testimony of onetime aides, according to a letter sent by lawyers for the former president.

                    The letter went to at least some witnesses who were subpoenaed by the House committee and it makes clear that Trump plans to invoke privileges meant to protect presidential communications from being shared with Congress. The substance of the letter was described Thursday by a person who has seen it and who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the letter was not yet public.

                    Spokespeople for Trump did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

                    The move sets the stage for a likely clash with House Democrats who are investigating the roles of Trump and his allies in the run-up to the riot, when thousands of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as Congress was certifying the results of the presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

                    The committee, which was formed over the summer, last month issued subpoenas to Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff; Dan Scavino, the former deputy chief of staff for communications; Kashyap Patel, a former Defense Department official; and Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser.

                    Politico reported the existence of the letter earlier Thursday, the deadline the committee set for compliance.
                    ________

                    To the shock of absolutely no one, Donald Trump wants to keep the events of that day of national disgrace buried as long as possible.

                    Let's see if the Dems can finally play real hardball for a change.
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                      Trump to invoke executive privilege in Jan. 6 House probe
                      WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump intends to assert executive privilege in a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, a move that could prevent the testimony of onetime aides, according to a letter sent by lawyers for the former president.

                      The letter went to at least some witnesses who were subpoenaed by the House committee and it makes clear that Trump plans to invoke privileges meant to protect presidential communications from being shared with Congress. The substance of the letter was described Thursday by a person who has seen it and who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the letter was not yet public.

                      Spokespeople for Trump did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

                      The move sets the stage for a likely clash with House Democrats who are investigating the roles of Trump and his allies in the run-up to the riot, when thousands of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as Congress was certifying the results of the presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

                      The committee, which was formed over the summer, last month issued subpoenas to Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff; Dan Scavino, the former deputy chief of staff for communications; Kashyap Patel, a former Defense Department official; and Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser.

                      Politico reported the existence of the letter earlier Thursday, the deadline the committee set for compliance.
                      ________

                      To the shock of absolutely no one, Donald Trump wants to keep the events of that day of national disgrace buried as long as possible.

                      Let's see if the Dems can finally play real hardball for a change.
                      And the NARA said, nope. Not playing that...and releases all the government documents in their possession to the committee.
                      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                      Mark Twain

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post

                        And the NARA said, nope. Not playing that...and releases all the government documents in their possession to the committee.
                        That's definitely a step in the right direction but I was mainly referring to the subpoenaed witnesses hiding behind Trump's claim of "executive privilege".
                        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                        Comment


                        • 'Rewrite history:' Trump and allies downplay Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol

                          WASHINGTON – Donald Trump and some of his allies defied a congressional committee investigating the insurrection Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, challenging subpoenas and refusing to provide records or testimony about what happened on that infamous day. --

                          Trump and associates play down how their supporters attacked the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to stop the counting of electoral votes confirming Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election.

                          “The clear intent in the Trump Republican Party is to rewrite history whenever possible and to do everything within their power to circumvent actual oversight and accountability," said Bradley Moss, a national security attorney.

                          'Executive privilege will be defended'
                          Trump supports his aides' refusal to supply information about their interactions with him to what a spokesperson called the "highly partisan" and "communist-style" select committee investigating Jan. 6.

                          "Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of President Trump and his administration but also on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our nation," said Taylor Budowich, communication director for Trump's political action committee, Save America.

                          In a tweet Friday, Budowich said Trump "has instructed individuals to honor conversations and documents covered by the executive privilege to the extent permissible by law" and "has in no way told people not to comply" with subpoenas.

                          Norm Eisen, executive chair of the States United Democracy Center, said he suspects the courts won't agree with Trump's claims of executive privilege.

                          “The latest examples of his efforts to distort, obscure and obstruct what happened on that terrible day are his bogus claims that executive privilege prevents compliance with the lawful subpoenas the 1/6 committee has issued," Eisen said. "If tested in court, these spurious arguments will be brushed aside as so many others have been by judges, including those he appointed. It is fair to ask why he so badly does not want the truth about that day to come out.”

                          Last month, the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 subpoenaed former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and former Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Kash Patel. The subpoenas required the four to produce relevant documents by Thursday, Oct. 7.

                          The committee could go to court to compel witnesses familiar with Trump's actions Jan. 6 to produce documents and testify.

                          Friday, the day after the subpoena deadline, a congressional statement said Meadows and Patel "are, so far, engaging with the Select Committee," but it did not explain how. Committee leaders said Bannon "indicated" he will "hide behind vague references" to Trump executive privilege. They did not mention Scavino.

                          "The Select Committee fully expects all of these witnesses to comply with our demands for both documents and deposition testimony," said the statement from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the committee chair, and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair.

                          They said, “Though the Select Committee welcomes good-faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate with our investigation, we will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral."

                          In a letter to the Jan. 6 committee, Bannon lawyer Robert Costello said his client would not comply with the panel’s demands for documents and testimony. Costello cited a letter from Trump’s counsel, Justin Clark, directing Bannon to refuse the requests: "We must accept his direction and honor his invocation of executive privilege."

                          'A half-step away' from a constitutional crisis
                          In the nine months since the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Trump and his allies have downplayed the actions of their supporters in public speeches, written statements and media interviews, revolving around Trump's false claims of election fraud.

                          In a statement this week, Trump denounced the "Unselect Committee" conducting the investigation and called Jan. 6 "a day of protesting the Fake Election results."

                          On that day, mobs of Trump supporters smashed their way into the Capitol, breaking doors and windows, roaming the hallways and ransacking offices. They beat police officers and threatened lawmakers gathered to certify Biden's victory in the Electoral College.

                          The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is also investigating the riot, issued a report Thursday that said Trump pushed his election fraud lies by pressuring the Justice Department to investigate state election procedures and overturn the results in places he lost.

                          "This report reveals that we were only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

                          House committee 'will continue our work'
                          Thompson, D-Miss., the Jan. 6 House committee chairman, said the Senate report shows "the lengths to which the former president and his associates went trying to overturn the 2020 election."

                          "The Select Committee will continue our work to get answers for the American people about what happened on Jan. 6th and to make sure nothing like that day ever happens again,” he said.

                          That could depend on how long it will take to get information from Trump allies defying committee subpoenas, a process likely to involve court action, said Matthew Miller, a former spokesman for the Justice Department.

                          The pace will be dictated by "how quickly the courts are willing to adjudicate Trump’s executive privilege claims," Miller said.

                          Trump is also trying to block committee attempts to get the National Archives to release White House records that might shed light on his activities before, during and after the attack Jan. 6.

                          In asserting executive privilege, Trump essentially argues that Congress has no right to review internal White House discussions, even after a president leaves office.

                          More subpoenas
                          Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the committee, threatened contempt charges against those who defy subpoenas, saying "noncompliance with Congress invites criminal sanctions."

                          The House committee also subpoenaed 11 people involved in planning the mass rally near the White House that Trump addressed before a march to the U.S. Capitol and the subsequent violence Jan. 6. Thursday, the committee announced it is subpoenaing organizers of another rally that day, one near the Capitol.

                          In an interview on Fox News in July, Trump claimed he gave "a very mild-mannered speech" at the political rally. He said the marchers were "peaceful people," and "there was such love at that rally."

                          Federal prosecutors charged more than 600 people in more than 40 states with participating in the riot at the Capitol, and there are new arrests almost daily.

                          Some of the rioters cried out, "Hang Mike Pence," referring to the vice president who refused Trump's request that he rule out electoral votes in certain states that favored Biden. Pence said he lacked the legal authority to take such action.

                          This past week, Pence said the media is harping on the incident – "one day in January" – to attack Trump and his voters and avoid talking about the Biden administration.

                          “They want to use that one day to try and demean the character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported our administration in 2016 and 2020," Pence told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

                          Miller noted that some Republicans criticized Trump in the immediate aftermath of attack. Ten House Republicans voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting the riot; seven GOP senators voted to convict him.

                          Two of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump – Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – are on the Jan. 6 investigation commission. Cheney's criticism of Trump's actions triggered her expulsion from House Republican leadership. The former president backs her challenger in a Wyoming primary.

                          In the months since Jan. 6, Miller said, "Trump has slowly but surely tried to rewrite the history of the day, and he is dragging the entire Republican Party into agreement with him."

                          An election issue?
                          Republican attempts to downplay the insurrection are working their way into the 2022 elections. J.D. Vance, locked in a competitive Republican primary for an Ohio Senate seat, told Time magazine that "there were some bad apples on Jan. 6, very clearly, but most of the people there were actually super peaceful."

                          Jazmin Vargas, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Republican candidates "are obsessed with appeasing Donald Trump, and in the process they're showing how deeply out of touch they are with the voters."

                          Adam Laxalt, seeking a Senate seat in Nevada, described the insurrection as "that fateful day in January, where they pulled him (Trump) off of social media and pulled him off of Twitter," casting the riot as part of an effort by the left to silence conservatives.

                          Moss said delay is the overarching goal.

                          "Their hope is they can tie the issue up in litigation for months until after the midterms," Moss said. "If the Democrats lose the House in 2022, the Select Committee will end, and those aides will never have to answer to Congress for what they did.”
                          _________

                          A master class in how to obstruct justice "legally"
                          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                          Comment


                          • No surprise to see a man who systematically degraded the office of President from the day he was inaugurated until the day he was dragged kicking & screaming out the the White House now wants to hide behind the office to cover up his own wrongdoing.
                            sigpic

                            Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                              No surprise to see a man who systematically degraded the office of President from the day he was inaugurated until the day he was dragged kicking & screaming out the the White House now wants to hide behind the office to cover up his own wrongdoing.
                              His lawyers know he'll talk himself right into a prison cell.

                              Doesn't really matter anyway. Trump and his swamp only need to stall things until the midterms. The Dems are certain to lose control of the House (and the Senate for that matter) and then we'll have a repeat of 2016-2018.

                              Even potential state charges are unlikely. I'm willing to bet that any subpoena issued by the State of New York for Trump to testify about his company's tax fraud, or Georgia's investigation into his attempted election tampering will be met with a firestorm of legal suits and perpetual stonewalling.
                              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                              Comment


                              • U.S. Jan. 6 panel to advance contempt charges if subpoenas not followed -Cheney

                                WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol will move criminal contempt charges against those who do not comply with its subpoenas, Representative Liz Cheney, the panel's vice chair, said on Tuesday.

                                The committee late last month subpoenaed four members of former President Donald Trump's administration. They were Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former White House adviser Steve Bannon, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino and former Defense Department official Kash Patel.

                                The committee has already threatened criminal contempt charges against Bannon for refusing to cooperate with the inquiry into the attack, in which a mob of Trump's supporters stormed the seat of the U.S. government.

                                Those subpoenaed will have the opportunity to cooperate, but if they do not, the committee will enforce its subpoenas, Cheney, a Republican, told reporters at the U.S. Capitol. She leads the committee along with its chairman, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson.

                                "In general, people are going to have to appear, or, you know, we will move contempt charges against them," Cheney said. She said the entire committee was in agreement on that point.

                                Cheney said the committee expected to have depositions from Meadows and Patel later this week. "We'll see if they show up. If they show up, we'll be prepared," she said.

                                The riot took place as Congress was meeting to certify Democrat Joe Biden's election victory, delaying that process for several hours as then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress, staff and journalists fled. More than 600 people now face criminal charges stemming from the event.

                                House Democrats formed the committee over objections from Trump's fellow Republicans in the House. Cheney is one of two Republicans on the committee.
                                __________

                                It'll be interesting to see what the DoJ does with this or if they leave the Committee to their own devices.
                                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X