Jan. 6 saw a horrifying attack on the Capitol that exposed huge cracks in the country’s democratic project, and ex-President Donald Trump and his top enablers — many of whom are still in Congress — have made it clear that the assault only swelled their thirst to maintain power at any cost. Several of Trump’s toadies helped the former president fuel and foment the insurrection using their top positions in government.
Wow, the stupid just burns in these people. It helps explain how Trump got elected in 2016, I fear there are too many of them for our society to continue to function.
These and the hundreds of others did all this, never imagining their effort would FAIL. They all sincerely believed at the time (and some still do) that they were doing the work of their lord and savior, DJT. None of the illegality of it ever registered with them because, as we’re finding out, they were responding to T****'s call for disruption and mayhem, in the hopes of keeping him in office, which (thank G-d and Greyhound) was a spectacular failure.
Or was it just a dress rehearsal for the next time?
Not quite OT, but I’ll share this here, a segment from Heather Cox Richardson’s blog this morning:
Thompson said the committee is especially interested in the multiple videos Trump recorded before he finally got one his team felt it could release. The earlier ones were unacceptable because he would not say what was needed to calm the rioting, and the committee wants to hear what is in them.
It seems to me there is also something very odd about that video, in that it appears to have been shot outside the White House at a time when the Capitol was under attack and the next three people in the line of succession to the presidency were all inside the besieged building. The fact that Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate Chuck Grassley (R-IA) were all in the same building was unusual by itself, and that they were under attack together was unprecedented. Even aside from normal procedures, with the line of succession in such danger, why wasn’t the president himself in a secure location, rather than outside the White House recording multiple takes of a video?
It seems so odd to me, I feel like I must be missing something obvious.
The multiple videos are among the materials the January 6th committee has subpoenaed from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Trump has sued to block NARA from complying with the subpoena, saying it violates executive privilege, although it’s the actual president, not a former president, who can invoke executive privilege and President Joe Biden has refused to in this case. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan denied Trump’s request for a preliminary injunction, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld that decision on December 9.
This morning, Trump appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, continuing to assert that he has the right to invoke executive privilege over the materials in order to protect the office of the president. Later in the day, Thompson asked the court to move quickly on Trump’s request, suggesting it should decide by January 14.
Oh, I don’t know about that - the only thing they’re missing a sense of propriety and a knowledge of right from wrong. Some of these criminals would be fine, upstanding members of the community with a lot to contribute if they weren’t sociopaths or so lacking in empathy.
I think Al Watkins’s comment “short bus people” needs to be bookmarked for the ages. It may be the only time in the history of the law where a defense attorney spoke the truth about his client.
