Sad!
The Jan. 6 committee’s work might never lead to criminal charges against Trump or those around him. But it has certainly prompted an extraordinary round of sniping and infighting.
Perhaps the most pronounced example came Tuesday morning, when Rudy Giuliani effectively accused two top Trump campaign aides, Jason Miller and Bill Stepien, of perjury. Miller had said under oath that Trump’s former attorney was “definitely intoxicated” on election night 2020. (Stepien didn’t say this, though Giuliani apparently believed he had.) Giuliani also suggested they might have taken bribes for testifying to that effect.
Giuliani later deleted the tweets. (Some had noted the accusations could be grounds for defamation lawsuits. And another former White House aide, Alyssa Farah Griffin, confirmed Tuesday that Giuliani “appeared inebriated” on election night.)
But Giuliani didn’t leave it there. He later retweeted someone who pointed to a 2018 story about Miller being accused of slipping an abortion pill into his girlfriend’s smoothie. Miller denied the accusation at the time and sued those who promoted it, but the case was dismissed. (Miller didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday.)
Giuliani also linked to a story about Stepien’s role in former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s (R) “Bridgegate” scandal. Stepien ran Christie’s gubernatorial campaigns, but Christie fired him amid the scandal.
Both tweets were also apparently deleted.
The other big clash to emerge from Monday’s hearing was between Trump and his former attorney general, William P. Barr. The committee on Thursday and again on Monday played clips of Barr repeatedly deriding Trump’s and his allies’ voter-fraud claims in stark terms. On Monday, they added clips of Barr saying he informed Trump that his theories were bogus — something that could be legally significant.
Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington responded to this by accusing Barr of being a “cowardly RINO” and a “shill” for “Marxist Democrats” — a pretty remarkable allegation when you consider how much Barr bent over backward for Trump. (Trump also criticized Barr in terms he often uses for loyalists-turned-critics.)
There’s more. All the loonies are very upset.
