The 2nd Public TV Hearing
The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
Issue #66: American Government (About 3 minutes of reading time.)
First: A quick reminder of the difference between a “capitAl” and a capitOl”:
A “capital” is the physical location of the government of a jurisdiction. A “capitol” is the actual physical building that houses the government offices.
Example: In the spring of 2020, armed right-wing agitators traveled to Lansing, which is the capital of the state of Michigan, and staged protests against the governor and her COVID-related shutdowns by gathering in the rotunda of the capitol building and threatening members of the legislature as proceedings were going on.
You’re welcome: from your friendly retired English instructor.
Today’s Hearing
Today, Monday, June 13, 2022, the 2nd of possibly eight public televised hearings took place. Originally scheduled for 10:00 am ET, the hearings were delayed by about 30 minutes, but did start at 10:30 am and lasted for about two hours. There were two sets of panels.
According to the January 6th Committee website, the agenda for today’s hearing was to:
…present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, and provide the American people an initial summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power. The committee will also preview additional hearings.
Committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) made opening statements, and then Vice-Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) also made an opening statement.
Committee member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) did the majority of the questioning today.
You can read their opening statements in a press release here.
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Here is the video of Monday’s Hearing
The Witnesses
All of today’s witnesses and depositions were from Republicans, many in Trump's former “inner circle.” The fact that these are their own words, so people can’t say that this information is a Democratic “witch-hunt” against Trump. Well, they can try, but it obviously is not.
Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stephen was scheduled to testify today, but his wife went into labor early in the morning, so the Committee played some of the videos from his previous private depositions. The Committee chose the most damaging clips for their presentation.
The Committee also played portions of former Attorney General William Barr who stated that he believed that Trump’s fraud claims were “bullsh*t” and that he (Barr) was convinced there was no fraud.
Something that Barr said that was particularly important to me as a Detroit resident:
Trump tried to say that the fact that boxes of Detroit ballots were delivered to the former TCF Center in downtown Detroit “late at night” was “proof” that there was voter fraud in Detroit. Barr reminded Trump (without success) that there are over 630 precincts in Detroit and it has always been the policy to bring all votes from all precincts to a central counting station, so of course boxes of ballots were delivered there after the polls closed.
Video depositions from Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were also presented.
One of the key details the January 6 committee revealed during Monday's hearing that could be viewed as criminal was how Trump's lies about the election turned into millions of dollars in fundraising for Trump's campaign and the political action committee after the election, especially if it is proven that he knew he lost the election but continued to float the Big Lie just to raise money.
Former Fox digital politics editor testified about what happened on Election Night when Fox declared that Joe Biden had won Arizona. At the very beginning, when he was asked: “Who is the president of the United States?” he answered without equivocation: Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
BJay Pak, who was appointed by Donald Trump as U.S. Attorney General for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia resigned before he was fired. He was on the infamous phone call Trump made to the Georgia election officials, pressuring them to “find” just one more vote than Biden had received so that Trump could “win” Georgia. Because Mr. Pak would not go along with the Big Lie, he resigned the next day and he and his family have since received death threats.
There will be two more hearings this week:
Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 10:00 am ET: Rep. Cheney says that viewers will learn that members of the senior leadership in both the Department of Justice and the Trump White House threatened to resign.
Thursday, June 16, 2022, 1:00 pm ET: Rep. Cheney says that the emphasis on this day will be on Trump’s efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election.
I will be writing about the hearings this week after they have concluded.
What do YOU think about the hearings so far? Let us know in the comments.
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