Trump Sec Def Recasts Jan 6 As War Of Congressional Aggression
In fairness, he does have a book to sell.
We get mail! Sometimes our correspondents know what goes on at this here little mommyblog, and sometimes they're blissfully unaware of our oeuvre. It would appear that the publicist for former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller falls into the latter category, having emailed us an excerpt of his recently released book, Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon about America's Most Dangerous Enemies.
Get a load of this horseshit:
At 3:44 p.m. on January 6, 2021, I was sitting at my desk in the Pentagon holding a phone six inches away from my ear, trying my best to make sense of the incoherent shrieking blasting out of the receiver. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on the line, and she was in a state of total nuclear meltdown.
To be fair, the other members of congressional leadership on the call weren’t exactly composed, either. Every time Pelosi paused to catch her breath, Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Steny Hoyer took turns hyperventilating into the phone.
Great job, PR lady. Send us an excerpt that begins with something verifiably false — skip to 4:00 of this video to witness what actually went down in the interaction Miller is describing.
Look, you already knew this guy was a lying POS after his congressional testimony when he blamed DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, then-Speaker Pelosi, and "the media" for the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of culpability and claiming to have "reassessed" and come to the conclusion that "there was an organized assault element in place that was going to assault regardless of what the president said."
Here's Miller faulting Democrats for the DOD's failure to protect the seat of government, because lefties got mad when Trump used the National Guard to terrorize racial justice protestors:
“Get troops to the Capitol now, Mr. Secretary,” Pelosi demanded. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Prior to that very moment, the speaker and her Democrat colleagues had spent months decrying the use of National Guard troops to quell left-wing riots following the death of George Floyd that caused countless deaths and billions of dollars in property damage nationwide. But as soon as it was her ass on the line, Pelosi had been miraculously born again as a passionate, if less than altruistic, champion of law and order.
When I could finally wedge a comment in, I pointed out that I had already ordered the complete mobilization of the District of Columbia National Guard and that forces were on their way to the Capitol as soon as they were properly equipped and synchronized with the Capitol Police.
How can you expect the police to do their jobs if they aren't allowed to violate civil rights? UNPOSSIBLE!
In point of fact, it took Miller three hours to approve a plan to get the National Guard to the Capitol. And Miller himself put out a memo on January 4 explicitly barring the DC National Guard from making any preparations or move to stop potential violence without his personal sign off. Is he going to blame Nancy Pelosi for that one, too?
Miller goes on to say he "never could have imagined anything like this — getting reamed out by a histrionic Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell as they implored me to send troops to forcibly expel a rowdy band of MAGA supporters, infiltrated by a handful of provocateurs, who were traipsing through the halls of the Capitol, taking selfies, and generally making a mockery of the entire institution."
AYFKMRN?
Officer Brian Sicknick is dead. Ashli Babbitt is dead. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards suffered traumatic brain injury after Trump's supporters stormed the barriers and threw her to the ground, where she struck her head on the concrete steps. The mob was shouting, "Hang Mike Pence." Guy Reffitt, a member of the Three Percenters militia out of Texas, made a video of himself on that day saying, "I just want to see Pelosi’s head hit every fucking stair on the way out, and Mitch McConnell too, fuck ‘em all. It’s time to take our country back." The Oath Keepers, some of whom have been convicted of seditious conspiracy, marched in military formation and had a massive cache of weapons ready to go if and when Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and summoned them to keep him in power after he'd lost the election.
And while we're on the subject of the Insurrection Act, let's not forget that Miller was only in the job because Trump fired Mark Esper, the former defense secretary, because he refused to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to Black Live Matters protestors. So for Miller to say that his hands were tied because of Pelosi is bloody rich.
This wasn't a handful of kids breaking into their high school to spray-paint obscenities on the faculty lounge. It was an attempted coup with hours of bloody, hand-to-hand combat, and it's absolutely filthy for Miller to invoke his military service to denigrate the elected officials who demanded that the military step up and do its damn job when the nation was under attack.
"But I had never seen anyone — not even the greenest, pimple-faced nineteen-year-old Army private — panic like our nation’s elder statesmen did on January 6 and in the months that followed," he huffs, without acknowledging that teenage soldiers are heavily armed and surrounded by other heavily armed fighters. And not for nothing, but these soldiers signed up to defend American democracy and our Constitutional way of life, the very thing that was under attack on January 6, 2021.
"Here were the most powerful men and women in the world — the leaders of the legislative branch of the mightiest nation in history — cowering like frightened children for all the world to see," he goes on, without quite specifying what he thought the appropriate response should have been. Was Pelosi supposed to stay in the chamber and beat Refitt over the head with her gavel?
Note that Miller has not a single bad word to say about Mike Pence, who was also in a secure location during the attack. But this guy isn't really much for thinking through the logical implications of his blustering.
"Do I blame a bunch of geriatrics for acting like a bunch of geriatrics? Of course not. But do I judge them for it? You’re damned right I do," he growls sanctimoniously. "Most of all, I resent that we are ruled by a bunch of geriatrics that ruthlessly and selfishly maintain their hold on power and refuse to develop the next generation of leaders."
Oh, we're going to talk about geriatrics ruthlessly and selfishly maintaining their hold on power? REALLY? Yes, let's have that conversation!
Miller goes on to praise his own hearty ancestors, who were "tough as nails, and they taught us to be just as tough."
"You sure as hell don’t run away when you’ve got a job to do," he says, conveniently omitting to mention that McConnell and Pelosi made damn sure to get back into their chambers and finish the job that very night.
"I’m not looking to gain the plaudits of a national security establishment that has spent the last two decades losing wars in the Middle East," says the secretary of defense who announced that Trump had ordered the military to hand Afghanistan back to the Taliban. "I’m not looking for fame or fortune or a lucrative deal as a talking head on cable news. Other than my family and a handful of friends, I don’t give two shits about what anybody thinks of me."
Sure, buddy. We'll take it up with your publicist, who informs us that you'll soon be available for speaking engagements, in the same message where you're quoted saying, "I profoundly dislike talking about myself."
In summary and in conclusion, piss off, you self-important jackass.
Click the widget to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you're ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons.
Here's Joe Biden To Honor Heroes Who Kept Democracy Safe For ... This Nonsense Going On Now
We'll still take the farce over the tragedy, thanks.
To mark the two-year anniversary of the day American democracy almost went up in smoke and Trump flags, President Joe Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 12 people who did their part to preserve our institutions during and after the 2020 election. Those being honored at a White House ceremony scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern today will include law enforcement officers who were attacked by the mob at the US Capitol two years ago, but will also include election workers whom Trump falsely accused of doing terrible things because they did their part to administer and count the vote, too.
Read More: President Joe Biden Honors Heroes Of 1/6. Hint, Not The 'Tourists'
Biden will award the medals, the nation's second-highest civilian award after the Medal of Freedom, to folks chosen for their “exemplary contributions to our democracy,” who demonstrated “courage and selflessness” in upholding the election and the democratic process.
Here's your live video feed of Biden's remarks and the ceremony:
In addition to law enforcement officers who were injured defending the Capitol on January 6, Biden will also award a posthumous medal to Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was attacked by the mob and died of a series of strokes the following day.
Others being recognized include Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, both of whom said hell no to attempts to overturn the vote, as well as Al Schmidt, a Republican who, as a former member of the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, refused to let Trump and his creeps intimidate him into interfering with counting the ballots. (He's now been appointed to oversee elections by new Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.)
Biden will also honor Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia elections workers who faced constant death threats after Donald Trump and Fox News and all of rightwing media falsely claimed they had counted "suitcases" of fake ballots, or counted hundreds of ballots multiple times, or just for generally having been Black election workers who did their jobs and were therefore traitors.
For the full list of honorees, see Liz's post yesterday, and of course just watch the ceremony here, because Joe will tell us all about why these folks are the ordinary heroes of democracy we need more of. Even when democracy goes more than a little freaky, as it has in the House this week, it sure beats the alternative. Now if we could just get rid of all those insurrectionists still in Congress — with votes.
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please give $5 or $10 a month so we can keep bringing you the nice times!
President Joe Biden Honors Heroes Of 1/6. Hint, Not The 'Tourists'
Hooray, it is Nicetimes.
Look, kids, with Grampa Joe in the White House we really can have nice things!
As CNN was first to report, the president will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 12 heroes who defended our democracy when it was under attack by the previous occupant of the Oval Office. The prizes, which are the second-highest civilian honor after the Medal of Freedom, recognize individuals "who ha[ve] performed exemplary deeds or services for his or her country or fellow citizens." And tomorrow, in commemoration of the two-year anniversary of the attack on our nation's Capital fomented by a man who lost the election by 7 million votes, President Biden will pay tribute to the civil servants who held the line against the assault:
To mark two years since the insurrection on the Capitol, the President will host a ceremony at the White House on Friday, January 6th where he will deliver remarks and award the Presidential Citizens Medal to individuals who made exemplary contributions to our democracy surrounding January 6, 2021. These 12 heroes demonstrated courage and selflessness during a moment of peril for our nation. They include Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police, election workers, and officials at the state and local level.
The recipients include Capitol Police Officers Harry Dunn, Caroline Edwards, Michael Fanone, Aquilino Gonell, Eugene Goodman, and Brian Sicknick, who were assaulted by the mob on that day. Officer Sicknick later died of his injuries, while his fellow CPD honorees went on to advocate for their colleagues, as did Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges. These law enforcement officials constitute a living rebuke to the pro-insurrectionist wing of the GOP which purports to "back the blue."
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, both of whom received the 2022 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award, will also share in the honor tomorrow. Bowers testified in one of the House January 6 Select Committee's public hearings about the pressure campaign by Trump and his minions, particularly Rudy Giuliani, to reconvene Arizona's state Legislature and steal electoral votes for Donald Trump. Bowers received thousands of harassing phone calls and emails, with protestors picketing his home and shouting through a bullhorn that he was a pedophile. Benson faced similar harassment from Trump's supporters, with dozens of armed individuals showing up at her home before Christmas as she was putting her 4-year-old son to bed to shout threats and obscenities through a bullhorn.
Likewise, honoree Al Schmidt, a former member of the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, testified publicly that he and his family faced threats of violence after Trump directed his followers' rage toward the official for his refusal to "Stop the count." Schmidt, a former executive director of the Philadelphia GOP and senior adviser to the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, was recently named the state's chief elections official by incoming Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro.
Rounding out the list are Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia election workers who faced an unrelenting wave of threats when they were falsely accused by Trump and Giuliani of tabulating "suitcases" of fraudulent ballots in Georgia. Trump was told over and over that this was false, and yet he continues to lie about the pair, even up to this week. Along with Officer Caroline Edwards's account of being struck by a barricade as the Capitol was breached, Moss provided some of the most wrenching public testimony of the hearings, recounting the her teenage son dealing with racist callers threatening violence and being forced to move out of her home for her own safety. In a videotaped hearing, her mother lamented the loss of her name and being fearful when she goes out in public. It is beyond disgraceful that Trump continues to slander these people, who did nothing more than dutifully count votes.
But today we will not dwell on our rage at that fuckin' guy, who actually gave the Medal of Honor to Rush Limbaugh. Instead we will celebrate these actual heroes, who stood up for democracy.
Well deserved and God bless.
OPEN THREAD.
Smash that donate button to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you're ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons.
Ginni Thomas Just A Sweet Christian Lady Who Never Tried To Steal An Election At All, Wait WHAT Texts?
My goodness, how could the January 6 Select Committee have been so mean?
Ginni Thomas is never wrong.
You must keep this lodestar principle ever in your mind as you read her testimony to the House January 6 Select Committee, lest you be reduced to a babbling idiot by the sheer cognitive dissonance of her words, her self-righteous indignation, indeed, her very existence.
She worked tirelessly to expose evidence of the election fraud she knows took place, but she had no obligation to read any of the readily available evidence that it did not.
REP. CHENEY: I wonder if you are aware that President Trump's advisers, his most senior campaign officials, as well as his leaders at the Department of Justice, his White House counsel, that they all had told him that there was no evidence of fraud sufficient that it would change the outcome of the election.
THOMAS: No. That was news to me, Congresswoman.
REP. CHENEY: And so when did you become aware of that?
THOMAS: I think sometime after this committee started its work.
REP. CHENEY: And if you had been aware that the Attorney General Barr, for example, or Pat Cipollone, that if you'd been aware that they had investigated these claims of fraud and told him that there was no evidence to support those claims, would that have changed your view?
THOMAS: Honestly, I don't think it would have, because millions of people still found that there were irregularities with the COVID changes to mail-in balloting. And there were so many other things that, you know, I don't think there's a lot of — there's a lot of people uncomfortable with the 2020 election despite what this committee's pushing. Okay? I just think there's still concern. And I wouldn't have believed that some of those people you named were able to identify and track down fraud and irregularity that I was hearing from the grass roots in certain States.
She's just a concerned citizen like any other, except she happened to be at the center of a network of conservative action groups who spent months wargaming for a fight against "the Left," who they expected would go absolutely berserk after losing the 2020 election.
THOMAS: That's a big part of why we had some people, including John Eastman and Chuck DeVore, come to Groundswell meetings. There were two groups that created, it was called, the 79-day project, and it was briefed to our groups, about what would happen by the Left if they lost the election. And they had tried to wargame out what that was. And so that was something that our groups were focused on, what could happen if Biden lost.
STAFF COUNSEL: Did you participate in the 79-day project?
THOMAS: No. We just brought them in to brief groups.
Ginni Thomas and her husband work in different spheres, and thus her activities are completely appropriate, and, no, her entire career isn't predicated on access to someone married to a Supreme Court justice. Plus, she and her husband have an "ironclad" rule that they don't discuss work, and she never talked about her efforts to overturn the election with him. Except, you know, when he administered "spousal support."
STAFF COUNSEL, reading a text from Mark Meadows to Thomas: "This is a fight of good versus evil. Evil always looks like the victor until the king of kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I stake my career on it or at least my time in D.C. on it." Do you see that?
THOMAS: Yes.
STAFF COUNSEL: And then you responded just a few minutes later, "Thank you. Needed that, this plus a conversation with my best friend just now. I will try to keep holding on." And you sent that message at a little before 11 p.m. on the 24th. Do you recall who you were referring to when you said you had just had a conversation with your best friend?
THOMAS: It looks like it was my husband.
STAFF COUNSEL: Do you remember what you talked to Justice Thomas about that made you feel better and allowed you to say "keep holding on"?
THOMAS: I wish could remember, but I have no memory of the specifics. My husband often administers spousal support to the wife that's upset. So I assume that that's what it was. I don't have a specific memory of it.
It's the Left who tried to steal an election, and she, Ginni Thomas, is committed to the rule of law and democracy, her participation in a pressure campaign to get state legislatures to claw back electoral votes for Joe Biden notwithstanding.
STAFF COUNSEL: And in the post-election timeframe, did you continue to stay involved in efforts to question or challenge the results of the election?
THOMAS: I wouldn't necessarily phrase it that way. What I was doing was seeing that it was the State legislators who had power to decide if there were problems in their election. And so I participated in a mass communication device called FreeRoots that has been I'm sure the subject of some of the conversations you guys have had and the media has been interested in, I joined with thousands of people to push a button that sent an automatic email to some State legislators that I did not choose.
No, she had no communications with the Trump administration. Well, except for all those texts with Mark Meadows, which are somehow not on her phone anymore. But that was completely appropriate, although she regrets the tone she took in that "emotional time." The real impropriety was that the committee released her texts with Mark Meadows — when her husband was in the hospital, yet!
But no one else!
Well, maybe she sent Jared Kushner an email "to buck him up on the team." Since the committee got access to the presidential archives, she remembers that one now, although it, too, is mysteriously absent from her records. Anyway, other than Mark and Jared, she had no contact with anyone in the administration.
Except ...
STAFF COUNSEL: Anyone else in the administration that you reached out to in the post-election timeframe, sharing concerns or words of encouragement regarding the election?
THOMAS: I've thought about that. The only one I can think of maybe is Johnny McEntee, who I had been working with for second term personnel matters, to improve personnel. That's the only one I can think of. But none of the rest. I mean, Paul Teller was on various listservs with me, and I don't think I wrote to him specifically about this. But that's all can remember.
STAFF COUNSEL: And you mentioned Mr. Teller. Did you understand Mr. Teller to have a role in the administration?
THOMAS: Paul Teller would — was a friend and ally and came to a lot of our meetings. He's a part of our Groundswell meeting. And so I would see Paul at all the meetings that I typically go to. So I get emails from him based on the listservs.
MARK PAOLETTA [Thomas's lawyer]: But you knew he worked for the Vice President.
THOMAS: Yeah. I knew he worked for the Vice President, Yeah. He set up meetings sometimes for conservatives to come in.
No one in Congress ... except Rep. Louie Gohmert's chief of staff Connie Hair, with whom she texted constantly, although she had no idea the congressman was going to sue Mike Pence. And no one at the Justice Department, either ... except for Jeff Clark's buddy Ken Klukowski, who authored the letter Clark hoped to send to the state legislators announcing a non-existent DOJ investigation into non-existent electoral fraud.
And definitely no one at the campaign, either!
STAFF COUNSEL: Do you recall having any discussions — and if I asked you this already, I apologize. Do you remember having any discussions with [Trump campaign lawyer] Cleta Mitchell in the aftermath of the 2020 election about potential fraud in the election?
THOMAS: I knew she was upset about Georgia. I know she was very active in what was happening. And I may have heard somehow and I don't know how I heard it, but I may have heard her talking about what she was doing in Georgia and that she was upset. That's all I remember.
STAFF COUNSEL: When you say you may have heard, did you talk to her directly?
THOMAS: I don't think so. I think she was presenting at something that I may have heard. I just can't remember.
STAFF COUNSEL: Ms. Mitchell has testified under oath to this committee that she spoke with you about what was going on in Georgia after the election and that you asked her about the claims of fraud that were being made there. Is that accurate?
THOMAS: I don't have any memory of it. So maybe she has a better memory than I do.
And the suggestion that she had something to do with organizing the march is preposterous. Although if you present her with an email from fake Arizona elector Jake Hoffman thanking her for connecting him with rally organizer Kylie Kremer because he wanted a speaking slot, well, she guesses it must be the real deal.
Anyway, the point is it was totally appropriate for the wife of a Supreme Court justice to be texting the White House chief of staff egging on the ongoing electoral coup, and for her to send emails encouraging state lawmakers to support it. And "Can we agree that the media completely messed this up" by making such a big deal about it?
She didn't want Mike Pence to unilaterally overturn the election, she just attended the January 6 pre-riot rally in the hope that the whole matter could be resolved by discussing the mountain of election fraud she read about in chain emails forwarded from her friends.
STAFF COUNSEL: At that point when you decided to go in the morning, did you believe that there was a chance on January 6th that the election was not going to be certified as complete and President Biden would be declared the winner? Did you think that was still an open question?
THOMAS: It's a good question. I think I was hopeful that something could still happen, and didn't think more deeply than that.
Yes, she did see the men who "looked a little militaristic" that day, but it never occurred to her that it might descend into violence, which was "so foreign to any Trump event I'd been to up to that point!" And anyway, isn't the real violence from Senator Chuck Schumer calling out the Supreme Court for its Dobbs decision, which "caused" people to threaten her husband?
THOMAS: I guess I'd only say one more thing, and that is: Violence on both sides is abhorrent, and the more you guys focus on just one side, it can do significant damage to our country, I believe. And, certainly, I'm living with Senator Schumer having said some things on the steps of the Supreme Court that unleashed a lot of things that have us living with Marshals right now. I think the summer of 2020 has lot of communities who felt violence by left-wing activists. And when you don't show that same kind of focus that you guys are focusing on the violence in the Capitol on January 6th, I am afraid of what happens — the corruption, the erosion of confidence in equal justice. That's the last thing I'd like to say to you.
And then this sweet, Christian mom, who sends texts fantasizing about putting "the Biden crime family" on a barge to Gitmo, went back to her life of sanctimonious influence peddling, where she has no obligation to steer clear of politics to protect "confidence in equal justice." She's the real victim here, of the media, of the committee, of the Left, of Chuck Schumer. She wasn't working to steal democracy from the American people, she was trying to save it from a Marxist coup. And if you start from the principle that with great power comes exactly zero responsibility and you are definitionally right, and good, and Christian, and patriotic, then it all makes perfect sense.
Smash that donate button to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you're ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons.
