Senate page     Dec. 20

Senate map
Previous | Next

New polls:  
Dem pickups: PA
GOP pickups: (None)

The 1/6 Committee Hearings, Day 10: It's Criminal!

The ninth public hearing of the 1/6 Committee was supposed to be the last one. However, Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and his colleagues decided that they would bid farewell with one last, surprise episode. 30 Rock, The West Wing, Parks and Recreation, Gunsmoke, Bonanza and, arguably, Star Trek: The Next Generation had episode(s) that were produced after their finales, so why not the 1/6 Committee? Anyhow, if you didn't see it, and you would like to, you can watch here:



It was short and sweet, as far as these things go, clocking in at a little over an hour.

And now, as we did with the first nine hearings, here is a rundown of the 10 biggest storylines from hearing #10, in our view:

  1. Four Criminal Referrals for Trump: Let's not bury the lede. The big news of the day, which everyone knew was coming, was that the Committee decided to make four criminal referrals of Donald Trump to the Department of Justice. The four charges are: (1) obstruction of an official proceeding; (2) conspiracy to defraud the United States; (3) conspiracy to make a false statement and (4) inciting, assisting or giving comfort to an insurrection.

    We hardly need note, at this point, that these referrals have no legal standing. The Department of Justice can do whatever it sees fit here, including ignoring the referrals. That does not mean that the referrals are unimportant, however. First, as anyone and everyone is pointing out, this is the first time this Rubicon has been crossed. Never has Congress recommended criminal charges against a current or former president. Even Richard Nixon managed to escape that particular ignominy.

    The second significance, at least from where we sit, is that the referrals do put some pressure on the DoJ. By all indications, AG Merrick Garland is very mindful of his Department's public image, and works hard to try to show that he's just prosecuting balls and strikes. He does not want to appear to be party to a partisan witch hunt. At the same time, he also doesn't want to be the AG who fiddled while Washington burned. Even if every right-wing outlet (more below) will accuse the DoJ of partisanship when an indictment comes down, it's going to be very hard for the AG and for special counsel Jack Smith to shrug and say "we didn't find anything" after the Committee has done so much work and has reached a clear consensus on Trump. It is also relevant here that the two Republicans on the Committee also voted in favor of the recommendations, so this is not a partisan attack of Democrats vs. Republicans.

    The third significance is that if Trump remains a 2024 candidate, there are going to be lawsuits seeking to disqualify him from the ballot under the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. And when it comes time to make the case that he is not eligible to run because he "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [United States], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof," the plaintiffs will be able to point out that a congressional committee, after a yearlong investigation, concluded that Trump was guilty of "inciting, assisting or giving comfort to an insurrection." That will not be easy for Trump's lawyers to push back against, since who is in a better position to determine the intent of the members of Congress than... the members of Congress?

  2. Liz Cheney, Civil Warrior: The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in response to the actions taken by Confederates, particularly Confederate leadership, during the Civil War. The Committee very much wants to suggest that Trump is, in effect, a modern-day Jefferson Davis. It's not easy to make that point in a way that's not ham-fisted, but the Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) found a way. She talked about her great-great grandfather, Samuel Fletcher Cheney, who served with the Union's 21st Ohio Infantry Regiment throughout the war. After going through his bio very briefly, the Representative said: "I have found myself thinking often, especially since January 6th, of my great-great grandfather, and all those in every generation who have sacrificed so much for the unity of our Nation and the perpetuity of our institutions."

    In other words, the members of the Committee are a bunch of Abraham Lincolns and the people in Trump's orbit are a bunch of Jefferson Davises.

  3. A Moment of Hope: There wasn't all that much new evidence yesterday, but there was some. Perhaps most notably, there were two new clips of testimony from former White House aide Hope Hicks. In one, she said that she warned Trump about damaging his legacy with his actions on 1/6, and he replied: "Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose. So that won't matter. The only thing that matters is winning." In the other, Hicks said that she warned White House lawyer Eric Herschmann that, in the days before January 6, it was "important that the president put out some kind of message in advance" encouraging the protesters remain peaceful. Herschmann replied that Trump had already refused to do that.

  4. Witness Tampering: The other important bit of new evidence was that, according to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), people in Trump's orbit offered jobs (and possibly other inducements) to witnesses if those witnesses would agree to not testify. Lofgren also said that these job offers were yanked after the people gave testimony, and that the Committee has evidence proving this. The Representative was quite non-specific beyond that, though she shared this right before the clips from Hicks were played. That may be... instructive. In any event, if the Committee does have that proof, then Trump's in big trouble when it comes to "obstruction of an official proceeding." After all, the Committee hearings are just as official as the count of the electoral votes.

  5. Two Criminal Referrals for Eastman: The other person who will definitely be referred for prosecution is former law professor and Trump lawyer John Eastman. For him, the charges are: (1) obstruction of an official proceeding and (2) conspiracy to defraud the United States. In other words, it's the Trump list, sans the last two items.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who outlined the referrals, obliquely said that "others" were also worthy of referral. It is unclear if that means that the Committee will be making additional referrals that have not been hammered out yet, or if they are pointing out that Eastman is going to serve as the representative of the cohort around Trump who encouraged the former president to commit criminal acts, and who themselves committed criminal acts. If we had to guess, we would guess it's the latter. After all, if the DoJ goes after Trump and Eastman, it's not going to stop there. So, there's no real need to give the crime-fighting duo of Garland & Smith a more detailed roadmap than the one the Committee has already provided.

  6. No Referrals for Members of Congress: One thing we know for certain is that the DoJ won't be getting criminal referrals from the 1/6 Committee for any members of Congress. Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Scott Perry (R-PA) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ) all defied subpoenas, but will be referred to the House Ethics Committee rather than the DoJ. That Committee is always made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, so it might take up the matter in January. But it's chaired by a member of the majority party, very likely Michael Guest (R-MS), so don't hold your breath waiting for that particular investigation.

    It's understandable that the Committee made this choice. First, defying a congressional subpoena, while problematic, is rather less serious than the offenses leveled against Trump (and Eastman). Second, criminal referrals would make the already poisonous relationship between House Republicans and House Democrats even more so. If Jack Smith concludes that these four representatives are only guilty of ignoring a subpoena, he'll probably drop the matter, given the DoJ's general discomfort with going after sitting officeholders, especially for matters that are substantially political in nature. On the other hand, if Smith decides that any or all of these men aided in waging insurrection against the United States, then they'll surely get popped, sitting member or not.

  7. Internal Debate: Raskin conceded that the Committee was not at all in agreement about the question of referrals. He spoke of "two poles," with one pole being Committee members who basically wanted to refer everybody and the other being Committee members who wanted to refer nobody. "We ended up in the middle, with the idea that we should focus on the central actors with the major offenses," he explained.

  8. Limits of the Committee's Powers: Raskin also admitted that the Committee does not have all the information it wanted to have: "You'll see that when you read the report that there are lots of other people named as actors. But we were stymied by virtue of the fact that not everybody would testify, lots of people took the Fifth Amendment. So with respect to other particular actors, like [Jeffrey] Clark or [Rudy] Giuliani, we just can't say because we don't have quite enough evidence. That's going to be up to the Department of Justice to determine."

    It is possible that friends of Trump will glom onto these admissions from Raskin, using them as "proof" that the Committee's report is shaky and its conclusions are not to be trusted. In our view, however, Raskin's words actually increase the Committee's credibility. No legal case is free of holes, and no group of nine people agrees on everything. Being honest about that gives confidence that the Committee is being honest about everything else.

  9. Report Is Ready: The Committee's final report is complete, and the members voted unanimously to approve it yesterday. They will hand it over to the Clerk of the House sometime this week, probably tomorrow. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, they will also release the mountain of evidence they've accrued. For now, they have made available an executive summary. The "executive summary" is 154 pages, though, so make sure you have a couple of hours to spare if you plan to sit down and read it through.

  10. Greatest Hits: Although the Committee managed to get a fair bit of newsworthy stuff done yesterday, about two-thirds of their time was actually spent on reviewing footage and testimony from previous hearings. In other words, it was pretty close to a "greatest hits" clip show. The new and juicy stuff was squeezed into the other one-third.

The reactions to Monday's hearing were generally predictable. Democrats praised the work of the Committee. House Republicans said nothing, or slammed it as a sham, witch hunt, etc. Donald Trump blew his top, of course, and fired off a bunch of Truths on his boutique social media platform. For example: "The Fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax # 2. I WON convincingly. Double Jeopardy anyone!" Does he not understand how double jeopardy works, or is he just counting on his followers not understanding? We report, you decide.

Perhaps the most pathetic response came courtesy of Trump's former wingman/whipping boy/VP, Mike Pence. This is the same Mike Pence, you will recall, whose life was threatened by the former president, and who was momentarily in some real danger. But he still harbors the delusion that he can somehow win over the Trumpers, and ride them to victory in the 2024 presidential election. So, after the hearing yesterday, Pence said: "I hope the Justice Department understands the magnitude, the very idea of indicting a former president of the United States. I think that would be terribly divisive in the country at a time when the American people want to see us heal." We would argue that trying to overturn an election result, and maybe kill some members of Congress, is also rather divisive. But what do we know?

Also interesting was the response of Republicans in the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) issued this statement: "The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don't have any immediate observations." He's not exactly sticking his neck out there, and yet most of his colleagues refused even to go that far. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sprinted for the exit when asked to comment. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who is nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is, observed that he hasn't seen a poll showing that "the entire nation knows who is responsible." Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) slammed the Committee, but refused to say whether or not Trump committed a crime. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said McConnell was wrong. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that only the people who stormed the Capitol are guilty of a crime.

By our count, that's six grown men, and zero testicles. Do we have that right? Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will be downsizing her office soon; maybe these fellows can acquire a few of her extra pairs.

Needless to say, we'll have much more to write about this story over the course of the week, as we see how it develops. (Z)

The 1/6 Committee Hearings, Day 10: Right-Wing Media Coverage

Yesterday, in our preview of the final 1/6 Committee hearing (and their pending report), we wrote this:

What is really important is how the right-wing media play the story. It is too big to hide under the bed. They will have to deal with it. They could attack it as being horribly biased (even though two of the panel members are conservative Republicans). They could attack the witnesses as being biased. But the report will have so much detail, that knocking a dozen witnesses as biased won't really change much. Some right-wing outlets are already wavering on Trump. If more of them jump ship, that could be fatal to him. And if he is actually indicted and convicted, the trickle of deserters could become a flood.

We cannot know, as yet, how the right-wing media outlets will cover the report, since it hasn't yet been released. But we can take a look at how they covered (or didn't cover) the last hearing of the 1/6 Committee. We visited 10 different right-leaning outlets last night. For each, what follows is a list of their top five headlines as of 11:30 p.m. ET, and a note on whether they covered the 1/6 Committee hearing at all. If you click on the name of the outlet, it will take you to a screen capture of the front page of their website, in case you wish to see for yourself:

The Blaze
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: None.
Breitbart
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: The nineteenth story on the site is "ELECTION DENIER JAMIE RASKIN ANNOUNCES 4 CRIMINAL REFERRALS OF TRUMP TO DOJ."

Note also that we do not fully understand the first headline, but that's how it's rendered on the site, without punctuation that would make it clearer. Also, in case you don't know, Breitbart capitalizes its headlines as a matter of course. Presumably they think their crackpot ideas are more compelling if they SHOUT them at you.
The Daily Signal
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: None.
The Daily Wire
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: The tenth story on the site is headlined "Trump Responds To Congressional Committee Sending Criminal Referral To DOJ."
The Federalist
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: As you can see, it's the lead story. However, the angle is that the 1/6 Committee is a partisan witch hunt/scam.
Fox
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: The forty-fourth story on the site is headlined "Jan. 6 Committee releases 154-page executive summary detailing Trump's 'unlawful' conduct, criminal referrals."
Newsmax
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: Newsmax gave more coverage to the 1/6 Committee than all the other outlets combined. However, as with The Federalist, the angle is that it's all a big scam.
OAN
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: None.
Red State
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: The twentieth story on the site is headlined "January 6 Committee Refers Criminal Charges Against President Trump and Others."
The Washington Times
Top Five Stories: 1/6 Committee Coverage?: The eighth story on the site is headlined "House Jan. 6 committee recommends criminal charges against Trump, lawyer Eastman," and the tenth story is headlined "Alan Dershowitz dismisses Jan. 6 committee's Trump referral: 'Worthless piece of paper.'"

While there are right-leaning outlets that covered the 1/6 committee hearing as a serious news story, like WND, The Bulwark and The Wall Street Journal, none of them is Trump-friendly. Among the sites that are, or historically have been, Trump-friendly, there were three approaches: (1) ignore the news entirely, (2) bury the story, and (3) turn the news into a story about the deep state/Republican victimhood/Democratic corruption. If any of these outlets are looking for an offramp, so they can move on from Trump to some other Republican, there was no indication yesterday.

Looking over the lists, there are two legitimate news stories that were prioritized over the 1/6 Committee: the budget and the Supreme Court's latest ruling on border policy. Putting those stories front and center is obviously not the choice we made, but it's at least defensible. Other stories that were also ranked as more important: the Twitter Files, the ongoing drama at Twitter, Harvey Weinstein, various news from the world of sports (e.g., the death of a relatively minor baseball player from the 1980s), the spat between Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), wokeness and vaccines. How can anyone take seriously a news outlet with news judgment like this?

On a related note: Boy howdy is the right-wing media is obsessed with stories about sex, particularly if that sex is predatory in nature. We are not suggesting that such stories should be ignored, but something like 20% of all the items listed above have something to do with illicit or illegal sexual acts. Presumably, this is a form of confirmation bias—the audience for these platforms is full of folks who have been told that most or all sex acts are dirty, perverse, ungodly, etc., and perhaps have spent years or decades hearing horror stories about how the world is full of sex perverts of various sorts.

In any event, it is at least possible that when the 1/6 Committee issues its final report, one or more of these outlets will sit up, take notice, and give the story serious coverage. And by that, we mean "possible" in the same way it's possible that Trump will partner with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as his 2024 running mate. Clearly, these outlets remain in the bag for the 45th president, and it's hard to see what might change that. Maybe if he actually goes to prison, but even then, we doubt it. (Z)

The Beginning of the Bloodbath?

One of the main political legacies of Donald Trump is the absolute gutting of Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment of Republican Politics: "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." There are tensions in the Democratic coalition, of course—Hillary vs. Bernie, and all that—but they are nothing like the tensions in the Republican coalition. Many Republican members of Congress, particularly in the House, not only loathe Democrats, they loathe any Republicans they deem to be insufficiently committed to "The Cause" (whatever "The Cause" might be). Indeed, sometimes it seems that some Republicans hate their fellow Republicans even more than they hate the Democrats.

This is not a great recipe for governance, and yesterday—weeks before the Republicans actually gain power in the House—multiple sets of tensions boiled to the surface. To wit:

Maybe what we are seeing right now is a giant game of musical chairs, and once everyone on the Republican side has figured out what seat they will be occupying, this will all calm down. We are inclined to doubt it, however. The House Republican Conference could barely hold itself together when it was in the minority, and had no real power. Now, they're going to be running the show, with actual influence over the national agenda. Our guess is that yesterday was just a preview, and that the red team is going to spend the next 2 years eating itself alive. (Z)

Rep.-Elect George Santos (?) Is Apparently a Fraud

Republican Rep.-elect George Santos—at least, we assume that's his real name—has been trying to get elected to Congress for a while. In 2020, he finally made it to the general election, and was trounced by Democrat Thomas Suozzi in NY-03, 54% to 46%. In 2022, Santos ran in NY-03 again, this time winning the election by that same margin. This was due, at least in part, to the newly drawn district maps. It also helped that Santos' 2022 opponent, Robert Zimmerman, was not an incumbent. And was not the actual Bob Dylan.

Now that the dust from the election has settled, The New York Times took a close look at Santos' résumé and campaign biography. It is not clear if the newspaper also put other candidates under the microscope, but in any case, they struck gold with Santos. Just about every element of his backstory appears to be dubious. To wit:

On the other hand, the Times did find that Santos has a criminal record in his native Brazil, for theft and check fraud.

Santos' lawyer, Joseph Murray, issued a statement defending his client:

George Santos represents the kind of progress that the Left is so threatened by—a gay, Latino, first-generation American and Republican who won a Biden district in overwhelming fashion by showing everyday voters that there is a better option than the broken promises and failed policies of the Democratic Party. After four years in the public eye, and on the verge of being sworn in as a member of the Republican led 118th Congress, The New York Times launches this shotgun blast of attacks. It is no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations. As Winston Churchill famously stated, "You have enemies? Good. It means that you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

The careful reader will note that nothing in there is a denial of any of the Times' reporting. The really careful reader might also note that Winston Churchill never said that, famously or otherwise. It's a clumsy translation of a quote from the French author Victor Hugo. And really, would Churchill say something so pedestrian and with so little panache?

Some Democrats are calling on House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to refuse to seat Santos. That, of course, is never, ever going to happen. McCarthy is no Rhodes Scholar, but even he can figure out that a 4-vote margin of error is significantly larger than a 3-vote margin of error.

Most of what Santos did was sleazy, but not illegal. The only exposure he would appear to have here is if he fudged his campaign disclosure forms. If Santos did that, and if he is indicted for it, and if he's convicted, the House might expel him. But there are a lot of "ifs" and "mights" in there, so don't count on it happening.

Meanwhile, the New York Democratic Party has a little splainin' to do, since they really ought to have found this out before the Times did. New York state Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs, when contacted by reporters, whined: "It's unfair to blame the campaign for opposition research work that it did because the resources of a campaign are not as significant as a paper like The New York Times, that can do a lot more with its investigation." Uh, huh. How is $25,000 to hire an investigative firm not the first expense for a campaign, before a single commercial has been aired or a single bumper sticker has been printed? Bad miss here.

That said, Santos is likely to be a one-termer. His last opponent might not have had all this dirt, but his next opponent will. Further, there is a distinct possibility that New York Democrats might try to redraw their map to make it more Democrat-friendly. (Z)

The Word Cup, Part IX: Near Misses

On Thursday, we will begin revealing which slogans advanced to the knockout round. If you still want to cast your vote(s), you have until 11:00 p.m. PT on Wednesday:

Today, we thought we'd note some of the slogans that missed the cut. Some were considered in our original selection process, others were sent in by readers. In chronological order:

Clearly, this was a fruitful source for the contest, between these 20 slogans and the 32 that actually made the cut. (Z)

A December to Rhymember, Part X: Viagra Won't Help Trump's Insurrection Issues

Given the big news today, the focus is going to have to be on Donald Trump's Insurrectile dysfunction. We commence with this from S.B. in Natick, MA:

Monday ends with the time to pay pipers
For a band of electoral swipers.
Sudden realizations
Of incarcerations
May fill more than a few MAGA diapers

And then this from R.S. in Alexandria, VA:

Trumpty Dumpty
Promised a wall.
But lost re-election,
And had a great fall.

Insurrections, denials
And suits by his friends
Couldn't put Trumpty
In Office again.

But Trumpty kept fighting.
Refused to be barred.
He'll just keep on kiting
Within walls that are barred.

One of these days, the big news will be about the current president instead of the former president, and we can do some Joe Biden poems. The problem is that the current president knows to stay the hell out of the way when the former president is getting lots of bad press. Oh, well. In any case, here's the address for submissions. (Z)


Previous | Next


Back to the main page