With respect to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony that Donald Trump tried to choke out his own presidential limo driver and routinely threw food and dishes in fits of rage, there are four kinds of people who will have very different reactions. Hutchison is the former top aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, so she was in a position to witness these things or in some cases hear about them second hand moments after they occurred.
One group will simply disbelieve Hutchinson because Trump says she’s lying, even though she testified under penalty of perjury. Another group will not be in the least surprised because her testimony confirms everything they already believe about the disgraced ex-president. A third group will be genuinely surprised, not because they had a high opinion of Trump but because they didn’t think he was quite this bad. And the last group, which perversely intersects with the first, will believe every word of the testimony but think it was the “perfect” reaction to having the election stolen from him. They’ll love Trump even more.
There’s a reason Trump once referred to himself as “a very stable genius.” It’s because he’s a complete basket case and a certifiable dunce. To insist on the opposite isn’t necessary unless the charge is a widely acknowledged truth.
It amazes me that so much effort is apparently necessary to demonstrate that Trump was intent on staying in office on January 6, 2021 and that all his preparations and actions on that day were in furtherance of a naked coup attempt. That he knew his effort was unlikely to succeed is what made him emotionally unstable, and that he still convinced himself it might work is what makes him a dunce.
I have no patience for anyone who wants to count the angels dancing on a pin to decide whether any crimes were committed. A coup attempt is a crime. It’s the most serious crime you can commit. You can’t argue that you had some justification for it because you were sincerely deluded. No self-respecting system of justice would accept that excuse.
I don’t care what he did with dishes or who had to clean it up. I care what he did to the country and want to know when it will be cleaned up. Ms. Hutchinson thoughtfully helped the White House valet clean ketchup off the Oval Office dining room walls, but she needs our help in cleaning up the larger mess.
Her testimony was very helpful, but it cannot come to nothing. Swift and unforgiving action must come next.
As the faucet continues to drip, I just get more and more nervous that somehow this is all going to fizzle out in a blaze of serious and incomprehensible bullshit by the GOP. Virtually every single elected Republican in DC is complicit in The Big Lie, and all of the deadly consequences of its results. There is a lot of brute political power that can be brought to bear, and they have every reason to try and turn this into something which only touches the “little people”, and allows virtually every one of them, and their allies, to skate.
Any actions by the DOJ directed at them will be a political and legal thermonuclear bomb of unimaginable proportions, and will set off things which this country has never experienced or had to address. Where we are heading is wholly uncharted territory for everyone. I continue to hope for the best, while steeling myself for monumental dissappointment, and the dramatic death of the rule of law in this country. I have no fucking clue how all this will end.
I got the feeling that at the end of the day’s hearing that Liz Cheney was aiming her final remarks at DOJ and essentially saying to Garland that there is attempted witness influence and tampering occurring now, also a crime, that there is evidence of said crimes, and to get it together and do something. I could be wrong.
We’ve known for a very long time that this was a coup attempt and as you put it, it’s as serious a crime as one can commit, and that those responsible need to be frog marched from their comfy digs and get some idea of what life in a super max is like. In the meantime, the clock is ticking. DOJ better damn well get it together and they’d better step on it.