Choosing Insurrection

Trial

It’s the rhythm of a criminal trial.  The Prosecution begins the case with it’s “opening”.  They describe the “who, what, when, where and why”, and they tell the jury what the evidence will show.  Then the evidence itself is presented; building, piece by piece, the structure of the criminal acts.  And finally, after the Defense has had their chance, the Prosecution sums up what all the evidence “adds up to”.  If they did their job, it adds up to a finding of guilt.

The January 6^th Committee is not holding a criminal trial.  They are presenting the “intelligence”, the information, about the actions of former President Donald Trump and his cohorts leading to the Insurrection for which the committee is named.   Some of that “intelligence” rises to the level of evidence, some does not.  

But that’s not the January 6^th Committee’s problem.  All they can do is show what they’ve found.  They can “write the story” of the Insurrection, and they will ultimately propose legislation to try to “fix what’s broke”.  Oh, and they can lay out a case to the Department of Justice for indicting the former President of the United States.

Think of the January 6^th Committee as presenting a cross between a criminal trial and a mini-series.  They’ve been masterful in carefully building a story.  The Congressmen narrate, backed by video clips of witness statements, footage of the what the protagonists did or said, and those awful battle scenes on the steps of the Capitol.  And then they carefully present “live” witnesses to buttress each point of the day, the “episode”.  Tuesday’s presentation was no exception.

Hearsay

Remember, in our “last episode” we heard from Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.  Her position, both administratively and literally, was in the center of the action.  Meadows was the gateway to Trump, Hutchinson was the gateway to Meadows.  And she took us “inside” in the final days leading up to the Insurrection.  Her testimony was so damning of Trump and Meadows, that all that the unheard “defendants” could say was that much of her testimony was “hearsay”.  She was telling what someone said someone said.

So this week, the Committee brought in the “someone” who said much of it, former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.  He “had no problem” with her testimony, verifying most of it.  Her hearsay was verified by his direct testimony, admissible in any Court.  

Nexus of the Crime

And in this episode, the Committee also took us to the “nexus” of the crime, the moment when the Insurrection was put in motion.  It was after an hours long meeting with the President on December 18^th, 2020, four days after the electoral votes were confirmed by the States.  

It was in this meeting, filled with shouting and near physical violence, that President Trump was presented with two choices.  His White House staff, represented by Cipollone and Meadows, offered him reality.  They said the election was over, and that Trump should concede and rest on his successes in office.  But the outside “counsel”, Giuliani, Powell and Flynn; offered him an alternative, one that was tantamount to overthrowing the government.  

We knew about this meeting within hours of it happening.  I wrote an essay about it two days later (Seven Days in December).  But at the end of the hours of  screaming and shouting, Cipollone and Meadows walked out thinking that they had avoided the worst.  

But what we didn’t realize then, was that Trump’s next move was to call out the mob, the famous come to Washington for a “wild time” tweet.  That moment, that tweet, set in motion a chain of events from all of those groups that were following Trump’s earlier instructions of “stand back and stand by”.  They immediately began to organize. The President chose to launch an Insurrection.

Preserve, Protect and Defend

The committee still has not clearly tied Trump (or Meadows) directly to those groups.  What they have done is shown that the President knew there was an armed mob in front of him on January 6^th, the mob he summoned; and despite that knowledge, sent them to march on the Capitol to “fight” for him.  And as they headed down the Mall, Trump himself wanted to be “with them”.  We know that the Secret Service had to disobey the order of the President of the United States in the black SUV after the speech, and take him back to the White House.

What did Donald Trump do as the Capitol was breeched for the first time since 1814?  Why didn’t he call out the National Guard, or at least call the mob off?  Direct testimony from one man who actually broke into the building said that as soon as the President told him to, he left the building.

Our final episode:  what did Donald Trump do in the three hours that the Capitol was under siege?  How did Trump react to direct threats on the Vice President and the leadership of Congress?  What is the duty of the President to protect Congress and the Constitution, and what is the reality of Donald Trump’s inaction?

Tune in again, next week, to find out.

The January 6^th Essays

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