Now THAT Was A Congressional Hearing
On Thursday, Cassidy Hutchison was dropping bombshells left and right on Capitol Hill
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I’ve just finished watching what was undoubtedly the GOAT of congressional hearings. An emergency hearing scheduled by the committee to hear the testimony of Cassidy Hutchison, a key aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, featured blockbuster after blockbuster.
Here’s a brief recap:
Donald Trump and Meadows were given repeated warnings about the potential for violence on Jan. 6. They didn’t care.
Aides told the president on Jan. 6 that many of his supporters at the “Stop The Steal” rally on the Ellipse were armed. Police reported that they’d seen protesters with AR-15s and other firearms.
Nonetheless, Trump was more troubled by the possibility that the event wouldn’t appear crowded enough. He told aides to allow those armed individuals through security magnetometers because, in his words, they weren’t there to harm him.
His exact words, according to Hutchison, were, “I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f-ing mags away.”
In his speech, he urged those present — some of whom he knew were armed — to march down to the Capitol and disrupt the election certification taking place that day.
His aides warned that it could be a crime if he went to the Capitol himself. According to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, if he took such a trip, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”
When told in his presidential limousine that he couldn’t go to the Capitol, Trump tried to grab the car's steering wheel.
When a Secret Service tried to stop him, he attacked the Secret Service agent.
When he got angry, the president regularly threw plates of food — and even pulled tablecloths off of tables, sending dishes and food flying.
Hutchinson testified that Meadows told her Trump “doesn’t want to do anything” about the violence unfolding at the Capitol and that after hearing protesters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” he said that he “thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
Hutchison said that both Meadows and Rudy Guiliani requested presidential pardons — and that Trump contemplated pardoning those who attacked the Capitol on January 6.
Oh, the cherry on this sundae is that the Committee revealed evidence of potential witness tampering and efforts to obstruct the committee's work, which would be a felony.
Watching this hearing was a breathtaking experience. Just when you had fully processed one revelation, there was a new one, seemingly more remarkable than the one that had come before. For me, the “you can not be serious” moment came when Hutchison revealed that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent who tried to stop him from grabbing the steering wheel of his armed Suburban.
But perhaps the most important revelation — and the one most likely to increase Trump’s criminal liability — is that Trump knew there his supporters were armed with weapons, didn’t care, commented that "they aren't here to hurt me,” and still urged them to go to the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 election. If that isn’t evidence of sedition, I don’t know what is. Trump not only did nothing to stop the violence that took place (and Hutchison reported that he was practically dragged kicking and screaming to condemn it), he actively promoted it, knowing full well what could take place on Capitol Hill.
Trump was not a bystander to the events of January 6 — he directly catalyzed the violence that took place that day.
At this point, I find it very difficult to see how the Department of Justice doesn’t indict Trump for a host of crimes, from seditious conspiracy to obstruction of Congress. The evidence of his criminal misdeeds is overwhelming, and it will be challenging for Attorney General Merrick Garland to avoid the inevitable conclusion that Trump must be held legally accountable. The pressure on him is building, and I imagine it will only get more intense as we learn more about what took place on January 6, including potentially from those involved in the coup plotting.
After what we learned today, not prosecuting Trump would be a tacit admission that his actions are not criminal — and that would be infinitely worse. No president can be considered above the law, and in the face of such blatant and promiscuous violations of the law and basic democratic norms, Trump must be held accountable.
What’s Going On
If you want a blow-by-blow recount of the day’s proceedings, you can check out MSNBC’s live blog, which I contributed to during the hearing.
Musical Interlude
The President requesting that security devices be deactivated at the Capitol so the armed mob would have less impeded access. . . That must be an indictable crime. Among many.