GOP Reps Plotted With White House To Summon Mob To Capitol? Say It Ain't So!
On January 6, 2021, as the Capitol was under attack and House members were being evacuated from the chamber, Liz Cheney rebuffed Jim Jordan's effort to "get the ladies away from the aisle" in blunt terms.
"Get away from me. You fucking did this," she said, slapping his hand, because, even as shit was going down, everyone knew exactly who had summoned the mob.
While most of her fellow Republicans doused their own Jiminy Crickets with Raid, Cheney voted to impeach Donald Trump, and has worked with Democrats on the January 6 Select Committee to uncover the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election, likely sacrificing her own political career in the process. Those efforts have confirmed that Republican members of Congress, particularly Jim Jordan and Pennsylvania's Scott Perry, played a vital role in the destruction on January 6.
On Friday night, the Committee dropped a monster filing in former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows's lawsuit seeking to block his testimony and a subpoena for his phone records. Of particular interest are Exhibits G and P, which contain excerpts of transcripts of testimony by Meadows's aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who cowgirled up, instead of hiding behind a preposterous claim of executive privilege like her pisspants boss.
(Side note: Hutchinson, who appears to have graduated from college in 2015, is represented by Trumpland lawyer Stefan Passantino. It would be quite interesting to know if someone is footing the substantial legal bill on her behalf.)
Hutchinson describes Meadows spending most of the January 6 pre-riot rally making phone calls in the control car of the presidential motorcade, which is a SCIF, i.e. a secured compartmental information facility. Hutchinson described Meadows as "stressed out" and anxiously trying to reach both Rudy Giuliani and Jim Jordan about the timing and content of Jordan's floor speech — none of which could possibly fall under the rubric of executive privilege, BTW.
Hutchinson also gave details of a December 21 2020, White House phone call with Meadows, Giuliani, and multiple members of Congress to discuss strategies to overturn the will of the voters. Jordan facilitated the call, along with a rogues gallery of GOP screamers. Matt Gaetz was there, of course, along with Jody Hice, Mo Brooks, Scott Perry, and Louie Gohmert, without whom no village idiot convention is complete. The Arizona contingent of wingloons was well-represented, with Andy Biggs, Debbie Lesko, and Paul Gosar drooling down the phone line.
And even though she wasn't in Congress yet, Marjorie Taylor Greene was there. But not Madison Cawthorn, who was maybe too busy smoking a blunt and punching a tree while wearing a sexy corset. (Allegedly! Live your best life, kid. Just do it somewhere else.)
Aside from listening to Rudy rant in his signature fashion, the representatives were basically kicking around ideas about how to stop the certification. Even back in December, they were scheming to have Mike Pence unilaterally reject electors in blatant disregard of his constitutional duties. But importantly, more than two weeks before the riot, they all seem to have been clear that at least some of the MAGA loons they'd summoned to DC were going to leave the rally and march on the Capitol, despite the fact that the permit was for a rally on the Ellipse, and not a march on Congress.
STAFF: Did Mr. Perry support the idea of sending people to the Capitol on January the 6th?
HUTCHINSON: He did.
STAFF: Did anybody on the call that you remember disagree with the idea of encouraging people to march to the Capitol on January 6th?
HUTCHINSON: Not that I recall.
STAFF: Do you remember anybody else on that call who specifically supported the idea of encouraging people to march to the Capitol on January 6th?
HUTCHINSON: I don't think there's a participant on the call that had necessarily discouraged the idea.
In case that wasn't 100 percent clear, those Republicans knew damn well the mob was going to descend on the Capitol. Scott Perry was talking back in December about putting out tweets to encourage them to come to DC. Perry was also smack in the middle of the plot to get DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark put in charge of the Justice Department so he could announce investigations of non-existent vote fraud in all the swing states that went for Biden, and tell the state legislatures to reconvene and claw back their electoral votes.
Unsurprisingly, Perry and Jordan have declined requests from the Committee to come in and discuss their role in the events.
TL, DR? They knew the mob was coming because they were the ones who sent out the bat signal. And before Liz Cheney gets shanked by her own party, she's going to stab as many of these treasonous sumbitches in the neck as possible.
It's going to be a wild summer. Whether voters care about it, though, is another matter.
Oh by the way, the Committee just leaked 2.319 of Mark Meadows's texts, if you want to read about that at CNN. Wheeeeee!
[Meadows v. Pelosi, Docket via Court Listener]
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
