July 13, 2022
DESPERATE MEN CALL FOR DEMENTED MEASURES:
"The West Wing Is UNHINGED": The January 6 committee reveals Trump's increasing desperation in the weeks leading to the assault on Congress. (DAN FRIEDMAN, 7/12/22, MoJo)
During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin and fellow members of the bipartisan House committee investigating January 6 homed in on Trump's actions in those pivotal days in mid December 2020. They depicted a president hell bent on doing whatever he could to stay in power. Trump didn't care about the reality of the election--he had extensive information indicating his fraud claims were false, according to further testimony shown on Tuesday, including from former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. Trump apparently was not bothered by the likelihood of violence; other recent testimony indicated that urged supporters to march on the Capitol on January 6 knowing they were armed.The hearing detailed the already infamous hours-long meeting on December 18 in which Flynn and Powell, along with Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, got into Trump's office without an official appointment and pressed Trump to sign an executive order allowing the Defense Department to seize voting machines. The effort also included seeking get Powell appointed as a special counsel who would be empowered to look for voter fraud she'd spent the prior month falsely claiming to have found.Notably, testimony on Tuesday indicated that Trump wanted to go with the proposals from Powell and Flynn, with him remarking that, unlike White House aides, they were offering "solutions." Playing clips of depositions from Powell and Rudy Giuliani, and from Cipollone, who gave the committee sworn testimony for the first time late last week, committee members outlined a raucous confrontation. Giuliani said in one clip that during the meeting he had called the White House lawyers "pussies." Powell said she thought Trump should have fired them on the spot. Cipollone and another White house lawyer, Eric Herschmann testified about trading insults and threats with Powell and Giuliani."What they were proposing, I thought was nuts," Herschmann said of the schemes proposed by the Trump loyalists.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 13, 2022 12:00 AM