House Select Committee Hearings on Jan. 6 (2 Viewers)

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    (CNN) - The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has sent a letter to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich seeking his voluntary cooperation to discuss his role in promoting false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

    The committee wants to learn more about communications Gingrich had with senior advisers in former President Donald Trump's White House about television advertisements that relied on false claims about the election……

    Did I mention I hate Newt Gingrich?
     
    Should they seek Donald Trump’s testimony? What should they do with Republican lawmakers who defied subpoenas? Will they be able to negotiate an interview with Mike Pence?

    Members of the Jan. 6 select committee are confronting a momentous to-do list, including some of their most precedent-setting decisions, as they prepare to present closing arguments about the former president’s bid to overturn his loss in 2020. With barely 16 weeks until the panel dissolves, its nine lawmakers are still deciding when to release a comprehensive final report, as well as hundreds of witness transcripts that could provide extensive new details about Trump’s behavior surrounding the Capitol attack.

    And that’s not all. The panel is expected to soon announce additional public hearings, finalize efforts to obtain the testimony of two crucial Secret Service witnesses and issue legislative recommendations designed to prevent future attempted disruptions to the transfer of power. The Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s possession of highly classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate is vacuuming up some of the national headlines that they made earlier in the summer, but select panel members are determined not to let their inquiry peter out and believe they’ve moved the needle.


    “Each member of the committee has things that he or she really wants to continue to pursue over the next few weeks, based on the work that we did before the recess,” panel member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said recently of their remaining investigative avenues.

    “People want to make sure that we fortify the democracy against coups and insurrections, political violence and other efforts to usurp the will of the people,” he added.

    As the Jan. 6 committee hits a slew of last-lap decisions that could shape its legacy, it’s likely to contend with internal pressures that often befall time-limited congressional investigations: staffers eyeing the exits, the distracting pull of the midterm elections and the likelihood that the House will change hands, giving Republicans the speaker’s gavel as they promise retribution.

    But before that happens, the panel must deal with a Trump facing significant new legal jeopardy as other investigations into his actions, in regards to the election and otherwise, have picked up...............

     
    Should they seek Donald Trump’s testimony? What should they do with Republican lawmakers who defied subpoenas? Will they be able to negotiate an interview with Mike Pence?

    Members of the Jan. 6 select committee are confronting a momentous to-do list, including some of their most precedent-setting decisions, as they prepare to present closing arguments about the former president’s bid to overturn his loss in 2020. With barely 16 weeks until the panel dissolves, its nine lawmakers are still deciding when to release a comprehensive final report, as well as hundreds of witness transcripts that could provide extensive new details about Trump’s behavior surrounding the Capitol attack.

    And that’s not all. The panel is expected to soon announce additional public hearings, finalize efforts to obtain the testimony of two crucial Secret Service witnesses and issue legislative recommendations designed to prevent future attempted disruptions to the transfer of power. The Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s possession of highly classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate is vacuuming up some of the national headlines that they made earlier in the summer, but select panel members are determined not to let their inquiry peter out and believe they’ve moved the needle.


    “Each member of the committee has things that he or she really wants to continue to pursue over the next few weeks, based on the work that we did before the recess,” panel member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said recently of their remaining investigative avenues.

    “People want to make sure that we fortify the democracy against coups and insurrections, political violence and other efforts to usurp the will of the people,” he added.

    As the Jan. 6 committee hits a slew of last-lap decisions that could shape its legacy, it’s likely to contend with internal pressures that often befall time-limited congressional investigations: staffers eyeing the exits, the distracting pull of the midterm elections and the likelihood that the House will change hands, giving Republicans the speaker’s gavel as they promise retribution.

    But before that happens, the panel must deal with a Trump facing significant new legal jeopardy as other investigations into his actions, in regards to the election and otherwise, have picked up...............


    Refuse a subpoena, go to jail, just like anyone else.
    Get that SS testimony ASAP.
    Make Trump testify or put him in jail for contempt. Either works.
     
    Guess this can go here
    =================
    In an explosive hearing in July, an unidentified former Twitter employee testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the company had tolerated false and rule-breaking tweets from Donald Trump for years because executives knew their service was his “favorite and most-used … and enjoyed having that sort of power.”


    Now, in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, the whistleblower, Anika Collier Navaroli, reveals the terror she felt about coming forward and how eventually that fear was overcome by her worry that extremism and political disinformation on social media pose an “imminent threat not just to American democracy, but to the societal fabric of our planet.”


    “I realize that by being who I am and doing what I’m doing, I’m opening myself and my family to extreme risk,” Navaroli said. “It’s terrifying. This has been one of the most isolating times of my life.”

    “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t believe the truth matters,” she said.

    Twitter banned Trump two days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, citing fears he could incite further violence.

    By that time, he had sent more than 56,000 tweets over 12 years, many of which included lies and baseless accusations about election fraud. One month earlier, he had tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”


    Navaroli, a former policy official on the team designing Twitter’s content-moderation rules, testified to the committee that the ban came only after Twitter executives had for months rebuffed her calls for stronger action against Trump’s account.

    Only after the Capitol riot, which left five dead and hundreds injured, did Twitter move to close his 88 million follower account……..

     
    Evidently Liz Cheney is at an event in TX, and she has said that if Trump interacts with the Jan 6 committee it will be under oath and under penalty of perjury.

    She evidently also said this:



    No story on this yet, just people tweeting about it, so we shall see.
     
    News that a former adviser to the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is publishing a book billed as a “behind-the-scenes” look at the committee’s work came as a shock to most lawmakers and committee staff when it was announced last week.


    Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman, is set to publish “The Breach” on Tuesday, just one day before the final public hearing of the Jan. 6 panel, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent unauthorized leaks, as well as keep its sources and methods of investigation under wraps.


    Riggleman’s book announcement came in the form of a tweet touting his upcoming appearance Sunday on “60 Minutes” as his first time speaking publicly about the book.

    Lawmakers and committee staff were largely unaware that the former staffer had spent the months since leaving the committee writing a book about his limited work on staff — or that it would be published before the conclusion of the committee’s investigation, according to people familiar with the matter who, like others interviewed by The Washington Post, spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.

    Senior staff previously confronted Riggleman after rumors circulated that he was working on a book about his work for the committee, according to a person close to the panel. In one exchange, Riggleman told colleagues he was writing a book on a topic unrelated to his committee work.

    In a later conversation, before his departure from the committee staff, Riggleman said he had been approached about writing a book related to the committee but that it would not be published before the end of this year.

    The ex-congressman gave notice in April after assisting the panel for eight months, saying he was leaving to work at an unspecified nonprofit related to Ukraine.

    Riggleman and his book agent did not respond to requests for comment.
Riggleman also bragged about the committee’s work publicly and gave interviews — an unusual move for a congressional staffer.

    Earlier this year, he told a crowd of “Never Trump” Republicans at the National Press Club that he would show through his committee work that the effort to overturn the election was “all about money,” and mocked several of the people under investigation.


    He stood outside with a range of Trump critics and told them he had just gotten new phone records and that they would be “explosive.” He declined to say what they were, but his comments tantalized those around him.


    “I wish I could tell you about it,” he said of the data he was reviewing for the committee. “If I did, you’d be more shocked than you could imagine.”……..

     
    News that a former adviser to the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is publishing a book billed as a “behind-the-scenes” look at the committee’s work came as a shock to most lawmakers and committee staff when it was announced last week.


    Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman, is set to publish “The Breach” on Tuesday, just one day before the final public hearing of the Jan. 6 panel, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent unauthorized leaks, as well as keep its sources and methods of investigation under wraps.


    Riggleman’s book announcement came in the form of a tweet touting his upcoming appearance Sunday on “60 Minutes” as his first time speaking publicly about the book.

    Lawmakers and committee staff were largely unaware that the former staffer had spent the months since leaving the committee writing a book about his limited work on staff — or that it would be published before the conclusion of the committee’s investigation, according to people familiar with the matter who, like others interviewed by The Washington Post, spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.

    Senior staff previously confronted Riggleman after rumors circulated that he was working on a book about his work for the committee, according to a person close to the panel. In one exchange, Riggleman told colleagues he was writing a book on a topic unrelated to his committee work.

    In a later conversation, before his departure from the committee staff, Riggleman said he had been approached about writing a book related to the committee but that it would not be published before the end of this year.

    The ex-congressman gave notice in April after assisting the panel for eight months, saying he was leaving to work at an unspecified nonprofit related to Ukraine.

    Riggleman and his book agent did not respond to requests for comment.
Riggleman also bragged about the committee’s work publicly and gave interviews — an unusual move for a congressional staffer.

    Earlier this year, he told a crowd of “Never Trump” Republicans at the National Press Club that he would show through his committee work that the effort to overturn the election was “all about money,” and mocked several of the people under investigation.


    He stood outside with a range of Trump critics and told them he had just gotten new phone records and that they would be “explosive.” He declined to say what they were, but his comments tantalized those around him.


    “I wish I could tell you about it,” he said of the data he was reviewing for the committee. “If I did, you’d be more shocked than you could imagine.”……..

    That's forked up
     
    Hey @Optimus Prime, I'm gonna need that panda gif again...


    Imagine if there are real bombshells revealed that’s way worse than we already know (or even suspected)

    ================================
    After months of wrangling, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to sit for an interview with the January 6 committee – thus avoiding a subpoena, at least for now.

    This development could open a vital inquiry into Thomas’s alleged role in seeking to thwart a peaceful transition of presidential power to Joe Biden.

    Just as importantly, this news renews attention on the question of whether Ginni Thomas’s radical rightwing activism influenced her husband, who weighed in on numerous 2020 election-related cases despite his conflicts of interest.

    So far, congressional Democrats have sat on their hands on this issue, presumably in deference to the supreme court.

    But with the rightwing court taking an axe to constitutional precedent and public opinion, an investigation into the Thomases might be the only way to course-correct what’s happening to the US constitution……

     
    Tomorrow’s hearing likely will be postponed due to expected landfall of Hurricane Ian.
     
    Ginni Thomas is sticking to the Big Lie, even when testifying before the January 6 committee.

    We still don't know her exact phrasing, but reports from members of the January 6 committee indicate that the right-wing activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reiterated during her testimony last week the false belief that President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Whether or not she was sincere in this claim is hard to discern.

    She also told the committee she never speaks about her extensive political activism with her husband, a claim so implausible that it casts doubt on the truthfulness of anything she said during an interview in which she was not put under oath.

    Telling the January 6 committee that you still believe the Big Lie may seem, on its surface, to be a really bad idea, but there may be a method to the madness here. After all, Ginni Thomas was deeply involved in Trump's attempted coup in 2020, as shown by a bevy of text messages to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows and emails to swing state legislators urging them to throw out the results of the election.

    Unable to plead innocence, Thomas may have decided the better course of action is to argue that her actions were justified by a sincere belief in the Big Lie.

    Thomas is not alone in going this route. On Monday, opening arguments kicked off in the high-profile trial of Stewart Rhodes and four other members of the far-right Oath Keepers, who are accused of seditious conspiracy for their extensive role in organizing the storming of the Capitol on January 6.

    Like Thomas, there's just way too much text message and email evidence for the Oath Keepers to deny their actions or intentions. Instead, they're going to argue their behavior was justified by the belief that the election was stolen and that Trump told them to do it.

    "Rhodes' attorney has said that his client will eventually take the stand to argue that he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a militia, which Rhodes had been calling on him to do to stop Biden from becoming president," reports the Associated Press.

    As Mike Giglio explained in the New Yorker, the defense strategy is to argue that the pre-planning of the insurrection "were not only legal" but "patriotic..........

     

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