And, as with the first hearing last week, no two review articles agree on how many take-aways there were.
Another opinion on the timing of the hearings, for the rest of this week, from today’s L. A. Times:
Wednesday June 15, 10:00 a.m. ET (Extraterrestrial Time) (7 a.m. Pacific).
Thursday June 16, 1:00 p.m. ET (10 a.m. Pacific).
Subsequent hearings still T.B.D. (Seven total implied.)
ETA: And yeah, I also saw somewhere that the might be up to 8 public hearings (through September?). That would actually make some sense: First hearing to give a preview of all to follow; seven more to cover each of the seven-fold plans of the coup.
I just watched today’s hearing on c-span.com. (The dash is important if you want to visit.) Well done presentation spelling out Trump’s logical defiance, instigation, and con man thievery. If it ends up merely being a testament for the historical record, we could do worse.
Does anyone else find it absurd how much effort has to go into debunking Trump’s endless gish galloping? Hours and hours of testimony, thousands upon thousands of pages of documents, video depositions from people who cannot possibly be “deep state” operatives and after all of it Trump is just going to plug his ears and repeat the exact same lies. It saddens me how vulnerable the whole system is to abuse by a toddler throwing temper tantrums.
Maybe at the conclusion of the J6 Committee investigation, when the final report is released, they will send Trump a bill for all the time they spent at it.
The Gang of Eight probably has mandatory access to foreign intelligence matters. Outside of that, I can’t think of any reason that the FBI or DOJ would voluntarily share information with anyone in Congress about an investigation into a domestic person.
And that said, the DOJ was asking the Jan 6 committee for their transcripts so they do seem to be interested in something that was covered by their investigation and - from the timing - that’s probably not to do with the Proud Boys or any of that, since the request was recent and those guys were already indicted.
Here’s a good article from Slate with a retort to Barr being considered a liberal hero for his testimony. His language in his deposition treats it as more of a joke than an existential threat to democracy. And remember that just a few weeks ago, despite thinking Trump is a dangerous, deranged buffoon, Barr said he’d vote for him in 2024.
How do you manage to skate the thin line between being complicit in the wrongdoing of the 2020 election claims and holding yourself out as a heroic whistleblower? How do you manage to discredit every single claim of election fraud that was advanced by the Trump campaign, but still stake your reputation on the ongoing problem of election fraud that is right now being used in at least 19 states to restrict access to the ballot? You do it by making light of the president, of Giuliani, and of the crackpot ideas they advance. You do so by casting it all as silly, as opposed to evil. And you do so by presenting yourself as the sophisticated elder statesman instead of the guy who slunk away when his country needed him.
Does anyone else get creeped out when they show video clips of Jared and Ivanka in the hearings? I’m not sure if it’s their webcam or what, but there is something distinctly “uncanny valley” about those two.
They always look like that to me, no matter what camera they use. I think they’ve just gone slightly too far with their makeup, trying for that perfect Barbie kind of look, so your brain starts to think they’re just dolls, and not actual people.
I may lead a dull life or have spent too much time listening to lawyers in courts but I find these hearings riveting. We are watching history. It is a relief to see that the committee is taking this seriously and doing what they need to do to put everything on the record, for now and posterity. They followed the evidence, it took them to Trump and they are not shying away from it. What happens after these hearings is not clear but they are not soft-pedalling this and I laud them for it.
I also think they are doing an excellent job in how they are laying it out. It’s following, loosely, a trial format. The first hearing was the opening statement, where they showed what happened and told you how they would prove it. Now we are going through the timeline and elements - that Trump knew he lost, he was told this unequivocably by his own people, he refused to accept it, he egged on his supporters and they heeded his call. They are using his own words and the words of his people against him. I think it is highly effective and the restrained way in which the evidence is being laid out only heightens the gravity of it.
Rudy Guiliani likes his booze but can’t handle it (hardly news)
The sane advisors repeatedly rebutted conspiracy theories only to have Donnie accept their explanations only to offer up another nutty theory. Repeat ad nauseum.
DJT seized the opportunity to grift a quarter billion dollars from people even more gullible and stupid than he is
I’m afraid his defense in court may be that he was too feeble-minded to have the capacity to know that he was committing a crime. We don’t prosecute five year-olds because they lack the ability to know right from wrong. The same might apply to Donald.
These two points contradict each other, though. If he “really believed” the election was stolen, why did virtually none of the money he raised go towards an investigation, or fund court cases, or pay the bail for his supporters who were arrested?
You don’t steal that much money by accident. He knew he was spewing BS, and he did it with the intent of stealing from his supporters even as he was counting on them to put him back in office. I don’t doubt he’ll try to pull this, but the courts have no obligation to fall for it.
We all know he doesn’t pay his lawyers no matter what. His sheep don’t know that so they could fall for such an obvious con. For him, it’s just normal behavior to con the rubes. He might actually believe the election lies just because he’s got the mental capacity of a small child.
Imagine my disappointment when I tuned in thinking I would get to substantially rewatch the hearings.
First, the MSNBC crowd droned on an on about how important it was to rerun the hearings in prime time, Watergate, yadda yadda.
Then I was treated to 2 hours of Rachel Maddow and friends smirking at short clips of the hearings, the same clips that had been running all day. At one point she played a clip of someone testifying without the sound while she described what they were saying.
It was exactly like normal MSNBC evening programming and I normally wouldn’t hate it, but they were promoting it as a replay of the hearing and that sucked. And none of the C-Span channels replayed it in prime time either.
This is important to me because even though I don’t work, the hearing schedule is uncanny, it’s like someone KNEW exactly when I had other commitments and scheduled all the hearings at those times. One reason I was looking for prime time reruns last night is so I’d know where to find them later this week. And I couldn’t find them anywhere.
I’m sure I can find them online, but it shouldn’t be so hard. And I’m pissed at MSNBC.
