The John Dean Moment

Demanding Attention

I tried to write a long explanation about the filibuster, bad and good.  And I need to write about the atrocity of Russian targeting shopping malls in Kyiv with missiles.  I struggle to write about fifty dead in San Antonio, left trapped in the 100 degree heat in a sealed semi-trailer.  Then there’s the public school coach whose religious actions on the field are now “sanctified” by the Supreme Court.   And there’s more to say about Dobbs v Jackson. So, there’s plenty of critical subjects to choose as I stare at the blank page on my computer screen.

But then Chairman Thompson and Vice Chairman Cheney directed my attention back to January 6^th  and the Insurrection.  They held a “surprise” Committee hearing, on twenty-four hours’ notice, with an unnamed witness.  We spent Monday night speculating:  is it Mike Pence, Mark Meadows, John Cipillone?  And then we had the pre-hearing let down.  It was “just” Meadows Executive Assistant. Cassidy Hutchinson, is the twenty-six year old who went from the office of Congressman Steve Scalise to the White House, and literally to the door of the Chief of Staff’s office, only a few feet from the Oval Office.  

The Door-Keeper

But Hutchinson’s testimony was more than compelling.  She was in the mix, with Meadows, Cipillone, and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, former Secret Service Agent Anthony Ornato.  Not only was she literally positioned in the center of the West Wing of January 6^th, but she was “door-keeper” for Chief of Staff Meadows.  They came to her first, then onto Meadows and ultimately President Trump.

Her testimony stated that the President didn’t just sit silently as the Capitol was attacked.  Trump wanted to lead the assault himself.  He tried to force his Secret Service detail to take him to the Insurrection, and literally attacked his own Protection Detail when they refused to allow it.  Trump knew the crowd was armed, and that the weapons weren’t meant for him, but for Congress.  And with that knowledge, he still sent the crowd to attack the Capitol.  His actions can no longer be seen as negligence. She testified to his intentional incitement of the attack.

Sure, some of her testimony is legally hearsay, evidence inadmissible in a court of law.  But her eye-witness testimony was damning enough, and called out those others who don’t have the courage to come forward.

And her direct testimony indicts Mark Meadows. He sat on the couch, scrolling through his phone, literally as the Capitol was breeched.  Meadows did not see his duty as White House Chief of Staff as any greater than failing to convince the President to act.

Four Prongs of Coup

And, almost unnoticed, Hutchinson testified to a direct connection between Meadows and the “war room” at the Willard Hotel, manned by Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon.  Stone had direct contact with the armed insurgents who first breeched the Capitol, the Proud Boys.  

The Committee is establishing the four prongs of a coup. The first, is the lie of “Stop the Steal”. Then, they developed the illegal “Constitutional” plan, explained by Eastman, Giuliani and Navarro. There were the pressure campaigns by the former President on the state elective leaders to alter vote counts or recall electors. And then Trump called the mob to Washington for a “wild time”, with connections to the “shock troops”: the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, who already were “standing back and standing by”.   All trails lead back to the West Wing, to Mark Meadows, and ultimately to Donald Trump.

No wonder Giuliani, Eastman, and now we know Meadows; asked for blanket pardons from the departing President.

History Rhymes

Hutchinson was not the high profile witness everyone expected.  She was a young, lower level staffer, who happened to be in the center of the storm.  Her role is more like a thirty-five year old assistance White House Counsel named John Dean, who testified to the Watergate Committee, and tied the crimes of Watergate all the way to President Nixon.   That was forty-nine years ago, in a time when America had the patience to sit through a three day statement. 

Today, America has to have information packaged for quick consumption.  The January 6^th Committee put together a tight two-hour package, with video, the testimony of the attractive and compelling young lady, and corroborating evidence from the thousands of hours of video testimony from other witnesses.  They piqued the interest of the media and the Nation with their surprise hearing, and managed to break through all of the other issues that confront America, at least for an afternoon.

The Cover-Up

And, at the end of the session, Congressman Cheney intoned a stern warning to those who still thought they could silence witnesses to the coup.  She displayed the mob-like warnings to witnesses, indirectly threatening them if they failed to be a “team player”.  And Chairman Thompson followed up with the offer of cooperation with witnesses who need to come forward or to “revise” their statements to get to the truth.

Clearly there is a Trump counter-offensive, trying to silence those who know what happened.  And likely, Thompson, Cheney and the Committee realized that two weeks without a message was too long.  It might let the silencers gain too much ground.  

Instead, they blew the top off of the conspiracy to disrupt the Congress, and overturn the election.  Hearsay or not, the pathway to the truth is now illuminated for all to see.  Cipillone, Meadows, and others better stop covering up, and start paying attention.

The January 6^th Essays

• The John Dean Moment
• Sinning and America
• Flashes of Hope
• Don’t Look Back
• For You, Republicans
• On the Tightrope
• A Television Moment