The Case Against Donald J. Trump
It was a
criminal conspiracy
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Morning Shots reached
out to our colleagues for their reactions to last night’s prime time hearing by
the House January 6 Committee:
Will Saletan
In Thursday’s hearing, the House January 6th
committee clarified a shift in the incitement case against former President
Trump. The attack on the Capitol wasn’t really provoked by Trump’s speech on
Jan. 6. It was provoked by his tweet three weeks earlier.
The committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson,
pointed out that on the morning of Jan. 6, members of the Proud Boys began
moving toward the Capitol before Trump began his speech near the White House.
Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s leading Republican, summarized the evidence:
“The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot. Intelligence available
before January 6th identified plans to ‘invade’ the Capitol, ‘occupy’ the
Capitol, and take other steps to halt Congress’ count of Electoral Votes.”
Trump’s allies think this evidence undermines
the case against him. Minutes after the hearing ended, Sean Hannity boasted that
Cheney “admitted tonight ... that the violence on Jan. 6 was not spontaneous.
She said it. It was not the result of the president’s speech. Instead, she
points out it, was pre-planned.”
But there’s no
contradiction between the planning and the incitement. In her opening statement,
Cheney traced the planning to a meeting three weeks before the attack:
“On Dec. 18, 2020, a
group including Gen. Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others
visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the
group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military seize
voting machines and potentially rerun elections. ... President Trump met with
that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other
staff discovered the group was there and rushed to intervene.
“A little more than an hour after Ms. Powell,
Mr. Giuliani, General Flynn and the others finally left the White House,
President Trump sent the tweet on the screen now, telling people to come to
Washington on January 6th. “Be there,” he instructed them. “Will be wild!”
“As you will see, this was a pivotal moment.
This tweet initiated a chain of events. The tweet led to the planning for what
occurred on January 6th, including by the Proud Boys who ultimately led the
invasion of the Capitol and the violence that day.”
Thompson said
Trump’s tweet, issued early
in the morning of Dec. 19, “energized individuals from the
Proud Boys and other extremist groups.” In a video presented during
the hearing, Marcus Childress, an investigator for the committee, said
extremists perceived the tweet as a “call to arms.” He noted that a day after
the tweet, the Proud Boys created a “command structure”
to plan operations in Washington on Jan. 6. And the committee showed
video-recorded statements in which Jan. 6 defendants and convicts credited the
former president:
“Trump asked us to come.”
“He asked for us to come to D.C.”
“Trump has only asked me for two things: He
asked me for my vote, and he asked me to come on Jan. 6.”
“I know why I was there, and that’s because he
called me there.”
“He personally asked
for us to come to D.C. that day. And I thought ... if this is the only thing
he’s going to ask of me, I’ll do it.”
That’s a direct line from Trump’s words to the
ensuing violence, affirmed by the perpetrators themselves.
So, yes, the
committee’s evidence undermines the original theory that Trump’s speech on Jan.
6 caused the attack. But it bolsters the case that he’s guilty of incitement.
**
Amanda Carpenter
After tonight, it doesn’t matter if Liz Cheney
loses her congressional primary. There are 535 Members of Congress and none
will have so forcefully and single-handedly bent the historical record toward
justice as she did last night.
The January 6 Select Committee would not exist
without Cheney, meaning there would be no hearings, no future report, and no
future recommendations about how to stop another coup and attack on the
Capitol. Without Cheney, there would not be a shred of accountability for what
Trump, his political enablers, and the rioters did that day. Let that sink in.
Under Cheney’s guidance, a congressional
committee has laid out a seven-part conspiracy on behalf of the president to
overthrow an election. Maybe
the Democrats would have done something similar, but judging from Chairman
Bernie Thompson’s opening last night, I’ll take my bets on Cheney doing the
heavy lifting. Last night she put all the elements of a multi-pronged
conspiracy on, potentially, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s plate. She did
it. Not Thompson or Jamie Raskin.
Per her opening statement,
Cheney outlined that the hearings would focus on the following. Read it and
tell me this she wasn’t 100 percent right in sacrificing her leadership
position and potentially, her congressional seat to get the following
information on congressional record, as documented by well-credentialed
national security professionals, prosecutors, and former Trump officials, and
out in public:
1.
Trump’s
misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th.
2.
Trump
corruptly planned to replace the Attorney General of the United States so the
U.S. Justice Department would spread his false stolen election claims.
3.
Trump
pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on
January 6th.
4.
Trump
corruptly pressured state legislators and election officials to change the
results.
5.
The
Trump campaign and other Trump associates instructed Republican officials in
multiple states to create intentionally false electoral slates, and transmit
those slates to Congress, to the Vice President, and the National Archives,
falsely certifying that Trump won states he actually lost.
6.
Trump
summoned a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the U.S.
Capitol.
7.
Trump
failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his
supporters to leave the Capitol.
**
Mona Charen
For all the talk about hiring professional TV
consultants and producing a slick, 21st century show for a presumably restive
audience, the first night of the January 6 committee’s hearings was not that.
It was a hearing, and that proved to be a key part of its emotional wallop.
The contrast between the savagery of the mob,
and the orderly, legally-constituted procedures of a congressional committee
was stark. When Chairman Thompson would introduce films or other evidence with
the words “Pursuant to rule 7-462, I will now introduce . . .” the audience was
reminded that procedures, rules, and laws painstakingly assembled over
centuries were exactly what Trump was attempting to overturn with his
goons.
Liz Cheney’s dignified yet devastating
indictment of Donald Trump was worthy of the finest trial lawyer. She outlined what the committee’s evidence
would show – that Trump attempted to stage a coup in seven stages that included
subverting the Department of Justice, state legislatures, and the Electoral
College – walked through the evidence, and unflinchingly confronted the stakes.
Republicans who want to minimize the events of that day will throw up chaff,
but everyone else will be brought face to face with the reality that our 45th
president was a sociopath who, when told that his mob was chanting “Hang Mike
Pence” responded with “Maybe Pence deserves it.” Another telling detail – while
Pence was kept safe for three hours in an underground facility, Trump never
once asked about his welfare or attempted to contact him.
Perhaps the most effective moment of the
entire hearing was the use of Trump’s own voice, superimposed over the video of
his horde flaying police officers and crushing people underfoot, telling an
interviewer in July, 2021 “The crowd was unbelievable and I mentioned the word
‘love,’ the love in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it. Too much spirit
and faith and love, there was such love at that rally . . .”
People demand
something new. “After all this anticipation, they better deliver the goods,”
one commentator warned on Thursday. There was something new. As Chairman
Thompson noted, after more than 200 years of the peaceful transfer of power;
after every single president accepted the will of the voters, Donald Trump did
not. That was new.
**
Sarah Longwell
All honor to Liz
Cheney, who is prosecuting a sober and serious case against Donald Trump and
the extremist groups who love him. And who attacked the Capitol on January 6th
to keep him in office—despite Trump losing a free and fair election.
The hearings are giving us lots of new specific information, but none of it
fundamentally changes what we have known for a long time about what happened
that day. What it does do—at least for me—is refresh my rage at the entire
Republican apparatus that has worked so tirelessly to memory-hole the events of
January 6th. Showing us the horrors of the days are a reminder of what
elected Republicans—save the few who voted for impeachment—are willing to tolerate
and justify in the name of partisanship and political power.
All the Conservative Inc types on Twitter, cynically yawning and saying some
version of “nothing to see here” or “we already know this” are some of the most
grotesque actors in our politics. They are people who absolutely know
better. Who understand the difference between other kinds of protests—even very
damaging ones—and a coordinated attempt to overturn an American election.
To their everlasting shame, elected Republicans knew Donald Trump was lying
about the stolen election. And 147 of them voted against certifying the
election anyway. None of these people made a direct appearance at the hearing,
but Liz Cheney made sure they didn’t go unmentioned:
“I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible.
There will come a time when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will
remain.”
**
Bill Kristol
I have no idea whether tonight’s January 6th
Select Committee hearing changed any minds, or even opened some. I don’t know
what effect this first primetime hearing, or the subsequent ones, will have on
American politics in the months and years ahead. I wish I were more confident
they will help strengthen the guardrails of American democracy. But I am open
to the possibility that the hearings will have little practical effect.
Churchill’s great speeches in the 1930s made little difference in the short
term.
One can’t guarantee an effect. One can’t
control if one makes a difference.
What one can do is act
in a way that makes one’s fellow citizens proud. That is what the House January
6th Committee did tonight. And that is what Liz Cheney in particular did
tonight.
**
