Surprise January 6 Hearing, Let's Watch It Live!
Liveblog yadda yadda.
You ready for this? We have your preview right here, where Wonkette explains how Mark Meadow's former aide Cassidy Hutchinson is going to fuck everybody's shit up in today's surprise emergency hearing of the House January 6 Select Committee.
Now we get to watch it together!
1: 02:And here we go! Committee Chair Bennie Thompson gavels in and introduces today's witness, Hutchinson.
1: 04:Just kidding, he hasn't introduced her yet. He puts a fine point on how the Committee has received a bunch of new evidence recently on exactly what was going on in the White House and in the chief of staff's office on January 6 and in the days just prior. Explosive stuff. Big stuff. And NOW he mentions today's witness and says she is extremely courageous for the testimony she has given.
1: 06:Liz Cheney makes sure y'all know Cassidy Hutchinson is a REPUBLICAN who worked at TRUMP WHITE HOUSE and used to work for STEVE SCALISE and y'all ALL KNOW HER so don't LIE you FUCKERS.
1: 10:Hahahaha, Thompson is like hey before we start, here are a bunch of pictures of Cassidy Hutchinson with Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Not being a mere coffee fetcher in literally ANY of these pictures.
1: 12:THOMPSON: Is it fair to say you were right in the middle of the thick of all these assholes?
HUTCHINSON: On a typical day I saw every Republican in Congress and every person in the Trump White House and also my desk was literally between Mike Pence's office and Jared Kushner's office and the Oval Office.
They even have pictures of the West Wing, showing how close her office was to all these dicks.
1: 15:CHENEY: You remember Rudy Giuliani meeting with Mark Meadows on January 2?
HUTCHINSON: Ayup! I walked Rudy out to his car that night and he was like oh hey Cassidy are you excited about how we are going to go to the Capitol (for coups) on January 6? Afterward, Mark Meadows said things might get "real, real bad" on January 6.
She says before the 6th, she was "apprehensive," and after hearing Rudy Giuliani and Meadows's response, she was "scared and nervous for what could happen on January 6."
1: 17:Now we move on to a conversation Hutchinson had with DNI John Ratcliffe ( that asshole ) during December 2020. Cheney plays a clip of Hutchinson's videotaped testimony where she said Ratcliffe seemed disinclined to participate in Trump's campaign to overturn the election.
1: 20:Cheney goes over evidence that DOJ and the Secret Service had all these warnings about violence on January 6, and that the White House was receiving intel on that. Hutchinson in her earlier testimony said she heard the words "Oath Keeper" and "Proud Boys" when Giuliani would be around, in regards to the planning for January 6.
1: 22:Cheney plays Hutchinson's testimony about a call she got on January 4 from Robert O'Brien, the national security advisor. He wanted to talk to Mark Meadows about potential violence on the 6th. There's discussion about Meadows meeting with and talking to Tony Ornato, who was at the time the deputy chief of staff for operations about violence on the 6th. Hutchinson explains that the position Ornato held was one of the most important, as it coordinated pretty much all security for the president, the White House campus, and the vice president.
1: 27:Cheney plays footage and shows evidence of reports early on January 6 about people at the Ellipse rally with violent weapons, people in DC with AR-15s, and so on. In earlier testimony Hutchinson said Meadows and Ornato met that morning and Meadows was briefed on what the rally attendees were armed with that day. Hutchinson testified that Meadows's reaction to that was that he didn't even look up from his phone. He was asked if he heard what was just said. He asked if Ornato had told Trump, and Ornato said yep he sure had.
Sounds like Mark Meadows was just real worried!
1: 32:Here are some texts between Hutchinson and Ornato:
Hutchinson testifies that what Trump was "fucking furious" about was that the Ellipse didn't look as full as he wanted it to. He was mad people with weapons couldn't get through security. Ornato explains in that second text that people "on the monument side don't want to come in" because they didn't want to go through magnetic security. Trump was insistent, according to Hutchinson's testimony, because he wasn't worried the armed people were there to hurt HIM.
1: 35:Trump also explained that the people with the weapons could march to the Capitol from the Ellipse just fine , now just let them into the official rally space so Trump's crowd size looks big!
1: 36:Hutchinson clarifies that these conversations were happening just minutes before Trump took the stage. Cheney puts that in context, playing the clip of Trump telling the crowd to march to the Capitol. You know, the people in the crowd that he knew were heavily armed and weren't there to hurt him.
1: 40:Now Liz Cheney is listing things Trump could have done to stop the violence, like tell it to stop, or tell them not to march to the Capitol in the first place.
And now Cheney is asking Hutchinson if the White House counsel's office had concerns about the violence-inciting rhetoric of Trump's planned speech, including things about Mike Pence and fighting and other things like that. Yes, the answer is yes. Maybe this is part of why Liz Cheney is putting Pat Cipollone on blast so much!
1: 42:LOL Mark Meadows wrote in his book that Trump's order to march to the Capitol was meant metaphorically ? LOL.
1: 46:Pat Cipollone told Hutchinson one million times, up to and including the morning of January 6 as they were leaving, to make sure Trump did not travel to the Capitol. Said to her that morning that they would get "charged with every crime imaginable." What crimes? Obstructing justice, defrauding the Electoral count, just, you know, all the crimes.
1: 49:Hutchinson talked to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on the phone during Trump's speech. McCarthy called, sounding "frustrated and angry" and she didn't know why because she wasn't able to hear Trump onstage saying he was marching to the Capitol. Accused her of lying to him all week when she said previously they weren't coming to the Capitol. She says he believed her, but seemed really frustrated Trump had just said it onstage.
1: 52:Drink, taped testimony from Hutchinson said GOP Rep. Scott Perry was part of conversations about what might happen if Trump came to the Capitol that day.
1: 53:Apparently when they got back to the White House, Hutchinson got pulled in to a meeting with Tony Ornato, who explained what happened in The Beast (Trump's limo) after Trump's speech was over. He really really really thought he got to go to the Capitol to keep doing his coup, but they wouldn't let him. "I'm the fucking president, take me up to the Capitol now!"
Trump reportedly REACHED FOR THE STEERING WHEEL. "Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel," said Bobby Engel. (Secret Service guy)
"Trump used his free hand to lunge toward Bobby Engel." Mr. Engel was in the room as Ornato was telling this story, and did not disagree with any of it.
Oh. My. God.
And apparently he just kept demanding to go to the Capitol, even after GRABBING THE STEERING WHEEL and LUNGING AT THE SECRET SERVICE GUY.
By the way, we are about to hand you over to Dok! Might see you later!
1: 58:Doktor Zoom has seized the liveblog and is steering from the backseat!
When Trump returned to the White House, he heard Bill Barr's interview with the AP, and THREW HIS LUNCH AGAINST THE WALL.
KETCHUP WAS SPLATTERED.
2: 00:Hutchinson says that was actually fairly common, and that she knew of multiple occasions when Trump had thrown food and dishes around the WH dining room, including ripping the tablecloth off the table and throwing everything to the floor.
2: 02:We are taking a ten-minute break, and I dibs this song title:
“New Country Song: "I'm the Fucking President, Let Me Take the Wheel"”
— Doktor Zoom (@Doktor Zoom) 1656438966
Helpful observatio n from the GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee:
“It’s literally all hearsay evidence. What a joke.”
— House Judiciary GOP (@House Judiciary GOP) 1656436792
Mind you, only the story about what happened in the limo is second-hand. The rest is all Hutchinson's direct eyewitness testimony.
Guess the steering wheel story can't be used in court. Or Mr. Ornato would have to testify before a grand jury.
2: 11:Can we just take a moment to reflect on exactly how batshit BUT PERFECTLY IN CHARACTER all this is?
2: 15:Right on cue, MSNBC reads a post from Trump on "Truth" Social saying he has no idea who Hutchinson is, but she's a very bad, petty person who is lying. Should have a screenshot shortly.
2: 18: And here we go:
“in Truth Social, Trump dismisses Hutchinson as something akin to a coffee boy”
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1656438370
2: 20:Hutchinson says that she understands that Mark Meadows called Roger Stone and Michael Flynn the night of January 5, and that Meadows had been asked to go to Bannon & Giuliani's "war room" at the Willard Hotel. Apparently he decided not to.
2: 22:Video deposition of Gen. Flynn taking the fifth when asked if the violence of January 6 was justified, and even whether he believes in "the peaceful transfer of power."
2: 25:Hutchinson says Meadows was zoned out on a couch watching the riots; she felt like she was watching a slow motion car crash and needed him to snap out of it. Pat Cipollone arrived and said they needed to get Trump to take action; Meadows said Trump wasn't going to do anything. Cipollone warned people were going to get killed.
2: 28:Jim Jordan called from the Capitol. Meadows, Cipollone, and Trumpoverhearddiscussed the "Hang Mike Pence!" chants. Meadows told Cipollone that Trump thought Pence deserved it, and that the rioters inside the Capitol were "doing nothing wrong."Update/correction: I misheard Hutchinson, who said they had been informed of the chants, not that they could hear them over the phone. Wonkette regrets the error.
2: 31:Liz Cheney says we now know why Trump didn't do anything to call the rioters to stop. He sent the tweet saying Pence didn't have the courage to overturn the election after Trump knew rioters were chanting Pence should be hanged. Hutchinson recalls how frustrated she was at seeing all this madness.
2: 35:Hutchinson says there were three factions among the WH advisers: those wanting to push Trump to stop the riot, those who were more neutral, and those who urged deflecting and blaming the riot on Antifa or Democrats. She says Meadows was mostly in the last group, but became more neutral as the riots went forth.
2: 39:Hutchinson says Ivanka Trump and others (the Laura Ingraham and Don Jr. texts we knew about) called on Trump to call off the rioters.
2: 40:Video of Kevin McCarthy calling CNN from the Capitol during the riot and saying he'd asked Trump to send home the rioters. And then we have to see once more the video of Trump telling his very special friends the rioters to go home, and he loved them.
2: 45:On CNN, Jonathan Turley is getting weird and asking whether, in taking Trump back to the WH instead of to the Capitol, the Secret Service had "kidnapped" Trump. Huh! It's certainly a take!
“Jonathan Turley is mystified that the Secret Service acted without legal authority and made the president a “virtual captive” when they refused to drive him down to the Capitol to lead an armed mob. “Everyone in that car was subject to his orders.” We just found the real coup!”
— Eric Kleefeld (@Eric Kleefeld) 1656440545
2: 50:Hutchinson says that Trump's closest advisers were telling him he had to condemn the riot in order to head off a 25th Amendment challenge. He only went off script once, refusing to say the election was over. Also, the WH Counsel's office had to warn Trump NOT to talk about granting pardons to the rioters
2: 52:And just to cap off with ANOTHER thing we hadn't previously learned, Hutchinson confirms that both Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows asked for pardons.
2: 55:Wait, did we say "cap off?" Cheney closes with yet another bombshell, sharing statements from witnesses who said they had been told to stay quiet and be team players, if you know what I mean. "Trump reads transcripts," don't you know?
Chairman Bennie Thompson closes by urges Trump people to please come forward if they find their memories have improved in recent days.
3: 00:Total mob boss shit:
And that is it, kids! Holy crap, what a hearing. We'll have a roundup of all the insane stuff we've learned today shortly.
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