We were of the impression that the Committee, with today’s public hearing and vote, had essentially completed its work and had, most definitely, set out a lot of hot information, the biggest reveals, reveals such as the pretty, young Cassidy Hutchinson, showing more bravery and “alpha maleness” than any of her colleagues, sitting in front of the committee, describing an insane man leaning over the seats, choking throats, trying to literally steer an SUV toward the Capitol, screaming “I’m the president!” (That was a big reveal).
And yet now, Politico assures us that there is much much more. Including the most important stuff:
The Jan. 6 select committee’s last — and most important — act won’t happen in a hearing room. It will come when one of the panel’s last, beleaguered staffers hits the “publish” button on its collection of evidence compiled over 18 months of investigation, material that still remains almost entirely secret. The committee is sitting on a stockpile of nearly 1,200 witness interview transcripts and reams of hard-won documents about Donald Trump’s attempt to derail the peaceful transfer of power.
The 160-page executive summary, which precedes a final panel report set for release as soon as Wednesday, hints at the extraordinary range of documents the committee collected. It references at least 30 “productions” of documents from various witnesses and agencies, including White House visitor logs, Secret Service radio frequencies and the Department of Labor, where then-Secretary Eugene Scalia produced a Jan. 8, 2021, memo seeking to call a Cabinet meeting to discuss the transfer of power.
Taper your excitement slightly. Just slightly. If you are a prosecutor that wants Trump in a courtroom defending a charge, the single last thing you want out is all these transcripts with each witness saying what they said out to the public. It not only allows every witness to coordinate their stories, but it also allows the defense to prepare for various witnesses and their testimony.
As much as we voyeurs desperately want these transcripts (And sweet baby Jesus as a Committee staffer, do we ever want to hear the “good stuff” in those transcripts, the infighting, the hatred, the back talk, the backbiting, the affairs…), it is not necessarily good for Trump’s ultimate prosecution, which was to be the goal of this Committee.
Regardless. If they are going to hit “Send” in a massive transcript drop, there most certainly will be a delicious buffet of “Who hates Who” in Washington in and amongst those transcripts.
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Well, this is Politico we’re talking about. I felt they always had a slightly conservative bent but they’ve taken a turn more so that way in more recent times. IOW they might well be trying to take a little wind out of the sails of the report by over-hyping the “Wow!” factor. (Not the level of WTF? of Trump’s NFT thingy but that was a truly epic fail) There will be plenty of gobsmacking stuff to be sure. But when it comes to transcripts I’m not so sure that will be as much as people think. And, as you say some will (and the committee members said as much) be held back, at least for a while for the reasons you cited. It’s not like DOJ hasn’t developed a lot of that on their own but the plain legal fact is that in the case of dual investigations, even if prosecutors are ready to go if they know (and they would) the committee had its own interviews/documents with relevant players they have to hold off on asking their grand jury for indictments in those cases because legally they will have to have those transcripts and/or documents, the OFFICIAL ones from the committee. It’s been a source of tension between the committee and DOJ for a long time now in fact.
Still, I suppose there will be surprises. Especially some unanticipated ones. When some of the information dump comes out a lot of people who “played ball” on Trump’s team and who relied on HIS lawyers or rather the ones he got for them realize they are open to legal jeopardy they will be begging (after hiring their own lawyer – money/cushy job be damned) to head to the grand jury to “correct” their testimony. And who knows just what evidence they can add to the pile?
Does the Committee have to take extraordinary measures to prevent Reps from shredding what seems to be the Reports supporting evidence as they take over? Is that a concern?
Even me at home keep multiple copies of important docs, so I would be pretty sure this stuff is backed up to multiple platform’s.
Wait til Jan when the cover up gains speed. Think any of these criminal house members who VIOLATED FEDERAL LAW will see the inside of a cell? No fucking way.
That was my sense when I heard Raskin say they would be referred to the ethics committee. What a joke. We can only hope that Jack Smith will se reason to do far more to those idiots who refuse to STFU and that the new house will decline to shut up.