Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MI) and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the chair and vice-chair of the House January 6th Committee, were in the classrooms, as was Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who is on the committee and is chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
We'll start with Thompson and his chat with Chuck Todd, which aired on Meet the Press. Asked if what happened was a protest that got out of hand, or an insurrection, Thompson said it was a bit of both.
... you had citizens who have the right to protest, who thought that was the end of what would happen, and you had others who obviously came with bear spray, camouflage, Kevlar, hockey sticks, everything, prepared to do something else.
They've heard from many who volunteered details on their experiences on January 6th, Thompson said; the goal now is to get to people the Committee "basically identified that they’ve participated," including Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), to cooperate. And if they have the authority to issue subpoenas (that's being looked at), "there'll be no reluctance on our part" to do so.
There's no timeline yet for issuing a report, but they're "in a good place" to start drafting one. Thompson said the Committee "won't be deterred by the attempts to slow things down by (people) suing the committee." He suggested it would be substantive, adding
there is some legislation that we hope to recommend with this report that Congress needs to adopt so that what occurred on January 6th will never happen again... we came critically close to losing this democracy as we've come to know it. And so, it's our duty as patriots, as Americans, as members of Congress, to make sure that we get it right.
Last thoughts?
... I think if Democrats and Republicans who are ideologically apart like Liz (Cheney) and Bennie Thompson can come together for the good of this country, we'd be in a better place if others could do the same thing.Speaking of Cheney, here are highlights of her visit with George Stephanopoulos on This Week. She said they have "firsthand testimony" that Trump watched the attack on TV in the dining room next to the Oval Office, and that it's hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than" Trump's lack of action on January 6th.
The president could have at any moment, walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop. He could have told them to stand down. He could have told them to go home -- and he failed to do so.
Whether it was criminally negligent has yet to be determined, but she did say one possible legislative change to be considered is whether "enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty" are needed. And she said, as he sat there, "members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television...Leader McCarthy was pleading with him to do that... Ivanka went in at least twice" to get him to stop the violence.
Any man who would not do so, any man who would provoke a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, any man who would watch television as police officers were being beaten, as his supporters were invading the Capitol of the United States, is clearly unfit for future office...
She agreed with Hillary Clinton who said if Trump ran for president and won, "that could be the end of our democracy;" Trump "crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before," he "cannot be trusted," and he "went to war with the rule of law..."
Cheney didn't really have an answer to why a majority of Rs would elect Trump again. Rather, she said the GOP had to choose loyalty to Constitution, or to Trump - they cannot be both. And, she said,
the nation needs a Republican Party that is based on substance and values and principles, and we've got to get back to that if we want to get this nation back on track... at the end of the day, we can't be a party that's based on lies. We've got to be based on a foundation of truth and fidelity to the rule of law. And, in my view, the most conservative of conservative principles is fidelity to the Constitution.
Final thoughts on what gives her hope? The committee does; she believes it's truly non-partisan, made up of folks with "very different policy views" who come together when it comes to defending the Constitution. She suggested that's the kind of "serious leadership" Americans need.
They're looking for people certainly on both sides of the aisle who are going to dedicate themselves to policy and substance and engage in the debates that we need for the health of the nation and get away from the kind of vitriol that we are seeing too frequently, too often, frankly on both sides...
Republicans, she said, "have a particular duty to reject insurrection, to reject what happened on January 6th, and to make sure that Donald Trump is not our nominee and that he's never anywhere close to the reins of power ever again."
And, from Schiff's conversation with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation, we learn he hopes they'll have hearings soon, and that
...we hope to be able to tell the story to the country so that they understand it isn't just about that one day, January 6th, but all that led up to it, what happened on that day, and the continuing danger going forward.
Schiff said that Trump and his aides "were indicatively involved" in various efforts. He said many things related to the actual attack are still "under deep investigation," but the issue of the White House's role "is at the core of our investigation."
Switching to his Intelligence Committee role, and whether "there was just a failure of imagination in terms of too much focus on militias and organized groups versus sort of a defused threat of political violence," Schiff agreed in part, mentioning.
the failure to see all the evidence that was out there to be seen for the propensity of violence that day. A lot of it on social media. Now, there are answers for why the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security failed to see it as (clearly) as they should have, and we're looking into that.
As is always the case, Schiff kept talking when he should have stopped.
But we shouldn't be distracted from the fact that, yes, while there were things that could and should have been done to protect the Capitol that day, the primary lever, instrument, the cause of that violence was the promulgation of a big lie by the former president... it's important that we don't lose sight of the real motivating cause here and -- and not just focus on the security of the building. It's also vital we understand that this was an attack inspired by the commander- in-chief.
He said he doesn't think Trump and "his acolytes" will be successful in delaying documents and "denying justice," adding that the "the courts have been moving with great alacrity" in deciding that the documents should be turned over.
But when it does go before the Supreme Court, we well get a sense of whether that court is a conservative court or whether it has become just a partisan court. If it's a conservative court, it will not disturb the decisions below, which I think have clearly held that Congress has a right to this information....
We may find out soon just what kind of Court this is. Trump's application for a hold on the Circuit Court's decision that the records should be turned over was filed back on December 23rd. Not long after, the committee asked for a fast-tracked decision by Supremes on Trump's request, and the former president agreed.
See you around campus.
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