Crooks and Liars reminds us there were “big and evil plans” afoot should the 2020 presidential election not go Donald Trump’s way.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the select committee on Jan. 6th insurrection, about the extensive document request the committee made on Wednesday pertaining to the assault on the Capitol. The committee gave multiple federal agencies two weeks to produce the documents (Washington Post):
The requests include information on “communications within and among the White House and Executive Branch agencies during the leadup to January 6th and on that day,” as well as on issues further removed, such as “attempts to place politically loyal personnel in senior positions across government after the election.”
Other agencies being asked to provide information are the Defense, Homeland Security, Interior and Justice departments, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Many timelines. Many players. Documents dating back to April 2020. What is that all about, Maddow asked.
“Well, we have information that I can’t share with you at this point that individuals were planning in anticipation of the election not going their way and by getting access to this information, we’ll be able to prove it. Clearly the things we cited in our letter kind of lay out the predicate for what occurred. ‘If this happened, we’ll do this. If this happened, we’ll do something else.’ So there was always a plan A, B, C, D in this process. And so there were a lot of people involved,” Thompson said.
“We want to find out from the people who took out the permits for January 6th, the march. We want to make sure that those individuals who financed individuals coming here, that we talk to them. There are a lot of information that we will need and that’s why we did a significant wide net casting effort with this first letter, which I anticipate, to be very honest with you, there will be some other letters forthcoming also, because we need access to all the available information.
“Because, you know, when the president of the United States invites people to come on a particular day and in that invitation says, ‘It’s going to be wild,’ that causes the committee and a lot of other patriotic Americans real concern, because in America, we’re supposed to settle our differences at the ballot box. Not with an insurrection or anything like that. We are not a tin horn dictatorship, we’re the United States of America.”
Donald Trump now threatens to invoke executive privilege to prevent release of some documents.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson reflects on the broadness of the document request in her newsletter:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said the committee’s action proved it is not looking for truth but rather is engaging in politics. The committee asked NARA for records of communications between the president and “any Member of Congress or congressional staff.” This will sweep in McCarthy, who had a heated conversation with Trump on the phone as rioters invaded the Capitol. “They come for members of Congress, they are coming for everybody,” he said.
But, in fact, such a sweep is precisely how scholars actually figure out what has happened in historical events. Limiting research before you know the lay of the land simply obscures the larger picture.
But then, that’s the Republicans’ goal, isn’t it?