I originally wrote this post on Friday, June 24th. I intended to add more to it, referencing newsletter posts I received from Heather Cox Richardson, Dan Rather and Robert Reich but then the horrendous news came that the Supreme Court of Thuglicans had reversed Roe v. Wade. I was so angry I couldn't write a thing without rancor so I took two days off. I am still boiling inside but I think I can write with a clear head again.
HEARING #5
TB and I watched the fifth hearing of the January 6th investigation hearing. Talk about spinning heads! We knew much of the testimony from media articles, posts and tweets but they didn’t have the impact on us the way in-person testimony did. On January 6th, we were watching TV when our program was interrupted to cover what was happening at the Capitol. We recognized with horror that this was a coup attempt. Where was the National Guard? Why wasn’t tRump calling off his mob?
As we’ve watched each hearing and heard the gut-wrenching testimony from witnesses testifying to tRump’s plot to steal the election, it became very clear that the coup attempt had been planned far in advance. TFG had been trumpeting fraud even before the election took place, claiming if he lost it would be because the election had been rigged. He tried appealing to courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. There was no evidence for the judges to look at because there was no fraud.
When the courts failed him, tRump began harassing and bullying state election officials in swing states (GA, PA. AZ. etc.) to throw out legitimate votes or accept a new slate of electors. When that failed, he began to smear Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss with claims they were committing fraud with the votes. That wasn’t true but his believers also began to harass the two women, their families, and the state election officials and families. When that failed, he began working on Vice President Pence and the Justice Department.
Yesterday’s testimony centered on tRump’s plot to keep himself in office although he’d been told daily and repeatedly he’d lost the election; there was no evidence of wide spread fraud. When his Attorney General at the time, Jeff Rosen, refused to involve the DOJ in supporting false claims, TFG and his supporters tried to go around Rosen. Rep. Perry introduced 45 to a DOJ environmental attorney, Jeffrey Clark, who indicated he’d do whatever tRump wanted.
Clark and another newly planted DOJ attorney named Ken Klukowski drafted a letter on DOJ letterhead informing Georgia and the other states that they had information about fraud. The letter encouraged the legislature and officials to take another look at their election results. They wanted Rosen and Deputy Acting AG Richard Donoghue to sign the letter. At a meeting on January 3, the two men flat out refused. tRump’s attorney, Pat Cippollone supported the DOJ and told tRump the letter was like a murder-suicide pact.
The next bright idea was to replace Rosen with Clark. Rosen and Donoghue stated they would resign if that happened. Steven Engle, heading the DOJ’s Office of the Counsel, told tRump he would resign too and that the entire legal team would also quit. He told tRump that Clark would be in charge of a “graveyard.”
Apparently that got through to tRump. He was savvy enough to realize how awful it would look to have gone through 3 AGs in 2 weeks and then have the entire leadership of DOJ resign. He backed off and didn’t replace Rosen with Clark. What he did do, though, was up the pressure on Mike Pence and fire up his extreme base.
All of those who were pressured and refused to cave in to 45 were Republican. Doing the right thing had a heavy cost for all of them personally. They are vilified and defamed by tRump’s supporters and by tRump himself. This is a political career ender for Adam Kinzinger, Lynn Cheney, and any Republican legislator that crossed tRump. Doing the right thing and making sacrifices are painful and takes courage. I don’t agree with their politics but I think all of the witnesses, Kinzinger, and Cheney are all very brave.
The committee is being inundated with new information and will take a break to go through it all. They’ll reconvene in July. We will be watching.
tRump continues to fume and to plot. He will try again. We have to be vigilant and stop him.
12 noon update. So I just heard that the fascist majority Supreme Court just overturned Roe v. Wade in its entirety and now Clarence fucking Thomas would like to address contraception and same sex marriage. I am too fucking angry to do or say anything more today. Fuck the news, fuck the Supreme Court, fuck Rethuglicans and fuck tRump.
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