6-3 Supreme Court is Destroying the Country

 

A coal-fired power plant in Winfield, W.Va. (Stacy Kranitz for The Post)

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The Cassidy Testimony

 WASHINGTON — The surprise hearing on Tuesday of the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack lived up to the drama that preceded it, providing the most detailed and intimate picture yet of President Donald J. Trump’s actions as a mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name.

The explosive and cinematic firsthand testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a trusted longtime aide of Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, portrayed the president as almost unhinged with fury when his Secret Service detail told him he could not go to the Capitol as his supporters, many of them armed, descended on it. Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Trump knew of the threat of violence by his supporters but was unconcerned by it, since they were not targeting him; and that he sympathized with them as they chanted for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused his entreaties to overturn the election. And she testified that senior aides had tried in vain to persuade Mr. Trump to call off the mob, but he resisted for hours. Her testimony was replete with stunning revelations.

Here are six main takeaways:

‘They are not here to hurt me.’ Trump encouraged an armed mob to go to Capitol Hill.

Upset that the crowd at his rally on Jan. 6, 2021, didn’t fill the cordoned-off space on the Ellipse, a furious Mr. Trump ordered security officials to allow people milling outside the security perimeter into the space so the event would appear well attended. Informed that some of those people were standing outside because they had weapons and didn’t want to pass through metal detectors, the president urged that they be allowed in anyway.

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“They are not here to hurt me,” he said, according to Ms. Hutchinson, who was within earshot of the president at the time. Using a string of expletives, she testified, Mr. Trump said he wanted the security features removed. She also said the president had been told that the crowd of his supporters were threatening violence and had come armed including with guns, knives, spears and flagpoles, and wearing body armor. Mr. Trump encouraged them to go to the Capitol anyway, a detail that could prove legally problematic for him.

Trump refused to call off the mob.

Ms. Hutchinson provided sworn testimony of an accusation that the panel has alluded to previously — that, despite the violence at the Capitol and the threats to Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump refused repeated exhortations from his staff to intervene. Responding to a series of appeals from Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, Mr. Meadows said that Mr. Trump was not inclined to try to call off the mob, according to Ms. Hutchinson’s account. “He doesn’t want to do anything,” Mr. Meadows told the White House lawyer when informed that violence was breaking out. Mr. Cipollone tried a second time, noting that the mob was chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

“You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it,” Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Meadows responded. “He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.”

Trump had bouts of fury.

Mr. Trump was prone to rage as his attempts to get the election results overturned fell on deaf ears in his administration.

Upon learning on Dec. 1 that Attorney General William P. Barr had publicly declared the allegations of widespread voter fraud unfounded, Ms. Hutchinson said Trump slammed his lunch against a wall in his dining room in the White House, as she learned from the valet who cleaned up the broken china and ketchup dripping down the wall.

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“There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go on to the floor and likely break or go everywhere,” she said of the president.

Ms. Hutchinson said she had been told that on Jan. 6, an irate Mr. Trump, when informed he could not go to the Capitol to join his supporters, sought to wrench the steering wheel away from the Secret Service agent driving him. He continued to press to head there even after they returned to the White House.

Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 Hearings

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Making a case against Trump. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack appears to be laying out evidence  that could allow prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump, though the path to a criminal trial is uncertain. Here are the main themes that have emerged so far:

An unsettling narrative. During the first hearing, the committee described in vivid detail what it characterized as an attempted coup orchestrated by the former president that culminated in the assault on the Capitol. At the heart of the gripping story were three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.

Creating election lies. In its second hearing, the panel showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers as he declaredg victory prematurely and relentlessly pressed claims of fraud he was told were wrong. “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” William P. Barr, the former attorney general, said of Mr. Trump during a videotaped interview.

Pressuring Pence. Mr. Trump continued pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing. The committee showed how Mr. Trump’s actions led his supporters to storm the Capitol, sending Mr. Pence fleeing for his life.

Fake elector plan. The committee used its fourth hearing to detail how Mr. Trump was personally involved in a scheme to put forward fake electors. The panel also presented fresh details on how the former president leaned on state officials to invalidate his defeat, opening them up to violent threats when they refused.

Strong arming the Justice Department. During the fifth hearing, the panel explored Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging and relentless scheme to misuse the Justice Department to keep himself in power. The panel also presented evidence that at least half a dozen Republican members of Congress sought pre-emptive pardons.

Two top Trump advisers sought pardons after Jan. 6

Mr. Meadows and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, both sought pardons from Mr. Trump before he left office in case they were implicated criminally in any events leading up to Jan. 6 or the assault itself. As she closed her testimony, Ms. Hutchinson stated very clearly that her former boss had joined Mr. Giuliani in asking for a pardon, though neither was granted one. Just their interest in obtaining clemency demonstrated they were worried about the potential consequences from their efforts on the president’s behalf.

She also testified that at one point, Mr. Cipollone said he had serious concerns about what Mr. Trump had planned that day, including his desire to march to the Capitol. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Ms. Hutchinson quoted Mr. Cipollone as saying.

Trump’s cabinet weighed removing him after Jan. 6

Members of the president’s Cabinet were distressed enough by the assault on the Capitol and the president’s encouragement of the mob and refusal to intervene that they quietly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, Ms. Hutchinson testified. The ignominious prospect of being the first president to be subject to the amendment was one of the reasons he agreed to record a video on Jan. 7 committing to a peaceful transfer of power.

The panel believes Trump is discouraging cooperation with its inquiry.

Members of the committee are hoping that Ms. Hutchinson’s willingness to come forward and provide such significant testimony will encourage others still holding back to do the same.

“To that group of witnesses, if you’ve heard this testimony today and suddenly you remember things you couldn’t previously recall, or there’s some details you’d like to clarify, or you discovered some courage you had hidden away somewhere, our doors remain open,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the committee, said.

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and vice chairwoman of the committee, suggested the panel had learned of attempts by Mr. Trump and his allies to influence witnesses and would be considering a response to such efforts.

Carl Hulse is chief Washington correspondent and a veteran of more than three decades of reporting in the capital. @hillhulse

The Greatest Scandal in American History

 

The National Interest  Republicans Are Trying to Cover Up Greatest Political Scandal in U.S. History By Jonathan Chait The January 6 hearings have two basic functions. The first is to reveal, to the degree it is possible, as much as can be uncovered about Donald Trump’s efforts to negate the 2020 election result and remain in office. The second is to expose the allies who are, in one way or another, complicit in his crime. On both counts, the committee is delivering. Tuesday’s hearings produced numerous revelations. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows and a first- or secondhand witness to the coup attempt, deepened Trump’s complicity in the insurrection. She testified that Trump instructed Meadows to call Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, two aides who were connected to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, the main paramilitary organizations that directed the violence; that Trump, after being told his supporters were bringing weapons to his rally, told the Secret Service to remove the metal detectors because “they’re not here to hurt me”; and that Trump was so desperate to join the march on the Capitol that he actually assaulted a Secret Service agent when he was denied on security grounds. At this point, even with the hearings in progress, it seems safe to rate this as the greatest political scandal in American history. This is true when measured by its depth (the lengths the perpetrators were willing to go extended to the violent overthrow of the U.S. government) as well as its breadth (the guilty parties included elected officials, lawyers, foot soldiers, and, of course, the president of the United States).

Maybe

 Maybe I'm making progress. Haven't had to secure a payday loan in at least 20 years. No overdue books at the library. The doctor says, "I'm amazed you've lived this long." But I'm still here. I used to be able to quote The Sermon on the Mount. I'm a little rusty on that, but I can hum along if you know it and I can certainly break into "Amazing Grace" at any time.

From the Washington Post

Roe v. Wade and abortion access in America

Roe v. Wade overturned: The Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years has protected the right to abortion. Read the full decision here.

What happens next?: The legality of abortion will be left to individual states. That likely will mean 52 percent of women of childbearing age would face new abortion limits. Thirteen states with “trigger bans” will ban abortion within 30 days. Several other states where recent antiabortion legislation has been blocked by the courts are expected to act next.

State legislation: As Republican-led states move to restrict abortion, The Post is tracking legislation across the country on 15-week bans, Texas-style bans, trigger lawsand abortion pill bans, as well as Democratic-dominated states that are moving to protect abortion rights enshrined in Roe v. Wade.

How our readers feel: In the hours that followed the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Washington Post readers responded in droves to a callout asking how they felt — and why.

 

The Right Wing Threat

 

Public faith in the Supreme Court is down to a historic low of 25 percent, and there’s a good reason why it keeps eroding. We are experiencing what the Founders feared: a crisis of governmental legitimacy brought about by minoritarian tyranny. And it could soon get a whole lot worse. In his concurring opinion in the abortion case, Justice Clarence Thomas called on the court to overturn popular precedents upholding a right to contraception, same-sex relationships and marriage equality. So much for Hamilton’s hope that “the sense of the majority should prevail.”

-Max Boot in the WaPost

LBJ and Vietnam

The greatest catastrophe in my lifetime was Viet Nam.  I've spent time today reading historian Michael Beschloss's account of Lyndon Johnson getting us into a war in Southeast Asia that everyone agrees in hindsight was a tragic disaster.  How might history have turned out differently?