Jan. 6 Committee Passes Out Subpoenas, Collects Court Wins, Kicks Ass

Haha, get her, Jade!

The January 6 Select Committee has been a bunch of busy bees this week!

On Tuesday it issued subpoenas to Trumpland lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell to discuss their role in the lead-up to the Capitol riot. Although the three were nominally acting as lawyers during the whole sordid affair, their loose lips may go some way to eroding whatever privilege claims they might have made. For instance, the Committee letters to Giuliani and Powell refer to reporting by Axios that they "urged President Trump to direct the seizure of voting machines around the country after being told that the Department of Homeland Security had no lawful authority to do so." Powell wasn't the president's lawyer, and, even if undertaken at the president's behest, Giuliani's conversation with acting DHS head Ken Cuccinelli is probably not covered by privilege either.

The Committee also subpoenaed Trumpland sycophant Boris Epshteyn, who was hanging out at the Willard Hotel with that hive of vipers and is "reported to have participated in a call with former President Trump on the morning of January 6, during which options were discussed to delay the certification of election results in light of Vice President Mike Pence’s unwillingness to deny or delay certification."

Epshteyn tweeted that "It is no surprise whatsoever that the illegitimate January 6 Unselect Committee would attempt to subpoena attorneys as it continues its Stalinist witch hunt against President Trump and his supporters. The information I am happy to share with Democrats, RINOs and anyone else is that of the overwhelming fraud that permeated the 2020 election in Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and beyond."

Powell has reportedly agreed to appear. Rudy is off leaking hair dye God only knows where. And our girl Jenna, who blasted her dumbass memos about stealing the Electoral College around DC, says "The committee is just mad they can't date me."

What. Ever.

On Wednesday, the Committee issued subpoenas to white nationalist shitlords Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey. Fuentes, a notorious Holocaust denier associated with the "Groypers" (those little frog meme weenuses who think they're totally edgy because they pretend to hate the GOP for being insufficiently racist), was so toxic that associating with him got Michelle Malkin fired by her speakers bureau. But that hasn't stopped GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, a major proponent of the Big Lie, from palling around with Fuentes.

Fuentes and Casey hyped the rally, and Fuentes urged his supporters to storm the Capitol, although he himself did not get his hands dirty by going in. In its letters to the Boy Blunders, the Committee referred to reporting that they'd each received large transfers of Bitcoin from a French programmer — $250,000 for Fuentes, and $25,000 for Casey.

Finally, on Wednesday evening, the Supreme Court tossed Trump's idiotic attempt to block the National Archives from handing over documents to the Committee. Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni Thomas supported the Big Lie, is the only member of the Court who would have granted Trump the injunction. There's some disagreement about the brief order, which is a nice way of saying really smart people like George Conway and Just Security editor Ryan Goodman think it's a major smackdown, and I think it's a gift to Mark Meadows.

Without getting too deeply into the weeds (you can read my thread on this), Conway and Goodman are treating this as an explicit affirmation of the Circuit Court's finding that the sitting president's waiver of privilege outweighs the ex-president's invocation of it.

"Supreme Court ruling against Trump on executive privilege," Goodman tweeted. "Puts #MarkMeadows (and Bannon) in extra legal jeopardy. Their defense against contempt of Congress based in part on executive privilege claim. (They may want to comply now saying were waiting for litigation resolution)."

Except the denial went out of its way that to emphasize it wasn't based on privilege at all , but rather the fact that Trump himself had set out a legal standard to invoke privilege, and then failed to meet it.

"Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court’s decision," they wrote, adding that there was no “'need [to] conclusively resolve whether and to what extent a court,' at a former President’s behest, may 'second guess the sitting President’s' decision to release privileged documents."

In fact, they went even further, tossing out all the language from the appellate court's ruling that relates to privilege: "Any discussion of the Court of Appeals concerning President Trump’s status as a former President must therefore be regarded as nonbinding dicta."

That looks to me like they got rid of the parts of the holding that said Biden's refusal to invoke privilege outweighs Trump's invocation of it, which would leave Mark Meadows and the rest of the goons defying Committee subpoenas free to argue their executive privilege claims in court. But Conway says the Court was deliberately leaving the question open in case future ex-presidents need to assert privilege after leaving office.

Put simply, Trump's own argument, by highlighting the danger of a future Trump, made the result even worse for Trump.

— George Conway (@George Conway) 1642650825 

An extremely optimistic view, considering the makeup of this court. Guess we'll find out soon who is right.

[ Committee Press Release / Committee Press Release / SCOTUS Denial ]

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