Inside The Jan 6 Hearings With Jamie Raskin: A Times Virtual Event
There have been brief video clips of the former presidents daughter, Ivanka Trump, and unsparing testimony from a top White House attorney, Eric Herschmann, who said he scolded another pro-Trump attorney as out of your mind for continuing to pursue conspiracies to stop President Bidens inauguration even the day after the Capitol riot.
Weve got lots of theories, Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trumps lead lawyers, told a group of state legislators as he sought to forestall the results, according to testimony on Tuesday from Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives. We just dont have the evidence.
The presidents former attorney general, William P. Barr, had one word for the swirling fact-less theories of fraud embraced by Mr. Trump in the elections aftermath: Bullshit.
I told him that it was, it was crazy stuff, Mr. Barr said in his video deposition of claims of voting machine fraud, and they were wasting their time on that, and it was doing grave, grave disservice to the country.
But Mr. Mulvaney said that the partisan nature of the Democratic-led proceedings the Republican leadership boycotted the panel after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi nixed some of their appointees meant that fewer Republicans were likely to tune in.
Democrats fully control the investigative committee, though its members include two anti-Trump Republicans, one of them Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chair.
South Dakota Gov Kristi Noem
Noem is among the potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates whove been overshadowed recently by other top contenders, but shes back in the news over the border. Though Noems not a border state governor, she announced last week that shes sending up to 50 South Dakota National Guard members to Texas to secure the border at the request of Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
The tab is being picked up by an out-of-state megadonor whos also given to Trump and the NRA, according to The Washington Post. Its unclear if the arrangement is legal, experts who spoke to The New York Times said, and Gov. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., said the move sets a bad precedent.
Conservative Groups Go Against Trump Oz In Pa Senate Race
Several prominent conservative groups are lining up behind Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette as an alternative to Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon endorsed by former President Donald Trump
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Several prominent conservative groups are getting involved in Pennsylvania’s race for U.S. Senate and backing candidate Kathy Barnette as an alternative to Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
The anti-tax Club for Growth endorsed Barnette on Wednesday and has begun airing TV ads on her behalf. That follows the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List’s decision on Tuesday to back Barnette over Oz.
The endorsement by Susan B. Anthony List is timely, with abortion in the headlines, and its backing of Barnette highlighted the story she has told of being the outcome of a rape when her mother was 11.
Kathy is a courageous advocate for life who exposes the human cost of abortion, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement.
It’s unclear whether the endorsements and advertising will be enough to carry Barnette to the top of the field in Pennsylvania’s May 17 primary.
The Club for Growth, for instance, unleashed millions of dollars in advertising against Trump-backed JD Vance in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary earlier this month only for the Hillbilly Elegy” author to go on and win the race by an eight-point margin.
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Hillary Clinton Finally Throws In The Towel Against Trump
Hillary Clinton has quashed speculation that she would run for president in 2024.
Earlier this year, the declining popularity of President Joe Biden prompted a bout of name-dropping by Democratic Party figures to the effect that Clinton might emerge to give the party some hope of winning in 2024.
No, out of the question, she said when asked about a 2024 campaign. First of all, I expect Biden to run. He certainly intends to run. It would be very disruptive to challenge that.
Clinton was interviewed by the Financial Times.
Biden, who has never offered a definitive statement about his 2024 plans, is currently 79. Writer Mark Leibovich said in The Atlantic that when 2024 rolls around and Biden is 81, he will be too old.
Clinton said her priority is to ensure a Republican does not become president, according to the Washington Examiner.
We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window, Clinton said.
Look, the most important thing is to win the next election, she said. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority.
Clinton commented on former President Donald Trump, who defeated Clinton in 2016, according to the Financial Times.
I dont know who will challenge him in the Republican primary, she said.
Republicans Warn Justice Department Probe Of Trump Would Trigger Political War
Republican lawmakers are warning that any Department of Justice prosecution of former President Trump will turn into a political battle, setting a high bar for Attorney General Merrick Garland to act on an expected criminal referral from the Houses Jan. 6 committee.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol previewed its likely referral to the Justice Department in a court filing made public last week and experts say the evidence assembled by House investigators would provide a strong impetus for prosecutors to act.
But Republican lawmakers and strategists warn that any federal prosecution of Trump will be accused of being politically motivated, boost Trump within the GOP and turn into a partisan food fight at a time when President Biden is pivoting to the center and trying to keep his 2020 campaign promise to unify the country.
Sen. Mike Braun said any criminal referral from the House would probably have as much political taint on it as you can get.
To me its clearly politically driven, he said.
Braun said Democrats are scrambling to change up the political narrative in response to Bidens moribund job approval ratings and predicted launching a federal prosecution of Trump would be viewed along partisan lines.
At least half the country would say its all politically motivated, he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthys picks to serve on the panel, Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks .
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New York Rep John Katko
The four-term congressman was the first Republican to publicly announce he would support impeachment. Katko, a former federal prosecutor, said he approached his decision by reviewing the facts at hand.
It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection both on social media ahead of January 6th, and in his speech that day, Katko said in a statement Tuesday night. His announcement came hours after he appeared at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event where he described delivering a care package to the family of a Capitol Police officer, a former intern in the congressmans office who, he said, was severely assaulted last week.
Katko has emphasized his law enforcement background and his penchant to break with his party in his campaigns in the 24th District, which includes Syracuse. He has voted to support Trumps priorities 72 percent of the time, well below the GOP average of 92 percent during the presidents term, according to CQ Vote Watch. The central New York district has supported Democratic presidential candidates in recent election cycles, but Katko has still managed to win reelection. Despite predictions from both parties that Biden would easily win the district in November, Katko won a rematch against former college professor Dana Balter. He defeated Balter by 10 points in 2020 after defeating her by 5 points in 2018.
Stop Waiting For Trump To Get Convicted
The chances that the criminal cases against the former president will be successful are slim to none, and that will only embolden him and his followers.
About the author: Paul Rosenzweig is a principal at Red Branch Consulting. Twenty years ago, he served as a senior counsel in the investigation of President Bill Clinton.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is not going to save democracy. Nor is the attorney general of New York, Letitia James the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg nor the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis. As the apparent collapse of the New York district attorneys investigation makes clear, criminal cases are hard to make. Donald Trump, despite his many seemingly criminal acts, is unlikely to ever spend a day in jail.
Observers of the Trump malignancy have an unfortunate habit of wish castingbelieving that their most optimistic fantasies will become reality. They did this with the Mueller investigationremember Its Mueller Time?and they did it with both of Trumps impeachments. Their dream has always been that somehow, somewhere, someone would call Trump to account for his actions and, in doing so, save American democracy.
Today, many invest the ongoing criminal investigations of Trump in New York, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., with the same hopes. Even my good friend George Conway has speculated that this time things might be different.
Why wont the criminal law suffice?
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Wyoming Rep Liz Cheney
Cheney has had a changeable relationship with Trump throughout her rapid ascension through the ranks of House leadership. But in recent months she has been among his chief critics within the party, and she led the GOP call to impeach him after the riots. In a statement Tuesday night, she said Trump summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.
First elected to Wyomings sole House seat in 2016, Cheney became the Republican conference chairwoman three years later, calling for a fundamental overhaul of the partys messaging operation. For the former Fox News pundit and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, that meant amped-up attacks on Democrats as socialists whose ideas she sees as an assault to American freedoms, rhetoric that has been adopted by Trumps most ardent supporters.
During Trumps four years in office, Cheney has voted with the president 93 percent of the time, according to CQ Vote Watch, above the GOP average score of 92 percent. But she has broadsided him on core policy issues in recent months, unmoved by her states 70 percent vote for Trump in November.
Whats Crowdstrike And The Server And What Is Its Role In The Ukraine Scandal
A subplot to both Trumps call with Zelensky and his broader approach to Ukraine is his apparent belief that a company called Crowdstrike has ties to Ukraine and that it possibly stashed a Democratic National Committee server that was hacked during the 2016 elections. Trump would like the Ukrainians to hand this over to the US government.
This is a reference to a conspiracy theory that rolls together a couple of misperceptions.
That starts with the fact that Crowdstrike has nothing to do with Ukraine. Its an American company whose co-founder was born in Russia but emigrated to the US as a kid. Crowdstrike was hired by the Democratic National Committee to help investigate the hacking of their email during the 2016 campaign, and Trump is disturbed by the fact that the DNC did not turn a physical server over to the FBI or anyone else. Critically, there is no server that could be hidden in Ukraine because the DNC used a modern cloud-based distributed email setup.
But the notion Trump is alluding to is the idea that the DNC was not really hacked by Russian actors at all. Instead, that attribution was faked by the allegedly Ukraine-linked Crowdstrike, which then hid the evidence as part of a larger plot to frame both Trump and the Russian government. Trump has time and again sought to exonerate Russia of culpability for computer crimes in 2016, and his interest in Crowdstrike seems to be part of that larger agenda.
Did you know?
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Former Vice President Mike Pence
If youre curious how the former vice president might handle the fact that many of Trumps supporters think hes disloyal for certifying the 2020 election, his speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on June 24 laid out his argument.
Pence opened the speech with one of his favorite lines, in which he calls himself a Christian, conservative and Republican, in that order and then proceeded to spend the next 20 or so minutes praising Trump and the work of the Trump-Pence administration. We made America great again in just four years, he boasted. Then he finally touched on the attack. Jan. 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol, he said.
Pence said he would always be proud that elected officials reconvened to finish certifying the election after the riot, and he said he understood why many were disappointed in his tickets loss last year: I can relate, I was on the ballot. He also positioned his view on the election as one informed by Republican patriotism and love of the Constitution.
The Republican Party will always keep our oath to the Constitution, even when it would be politically expedient to do otherwise, he said. Theres almost no idea more un-American that any one person can choose the American president. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.
I Think That Shaye And Her Mother Will Go Down In History Former Us Senator Says
Moss shared how others showed up at her grandmothers house and forced their way in to search for her and Freeman in an effort to make a citizens arrest. The term has a long history of association with vigilante violence used against African Americans engaged in whatever infractions whites deemed offensive to assert moral authority over their lives. The threats were so severe that the FBI warned Freeman it was unsafe to stay in her home in the days leading up to Jan. 6.
Hearing these Black women publicly tell the nation how they became convenient scapegoats figures whose names were repeatedly linked to broad baseless allegations of voter fraud served as a sad reminder of this countrys history.
But there was another significant takeaway of this hearing. It came when Moss explained her motivations behind her commitment to being an election worker. Ive always been told by my grandmother how important it is to vote and how people before me, a lot of people, older people in my family, did not have that right, she said. She shared that she enjoyed her civic duty, especially helping elderly and disabled voters who could not access or navigate the electronic system or had questions they needed answered by a real person. She relished going the extra mile beyond her official duties. I even remember driving to a hospital to give someone her absentee application. Thats what I loved the most, Moss recalled.
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