Here is one way to get to the truth: subpoena them all, force them all to tell the truth, and throw them in jail if they don’t.
Unfortunately, the strong arm method is unlikely to get you very far.
Problem #1: To “force them to tell the truth,” you have to know the truth before you start questioning witnesses, which is the wrong order of things. Through the questioning of witnesses, the truth comes out.
Problem #2: People can say they don’t remember. Technically it’s perjury if a person says “I don’t recall” but they actually do recall. But it’s rarely prosecuted because it’s hard to prove, and a lot of people really can’t remember details.
Problem #3: The Fifth Amendment is always available as a way to avoid answering questions.
A hostile witness or an adverse witness is one who doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t want to talk. A good cross-examiner can squeeze facts out of a hostile witness, but it’s hard.
If all the witnesses are hostile, you may not get very far. The idea is to have as many cooperating witnesses as possible.
1. Cassidy Hutchinson’s Process
Cassidy Hutchinson had to go through a months-long process before she was able to be forthcoming with the committee. The Daily Caller published a “scoop” about Hutchinson that they presumably thought makes her look bad and makes Trumpworld look good. In fact, it sheds more light on Hutchinson’s process. (Here is the link because I always cite my sources, but I really hate to give that publication more views.)
For all of this, I’m relying on facts given by The Daily Caller (which I have no reason to doubt).
In February, Hutchinson received a subpoena from the Select Committee. She was twenty-six years old, unemployed, had no money, and no legal training or experience. Her aunt and uncle had offered to refinance their house to raise the money she needed for a lawyer but their application to refinance was not approved. When she wrote to Trump people, she was “primarily seeking financial assistance.” (From The Daily Caller)
The Daily Caller evidently thought this would make her look bad. What I see is a young woman who served the Trump officials (who had access to fabulous wealth) faithfully and loyally and, because of her service, she had to testify before Congress. She turned to the people she served for help. There is no way a person in her situation would have thought there was anything improper in asking for financial help from the wealthy people she had served.
Mark Meadows refused to take her calls. The Daily Caller said this made him look good (he didn’t want to “improperly” influence her testimony.) I call baloney. He was being a jerk. There would have been ways to give her money without influencing her testimony. “Here is money. Hire a good lawyer and good luck. And be sure to tell the whole truth.” Can you imagine anyone in Trumpworld doing that? Me, neither.
The Daily Caller wants us to believe Trump furnished a lawyer and suggested lawyers for her to interview entirely because they felt sorry for her. They wrote this:
When this article was published, right-wingers on Twitter did a lot of “haha” Tweets to the committee about how Hutchinson made “derogatory comments” about them in February.
What it tells me is that, as of February, she was still deep in the MAGA mindset and turned to the only people she knew with the means to help her.
For a few months, Hutchinson worked with a MAGA lawyer. Then she switched to a lawyer associated with Jeff Sessions, who represented her pro bono.
As per reporting, during the process, Hutchinson bonded with Liz Cheney.
The bond doesn’t seem “unlikely” to me. To me, it makes perfect sense. Both women are conservatives. Why wouldn’t Cheney, who had already gone through the process of rejecting Trump, not emerge as the perfect role model for the younger woman?
Hutchinson then became more forthcoming with the committee –but not without cost. After her testimony, she went into hiding with her family and a security detail.
After Hutchinson’s testimony, I said the best thing that could happen would be for other witnesses to come forward:
In fact, Bennie Thompson ended the hearing after Cassidy’s testimony with an appeal to other witnesses who might suddenly remember things they couldn’t recall, or find the courage they didn’t know they had:
2. Pat Cipollone’s Process
As a result of Hutchinson’s testimony, Cipollone agreed to testify under oath. Previously, he resisted. The committee primarily needed him as a corroborating witness. This is how the truth is established. If six people were in the room, and five give the same story and one says something else, it’s harder for a jury to credit the lone person. But if the White House counsel corroborates the lone witnesses, and the others have criminal liability, it gets easier to establish the truth.
3. John Eastman’s Process
How Eastman’s story will end remains to be told, but here is what we know right now.
In her opening remarks on July 12, Cheney explained how the Trump defense strategy is evolving:
“Initially their strategy was to delay and deny . . . Now the argument seems to be that Trump was manipulated by others outside the administration, that he was persuaded to ignore his closest advisers, and that he was incapable of telling right from wrong. This new strategy is to try to blame only John Eastman or Sidney Powell or Congressman Scott Perry or others and not President Trump. In this version, the president was “poorly served” by these outside advisers. The strategy is to blame people his advisers called “the crazies” for what Donald Trump did.”
Then, as if on cue, Geraldo Rivera proved Cheney correct by Tweeting this:
In a Tweet the same day, Rivera also mentioned Trump’s “impressive legacy” so we can see this is (1) an attempt to rescue Trump (2) an attempt to separate Rivera himself from the insurrectionists.
I can imagine Sidney Powell saying, “I have been thrown under the Great and Holy Bus, so be it.” But I think Eastman is (1) smarter and (2) has less criminal liability, and I think he is more likely to cooperate. Also, he’s less crazy so he’s likely to be useful as a cooperating witness. Powell is so nuts I can’t imagine she’d be of any use to the prosecution.
Recall that a few weeks ago, Eastman was raided by federal agents and his phone was seized. (On Friday, he lost his motion to get his phone back. I wrote about that here.)
See how these two things are coming together to create a situation where Eastman may be thrown under the bus by Team Trump at precisely the time he must decide whether to cooperate with the prosecutors who seized his phone?
4. The Process: How Our Understanding of Events has Evolved
What We Knew at the time of Trump’s Second Impeachment
On December 19, 2020, Trump summoned supporters to D.C. with his “be there, will be wild” Tweet.
During Trump’s January 6 speech on the Ellipse, he told the crowd: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Then, perfectly timed for when Congress was scheduled to certify the election, Trump directed his protectors to the Capitol and said he would accompany them.
Reporting at the time of Trump’s second impeachment told us this:
The theory was that (1) Trump’s December 19th tweet called his supporters to Washington D.C.,(2) his speech helped rile them, and then (3) after they reached the Capitol, they got out of control.
Legal scholars at the time debated whether “be there, will be wild” and “fight like hell” was legally sufficient to prove that Trump incited violence given that political speech is protected and the standard of proof in criminal trials is high.
No surprise, Trump’s defense at his impeachment was that his speech prior to the violence was protected by the First Amendment and that lots of politicians say “fight like hell.”
At the time, the emphasis was on the fact that the impeachment was not a criminal trial so the standard of proof was lower.
How the January 6 Hearings Have Changed Our Understanding of What Happened
Since then we have learned that the paramilitaries that led the attack on the Capitol (1) were not at the Ellipse when Trump gave his speech (they skipped the rally) and that (2) they came prepared for military action on January 6.
In other words, what happened was a lot more complex than what we thought at first. While Trump’s speech did incite members of the crowd, that alone would not have been enough to create the kind of damage that was done. Without help from these militias, it’s doubtful they would have been able to get in. Most likely, it would have been just an unruly crowd. Hence, the plan absolutely required the military planning of these militias.
(Also note that these new details undermine the theory that Trump’s speech at the Ellipse incited the attack.)
5. Takeaways from the July 12 hearing
This hearing told us what happened after December 14, when the electoral college certified Biden as the winner of the election, and the morning of January 6.
The committee continually emphasized that Trump’s legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, knew that they lacked actual evidence of widespread fraud, but they went ahead anyway with January 6th.
The Meeting that Triggered this Tweet:
At 1:42 am on December 19, Trump Tweeted this:
During the hours before Trump sent his tweet, a meeting described as “unhinged” was held in the White House. Attendees included:
- Trump
- Sidney Powell, a nutcase. (She’s the one who made outlandish claims about Venezuelan and Chinese interference in the election.)
- Rudy Giuliani, also a nutcase.
- Overstock.com ex-CEO Patrick Byrne (you can’t make this stuff up), another nutcase.
- Eric Herschmann, a lawyer and former political advisor to Trump.
- Pat Cipolloni. former White House counsel.
On the agenda: whether the president should sign an executive order (1) directing the Secretary of Defense to seize voting state machines effective immediately, and (2) appointing Sidney Powell as special counsel to seize those machines and then charge people with crimes.
This was a totally unhinged idea. There is no federal authority for seizing state voting machines and it would obviously allow these crazies to manipulate the evidence and then start arresting people.
The idea was shot down by Cippoloni and Herschmann. The “two camps” shouted at each other and threw vulgar insults.
The meeting occurred in various stages: For about the first 15 minutes, Trump was alone with Giuliani, Powell, and the Overstock guy.
Highlight: At one point, when Cipollone told Trump he didn’t have the authority to seize the machines, Trump told Powell, “See what I deal with. I deal with this all the time.” (I thought it was interesting that Trump was complaining about how his lawyers were continually telling him that he didn’t have the authority to do what he wanted to do.)
When the committee asked Flynn about what happened at this meeting, he took the fifth.
The meeting lasted 6 hours and ended after midnight.
Discouraged from what he wanted to do (seize voting machines), Trump sent his “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild” Tweet.
(Raskin said there was some “ambiguity” about whether Trump actually appointed Sidney Powell as special prosecutor, and the issue flared up over the next few days, but Trump’s inner circle didn’t act on it, so nothing actually happened.)
The Extremist Groups Mobilized in Response to Trump’s 1:42 am Tweet.
Here are some examples of how these groups responded to Trump’s Tweet:
From @dcpetterson: “Red wedding” is a reference to a specific incident in Game of Thrones in which all the guests at a fancy state wedding are brutally murdered in a pre-planned massacre for political purposes. “Salty Cracker’s” reference to a “red wedding” on Jan 6 implies an encouragement to murder many (or all) members of Congress. It’s not just a generic blood bath. It is a specific reference and intentional call to a pre-arranged mass assassination.”
One social media user wrote, “It will be wild means we need volunteers for the firing squad.”
A Twitter employee testified that he feared from the reaction on Twitter to the Tweet that there would be violence. He tried without success to get Twitter to do something about it.
Connections between the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and Trump’s Inner Circle
The committee ‘obtained evidence that Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Patrick Byrne (Trump allies) had connections to the oath keepers.”
We already knew about the Roger Stone connection from the DOJ indictments. I wrote about that in this NBC piece:
Trump Coordinated With Members of Congress
A White House meeting occurred on December 21 “regarding January 6.” According to White House visitor logs obtained by the committee, members of Congress present at the White House on December 21st included Congressman Brian Babin, Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Andy Harris, Jody Hice, Jim Jordan, and Scott Perry. Then Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene was also there.
They discussed Eastman’s theory that Pence had the authority to refuse to count electors on January 6.
Trump Kept Quiet The Fact That He Was Planning to Send The Crowd to the Capitol
This is from a text message from a rally organizer to Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO: “POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol . . . It can also not get out about the march, because I will be in trouble with the National Park Service and all the agencies. But POTUS is going to just call for it unexpectedly.”
Notice that Trump planned to call for the march to the Capitol unexpectedly 😕.
The Committee obtained this draft tweet from the National Archives:
This was never Tweeted (drafts stay around forever on the account if not deleted).
Interesting timing of a Bannon-Trump call on January 5
According to White House phone logs, Trump spoke to Bannon twice. The first call lasted 11 minutes. After that call, Bannon made his now famous declaration that “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It’s all converging and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack, right, the point of attack tomorrow. I’ll tell you this, it’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen, Ok? It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is strap in.”
Hmm. I wonder what was said during that call
Trump was in a good mood on January 5
Witness Nicholas Luna testified that Trump was in a jubilant mood on January 5 (he’d been in a foul mood for weeks) and asked if Congress would be “with him” and would refuse to certify the election. Sarah Mathews testified that he wanted to “make the RINOS do the right thing.”
Trump edited his speech at the Last Minute
In a phone call on the morning of January 6, Pence enraged Trump by telling him he would not go along with the plan to overturn the election. Trump called him vulgar names and then told his speech writer Stephen Miller to insert a line he had previously drafted targeting Pence. A single scripted reference in the speech to Mike Pence became eight. A single scripted reference to rally goers marching to the Capitol became four. (Some of these were ad-libbed.)
The word “peacefully” had been scripted. (This is important because his defense at his second impeachment was that he told the crowd to be peaceful.)
The DOJ investigation
Yesterday I had an offline discussion with someone who believes that Garland is going about the investigation all wrong. It occurred to me that much of the anger over Garland springs from just that: They think he’s going about the process of getting to the truth the wrong way.
I’ll try to pick up that topic soon, even though this week will probably get hijacked by the Bannon trial and the J6 hearing.
