Goodbye to all that MAGA drivel about a “partisan” “witch hunt.” The beauty of yesterday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing – the second in a deliciously devastating series – is that all the witnesses testifying live and on video about Donald Trump’s malignant lies were credentialed Republicans. Most were in his employ when it was obvious to them that the ’20 election was over and that the sociopath was a loser.
No need for Democrats to utter a word. Trump’s once-loyal insiders did all the talking we needed. Remember back when Trump boasted that he’d only hire “the best people”? Well, yesterday, “the best people” filleted him like he was a slab of cod.
Who knows whether the guy will ever land in the slammer. Nevertheless, it was sheer pleasure to hear the MAGA consiglieres flip on their Don.
Let’s bold-face the better-late-than-never truth-tellers:
Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who’d previously carried so much of Trump’s water, said that the lame duck president’s rants about supposedly rigged voting machines were “idiotic…complete nonsense…crazy stuff, doing a great disservice to the country.”
Trump lawyer Edward Herschmann said the rigged voting machines theory was “nuts.”
Veteran Republican elections lawyer Ben Ginsburg, best known for helping George W. Bush prevail in the ’00 Florida recount, said: “In simple fact, the Trump campaign did not make its case (alleging massive election fraud)…They had their day in court,” losing 60 of 61 lawsuits. “In no instance did a court find that the charges of fraud were real.”
Jeffrey Rosen, an acting attorney general after Barr’s resignation, said that all of Trump’s allegations of massive election fraud were “debunked.”
Derek Lyons, a former Trump legal advisor, said there was “no basis for litigation challenges.”
Alex Cannon, another Trump campaign attorney, said that he looked for election fraud, but “I was not finding anything.” He communicated that news to Trump flunky Peter Navarro (who was arrested and cuffed last week); in response, Navarro called him “an agent of the deep state.” Cannon, recounting this incident to the committee, added dryly: “I never took another call from Mr. Navarro.”
Richard Donoghue, an acting deputy attorney general, recalled his own meetings with Trump after the election: “When we’d (disprove) one allegation, he’d move onto another allegation…that was not supported by the evidence.” Trump got it into his head that fake Georgia votes for Joe Biden had been stuffed in a wheeled suitcase, but Donoghue told him several times: “No, sir, there is no suitcase.”
BJay Pak, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Atlanta (who quit before the Jan. 6 riot), said that he checked out Trump’s claims of voter fraud in Georgia, but was “unable to find any evidence of fraud which affected the outcome of the election.” In fact, that so-called suitcase full of fake votes for Biden was actually “an official lockbox where ballots were kept safe” overnight.
Bill Stepien, the last of many Trump campaign managers, said that after the election it was futile to convince Trump that there was no fraud. Stepien said there were only so many times that advisers could “go to the well.” He said that Trump’s election fraud lawsuits, which all magnified his big lie, were not “realistic.” And when Rudy Giuliani and fellow wacko Sydney Powell took over the legal mission, Stepien and his people stepped back. Stepien said that his gang called themselves “Team Normal.” As for Team Rudy’s lawsuit hijinks, “I didn’t think what was happening was honest and professional.”
Indeed, Trump advisor Jason Miller said all the trouble started when Rudy – “definitely intoxicated” – showed up on election night. Miller had advised that Trump sit tight until all the mail-in votes were counted. Stepien had voiced the same advice. (Indeed, Trump had already been told by the campaign’s data expert that he was on the path to defeat.) But Rudy insisted that Trump simply declare victory; shortly thereafter, Trump told a roomful of supporters: “We want all voting to stop.” (That’s Fascism 101.)
Ultimately, Trump’s relentless lies – his refusal to face facts – riled up his rabble and sparked the violence on Jan. 6. Al Schmidt, a Republican who served on Philadelphia’s election board, weathered that animus first-hand. After he refused to go along with the Trump-Rudy lies about (non-existent) Philadelphia election fraud, he and his family got death threats. These threats, he told the committee, were “specific” and graphic.” For instance: “Head on spikes. Treasonous Schmidts.”
And how pathetic it is that the grifter’s grassroots fans ponied up $250 million for an “election defense fund” that did not exist; the money was instead funneled to Trump hotels and other personal caches. (That’s the very definition of wire fraud, yet another federal crime.) It’s a waste of time to wonder whether his suckers will ever catch on, but maybe, just maybe, there’s a wee shred of hope that Republican activists – having witnessed so many Republicans ‘fessing up at the hearings – will finally decide that tethering their future to Trump is tactically (if not morally) insane.
In fact, veteran Fox News commentator Brit Hume said this yesterday: “If (the hearing members) succeed in damaging (Trump) or staining him, such that he is unable for legal or political reasons to run again, they might find out that they’ve done the Republican party a great service, because I think a great number of Republicans think they can’t win with Trump at the head of the ticket…They’d like him to go away.”
Alas, this year, at least 108 Republican primary winners for statewide offices or Congress have repeated Trump’s election-fraud lies. What will it take – even beyond the revelations at these hearings – to send the cultist into permanent exile?