Thread Theorist, Mauvais Homme over at Eschaton pointed out that David Brooks at the New York Times gave his prediction: “The January 6 committee has already blown it”

Mauvais said, “He’s the kind of guy who writes movie reviews before he has seen the movie.”

So I wrote how David Brooks would review the Godfather before he saw the movie, before I read his column.

If David Brooks’ reviewed 1972’s The Godfather the month before it came out:

Don’t bother watching The Godfather, it will be a waste of time.

“The Godfather was a great book. But Mario Puzo has never written a screenplay. It’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to turn his 448 pages of prose into a filmable script.

And whose genius idea was it to hire the man who helmed the cloying 1969 musical Finian’s Rainbow to direct this? Francis Ford Coppola is clearly the wrong man for this type of movie.

The casting is horrible. Marlon Brando is way past his prime. It has been 18 years since On The Waterfront. Maybe musical film director Coppola picked him because of his singing role in Guys and Dolls! (Speaking of bad music, he hired his own father to score it! He’s no Henry Mancini, I predict the soundtrack will be an ear bleeding, money losing disaster.)

Sadly the whole cast is filled by unknown TV actors, wannabes and has beens. Newcomer Al Pacino played a drug addict in Panic in Needle Park last year, but he just doesn’t have the range to play a character that grows and changes.

Don’t waste your time, save your $5.00 for something better. Mark my words, this will be an epic flop.” – David Brooks, New York Times unseen movie critic

The Show’s Not Over Until…

I’ve been watching the MSNBC shows and reading pieces on what they think the hearings will bring.

There are the theater questions: “Will they create a compelling narrative? How will it play on TV? What role does social media play?”

Political questions: “How will this impact democrats success in the midterms? Who will this sway? What will the Trump base think?”

Legal questions: “What will the DOJ do?” I know from watching Glenn, Barbara, Jill, Joyce and Eli that a criminal conviction needs to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. The DOJ needs to do this right and it takes time. I also know that the DOJ can get indictments if probable cause exists to support the charges.

I have since read his column. He’s not totally full of sh*t. Maybe 98% full. It’s based on what he thinks will happen. He thinks it will be a failure because the hearings won’t do what HE thinks they should do.

So that part of my fake review of his pre-review of The Godfather is correct, he’s basing it on what people have done in the past. As Digby wrote earlier today, The savvy media will call all this, “Old news.” The politico’s are doing the “You can’t reach Trump’s audience to change their minds” bit.

I’m tired of the “Trump’s base doesn’t care” stories. We, the majority of Americans, care. Also, the LAW cares.

Brooks thinks that people won’t care about the details about who texted Meadows about what. Well, when those people were talking about and texting their plan to obstruct the count are senators & congress people who are STILL SERVING, that detail MATTERS! Those people need to be removed from office.

I’ve heard multiple people ask former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, “When will Garland act? What can we do to pressure him to act?” I hear him and others talk about how the prosecutors need to follow the law and be politically independent. I hear, “We don’t want the DOJ to be politicized. They shouldn’t look like they are going after Biden’s political enemies. “
(My response is. “I want them to go after lawbreakers, period. Just because they happen to be Republicans and politicians isn’t the point.”

So I asked him, “What DOES get prosecutors to act?” He said that when they get new evidence, often from journalists and congressional committees, they have to investigate.

As my friend Professor Derbes said, “I would love five or ten of these monsters to be ejected from Congress.” Sure Trump’s base won’t like it, but I DON’T care. I’m not going to be in a diner in Ohio anytime soon to give my opinion to the New York Times, so I’ll write it here.

We, the majority of Americans, care. We care about our democracy. We care that TFG attempted to stop the certification of the fair election and invalidate our votes. We want changes made so this doesn’t happen again. AND we want the people who did this to be held accountable. Tell everyone what you want to happen.

Say what you are feeling to everyone. Your friends, enemies, social media, the press, your congress people. Don’t assume you are preaching to the choir. Don’t fall into learned helplessness. “Nothing will happen.”

I’m pretty good at predictions. But I’ve learned that my correct predictions don’t matter. My actions do. When you see these horrible things tonight say something.

I’m not a big phone caller, but I might make some calls tonight to my congresspeople. Their answer machines take calls after hours.

“It’s ultimately on us to make this the big deal it so obviously is.”

B1 Bummer

They’re getting weirder and weirder

This guy is backed by Peter Thiel, the wingnut billionaire. He also wants to “get to the bottom of” January 6th. And he has some ideas …

Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate from Arizona, met with conservative activists at a Phoenix IHOP this spring and was asked whether he would support investigating US intelligence operations to uncover the federal government’s “nefarious activities.”

Masters replied, “Absolutely,” and then floated the conspiracy theory that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol actually may have been a false-flag operation set up by the FBI, according to a recording of the March 30 meeting obtained by CNN.

“Don’t we suspect that like one-third of the people outside of the Capitol complex on January 6 were actual FBI agents hanging out,” Masters asked at the GrassRoots Tea Party Activists of Arizona event. “What did people know and when did they know it? We got to get to the bottom of this.”

Masters is part of a wave of Republicans who have won the coveted endorsement of former President Donald Trump after parroting his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and downplaying the actions of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol last year.

This is the guy who wants to overturn Griswold.

He’s a certifiable wingnut freak.

And he is the future.

That was then, this is now:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) asked if he still believes Trump bears some responsibility for January 6th:

“I thought everybody in the country beared some responsibility.” pic.twitter.com/yQ27DWUKw0

— The Recount (@therecount) June 9, 2022

New tapes of one of McCarthy's private post-Jan. 6 calls reveal the GOP leader had told fellow Republicans that the Capitol attack must be investigated: "We cannot just sweep this under the rug."

Per @jmartNYT and @alexburnsNYT pic.twitter.com/zGuBH8NdFD

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) June 9, 2022

“We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We need to know why it happened, who did it, and people need to be held accountable for it. And I’m committed to making sure that happens.”

And “I thought everyone in the country beared some responsibility…” He’s a dolt.

No biggie, who cares, it’s all water under the bridge…

Here’s Politico telling us that GOP is totally unconcerned about the hearings because it’s all such old news and nobody cares:

Coordination remains underway between aides to former President Donald Trump, GOP allies on Capitol Hill, and the Republican National Committee. But aides in those circles say that with the Jan. 6 committee having not yet revealed its witness list or the content to be unveiled, their actual plans for pushback remain TBD.

Allies say they expect Trump to weigh in on the hearings, but they don’t know if he will call into radio or TV shows or post to his social media site, Truth Social. The two Republican members on the committee who could theoretically provide insight — Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — have both been ostracized by the party.

The absence of a game plan isn’t causing stress, at least overtly. The hope is that Republicans on the Hill, particularly Trump loyalists like Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), will play the role of Trump’s public defenders. But while the House GOP will be engaged in responding to the hearings, the Senate side is likely to lay low.

Among Trump allies, there is also a sense that the public’s opinions on Jan. 6 are already baked in place and that even expertly produced hearings won’t materially change that. Underscoring that nonchalance, a person familiar with coordination between Trump and Hill Republicans said that the Republican National Committee hadn’t been very involved until recently.

“They saw this as people don’t care about it and aren’t paying attention and there are bigger problems,” the person said. “If nothing else in an election year this [Jan. 6] committee has united every Republican faction with an illegitimate committee and bureaucratic and government overreach at a time when many member constituencies are suffering.”

As a tactical matter, Trump and his allies are prepared to dismiss any new finding as a political distraction — not tied to the real concerns of voters. Steven Cheung, a former Trump campaign official and Republican campaign strategist, said Republicans have aligned on that messaging already.

“It’s important to highlight that it’s been a year-and-a-half since Jan 6 happened and look where we’re at. High inflation rates. High gas prices. A lot of crime happening,” said Cheung. “These are things people are focused on, and we’re going to spend the entire month in primetime television on Jan 6. What’s the purpose of it?”

Those downplaying the significance of the hearings have interests in doing so. The RNC, for starters, is currently in a legal battle with the committee over records held by Salesforce, a company that handles the RNC’s data and digital operations. The committee is trying to glean information about how RNC messaging and fundraising emails may have pushed falsehoods about the election.

“The RNC plans on aggressively responding to the partisan attacks and political theater the Democrats are engaging in with Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate January 6 Committee,” RNC spokesperson Emma Vaughn said in a statement.

Elsewhere, other Trump-allied institutions are not taking a casual approach. While Fox News has decided not to air the hearings in their entirety, the network was expected to bring on Trump-defending guests to rebut the news. Several of the network’s evening broadcasters, like hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, have had their personal texts to Trump officials revealed as part of the committee’s investigative work.

Chris Ruddy, CEO of the conservative leaning Newsmax, said the network plans to air the first hour in full and then will decide how much of the rest of the hearings to broadcast.

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, plans to have Stefanik and Harriet Hageman, the Wyoming primary challenger to Cheney, among others on his “War Room” show Thursday. While they will focus on the hearings, among other things, he insisted there was a general lack of excitement.

“There’s no electricity, no buzz, no real anticipation,” said Bannon, who was criminally charged with contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the select committee and is expected to go to trial next month. “It’s not even the A or B blocks [today] on MSNBC.”

And the Conservative Political Action Coalition, led by Trump-ally Matt Schlapp, will launch a website to publish documents and their own arguments. Schalpp said “dozens” of people will be working in a war room to respond to the hearings.

“We’re in a position of having to see what propaganda is out first, then us having to respond to it,” Schlapp said of the committee. “We’re aware of the seriousness of these charges and no one is taking this lightly in terms of the historic importance and of the American people understanding how outrageous and unconstitutional it is in an effort to mitigate [Democratic] losses in November.”

The committee, through carefully produced hearings, plans to present the initial summary of its findings about “the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power.” So far, little information about witnesses and potential bombshells has been released or leaked to the press.

On Thursday night, the committee is expected to focus on how the far right neo-Fascist group Proud Boys helped coordinate violence on Jan. 6. The committee will hear from Nick Quested — a British documentarian who followed the Proud Boys around Jan. 6 — and Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, one of the first officers injured in the attack. They will be the first in-person witnesses to appear before the committee as part of six Watergate-style hearings. In addition, the committee plans to air footage and recorded interviews with people including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Gregory Jacob, a top adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, is also expected to appear in person under subpoena next week.

One reason that Trump allies aren’t fretting about the absence of a detailed game plan for Thursday is that they and Republicans have grown accustomed to these types of scenarios. The former president and his inner circle went through two impeachment trials and three high-profile Supreme Court hearings, along with testimony from former special counsel Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary and House Intelligence committees.

Those trials and hearings required weeks of preparation inside the Trump White House and created a general frenzy among GOP communications staffers on Capitol Hill. But there is a been-there-done-that mentality now in Trump land. The day before the Jan. 6 committee hearings, the RNC had yet to circulate talking points to surrogates.

Wow. Every network except Fox agreeing to show this hearing in prime time is no big deal? Ok… Yeah, I’ll wait to see if they blow it off. I have my doubts. Trump is already upset:

He’s saying January 6th was the greatest movement in the history of our country. No biggie, right? What about those gas prices?

*Church of the Savvy is the term used by media critic Jay Rosen to describe the world weary pose of the beltway media when they tell the American people that they are fools for caring about anything.

What’s going to happen tonight?

They haven’t been forthcoming about the plans for the first night of hearings but we do know a little bit. The second hour will feature a Capitol cop and film producer Nick Quested who was filming the Proud Boys during the post-election period and January 6th. I’m no sure I understand that but I guess we’ll see. The first hour will feature opening statements by Thompson and Cheney and I hope they aren’t boring and don’t drone on too long. Other than that we’re just going to have to let it unfold:

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol plans to open a landmark series of public hearings on Thursday by playing previously unreleased video of former President Donald J. Trump’s top aides and family members testifying before its staff, as well as footage revealing the role of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, in the assault.

Committee aides say the evidence will show that Mr. Trump was at the center of a “coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election” that resulted in a mob of his supporters storming the halls of Congress and disrupting the official electoral count that is a pivotal step in the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

The 8 p.m. hearing is the first in a series of six planned for this month, during which the panel will lay out for Americans the full magnitude and significance of Mr. Trump’s systematic drive to invalidate the 2020 election and remain in power.

“We’ll demonstrate the multipronged effort to overturn a presidential election, how one strategy to subvert the election led to another, culminating in a violent attack on our democracy,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the committee. “It’s an important story, and one that must be told to ensure it never happens again.”

The prime-time hearing will feature live testimony from a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the Proud Boys during the attack, and a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was injured as rioters breached barricades and stormed into the building.

The committee also plans to present what aides called a small but “meaningful” portion of the recorded interviews its investigators conducted with more than 1,000 witnesses, including senior Trump White House officials, campaign officials and Mr. Trump’s family members.

Mr. Trump’s elder daughter Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his son Donald Trump Jr. are among the high-profile witnesses who have testified before the panel.

Mr. Quested, a British documentarian who has worked in war zones such as Afghanistan, spent a good deal of the postelection period filming members of the Proud Boys, including the group’s former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. Mr. Quested accompanied the Proud Boys to pro-Trump rallies in Washington in November and December 2020 and was on the ground with members of the group on Jan. 6, when several played a crucial role in breaching the Capitol.

Mr. Quested was also present with a camera crew on the day before the attack, when Mr. Tarrio met in an underground parking garage near the Capitol with a small group of pro-Trump activists, including Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers militia. Late in the day on Jan. 6, Mr. Quested and his crew were with Mr. Tarrio in Baltimore, filming him as he responded in real time to news about the riot.

Ms. Edwards, a well-respected Capitol Police officer, is believed to be the first officer injured in the attack, when she sustained a concussion during an assault at a barricade at the base of Capitol Hill. A man who has been charged with taking part in the assault, Ryan Samsel, told the F.B.I. during an interview more than a year ago that just before he approached the barricade, a high-ranking member of the Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, had encouraged him to confront the police.

Other officers around the building recall hearing Officer Edwards calling for help over the radio — one of the first signs that mob violence was beginning to overrun the police presence. Months after the attack, she continued to have fainting spells believed to be connected to her injuries.

A committee aide said Mr. Quested and Officer Edwards would describe their experiences, including “what they saw and heard from the rioters who tried to occupy the Capitol and tried to stop the transfer of power.”

The committee’s investigators believe Mr. Quested overheard conversations among the Proud Boys during the planning for Jan. 6.

I have to assume there is something very important about this line of investigation if they are featuring it on this first day of hearings. We’ll just have to tune in to see what it is.

If only democracy held up as well as Monopoly

Late night shows are too late for those who blog early, so Pres. Joe Biden’s appearance Wednesday night with Jimmy Kimmel is just getting to my feed. Biden is in Los Angeles for a three-day Summit of the Americas (Daily Beast):

Kimmel began by discussing an issue close to his heart, gun violence prevention, asking point blank, “Why haven’t we done anything about this?”

The president blamed “intimidation by the NRA” and the “MAGA party” that has taken control of the GOP before pivoting to praise Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for meaning what he says despite their many disagreements on the issues.

“Like when he said we can’t confirm a Supreme Court Justice with a year left and then said the opposite?” Kimmel asked in response.

Biden didn’t quite have an answer for that one, but while he said we need another assault weapons ban he would not “emulate Trump” by issuing any executive orders that potentially violate the Constitution. “I also get asked, ‘Look the Republicans don’t play it square, why do you play it square?’” he added. “Well guess what, if we do the same thing they do, our democracy would literally be in jeopardy and that is not a joke.”

When Kimmel suggested that the Democrats are “playing Monopoly with someone who won’t pass Go and won’t follow any of the rules,” Biden said then we need to “send them to jail.”

Uncle Joe is such a tease.

The whole thing is here.

Oh, yeah. Kimmel used his monologue to reply to criticism from Fox News that Biden appearing on his show was somehow frivolous.

Kimmel shared a comprehensive montage that showed Donald Trump fielding “tough questions from real hard-hitting journalists” at Fox and sent his “thoughts and prayers” to get them through this “difficult time.”

To everyone who is outraged that President @JoeBiden is here, we’re sending you thoughts and prayers to help get you through this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/O6GuzQ4ddi

— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) June 9, 2022

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Lights, camera….

Donald Trump’s insurrection was an assault on democracy that has not abated. Televised hearings on the Jan. 6 investigation begin tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. House committee members hope it will be “a really big shoo” (an expression too old for many of those who rioted).

Trump and Republican acolytes in Congress built up unrealistic expectations among the MAGA faithful that the 2020 election results would be overturned on Jan. 6, 2021. Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said in a recording from Jan. 5, “And when that doesn’t happen — most likely will not happen — they are going to go nuts.”

One did not have to be a seer to predict that. The rest of us should better manage our expectations for these hearings.

The panel sets out to show that the attack on the Capitol was not simply a Trump rally that ran amok, writes Stephen Collinson (CNN), “but was the culmination of weeks of chicanery to subvert a free election by a President who called a crowd to Washington and incited an uprising against the American experiment itself.”

The committee has assembled evidence that efforts to subvert the election took place from the nation’s capitol to state capitols. The committee, Collinson writes,

… has sought to establish, for example, the level of planning of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and whether there were direct links between the ex-President’s circle and partisan groups like the Proud Boys. Some leaders of the far-right extremist organization were this week charged by the Justice Department with seditious conspiracy in a bid to fracture the democratic transfer of power. Thursday’s hearing will feature testimony of two people who interacted with the group in early 2021.

It is unlikely that the televised hearings will change minds among those who went “nuts” that day. Everyday crises occupy most people’s minds. If they even hear any of the evidence presented. Republicans and Fox News mean to black-out or distract from as much of the hearings as possible.

CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor, said the committee needs to drive a simple message concentrating on Trump’s role but also encompassing the totality of the broader plot.

She said the hearings should focus on “not just January 6, (but) the misinformation campaign, the frivolous lawsuits, the fake electors scheme, the pressure on Mike Pence, the pressure on state legislators and state election officials, the planning of the January 6 rally, the involvement of congressional members … all leading to the insurrection.”

“They need to repeat, repeat, repeat: ‘This was the Trump coup.'”

Those old enough to remember may recall that the Watergate hearings were not “a really big shoo” at the start. But by the time former Nixon White House counsel John Dean described a “cancer growing on the Presidency” on live television it had become one.

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone is in negotiations with the committee to provide public testimony. ABC notes:

Cipollone was one of the few aides who was with then-President Donald Trump in the West Wing on Jan. 6. ABC News previously reported that in the days following the attack on the Capitol, he advised Trump that Trump could potentially face civil liability in connection with his role encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol.

Let’s hope Trump is sweating golf balls.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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The choice is clear

I'm ready to keep representing Georgia in the United States Senate! pic.twitter.com/t8GMC7N3s7

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) June 8, 2022

Sen. Warnock new campaign ad about Herschel Walker, where he pushes a magic snake oil body spray on the Glen Beck show that will supposedly immunize you from covid. pic.twitter.com/MvHqHL01Y2

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 4, 2022

I saw Herschel Walker on Sean Hannity last night and he was … not good.

Walker: We’ve got to get this crime back together… pic.twitter.com/T28PfxxtoP

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 8, 2022

Here’s what Walker told Fox when asked about the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and what, if anything, he believed should be done about it on the legislative front:

“Cain killed Abel and that’s a problem that we have. What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation — what about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women, that’s looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that and we can stop that that way. But yet they want to just continue to talk about taking away your constitutional rights. And I think there’s more things we need to look into. This has been happening for years and the way we stop it is putting money into the mental health field, by putting money into other departments rather than departments that want to take away your rights.”

Come on…

The testimony at the hearings around gun violence today in the House was searing

This was a tough one to watch. And the Republicans were even worse than usual.

Miguel Cerrillo, the father of Uvalde elementary school shooting survivor Miah Cerrillo, gives emotional testimony to House lawmakers:

"I coulda lost my baby girl. She is not the same little girl … Schools are not safe anymore. Something needs to really change." pic.twitter.com/twuwpuvyxX

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

Kimberly Rubio, mother of Lexi Rubio, a fourth-grader who was shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas school shooting:

"I told her we loved her and we would pick her up after school … I left my daughter at that school. And that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life." pic.twitter.com/Ka2rbL6rZI

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

Uvalde's sole pediatrician Dr. Roy Guerrero, who treated Robb Elementary victims, testifies before Congress:

"We are bleeding out and you are not there … I do my job. And I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg to please, please do yours." pic.twitter.com/Utvaq0ERri

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

There were lots of fireworks from congressional members:

Rep. @AOC (D-NY): "Between 2009 and 2018, how many school shootings did the United States have?"@BeckyPringle: "288."

AOC: "Let's look globally, our G7 partners…how many school shootings did those countries have?"

Pringle: "Five."

AOC: "It is internationally embarrassing." pic.twitter.com/pWMgSSuxSK

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

“In the history of our species, a number of civilizations have practiced or allowed human sacrifice, including the sacrifice of children … Will we be recorded as such a society?”

— Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) at House Oversight Committee hearing on gun violence pic.twitter.com/mCW5dTntJm

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

"We have trained kids to hide under their tables. We have trained teachers to barricade their doors … Now, are we going to train kids to cover themselves with their friends' blood in order to survive?"

— Rep. @Ilhan Omar (D-MN) calls for gun reform pic.twitter.com/RNYFwcexpQ

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

Johnson: In Uvalde, 19 good guys with guns didn’t stop the killer of 19 school kids and two teachers… pic.twitter.com/IpTbYowkng

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 8, 2022

And now for the fatuous gun zealots:

“You know what these houses did not have that were built 100 years ago? … Locks! Locks! Now I ask you all, what happened to that country?”

— Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) makes a very confusing argument against gun reform at House Oversight Committee hearing pic.twitter.com/Fn9siCA7dg

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

"To those who say that teachers or staff will not take up arms to protect their students, I say they will."

— Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) at the House hearing on gun violence pic.twitter.com/msV3wJgoIa

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

"Airplanes were used [on 9/11] … There wasn't a conversation about banning airplanes."

— House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) pic.twitter.com/t4LwDfw8T7

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

"We had AR-15s in the 1960s. We didn't have those mass school shootings … We actually had prayer in school during those days."

— House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) pic.twitter.com/NndUf3D5xb

— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2022

A judge unseals more evidence a crime was committed

We won’t see anything about this tomorrow night. But I would imagine it will play a part in future hearings:

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered conservative attorney John Eastman, who helped craft former President Donald Trump’s strategy to overturn the election, to hand over more than 150 emails, including one that the judge said contains evidence of a likely crime.

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter ordered Eastman to turn over a batch of 159 documents sought by the Jan. 6 committee that were not protected by attorney-client privilege in a court ruling first reported by Politico.

Carter said one of the documents is a December 22, 2020 email exchange in which an unidentified attorney urged Trump’s lawyers not to involve the courts in their bid to block the results of the election during the Jan. 6 session of Congress.

“Because the attorney concluded that a negative court ruling would ‘tank the January 6 strategy,’ he encouraged the legal team to avoid the courts,” Carter wrote.

The judge noted that the email contains evidence of a crime and is not covered by attorney-client privilege.

“This email cemented the direction of the January 6 plan,” he wrote. “The Trump legal team chose not to seek recourse in court — instead, they forged ahead with a political campaign to disrupt the electoral count. Lawyers are free not to bring cases; they are not free to evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election. Accordingly, this portion of the email is subject to the crime-fraud exception and must be disclosed.”

Carter also ordered Eastman to turn over 10 documents about meetings he had with an unidentified pro-Trump group whose “high-profile” leader met with Eastman to discuss Jan. 6 strategies.

The documents include a meeting agenda with a section called “GROUND GAME” that included an unidentified current member of Congress planning to “challenge the electors in the House of Representatives.”

“The Select Committee has a substantial interest in these three meetings because the presentations furthered a critical objective of the January 6 plan: to have contested states certify alternate slates of electors for President Trump,” Carter wrote. “Dr. Eastman’s actions in these few weeks indicate that his and President Trump’s pressure campaign to stop the electoral count did not end with Vice President Pence — it targeted every tier of federal and state elected officials. Convincing state legislatures to certify competing electors was essential to stop the count and ensure President Trump’s reelection.”

Some of the documents include communications directly from Trump that Carter determined were not covered by attorney-client privilege. One document was a photo with a handwritten note in which Trump wrote about the size of his rallies. Two others asked Eastman for advice about public statements related to their failed plot to send slates of fake electors to Congress.

Eastman was ordered to turn over the documents by Wednesday, one day before the committee begins to hold public hearings.

Eastman in January sued to shield emails from his Chapman University account but Carter repeatedly rejected his arguments, insisting that the committee’s work was necessary to protect democracy. Carter in March ordered Eastman to turn over another 101 emails, writing that the evidence shows that it is “more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” describing Eastman’s strategy as a “coup in search of a legal theory.”

Still, Carter on Tuesday ruled that more than 400 emails that Eastman sought to shield were protected by attorney-client privilege.

“Review of the 409 protected documents shows that none are ‘pivotal’ to the Select Committee’s investigation,” Carter wrote. “The majority of the documents include opinions and discussions about trial strategy in ongoing or anticipated lawsuits.”

Eastman began advising Trump shortly after his election loss and cooked up a strategy in which states won by President Joe Biden would certify alternate slates of pro-Trump electors which then-Vice President Mike Pence could then unilaterally choose to count during the certification of Electoral College votes. But state legislatures rebuffed the attempts and Pence refused to participate. Trump and Eastman continued to pressure Pence until Trump on Jan. 6 directed a mob of supporters to march on the Capitol, where they hunted Pence and other lawmakers in a failed bid to stop the certification. Some Trump supporters erected a gallows outside the Capitol while others chanted “hang Mike Pence.”

One day before the Capitol riot, Pence’s top aide Marc Short called the head of the vice president’s Secret Service detail to issue a warning about Trump’s pressure campaign.

“The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president,” Short told him, according to The New York Times, “and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.”

I have little expectation that anyone will be held criminally liable for the coup attempt (as opposed to the Insurrection where hundreds have been indicted.) Maybe I’m wrong about that but I think the DOJ mave have decided not to prosecute these crimes. They may think it’s too political or would foment violence or something else. Nonetheless, it’s pretty clear that this judge has concluded that the former president and his men committed a crime when they tried to overturn the election. Of course they did.