Trump loyalists in Congress to challenge Electoral College results in Jan. 6 joint session (Update: Insurrectionists storm Congress)(And now what?) (3 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

I guess it's time to start a thread for this. We know that at least 140 members of Congress have pledged to join the objection. Under federal law, if at least one member of each house (HOR and Senate) objects, each house will adjourn the joint session for their own session (limited at two hours) to take up the objection. If both houses pass a resolution objecting to the EC result, further action can take place. If both houses do not (i.e. if one or neither passes a resolution), the objection is powerless and the college result is certified.

Clearly this is political theater as we know such a resolution will not pass the House, and there's good reason to think it wouldn't pass the Senate either (with or without the two senators from Georgia). The January 6 joint session is traditionally a ceremonial one. This one will not be.

Many traditional pillars of Republican support have condemned the plan as futile and damaging. Certainly the Trump loyalists don't care - and many are likely doing it for fundraising purposes or to carry weight with the fraction of their constituencies that think this is a good idea.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf

 

[bird]

Remember when a congressional subpoena was to be taken seriously?
===============


(CNN) - The Department of Justice has informed the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection that it will not indict two former Trump White House officials found in contempt by the committee.

According to a source familiar with the notification, US Attorney Matt Graves notified Doug Letter, the House general counsel, that the Justice Department had completed its review and had decided it "will not be initiating prosecutions for criminal contempt, as requested in the referral against Messrs Meadows and Scavino."

The New York Times first reported the news that Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to then-President Donald Trump, and Dan Scavino, former deputy chief of staff to Trump, won't be prosecuted.

The decision by the Justice Department is a blow to the House panel's efforts to enforce subpoenas related to its investigation and could embolden other Trump associates facing similar requests to not cooperate. It comes the same day that former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was indicted for failing to cooperate with the committee………

Welp, so much for another institution. When Republicans regain power not one Democratic politician should respond to any of their subpoenas. If subpoenas about the attempted overthrow of the government are not worth enforcing i don’t know what is.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Welp, so much for another institution. When Republicans regain power not one Democratic politician should respond to any of their subpoenas. If subpoenas about the attempted overthrow of the government are not worth enforcing i don’t know what is.

Only issue with that is I have no doubt that a Republican DOJ (especially if it’s Trumps) will have problem pursuing them

garland should definitely be asked about this

 

[Optimus Prime]

Now that the House committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection has announced the first of six hearings set to begin next week, former president Donald Trump and his allies are gearing up for a major media push in response.

Axios describes this as a “counterprogramming” of the committee’s presentation.


That’s a polite way to say that Trump’s propagandists will flood the media zone with a rancid gush of disinformation and lies, designed to dupe GOP voters into seeing themselves as the hearings’ victims and to pollute the information environment so the media activates its worst both-sides instincts.


The stench of grift is strong here.

Per Axios, GOP leaders and conservative groups will coordinate their mighty messaging across many right-wing media platforms to delegitimize the hearings.

That sounds formidable, but the ruse is to project swagger at a time when Democrats will command the national spotlight with a powerful tale of Trumpian violence and treachery.

Yet this effort does point to a big challenge Democrats face with these hearings: It shows that large swaths of the GOP and conservative establishment have fundamentally invested in full-blown denial that Trump’s effort to destroy our constitutional order requires any serious national reckoning.


That, in turn, could make a meaningful breakthrough harder for these hearings to achieve.


Think back over the storied congressional hearings in modern times, and you’ll generally recall some kind of big moment that grabbed attention across the country, demanding heightened recognition and introspection.

There’s the “Have you no sense of decency?” moment during the 1954 hearings that led to Sen. Joe McCarthy’s demise. Or White House official Alexander Butterfield’s revelations about Richard M. Nixon’s secret taping system during the 1973 Watergate hearings.

Or Rep. Henry Waxman’s extraordinary grilling of the nation’s leading tobacco executives in 1994.


The Jan. 6 hearings may struggle to achieve a moment quite like those……

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www.washingtonpost.com

 

[Taurus]

Now that the House committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection has announced the first of six hearings set to begin next week, former president Donald Trump and his allies are gearing up for a major media push in response.

Axios describes this as a “counterprogramming” of the committee’s presentation.


That’s a polite way to say that Trump’s propagandists will flood the media zone with a rancid gush of disinformation and lies, designed to dupe GOP voters into seeing themselves as the hearings’ victims and to pollute the information environment so the media activates its worst both-sides instincts.


The stench of grift is strong here.

Per Axios, GOP leaders and conservative groups will coordinate their mighty messaging across many right-wing media platforms to delegitimize the hearings.

That sounds formidable, but the ruse is to project swagger at a time when Democrats will command the national spotlight with a powerful tale of Trumpian violence and treachery.

Yet this effort does point to a big challenge Democrats face with these hearings: It shows that large swaths of the GOP and conservative establishment have fundamentally invested in full-blown denial that Trump’s effort to destroy our constitutional order requires any serious national reckoning.


That, in turn, could make a meaningful breakthrough harder for these hearings to achieve.


Think back over the storied congressional hearings in modern times, and you’ll generally recall some kind of big moment that grabbed attention across the country, demanding heightened recognition and introspection.

There’s the “Have you no sense of decency?” moment during the 1954 hearings that led to Sen. Joe McCarthy’s demise. Or White House official Alexander Butterfield’s revelations about Richard M. Nixon’s secret taping system during the 1973 Watergate hearings.

Or Rep. Henry Waxman’s extraordinary grilling of the nation’s leading tobacco executives in 1994.


The Jan. 6 hearings may struggle to achieve a moment quite like those……

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www.washingtonpost.com

Especially if Gutless Garland won't force them to appear.

 

[bird]

The entire platform of the Republican Party can be summarized as delegitimization of democracy.

 

[Taurus]

The entire platform of the Republican Party can be summarized as delegitimization of democracy.

"Government is the problem."

 

[Optimus Prime]

Good article by Woodward and Bernstein
======================
President George Washington, in his celebrated 1796 Farewell Address, cautioned that American democracy was fragile. “Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government,” he warned.

Two of his successors — Richard Nixon and Donald Trump — demonstrate the shocking genius of our first president’s foresight.

As reporters, we had studied Nixon and written about him for nearly half a century, during which we believed with great conviction that never again would America have a president who would trample the national interest and undermine democracy through the audacious pursuit of personal and political self-interest.

And then along came Trump.

The heart of Nixon’s criminality was his successful subversion of the electoral process — the most fundamental element of American democracy.

He accomplished it through a massive campaign of political espionage, sabotage and disinformation that enabled him to literally determine who his opponent would be in the presidential election of 1972.

With a covert budget of just $250,000, a team of undercover Nixon operatives derailed the presidential campaign of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, the Democrats’ most electable candidate.
Nixon then ran against Sen. George McGovern, a South Dakota Democrat widely viewed as the much weaker candidate, and won in a historic landslide with 61 percent of the vote and carrying 49 states………

Donald Trump not only sought to destroy the electoral system through false claims of voter fraud and unprecedented public intimidation of state election officials, but he also then attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his duly elected successor, for the first time in American history.

Trump’s diabolical instincts exploited a weakness in the law. In a highly unusual and specific manner, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 says that at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 following a presidential election, the House and Senate will meet in a joint session.

The president of the Senate, in this case Vice President Mike Pence, will preside. The electoral votes from the 50 states and the District of Columbia will then be opened and counted.

This singular moment in American democracy is the only official declaration and certification of who won the presidential election.

In a deception that exceeded even Nixon’s imagination, Trump and a group of lawyers, loyalists and White House aides devised a strategy to bombard the country with false assertions that the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump had really won.

They zeroed in on the Jan. 6 session as the opportunity to overturn the election’s result. Leading up to that crucial date, Trump’s lawyers circulated memos with manufactured claims of voter fraud that had counted the dead, underage citizens, prisoners and out-of-state residents……

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www.washingtonpost.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

What exactly is the end goal of these public session of the Jan 6th committee?

Even with all we already know I’m sure there is a ton of information we don’t and I’d imagine that some of it will come out

But will it change any minds?

Will it move the needle in any way in either direction?

People are firmly entrenched in their positions and I don’t know what could be revealed to change that

Will anyone thinking it was a normal tourist visit that got a little out of hand do a 180 and now say “oh my god! It was a coup attempt after all?!”

Will anyone saying that was all antifa and the FBI all of a sudden say “trump and company had been planning this for months!”

Public pressure for official charges to be made?

People to abandon Trump and Trumpism?

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

What exactly is the end goal of these public session of the Jan 6th committee?

Even with all we already know I’m sure there is a ton of information we don’t and I’d imagine that some of it will come out

But will it change any minds?

Will it move the needle in any way in either direction?

People are firmly entrenched in their positions and I don’t know what could be revealed to change that

Will anyone thinking it was a normal tourist visit that got a little out of hand do a 180 and now say “oh my god! It was a coup attempt after all?!”

Will anyone saying that was all antifa and the FBI all of a sudden say “trump and company had been planning this for months!”

Public pressure for official charges to be made?

People to abandon Trump and Trumpism?

They will be important historically but probably not immediately in terms of changing minds.

 

[MT15]

 

[Taurus]

Don't mean shirt if Gutless Garland won't prosecute.

 

[DaveXA]

Don't mean shirt if Gutless Garland won't prosecute.

Yeah, I'm skeptical. We'll see, but I'd be surprised if anything truly consequential comes of this.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The percentage of Americans who say former President Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol dropped to 45 percent in an NBC News poll released on Monday.

About 17 percent of respondents said the former president is solely responsible for the rioting, while 28 percent say he is mainly responsible, according to the survey.

In January 2021, 52 percent of respondents said Trump was responsible, with 28 percent saying he was solely responsible and 24 percent saying he was mainly responsible.

By comparison, the percentage of Americans in the new poll who say Trump was “not really” responsible for Jan. 6 grew to 35 percent, up from 29 percent in January 2021. About 20 percent of Americans now say he is somewhat responsible, up from 18 percent 18 months ago.

The findings come as the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot prepares for its first public hearing Thursday night. Lawmakers are expected to present their findings to the public after collecting thousands of documents and conducting more than 1,000 interviews............

Percentage of Americans who say Trump was responsible for Jan. 6 drops: poll

www.msn.com

 

[bird]

The percentage of Americans who say former President Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol dropped to 45 percent in an NBC News poll released on Monday.

About 17 percent of respondents said the former president is solely responsible for the rioting, while 28 percent say he is mainly responsible, according to the survey.

In January 2021, 52 percent of respondents said Trump was responsible, with 28 percent saying he was solely responsible and 24 percent saying he was mainly responsible.

By comparison, the percentage of Americans in the new poll who say Trump was “not really” responsible for Jan. 6 grew to 35 percent, up from 29 percent in January 2021. About 20 percent of Americans now say he is somewhat responsible, up from 18 percent 18 months ago.

The findings come as the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot prepares for its first public hearing Thursday night. Lawmakers are expected to present their findings to the public after collecting thousands of documents and conducting more than 1,000 interviews............

Percentage of Americans who say Trump was responsible for Jan. 6 drops: poll

www.msn.com

See Bird’s Theorem.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I must have missed what that was

 

[Optimus Prime]

Democracy defenders know what the Jan. 6 committee hearings due to begin Thursday must not do: follow the example of the Mueller report.

That report and its author’s testimony were long, confusing and inconclusive.


The Jan. 6 hearings and final report should aim to be the anti-Muller report.

Punchy hearings with plenty of visual aids, bullet-point summaries and concise testimony must deliver the definitive account of defeated president Donald Trump’s coup starting well before Jan. 6, 2021; a conclusion as to his criminality; and a compelling explanation for why prosecuting Trump and officials involved in the plot to overthrow the government is essential.


The committee has two audiences. The most critical is the public at large. Rational Americans not already determined to exonerate Trump should be convinced of his intimate involvement in the coup, of the seriousness of his actions and of the need for prosecution.

Ideally, there should be a groundswell of support for prosecution.

The evidence must be so compelling that Republicans’ ongoing efforts to perpetrate the “big lie” and to rationalize or downplay the insurrection make them look foolish, dishonest and malicious.

Perhaps that will encourage the media to stop treating Trump enablers as normal politicians and confront them at every opportunity about their betrayal of the country.


The second audience is the Justice Department.

Its attorneys must be convinced by the facts presented that failure to prosecute is unthinkable. While the committee will not be bound by rules of evidence, the proceedings can go a long way toward illustrating just how compelling an account can be painted for a jury.

Whether the committee makes a formal referral or not, Justice Department officials confident of successful prosecution should come away with powerful ammunition to convince their more reluctant colleagues…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/06/five-objectives-jan-6-hearings/

 

[Optimus Prime]

Paging Roofgardener
===================

Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, and four other members of the far-right group were indicted on Monday for seditious conspiracy in connection with the storming of the Capitol last January, the most serious crime to be charged in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the assault.

The sedition charges against Mr. Tarrio and his co-defendants — Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — came in an amended indictment that was unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington. The men had already been charged in an earlier indictment filed in March with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which took place during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021............

Proud Boys Charged with Sedition in Capitol Attack

 

[MT15]

I found this tweet interesting: