PRESS RELEASE Contact: [email protected]
For Immediate Release
Date: June 13, 2022
What They Are Saying on Day 2 of the Jan 6 Hearings
“This intent testimony we just saw was really damning.” – Ari Melber, MSNBC host and attorney
Washington, DC – Here’s what journalists, legal experts, and Committee members are saying about the second hearing of the January 6th Select Committee:
Marie Harf, Fox News: “We saw a portrait of a president today who is increasingly at odds with reality, and that is according to his own advisors, including people like Bill Barr…
“That is what is so extraordinary. The testimony this morning paints the picture of a president who is hearing from all of his top advisors — not all, but many of his top advisors, the ‘normal team,’ as Bill Stepien called them – that his claims are outrageous, they were B.S., not based in any fact. And yet he went out to his supporters and told them they were true, encouraged them, lit this match, encouraged people to believe these B.S. allegations. He asked them for money to help in his legal cases. He gave them a false sense of hope, and that culminated… in what we saw on January 6th.”
Barb McQuade, former U.S. Attorney and NBC News legal analyst, @BarbMcQuade:
“While it’s important for J6C to tell the whole story, a criminal case could be as simple as this: Trump knew he lost the election and pressured Pence to steal it for him. That’s conspiracy to defraud US, 18 USC 371, and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, 18 USC 1512.”
Laurence Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, @tribelaw: It’s counterintuitive to fit the biggest crime in our 246-year history into conspiracy to defraud the US (18 USC 371) + conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding (18 USC 1505), but that’s probably the shortest, surest path to handcuffs for Trump. Small is beautiful if it does the job: https://twitter.com/barbmcquade/status/1535985205667823616
U.S. Representative and Committee Member Zoe Lofgren, @cspan: “It’s clear that he intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what he said. Now it’s for someone else to decide whether that’s criminal or not.”
Laura Coates, CNN: “Every time you heard about… him claiming fraud or searching for fraud against all rational thought, he was essentially committing overt acts and furtherance of fraud – defrauding the United States by deceptive action. There is every inference he was aware that he was no longer the president of the United States…
“They have laid out the basic tenets of establishing defrauding the government of the United States. Trying to stop an electoral college certification by deceit and corrupt means.”
Joyce Vance, MSNBC: “If the former president were to be indicted it’s very likely that prosecutors’ theory would be, he actually knew, and if he didn’t know, he was willfully blind. There’s powerful evidence of that today. The testimony from the former attorney general is compelling when he talks about the example in Detroit where he’s told by Bill Barr there’s nothing wrong with these boxes of ballots that are going in – that’s the process in Detroit. Then Trump goes on the following day on TV and blows it up – says it’s indicative of fraud.”
Ryan Goodman, former DOD Special Counsel and co-editor of Just Security, @rgoodlaw: “Most damaging mens rea evidence so far.
Trump knew in advance and on Election Night of the ‘Red Mirage’ – creating false impression he was winning.
Trump nonetheless used mirage to tell his supporters election was being stolen.
Bill Stepien under oath
Bill Barr under oath”
Yamiche Alcindor, NBC News: “This part of the hearing has been gold because it really does show that there was a conscious effort and a conscious decision on the part of President Trump to lie.”
Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: “Devastating testimony taking apart the ‘big lie.’”
Katy Tur, MSNBC: “It was so detailed and so thorough … The big takeaway here… they told him how it was going to go, and when it happened, they told him he lost. And then when he said, ‘well what about this fraud,’ and they said ‘OK fine, we looked into it, it’s not there.’ They told him over and over and over again knocking down each individual allegation that he had.”
Ari Melber, MSNBC: “This intent testimony we just saw was really damning.”
John King, CNN: “What you’re hearing today is corrupt.”
Jamie Gangel, CNN: “Donald Trump’s head is exploding right now.”
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On Wednesday, June 15 at 10 AM ET, the Committee will continue to lay out real evidence gathered by non-partisan career prosecutors proving that Trump and his MAGA allies planned, promoted, and paid for a criminal conspiracy to overturn an election they lost.
This criminal conspiracy extends well beyond the violence perpetrated on January 6, 2021, that injured 140 police officers, including making it harder for people to vote, attempting to appoint bogus electors to overturn the will of voters, and intimidating state officials to change the results in contested states.
Getting to the truth during these hearings and then demanding accountability at the courts and the ballot box is how we stop the current MAGA campaign to sabotage future elections by changing state laws, threatening state officials, and packing election administration offices so that they can have the final say over election results – even when they lose.
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