Dear friends, family, and colleagues,
I cannot resist sharing some thoughts and links on last night’s Jan 6 hearings.
The January 6 public hearings at the US capital last night are a momentous event that I encourage you to watch.
We should all want to figure out how to avoid such violence in the future.
Several new facts emerged which are central to understanding Donald Trump’s guilt in causing the insurrection.
Trump’s Attorney General William Barr repeatedly told the president in November 2020 that there was no evidence of voting fraud and that his efforts to overcome the election were bullshit. Barr then resigned.
Ivanka Trump stated in her testimony that she respected William Barr and accepted what he was saying about the election.
Vice president Mike Pence repeatedly called to try to get additional police and military support that day, but the president did not.
The Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, numbering in the hundreds at the insurrection, were already on their way to the Capital at 10:00 am well before Trump gave his empowering speeches to the crowds at the White House, confirming that it had to have been preplanned.
Donald Trump and his inner circle met in December 2020 secretly, without their lawyers present, to plot the insurrection, and immediately began promoting the January 6 rally with “Will be wild” tweets.
Here are three different summaries (NYTimes, NPR, and Wall Street Journal) if you don’t have time to watch the two hours of hearings themselves, which are posted online here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/us/january-6-hearing-takeaways-trump.html
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jan-6-hearings-news-live (Requires a subscription to read the full article.)
The magnitude of the attack and the violence was much greater than the previously released videos have shown.
This 11:37 video was shown at the hearing. It is remarkable how restrained the capital police were throughout the attack.
Watch: Jan. 6 Committee Plays Never-Before-Seen Video of Capitol Attack
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards was a hero and remarkable spokesperson for humanity at the hearing.
For an informative and humorous comic overview, Stephen Colbert’s 11 minute live monologue is also worth a watch.