I promise you guys, I’m going to try to keep this simple for once, and not get down into the weeds. You deserve it, you’ve been with me through worse shit than this.
These televised J6 hearings are the GOP’s worst nightmare. The committee, and whomever is directing their presentations is smart enough to play to their audience. As a result, anybody who is watching these hearings is being presented with a See Spot-Run, Run-Spot-run video of how to tie a power hungry megalomaniac to a failed coup attempt on the Capitol. It’s just that simple.
But it didn’t have to be this way for the GOP. They have lawmakers who face possible criminal charges, or at the least House sanctions for their conduct leading up to January 6th. That may have played a part in it, but it doesn’t explain everything.
In the days following the Capitol riot, even GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted answers and accountability. He even named a trusted lieutenant to negotiate with the Democrats for a non-partisan commission to investigate. And got pretty much everything he could ask for.
The basic framework for the non partisan J6 committee was as follows. Both sides would get 6 members to the commission, and none of them could be sitting members of congress. Both sides would have subpoena power, and the the GOP would have limited veto power over some Democratic subpoenas. The chair would be independent, and cast the tie breaking vote. And most importantly, the commission would file a final report by no later than December 31st, 2021.
But there was a hidden land mine for the GOP. With a truly independent commission, neither McCarthy or McConnell would be able to stick their fingers in and diddle with the evidence and findings. And a truly independent commission would likely release a report that came down on Trump like a ton of bricks.
And so McCarthy pulled his support for the plan, and instead whipped his caucus to vote against it. Mitch McConnell actually begged his caucus to do him a personal favor, and vote against the commission. And they won.
Nancy Pelosi had no choice but to form a Special Select Committee to Investigate January 6th. But being desperate to make it bipartisan, she offered the GOP 5 seats on the committee. McCarthy nominated a couple of GOP flamethrowers, Pelosi shot him down, and got Cheney and Kinzinger to make the committee bipartisan.
But see, here’s the thing. McCarthy and McConnell miscalculated. And they miscalculated badly. And the reason they miscalculated so badly was for one simple reason. The Persona of Trump. Trump demands, and always has demanded undying, total allegiance in all things. McConnell and McCarthy bet that nobody would talk to the committee, and it would all fizzle out.
Man, oh man, did they back the wrong horse! That’s the funny thing about power, when you have it, you’re omnipotent, but when you don’t have it anymore, like when you’re sitting in Mar-A-Lago instead of the Oval Office? You’re a paper tiger.
That was where McConnell and McCarthy screwed up. Badly. They took for granted that all loyal Trump and administration officials would resist requests and even subpoenas to come in and talk.
But it turns out that there are a whole shitload of wannabe career federal staffers out there who didn’t quite see it that way. Trump was gone, he couldn’t do them any good anymore, but he sure as shit could sink their careers if they came down on the wrong side of this thing.
Everybody, and I mean pretty much fucking anybody who had evidence came in to talk to the committee. They have talked to more than 1000 witnesses, and most of them were voluntary. Think of all of the aides and staffers who nobody in power ever even noticed, who were in the rooms when the definitive conversations took place, took notes, and then went to the committee. The J6 committees subpoenas to the power players to testify were merely pro forma, to put them on the record resisting appearing. They already have pretty much everything they need from the aides and staffers.
McConnell and McCarthy rolled the dice, and they lost. They bet against the house that Trump’s persona would affect the lower level minions just as much as it did the higher level sycophants. But it didn’t, they had careers to salvage. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Don’t touch that dial.
Those lower level folks/staffers had something more important than careers to think about. They witnessed crimes and many saw people higher up than them that actually knew (legal) shit saying stuff discussed was criminal. Even run-of-the-mill legal representation when DOJ or some Congressional Committee comes a calling and wants to chat is a LOT of money for such people even if they didn’t witness anything wrong or criminal. And if they did, or fear they did they enter into a whole new world of financial as well as legal liability.
For people getting by on a typical staffer’s salary the ONLY thing that makes sense is for them to hire a halfway decent lawyer and RUN to cooperate with investigators. And if they’ve got receipts as the saying goes so much the better. That’s the only thing they could do to limit their legal/criminal liability and maybe not spend more on legal fees than it would cost to buy a house in DC or the suburbs. (Unless I’m mistaken there’s no possible tax deduction on legal fees that equal or exceed the many hundreds of thousands a home or condo costs in that market!) So hell yes the Committee, and DOJ too have a lot of witnesses who, if not eager (to save their own butts from charges) at least desperate to cooperate and for the higher ups folk’s lawyers it’s new yacht or villa in Davos time!
I have virtually no hope Trump himself will wind up being prosecuted (at least by DOJ) and not much more any of his evil spawn (and Jared) will be either but a whole bunch of others are going down. Even if we get our asses handed to us in the midterms there will still be two years to file charges and prosecute people and folks that don’t have WH cover will find it a lot harder to run out the clock than Trump and his family have done. And they will shell out MILLIONS in legal fees regardless.
If DOJ is wanting transcripts it’s because they are damned serious about prosecutions and will need to have them for formal charges because once filed Discovery kicks in and having that evidence in hand to turn over will take away one of the main tools their targets would have to file for delays.
There is no “two more years” after November.
There is just impeaching Biden first quarter 2023,
refusing to seat any Democrat who has won any election,
and the end of the Republic.
Thanks to the spineless non-response of all the “good people” the past six years and now — despite the fine job the J6 committee, esp Cheney, has the spine to do.
If the DOJ DOESNT prosecute trump…the legal system will be finally exposed as one goddamn sham. A gun to the collective heads of the poor & powerless. Not only not worth a moral person’s respect, but a system that stands on lies, persecuting citizens with laws that can’t be justified while protecting the rich class of criminals. A culture of evil.