begin quote from:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/politics/january-6-hearing-day-3-takeaways/index.html
8 takeaways from the January 6 hearings day 3
Chairman
Bennie Thompson swears-in Greg Jacob, who was counsel to former Vice
President Mike Pence, center right, and Michael Luttig, a retired
federal judge, to testify at a House select committee hearing Thursday,.
(CNN)The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection on Thursday detailed how former President Donald Trump tried to pressure his vice president to join in his scheme to overturn the presidential election -- and how Mike Pence's refusal put his life in danger as rioters called for his hanging on January 6, 2021.
Two
witnesses testified at Thursday's hearing who advised Pence that he did
not have the authority to subvert the election, former Pence attorney Greg Jacob and retired Republican judge J. Michael Luttig.
The
committee walked through how conservative Trump attorney John Eastman
put forward a legal theory that Pence could unilaterally block
certification of the election -- a theory that was roundly rejected by
Trump's White House attorneys and Pence's team but nevertheless embraced
by the former President.
Here are the key takeaways from the committee's third hearing this month:
Trump was told Eastman's plan was illegal -- but tried it anyway
There
were many revelations, but the perhaps most important one: Trump was
told repeatedly that his plan for Pence to overturn the election on
January 6 was illegal, but he tried to do it anyway.
According
to witness testimony, Pence himself and the lawyer who concocted the
scheme advised Trump directly that the plan was unconstitutional and
violated federal law. Committee members argued that this shows Trump's
corrupt intentions, and could lay the groundwork for a potential
indictment.
In
a videotaped deposition, which was played Thursday, Pence's chief of
staff Marc Short said Pence advised Trump "many times" that he didn't
have the legal or constitutional authority to overturn the results while
presiding over the joint session of Congress on January 6 to count the
electoral votes.
Even
Eastman, who helped devise the scheme and pitched it to Trump, admitted
in front of Trump that the plan would require Pence to violate federal
law, according to a clip of a deposition from Jacob, Pence's senior
legal adviser, which was played at Thursday's hearing.
Legal
scholars from across the political spectrum agree that Eastman's plan
was preposterous. Luttig, the former federal judge who advised Pence
during the transition, testified at Thursday's hearing that he "would
have laid my body across the road" before letting Pence illegally
overturn the election.
The panel tied the Mike Pence pressure campaign to January 6 violence
The
committee tried to connect Trump's pressure campaign against Pence to
the violence on January 6, by weaving together testimony from Pence
aides, Trump's public statements and comments from rioters at the
Capitol.
Some of the most compelling evidence came from the rioters themselves.
Many
of them had listened to Trump's rallies where he claimed --
inaccurately -- that the election was rigged against him, and Pence had
the power to do something about it while presiding over the Electoral
College certification. While the insurrection was underway, they cited
Trump's comments about Pence.
And
many of them saw, in real-time, Trump's tweet criticizing Pence while
the Capitol was under attack, where he said Pence "didn't have the
courage to do what should have been done."
The
point of highlighting this on Thursday was to lay the blame for the
violence at Trump's feet. And right after the attack, many top
Republicans agreed with that conclusion. But over the last year and a
half, many Republicans have shied away from blaming Trump, and the
committee hopes to change that.
Former
Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann told the committee that
Eastman told him he was willing to accept violence in order to overturn
the 2020 election. The panel played video from Herschmann's deposition
where he described a conversation with Eastman about his claims that the
vice president could overturn the election in Congress.
Herschmann warned Eastman that his strategy, if implemented, was "going to cause riots in the streets."
"And
he said words to the effect of, 'There's been violence in the history
of our country in order to protect the democracy, or to protect the
republic,' " Herschmann said.
Greg Jacob and J. Michael Luttig are sworn in before testifying during the hearing Thursday.
And
the committee highlighted testimony from witnesses who described Turmp
exacerbating the situation on January 6 during the riot. Deputy press
secretary Sarah Matthews testified in a taped deposition that was shown
that a tweet Trump sent on January 6 helped escalate the situation.
"It felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire," she added.
The danger to Pence was real as the mob got about 40 feet from the vice president
The committee underscored that Pence was in real danger on January 6, and the panel made the case that Trump was to blame.
The
mob got about 40 feet from Pence -- that's a little more than a first
down in football. Rioters threatened him by name, and were enraged that
he didn't overturn the election, because they believed Trump's lie that
Pence could unilaterally nullify Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral
College.
"Vice President Pence was a focus of the violent attack," said committee member Rep. Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat.
Pence's
team evacuated and the committee showed new images of the then-vice
president sheltering in a basement bunker in the US Capitol as the
violence unfolded.
Pence
and his wife, Karen Pence, reacted "with frustration" to the fact that
Trump never called to check on them, according to Jacob's testimony.
Pence
and Trump's relationship had soured deeply in the lead-up to the
January 6 congressional session, as Pence made clear that he would not
comply with the scheme to overturn the election results that Trump was
pushing.
Trump then began to turn on his vice president in his public remarks, stirring up his supporters' anger.
For
his part, as he worked from a secure location in the Capitol, Pence
reached out to congressional leaders, the acting defense secretary and
others "to check on their safety and to address the growing crisis,"
Aguilar said Thursday.
Eastman wouldn't take no for an answer on overturning the election
The
hearing underscored how Eastman had pushed over and over for Pence to
try to overturn the election, despite facing sharp resistance from White
House lawyers and Pence's team.
Even
after the riot at the Capitol, Eastman was still pursuing efforts to
block the election result, the committee revealed. Eastman's actions in
many ways mirrored those of Trump, who also refused to accept Pence's
rejection and lashed out at his vice president in his speech and on
Twitter.
The
committee played testimony from video depositions where White House
officials explained how they thought Eastman's theory was "nutty" before
January 6 -- and told him so. Jacob described Eastman's plans as
"certifiably crazy."
Jacob,
Pence's chief counsel, described the meetings he'd had with Eastman on
January 4 and January 5, including when Eastman directly asked him for
Pence to reject electors.
"I
concluded by saying, 'John, in light of everything that we've
discussed, can't we just both agree that this is a terrible idea?' "
Jacob said. "And he couldn't quite bring himself to say yes to that. But
he very clearly said, 'Well, yeah, I see we're not going to be able to
persuade you to do this.' And that was how the meeting concluded."
But
on the evening of January 6 -- after rioters had attacked the Capitol
and forced the vice president and his team to flee -- Eastman tried to
leverage the delay in certification by arguing there had been a minor
violation of the Electoral Count Act and Pence should delay for 10 days
as a result.
In
a phone call with Herschmann on January 7, Eastman was still pursuing
legal options to appeal the election results in Georgia.
Herschmann
told the committee in a deposition: "I said to him, 'Are you out of
your effing mind? Because I only want to hear two words coming out of
your mouth from now on: orderly transition.'"
Eastman emailed Giuliani about receiving a presidential pardon after January 6
Eastman
emailed Rudy Giuliani a few days after January 6, 2021, and asked to be
included on a list of potential recipients of a presidential pardon,
the committee revealed during Thursdays hearing.
The committee said Eastman made the request to Giuliani, Trump's former attorney, in an email.
"I've decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works," the email from Eastman to Giuliani read.
Eastman
did not ultimately receive a pardon and refused to answer the
committee's questions about his role in efforts to overturn the 2020
election, repeatedly pleading the Fifth during his deposition.
The
committee argued during Thursday's hearing that Eastman's request for a
pardon, and his decision to repeatedly plead the Fifth when questioned
previously by the panel, indicates Eastman knew his actions were
potentially criminal.
CNN
previously reported that Giuliani and other Trump associates had raised
the idea of receiving preemptive pardons in the weeks leading up to
January 6 but the US Capitol riot had complicated his desire to pardon
himself, his kids and personal lawyer. At the time, several of Trump's
closest advisers also urged him not to grant clemency to anyone involved
in the January 6 attack, despite Trump's initial stance that those
involved had done nothing wrong.
The star of Thursday's hearing was not in the room
One person noticeably absent on Thursday was the star of the hearing himself: the former vice president.
The
committee cast Pence as the hero -- making the case that American
democracy would have slipped into a state of chaos had he succumbed to
Trump's pressure campaign.
But
as the committee touted Pence's commitment to the Constitution and
bravery on January 6, it was impossible to ignore the fact that the
former vice president was not in the room.
Instead, the committee relied on live witness testimony from the two former Pence advisers who appeared to speak on his behalf.
Earlier
this year, the committee's chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of
Mississippi, had suggested the committee would seek testimony from
Pence. Still, the prospect of Pence appearing before the committee,
particularly in public, has always been viewed as a long shot -- to say
the least.
Asked
Wednesday if the committee is still interested in hearing from Pence,
committee aides demurred, telling reporters the investigation is ongoing
and therefore they cannot provide details about any engagement with a
particular witness.
"Nothing
new to share on that, other than we continue to search for facts and if
there is more to share, we'll share it in the future," one of the aides
said.
The
fact that two of Pence's former advisers appeared Thursday, and Short
testified on camera behind closed doors, indicates that Pence was not
actively seeking to block those around him from sharing information with
the committee in his stead.
Retired
judge and and informal advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, J. Michael
Luttig, testifies during the hearing in Washington, DC.
Luttig turns parts of the hearing into a lengthy constitutional seminar
The
January 6 committee's hearings to date have been briskly produced
affairs, with emotional, violent video interspersed with testimony from
depositions -- and minimal live witness testimony.
On Thursday, Luttig, a retired judge, had other ideas.
Luttig
gave lengthy, meandering answers with a halting approach that stretched
on while he dove into issues like the history of the Electoral Count
Act.
Luttig's
comments were basically the opposite of "must-see TV," the prime-time
hearings that committee has signaled it's holding to try to connect with
the American public about the significance of the January 6 attack on
the Capitol and on democracy.
At
the same time, the points Luttig made -- about how the legal schemes
Eastman and Trump pushed were baseless and Trump was told as much before
January 6 -- were essential to the committee's case trying to connect
Trump's efforts to overturn the election to the violence. But his
delivery got in the way of his message.
American democracy is on the line
The
investigation is about the 2020 election, but committee members went to
great lengths to reframe the conversation about the future threats to
democracy, with an eye toward 2024.
And
it's not just the Democrats who run the committee who are raising the
alarm about Trump's increasingly anti-democratic -- lowercase D --
behavior, and what it means for future elections.
Jacob
said Trump's plan was "antithetical to everything in our democracy" and
would've thrown the nation into an unprecedented constitutional
crisis."
Luttig
said Trump poses a "clear and present danger to American democracy."
The conservative Republican said he had reached this conclusion because
Trump and his allies are still lying about the 2020 election, endorsing
candidates who are promoting these lies and showing no signs of backing
down.
The
committee says it will put forward legislative proposals to clarify old
election laws, close the loopholes that Trump and Eastman tried to
exploit, and safeguard the transition of power. There is bipartisan
interest in passing some of these proposals, but it's not clear yet if
there is enough support to send any bills to Biden's desk. With the
midterm elections looming, time may be running out.
This story has been updated with additional developments Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment