I figured we might need a thread to discuss this…
Read the Select Committee’s Final Report ⤵️https://t.co/UwqB61nZkl
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) December 23, 2022
Also, this is happening…
The Dominion lawsuit against Fox is something to keep your eye on. Multiple Fox employees – on air and off air talent – testified under oath they did not believe claims of election fraud in 2020 but aired it anyway. pic.twitter.com/0opKqeHhMn
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) December 22, 2022
"I did not believe it for one second." That's Sean Hannity, talking about the Big Lie in his deposition in the $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion. https://t.co/wK220Uuhla
— Jeremy W. Peters (@jwpetersNYT) December 21, 2022
This is an open thread
eclare
I cannot believe how much work the J6 committee accomplished and how successfully the findings were presented. Nancy truly knew what she was doing when she selected people to serve, I know I shouldn’t be surprised.
Spanky
WaPo:
Dominion is going to own Fox, lock, stock, and bottom of the barrel.
rikyrah
LarryO has covered it during tonight’s episode
rikyrah
@eclare:
And the brilliance of keeping the GOP trash off the committee
eclare
@Spanky: Yep. Looking forward to it.
Steeplejack
Note: The @Jan6thCmte link at the top goes to a title page and then to a (massive) PDF file. That is a problem for some devices that automatically download PDFs without giving you a chance to decline.
Here is a gift link to a non-PDF version of the report at the New York <emTimes site.
dmsilev
Post:
The mental image of Kevin McCarthy knifing Trump in the back by pushing such a (fully merited) disqualification is vastly amusing yet sadly will have to remain a fantasy.
Ken
@Spanky: Yeah, IANAL but “I thought it was false but said it anyway” sounds really bad.
Baud
@Ken:
Sounds like a rotating tag to me.
Wyatt Salamanca
Even though Trumpenstein will never spend a day in prison nor will his henchmen John Eastman, Mark Meadows, or Rudy Nosferatu Ghouliani, I applaud the January 6th Committee members and their staffers for the valuable public service that they performed.
Hallelujah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttEMYvpoR-k
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: In the context of a defamation lawsuit, it will cause the gin and Xanax portion of the defense legal bills to skyrocket.
Omnes Omnibus
Pure cynicism on your part.
Jackie
Lawrence O’Donnell is frantically trying to get input on the just released Report. So much for a boring dead news holiday wknd!
Plus Faux News trying to distance themselves from the Dominion lawsuit!
I’m going to be wrapping Xmas gifts with guaranteed entertainment!😂
Steeplejack
Huh. I did a quick search and didn’t find Ginni Thomas’s name anywhere in the report. 🤔
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
I think it was Kevin the minority leader who did that: first by nominating obviously unsuitable Republicans whom Pelosi had to reject, then by refusing to nominate any Republicans at all.
Gravenstone
One can but hope.
Jackie
@Steeplejack: Obviously an incomplete report. TFG will use this to prove it’s FAKE NEWS!
Elizabelle
@Wyatt Salamanca:
I really wish some of you guys would stop with this shit.
How do you know that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: Yup, McCarthy stepped on his own dick, not for the first or last time. If he hadn’t insisted on naming bomb-throwers, Pelosi probably wouldn’t have rejected them. She only rejected, as I recall two of seven (?) names he proposed, so he pulled them all. The committee might well have been less effective with a few “Very Serious” Republicans, who could at least play normal for CNN.
I still think McCarthy will be Speaker, but for less than a year.
patrick II
is just as true about Covid immunization — but the way the law works it is much easier for Dominion to prove a loss than for individuals. Who would have gotten sick and died anyway? The loss cannot be assessed for any individual, but collectively the losses are statistically sure and the losses enormous.
I wonder if a large enough corporation could provide the burden of proof by a preponderance of evidence or clear and convincing standards.
Life insurance companies, for instance, paid out billions in claims and losses would amount to what I think would be a statistically clear and convincing standard.
But, since I am not a lawyer at all, my wish for some sort of punishment is probably not legally reasonable.
John Revolta
@dmsilev: Sounds like just the out that the GOP establishment needs to rid themselves of Trumpf and install DeSatan as the nom.
patrick II
Another thing that I have felt funny about mentioning — John Cole and I have several things in common, both overweight white guys whose short beard has turned white and who tested positive for Covid this week. I don’t wear a Santa Claus hat though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He said no. Charlie Savage said on the Alex Wagner program that Repuplicans are already talking about making Hutchinson the target of their “investigation” of the 1/6 Committee. I feel sorry for her, but I suspect she’ll be able to raise money for her lawyers. And she’ll probably also need security.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle:
It’s been *seven years* now that these chuckleheads have been criming away, and aside from low-level guys, all the rest have gotten away with it. We have good reason to think that that won’t change, and that the J6 Report is just the Muller Report, only for 2022. I mean, we remember Fitzmas.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And I expect that when House Republicans get tired of playing with Kevin and toss him aside, the House will remain Speakerless for a while; none of them will be keen to accept the obviously poisoned chalice.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
Past activity is always a good predictor of future results.
Chetan Murthy
@Amir Khalid: Huh, I’d expect that there’d be too many pretenders to the throne: between “David Duke without the baggage” Scalise, Marge Three Toes, Gym Jordan, and who-knows-how-many-others. I’d expect they’d have a long fistfight to decide who gets the job.
P.S. After all, it’s not like they’re planning on passing any legislation: it’ll be all hearings all the time, right? That’s gotta be fun times for those numbnuts.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Elizabelle:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Trump’s unprecedented arrogance and incompetence resulted in 500,000 Covid-19 deaths and as we sit here today, he’s the leading candidate to be the Republican nominee in 2024.
If tens of millions of Americans are willing to give Trump a free pass for his horrific mishandling of Covid, how the fuck am I supposed to believe that he or any of his scumbag sycophants could ever be convicted for the January 6th insurrection?
Elizabelle
OK. This is a good thread to stay out of.
Good night, jackals.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Nice to see you back, but you left out the word “not”.
TaMara
I’m off to bed. Please don’t feed the trolls.
eclare
@Wyatt Salamanca: Paraphrasing from The Wire: because we ain’t dealing with tens of millions of Americans, we dealing with a court of law.
WaterGirl
Stating with certainty that there will be no consequences is as foolish as the incessant predictions of the red wave and the total trashing of democrats in November.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I was being cynical. “Not” would have been inappropriate.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I am certain I will never suffer criminal consequences for my behavior.
Wyatt Salamanca
@eclare:
All you need is one MAGA wingnut on a jury to screw things up.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thank you.
Besides, would be a terrible waste of a Special Counsel with resting executioner face.
WaterGirl
@Baud: We won’t be able to let you go on trips anymore if you are going to come back more cynical than when you left.
WaterGirl
For some reason, I keep thinking about pie.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Are you double-dog daring us?
Frankensteinbeck
@Wyatt Salamanca:
Trump will spend no jail time for Jan 6th. Too hard to prove he knew what would happen rather than just spouting hot air.
His less violent efforts to overturn the election, I’m not sure. I don’t know anything about the law there.
But he’s fucked on the document theft.
EDIT – The ‘one Trump supporter on the jury’ hasn’t been doing him or any other arch-conservative much good lately.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Sarcasm.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Will you lock me in your basement?
@WaterGirl: Always.
CaseyL
I admit I’m surprised Hannity et al. said they didn’t believe what they were saying was true, in so many words.
That goes directly to actual malice and reckless disregard.
I wonder what their defenses are going to be.
Frankensteinbeck
@CaseyL:
I’m guessing Fox’s previously used defense: “Nobody is intended to believe the bullshit we say.”
West of the Rockies
@Chetan Murthy:
Marge Three Toes? Seriously, was she kidnapped by nihilists or did she suffer a tragic weed whacker incident?
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Another good rotating tag.
jonas
@Wyatt Salamanca:
That’s not what the latest polling among likely Republican primary voters is showing. The frontrunners are Ron DeSantis and “anyone but Trump”. Even his erstwhile diehard fans are realizing that he’s dead weight and think he should bow out. The lackluster performance of his endorsed candidates in the midterm and his stupid NFT card stunt were really the last straw. Murdochworld, esp. the NYPost, has already begun to turn on him. Trumpism, to be sure, is still the GOP brand. But I think Trump himself will be relegated to irrelevance in the coming year and that if he’s on tv at all, it will be in a courtroom listening to the prosecution read indictments.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: My thought on that is that they don’t want to go to jail on a “Martha Stewart” charge of lying under oath.
I’m guessing that the consequences if they admit that they knew it was bullshit will not fall on them personally, so that looks to be the better choice.
Waiting for an attorney who wants to tell me I’m wrong about that.
Leslie
@West of the Rockies: Hey, fyi, I gave WaterGirl my email addy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Wyatt Salamanca: You can believe what you want to believe. I am not going to change your mind, but I will point out that those of us who didn’t think Dems were doomed this last election, who thought that Judge Cannon’s decision was going to be overturned, and so on have had a better record recently than the cynically savvy.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: It’s all fun and games until they get you under oath. Then shit gets real. Quickly.
piratedan
well, if there are trials about the events of J6, won’t they take place in DC, in a federal court since they are Federal Crimes? I would think the likelihood of finding a MAGA to serve on a federal court would be…. remote.
I could be fully into GEICO Insurance Commercial zone here… that’s not how any of this works…..
jonas
@CaseyL: Either he’s trying to deflect responsibility upward: “Lachlan Murdoch made me say stuff! I didn’t believe it, though!” Or they’re going back to the ol’ Fox playbook about how the primetime pundits like Hannity and Ingraham are just infotainment clowns whose pronouncements aren’t intended to be taken as actual facts. “So I didn’t believe Trump’s election claims or the stuff about Dominion’s machines! Wev! I was just funnin’ is all!” (*Plays a playful note on slide whistle*)
Leslie
@WaterGirl: There was that Fox lawsuit years ago that produced the ruling that news organizations have no legal obligation to tell the truth. They’ve been using that as their get out of jail free card ever since. So you are likely right that they won’t, individually, suffer legal consequences for admitting that they knew it was all a pack of lies.
VOR
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes, wasn’t that the defense they used for Tucker Carlson some time ago? I seem to recall the Kraken lady tried a similar excuse – how could anyone take me seriously?
Wyatt Salamanca
@jonas:
I’d love to see Trump in a courtroom and would celebrate it with popcorn and champagne.
West of the Rockies
@Leslie:
I will check my email. Nice to hear from you again here at BJ! Happy holidays!
Wyatt Salamanca
@Omnes Omnibus:
I will hope for Trump or his lackeys to serve time in the slammer but would not bet money on it.
jonas
@Leslie:
IIRC, the case involved the murder of Seth Rich and Hannity’s crusade to gin up some conspiracy linking it to Hillary Clinton or something. Rich’s family sued Fox for defamation. The case turned on whether or not pundits like Hannity were to be regarded as actual journalists, who are supposed to report verified information, or just clowns who spout bullshit opinions and shouldn’t be taken literally.
IOW, they’re serious analysts and opinion makers when on the air, but in the court room, they’re all “Hey, we’re just like Stephen Colbert or Trevor Noah! We’re comedians just riffin’ on the news and stuff! You shouldn’t take us at our word!”
CaseyL
@jonas:
@Leslie:
I do remember that previous case, where the Court agreed Carlson couldn’t be held responsible for anything he said.
But this matter has some important differences from that one.
For one thing, IIRC, they already tried to get the lawsuit dismissed on the basis that they were just giving opinions – and the Court ruled that wouldn’t fly this time because of the damage done to Dominion.
For another, this is a defamation case, where the elements are actual malice (repeating something you know to be untrue as if it was true) and reckless disregard (the damage done to Dominion and its employees).
I’m not sure you can defend against those elements by saying “I was only kidding” or “everyone knows I lie all the time.”
frosty
@Chetan Murthy:
Oh, fuck off. This isn’t Fitzmas, it isn’t Mueller, there’s no reason to forecast doom about how things will work out.
frosty
@Baud:
Thanks Baud! That was less wordy and profane than my response.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@piratedan: criminal trials are complicated by more than just juries. Bill Cosby is a free man. When Harvey Weinstein was convicted by an LA court the other day, it got me curious about the timeline of his trials. It’s all on his Wiki page, but the short version: He was arrested in NY in May, 2018 (a year after enough credible allegations had been made that he was booted from his own company and the American Academy of Motion Pictures), convicted in Feb, 2020. He was extradited to LA in July, ’21, and just convicted last week, after a year and a half, when presumably his NY convictions were pretty strong evidence in every step of the CA trial. (I studied law by watching old David E Kelly shows 20 years ago, so I couldn’t even speculate about the reasons for various delays, that probably included Covid)
Different charges, different courts, et cetera, but my point is that criminal trials are complicated, even when the defendant is pretty obviously guilty, and especially when the defendant is rich and totally immoral. And this is why I have no patience with the blog-comment lawyers who say things like “I don’t need to know the facts and the law to know that Garland is useless!” This is a very difficult and important case, and one where the prosecution, should it come to pass, best not miss.
All that said, I would not be surprised to see Eastman, that would-be AG/oil spill lawyer whose name is escaping me and Giuliani convicted. Not betting it will happen, but Eastman likes to write things down, even trump’s people seem to hate that would-be AG, and Giuliani is a nasty buffoon. More than criminal conviction, I’d like to see Giuliani have to turn over every dime he has left to Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hunter Biden has been under investigation since 2018.
jonas
@Frankensteinbeck:
I haven’t read the whole report of course, but my impression of what I’ve seen so far is that they’ve laid out a pretty clear-cut case that Trump knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he had lost. Everyone around him except for a few utter nutcases told him he had lost and it was time to move on. And still, he decided to incite his followers to attack the Capitol to stop the electoral vote certification and, as the minutes and hours ticked by, closely watched and monitored what was happening, and refused to intervene until it became clear that the mob hadn’t succeeded in stopping the count.
IANAL, but I can’t think of very many cases where the evidence of criminal intent in a conspiracy like this is mapped out in such compelling detail. They literally have a minute-by-minute timeline of what Trump knew, when he knew it, and what his responses were. And it all adds up to the irrefutable conclusion that he believed he was launching a coup to keep himself in power despite knowing he had lost the election and was totally fine with it because he’s a megalomaniac who thinks he’s America’s anointed Führer and no stupid, piddly election “outcome” can change that.
Leslie
@West of the Rockies: Happy holidays to you too!
@CaseyL: We can hope! I would love to see it happen. (I would also love to see a law passed that news organizations do have to tell the truth, or else include a prominent disclaimer every hour that everything they say is made up. I’m sure one of the lawyers here can tell me why that’s a bad idea.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jeffrey Clark is the would-be AG
jonas
@Chetan Murthy:
l’m aware that charging Trump and his closest associates is a politically fraught decision for the DOJ and also have a little bit of the bitten-once-twice-shy post-Mueller wariness about whether we’ll ever see some accountability for Trump and his circle of thugs. But I also am comforted by the fact that 1. Trump’s no longer president, so the DOJ and Special Counsel aren’t hamstrung by the “no indicting a sitting president” rule. 2. the DOJ isn’t in the hands of a completely corrupt political hack who will use his power to bury the commission report (or any future SC recommendations) and issue a “summary” clearing Trump of all wrongdoing.
Fake Irishman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, but you were also one of the Pollyannas who naively thought Schumer could get Sinema and Manchin on board to salvage important parts of Build Back Better.
How’d that work out for you all?
….
Oh well, yeah, it worked out pretty well for me too. Thanks for asking.
Ruckus
I am not a lawyer but I have seen court cases take a very, very long time to get from crime to the last bang of the gavel. And all of this federal stuff we are discussing is really rather rare, with a lot of big names and big (or at least biggish) money. It takes a fair amount of time to put it all together, then decide what to charge, or if there is a case that can be made (just because we all think there is doesn’t make it true). Add in the amount of things that have gone on, Jan 6 being just one of the things that we’ve never seen in this country and the amount of people that think that was a normal or good thing. I’ll be amazed if it all comes together in a couple more years. Yes a number of the rioters of Jan 6 have been tried but there are a lot of people possibly left to charge, people who had anything to do with planning it.
In my estimation this may be one of the biggest bits of law breaking or even actual treason this country has ever seen, and even attempting to fix this is a huge deal.
mrmoshpotato
Cave in some faces, Lady Justice.
(I’m being optimistic here, Ruckus.)
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: Speaker Pelosi only rejected 2 of McCarthy’s nominees. He then withdrew the other three. I recall that a certain stable genius pressured McCarthy not to cooperate in any way, and the malleable McCarthy complied.
So, as H.L. Mencken* would say, Trump ended up ended up getting what he wanted, good and hard.
*I recently learned of this Mencken bon mot from another jackal. So thanks!
Gvg
It doesn’t do any good to give up ahead of time. Our country started with slavery legal and no real womens rights. We have progressed but boy has it been long and grim with many slow backward slides after progress. I think it is also relevant to think of anti corruption progress at various times and anti mob and crime times. We are fighting another gilded age of rich bastards and peons too at the same time.
Biden concentrating on appointing judges looks really smart when I think about this. Wish we could do some more about the Supreme Court.
Telling everyone there is no hope of Trump being jailed demoralizes them. Don’t do it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
To steal a line from the late Tom Clancy, if I were defending Fox News in the Dominion lawsuit, testimony like Hannity’s would put me at high risk for Excedrin Headache #357.
We’re approaching Steve Dallas defending Bill the Cat against espionage charges here.
And I’m wishing them all every milligram of the consequences barreling down onto them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: The speaker is second in the line of succession to the presidency should that office and vice president’s office both be vacant. It’s hard for me to imagine that wouldn’t tempt someone
vigilhorn
At the very least, the judge in the Dominion case should rule that all Fox news and “entertainment” programs have a permanent disclaimer at the bottom of the screen stating “This show not to be taken seriously”.
PaulWartenberg
Don’t spoil the ending, I have ordered a copy for my library.
PaulWartenberg
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve read somewhere that the Speakership could open up to the leader of the party in minority if enough Congresspeople do not show up to vote for the Speakership. There’s a numbers game where if more Dems show up than GOP, Jeffries could get set up as the Speaker.
Granted, legislation would still be borderline impossible to pass if enough Republicans vote against it, but I think Jeffries as Speaker controls committee assignments and what can be brought to the floor for votes, so the whole Hunter Biden fishing expedition could get shut down for example.
What’s hilarious is how the possibility of LOSING the Speakership while in majority control of the House still isn’t enough to force the Republicans to unite – however briefly – behind McCarthy as a show of solidarity.