Driving the Day:
Almost a year after the formation of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers are set to take their case public. https://t.co/ymC0E4vWX4
— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) June 6, 2022
Must Read Stories
January 6 Committee Hearings Begin In Primetime On Thursday, June 9
- Washington Post: Jan. 6 Committee Set To Make Its Case Public With Prime-Time Hearings: Almost a year after the formation of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers are set to take their case public. On Thursday night, Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will launch a series of televised hearings featuring a combination of live witnesses, pretaped interviews with figures that include Trump family members and previously unseen video footage. The hearings mark the culmination of an inquiry that has involved more than 1,000 interviews and reviews of more than 125,000 records. Taken together, the work represents the most comprehensive record yet of the deadly assault, and which panel members have come to believe stands out as only the most visible evidence of a broader plot to undermine American democracy — one that emanated from the White House. To tell that story, the committee will draw on testimony from administration insiders, including a previously obscure aide who has given the committee a detailed reconstruction of meetings and movements in the West Wing. The committee also has video recordings of interviews with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, that some inside the process believe will make for gripping television.
- CBS: Liz Cheney: Jan. 6 “Conspiracy” Was “Extremely Broad … Well-Organized”: This Thursday night, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will hold its first public hearing in nearly a year, asking us to relive, and reckon with, a day that some would rather have us forget. CBS News’ Robert Costa asked the committee’s vice chair, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, “Are you confident that what you have found as a committee will somehow grab the American people by the lapels and say, ‘Wake up: You have to pay attention’?” “I am,” she replied, calling the insurrection “an ongoing threat.”
- CNN: Trump Mobilizing his MAGA Allies To Defend Him Ahead Of January 6 Hearings: Former President Donald Trump has made it clear he is looking for cover from his closest allies around the upcoming public hearings by the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection — and some prominent names in Congress and the Republican Party are answering the call. Trump’s team has communicated to some of his most loyal acolytes on Capitol Hill that the former President wants people vigorously defending him and pushing back on the select committee while the public hearings play out, according to GOP sources familiar with the request. Committee members have teased that the hearings could be focused on Trump’s direct role in undermining the election results. The committee has been working toward a thesis that Trump’s obsession with losing the election and his peddling of false claims about the results is what laid the groundwork for the violent and deadly riot at the Capitol. Trump’s insistence that his allies defend his honor has mobilized Republicans both on and off the Hill into action, with a broad range of plans to protect him. This despite the belief by some Republicans that they should draw attention away from January 6 and instead continue to beat the drum of the present day economic and cultural issues that have resonated with voters.
New Information Reveals Intense Dangers To Democracy In The Days Before January 6
- New York Times: Before Jan. 6, Aide Warned Secret Service of Security Risk to Pence: The day before a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office. The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it. […] Mr. Short’s previously unreported warning reflected the remarkable tension in the West Wing as Mr. Trump and a band of allies, with the clock running out, searched desperately for a means of overturning the election. Mr. Trump grew agitated as his options closed, and it became clear that he was failing in his last-ditch effort to muscle his previously compliant vice president into unilaterally rejecting the voting outcomes in key states. The warning also shows the concern at the highest levels of the government about the danger that Mr. Trump’s anticipated actions and words might lead to violence on Jan. 6.
- Los Angeles Times: Trump Allies Explored Sending Armed Private Contractors To Seize Voting Machines In 2020 Election: Supporters on the fringes of former President Trump’s circle explored seeking sweeping authority after the 2020 election to enlist armed private contractors to seize and inspect voting machines and election data with the assistance of U.S. marshals, according to a draft letter asking the president to grant them permission. The previously undisclosed “authorizing letter” and accompanying emails were sent on Nov. 21, 2020, from a person involved in efforts to find evidence of fraud in the election that year. The documents, which were reviewed by The Times, are believed to be among those in the possession of the House Jan. 6 committee, which is scheduled to begin public hearings Thursday. The letter appears to be one of the earliest iterations of a draft executive order presented to the then-president in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, by then- Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com Chief Executive Patrick Byrne in an effort to take control of voting machines.
Peter Navarro Indicted For Contempt Of Congress
- New York Times: Navarro Indicted as Justice Dept. Opts Not to Charge Meadows and Scavino: A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, for failing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol attack, even as the Justice Department declined to charge Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino Jr., two other top officials who have also refused to cooperate. The indictment against Mr. Navarro, handed up in Federal District Court in Washington, marked the first time that an official who served in Mr. Trump’s White House during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, has been charged in connection with the investigation into the attack. Prosecutors charged Mr. Navarro, 72, with what amounted to a misdemeanor process crime for having failed to appear for a deposition or provide documents to congressional investigators in response to a subpoena issued by the House committee on Feb. 9. The indictment includes two counts of criminal contempt of Congress that each carry a maximum sentence of a year in prison, as well as a fine of up to $100,000. The Justice Department has declined to take similar steps against Mr. Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, and Mr. Scavino, the deputy chief of staff, according to people familiar with prosecutors’ decision and a letter reviewed by The New York Times informing the top House counsel of it.
Election Deniers And Conspiracy Theorists Could Gain Elected Office In Key States
- New York Times: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections: Key figures in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election have thrown their weight behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state across the country, injecting specious theories about voting machines, foreign hacking and voter fraud into campaigns that will determine who controls elections in several battleground states. The America First slate comprises more than a dozen candidates who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. It grew out of meetings held by a conspiracy-mongering QAnon leader and a Nevada politician, and has quietly gained support from influential people in the election denier movement — including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who has financed public forums that promote the candidates and theories about election vulnerabilities. Members of the slate have won party endorsements or are competitive candidates for the Republican nomination in several states, including three — Michigan, Arizona and Nevada — where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, State Senator Doug Mastriano, who is aligned with the group, easily won his primary for governor last month.
- Bloomberg: Capitol Riot Apologists Go Unpunished as Memories of Horror Fade: As Congress prepares for a series of televised hearings on the assault starting Thursday, polls show the Republican party is on track to make big gains in midterm elections despite fielding candidates who embrace the false narrative of election fraud that fueled the riot and shun efforts to investigate the attack. […] Less than a year after the attack, a poll showed more than half of Republican voters opposed continuing to identify and prosecute the people who carried it out. The few Republicans politicians who criticized Trump and his allies immediately after the riot have mostly remained silent. Some have decided to retire from Congress.
Woodward And Bernstein Thought Nixon Defined Corruption – Until Trump
- Washington Post (Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward): Woodward And Bernstein Thought Nixon Defined Corruption. Then Came Trump: In a deception that exceeded even Nixon’s imagination, Trump and a group of lawyers, loyalists and White House aides devised a strategy to bombard the country with false assertions that the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump had really won. They zeroed in on the Jan. 6 session as the opportunity to overturn the election’s result. Leading up to that crucial date, Trump’s lawyers circulated memos with manufactured claims of voter fraud that had counted the dead, underage citizens, prisoners and out-of-state residents. We watched in utter dismay as Trump persistently claimed that he was really the winner. “We won,” he said in a speech on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse. “We won in a landslide. This was a landslide.” He publicly and relentlessly pressured Pence to make him the victor on Jan. 6. On that day, driven by Trump’s rhetoric and his obvious approval, a mob descended on the Capitol and, in a stunning act of collective violence, broke through doors and windows and ransacked the House chamber, where the electoral votes were to be counted. The mob then went in search of Pence — all to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Trump did nothing to restrain them. By legal definition this is clearly sedition — conduct, speech or organizing that incites people to rebel against the governing authority of the state. Thus, Trump became the first seditious president in our history.
In The States
Authorities Are Probing Suspicious GOP Election “Audits” In Michigan And Georgia
- Detroit News: Mich. Authorities Investigating Barry County Sheriff’s Election Probe: The Michigan State Police and Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office have been investigating conservative Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf’s efforts to examine unproven claims of fraud in the November 2020 election. A document, posted online Saturday, detailed elements of the investigation. And a law enforcement source confirmed to The Detroit News that Leaf and a lawyer who’s worked on his behalf, Stefanie Lambert, are subjects of an ongoing investigation into the unlawful movement of tabulators outside of the jurisdictions of election clerks in multiple counties.
- Daily Beast: Texts Reveal GOP Mission to Breach Voting Machine in Georgia: The Georgia Secretary of State claims it is investigating how a local election supervisor gave a cadre of 2020 election truthers improper access to an election computer system, in what initially seemed like the latest example of rogue actors misusing their government positions to cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. But that investigation may expose a far more sinister plot than previously suspected, According to text messages obtained by The Daily Beast, the covert access granted to Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall and his technical team was actually part of a coordinated effort to find election irregularities. And the effort, it turns out, was led by a local elections official and the chair of the rural county’s Republican Party—who was also one of former President Donald Trump’s infamous slate of fake electors.
What Experts Are Saying
Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University presidential historian, on January 6: “‘The fact that it wasn’t a game-changing moment is pretty remarkable,’ Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University presidential historian, said. ‘It’s historically pretty hard to believe.’” Bloomberg
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, on the GOP’s 1/6 radicalization and parallels to fascism’s rise in Italy 100 years ago (Video): “If you were in the March on Rome, it was like a badge of honor…January 6th is this foundational event, it was a radicalizing event…I hope it doesn’t have the same outcome.” MSNBC’s Velshi
Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin professor of history at Yale University, on January 6 (Audio): Historian Timothy Snyder has spent his career studying how democracies fail and why. The author of ‘On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,’ said the Jan. 6 attack reminded him of Germany’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, a clumsy, failed attempt at a coup by Adolf Hitler and his supporters that provided the Nazi leader lessons for how to take power in a more sophisticated manner. Roll Call’s Political Theater Podcast
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections .
The Atlantic: American Rasputin: Steve Bannon is still scheming. And he’s still a threat to democracy.
Daily Beast: Trump Endorses Kevin McCarthy, Pisses Off His Own Supporters
Fox News: Former President Trump endorses Ohio’s JR Majewski for Congress
Insider: The GOP has proven to be an even ‘greater threat’ to US democracy than Trump in 2021, experts warn
The Nation: Dr. Oz’s Senate Campaign May Come Back to Haunt Us After All
NBC: Trump on the brink?
New York Times: Supreme Court May Hear ‘800-Pound Gorilla’ of Election Law Cases
Politico: Trump weighs a big bet in Alabama Senate race
January 6 And The 2020 Election
Axios: Jan. 6 committee’s private divide
Axios: Jan. 6 committee’s secret adviser
Axios: Ex-D.C. cop: “Most of the people in this country are indifferent” to Jan. 6 riot
Insider: January 6 committee will hold 6 hearings in June, Chairman Bennie Thompson says, scaling back from the initial plan of 8 hearings this month
NBC: Another Proud Boy who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 has pleaded guilty
Politico: How Biden plans to handle the Jan. 6 hearings
Politico: ‘That was the conservative vote,’ Tom Rice says of his vote to impeach Trump
Reuters: Republican Cheney warns U.S. democracy remains under threat
Washington Post (Analysis): Mike Pence’s team could see the storm coming
Opinion
New York Times (Jamelle Bouie): The Expansion of Democracy Is What Republican Elites Fear Most
Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Trump’s latest Jan. 6 grift poses a hidden challenge to Democrats
Washington Post (EJ Dionne): The Jan. 6 committee has a narrow but priceless opening
Political Violence
Detroit News: Flint man arrested outside U.S. Capitol with fake badge, body armor and high-capacity magazines
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Retired Judge John Roemer killed in New Lisbon; suspected shooter had other ‘targets’ that sources say included Gov. Evers
In The States
Detroit Free Press: Michigan Supreme Court denies James Craig, Perry Johnson and others spot on primary ballot
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Democrats challenge nominating papers of Trump-backed Republican governor candidate Tim Michels
