[Corrected version for December 23, 2022, blog post]
December 21, the 2022 winter solstice, is the day of the year with the least daylight for the northern hemisphere with the exact solstice time at 4:48 ET, sunset. The darkness of the longest night might be comparable to the darkness of ignorance across the U.S.: one-fourth of its people believe the sun orbits the Earth, over one-third don’t know in which century the American Revolution occurred, and over half believe Adolf Hitler gained his power in a coup although he was actually elected. As the light begins to increase in the U.S., perhaps people will learn more about the danger of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, prime presidential candidates for 2024.
Disasters for DDT this past week bracketed solstice, beginning with the tenth and last House January 6 investigative committee public hearing and continuing later in the week with the release of the committee’s final report and information about DDT’s taxes.
On December 19, 2022, the committee summarized the first nine hearings and released the criminal charges against DDT that committee members unanimously recommended to the Department of Justice: obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government, making knowingly and willfully materially false statement to the federal government, and inciting or assisting an insurrection. In addition, the committee refers four congressional members “for appropriate sanction by the House Ethics Committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is one who defied a subpoena from the committee.
The committee gave evidence that Stefan Passantino, DDT’s former White House top ethics attorney, told Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, to testify under oath that she couldn’t recall details and keep her answers to “seven words or less.” He refused to tell her that funding for her legal bills came from DDT’s Save America PAC and kept urging her to show “loyalty” and “focus on protecting the President,” promising her “a really good job in Trump world.” Hutchinson was a valuable witness with information about DDT’s state of mind and actions before and on January 6, 2021. Before she testified, she exchanged Passantino for a new lawyer. Meadows also wrote Hutchinson trying to persuade her to be “loyal” and “protect” DDT because “we’re a family.”
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell also unsealed a June opinion stating that several communications among Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), lawyer John Eastman, and attempted election-overturner DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark, and his aide Ken Klukowski are not privileged.
Under oath, Fox’s Sean Hannity, DDT’s close friend, admitted he didn’t believe DDT won the 2020 election “for one second” but always pushed the lie of DDT’s victory on his show, like other Fox “opinion” hosts did. In his May 2022 deposition, DDT’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani also admitted he didn’t believe the rigged voting machines lies.
On Wednesday, the committee released its 154-page executive summary of the investigation following an 17-month probe with over 1,200 witness interviews, hundreds of thousands of documents, the issuance of more than 100 subpoenas, and public hearings. It preceded the release of the final 845-page report documenting how DDT has continued to spread lies about his winning the election despite warnings from his family members, Cabinet members, and campaign officials that he should stop. Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnamy and national security adviser Robert O’Brien tried to talk DDT out of his rigged Dominion voting machines conspiracy theory. DDT campaign manager Bill Stepian said he locked his door to keep out DDT allies trying to promote the stolen-election claims, one of them Giuliani.
DDT’s lies ignited the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and urged right-wingers, including a number of hate groups, to keep him in the Oval Office. Court cases about his lies supported by supporters, including far-right media, involve lies about rigged voting machines, “dead voters,” and voting numbers pushing recounts. Conservative states passed laws based on the election fraud lies attempting to destroy democratic processes. DDT’s lies also endangered lives of election voters and created a majority of election officials who believe his lies in many areas of the country.
DDT was central cause of the January 6 insurrection; none of the events of that day “would have happened without him.” The entire White House senior staff wanted “a Presidential statement” to persuade rioters to leave the Capitol. “Scared” Kevin McCarthy, House GOP Minority Leader from California, called Jared Kushner begging for his help to persuade DDT to call of those invading the Capitol.
DDT wanted 10,000 troops to protect himself so that he could march to the Capitol on January 6.
The attack was “foreseeable”: law enforcement failed.
The RNC knew DDT’s claims about a stolen election were lies but still sought donations using the false claimd, receiving millions of dollars. DDT and the RNC received $250 million after the election, primarily from small donors who believed the lie that their money would help “stop the steal.”
DDT tried to talk to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger 18 times to overturn Joe Biden’s legal victory in the state.
While DDT continued to claim over 10,000 dead Georgians voted in the 2020 presidential election, his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said that his son had found a scant “12 obituaries and 6 other possibles depending on the Voter roll acuracy [sic].”
The plan to overturn election in states by ignoring the legal vote and appointing fake DDT electors moved ahead shortly after the election with hundreds of outreaches by DDT loyalists—68 meetings, attempted or connected phone calls or text messages at state or local officials; 18 prominent public remarks targeting the officials; and 125 social media posts mostly from DDT.
Over 30 witnesses invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, going so far as to refuse to give their ages. Others such as Meadows and former adviser Steve Bannon wouldn’t be questioned at all.
The hearing was largely about DDT, but the report provided 11 reform proposals to democratically and peacefully transition the presidency between elections—a failure in 2021:
14th Amendment: ban DDT from holding public office because he “engaged in insurrection.” Congress is asked to consider “creating a formal mechanism for evaluating whether to bar” individuals in the report from holding government office under the constitutional statute. In the House, 41 members introduced a bill to block DDT from holding office under 14th Amendment provisions, ratified in 1868.
Subpoena enforcement: grant Congress greater powers to use federal courts in enforcing its own subpoenas after several high-profile DDT allies refused the committee’s subpoenas.
Protection for poll workers: create steeper penalties for threats to election workers and safeguards protecting their identities.
Tougher oversight of the Capitol Police: improve preparedness of the force through congressional “regular and rigorous oversight” and routine hearings in which the Capitol Police Board testifies as well as assuring “full funding for critical security measures.”
Role of media: scrutinize “policies of media companies … radicalizing their consumers, including by provoking people to attack their own country” to lessen people galvanized by incorrect information
Insurrection Act: “evaluate all such evidence, and consider tasks posed for future elections” after Oath Keepers’ members called on DDT to deploy armed militia or federal troops to stay in office.
National Special Security Event: make the counting of electoral votes on January 6 a national special security event with increased security protections and advance planning and preparation for the proceedings.
Electoral Count Act: reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to protect future presidential elections from being by declaring that the vice president only counts votes and that the number of votes to object a state’s electoral votes increases from one from each the House and the Senate to one-fifth of each chamber.
Combating violent extremism: adopt “whole-of-government strategies” to deal with the violent threat “posed by all extremist groups” and recommend greater information sharing “on a timely basis” on intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
More severe penalties for obstructing the transfer of power: expand federal criminal statutes aimed at punishing victim tampering to include those who try to obstruct, influence or impede the counting of Electoral College votes on January 6.
Accountability measures: go beyond formal recommendations that the DOJ investigate DDT and his key ally, John Eastman, of specific federal crimes and evaluate other DDT allies’ activities “to ensure criminal or civil accountability for anyone engaging in misconduct described” in the document. Further to urge courts and local bar associations to disqualify those in the legal profession participating in efforts to undermine democratic institutions and ask the DOJ to ensuring that agency employees avoid “campaign-related activities.”
Dahlia Lithwick pointed out one lamentable omission in the final report: Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, got off the hook. No mention was made of Thomas’ refusal to recuse himself from cases involving the insurrection in which his wife both participated and held a vested interest in the outcome.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas were ultimately untouchable for the Jan. 6 investigators for the same reason they are untouchable for purposes of Supreme Court ethics reform: When you’re a justice, they let you do it. And when you are delivering long-sought victories, even ethical Never Trumpers like Liz Cheney will let you do whatever it takes to deliver the goods.
Tomorrow: DDT’s taxes and more disasters for him this week.