A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Actually Yes I Did Try To Do An Election Steal
Former Trump legal adviser John Eastman told an undercover progressive activist on camera that he stood by his blueprint on how Mike Pence could subvert the 2020 election for Trump – despite insisting as recently as last week to the National Review that he totally didn’t believe those ideas could work.
- Eastman told the activist that there was “no question” that his legal reasoning was solid.
- Eastman also said that the reason why Pence ultimately didn’t go along with the lawyer’s plot was because the then-vice president was “establishment guy at the end of the day.”
- So much for Eastman’s backtracking last week, when he told the National Review that the memo’s main argument that Pence is the ultimate arbiter of certifying the Electoral College votes “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” and that the idea that House Republicans, upon theoretically being given the power to do so by Pence, could replace Biden electoral votes with Trump votes was “crazy.”
Jan. 6 Panel Plans To Subpoena Eastman
The House Jan. 6 select committee will subpoena the attorney, committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said yesterday.
- Eastman told the Washington Post that the committee had previously reached out to him, and that he had “returned” their call and left a voicemail.
- Eastman wouldn’t say on Tuesday whether he planned on cooperating with the panel.
Several Trump Aides Already Talking To Jan. 6 Panel
At least five people who worked at the Trump White House have voluntarily spoken to the committee, according to CNN.
- Former top Homeland Security officials Ken Cuccinelli and Chad Wolf have also been contacted by the committee, CNN reported. They reportedly have not been subpoenaed, however.
Florida AG’s Lawyers Mocked Texas’ Anti-Election Suit
Lawyers working in Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s (R) office made fun of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) Supreme Court lawsuit that attempted to throw the 2020 election to Trump, according to internal emails obtained by the Tampa Bay Times – right before Moody signed onto the suit herself.
- One of the attorneys called the lawsuit “batshit insane” and suggested that Paxton, who had been indicted for securities fraud, was only doing it to woo Trump into pardoning him.
- Another attorney said Paxton’s argument for getting the court involved in a political dispute was “weird.”
- Then Moody joined Paxton’s lawsuit literally the next day because “the integrity and resolution of the 2020 election is of paramount importance.”
- It’s unclear if Moody knew that her team apparently thought the suit was a joke. The attorney general’s spokesperson told the Tampa Bay Times that the emails were just a “water cooler conversation by a few employees.”
Birx: Trump Could’ve Prevented 100K+ COVID Deaths
Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, told the House’s subcommittee on COVID-19 during a hearing earlier this month that Trump and his team were “distracted” by the 2020 elections and thus failed to take steps that could’ve saved more than a hundred thousand lives.
- The Trump administration “probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30-percent-less to 40-percent-less range” if it had made serious efforts to mitigate the spread, Birx said in newly released excerpts of the transcripts of her testimony.
- Birx also took a shot at Scott Atlas, Trump’s favorite pandemic adviser who kept pushing the “herd immunity” strategy. She told the committee that she would refuse to attend the same meetings as Atlas in order to “create a line in the sand.”
Facebook Actively Tried To Get You Pissed Off
The social media giant secretly created an algorithm that would weigh “angry” emoji reactions to posts five, then later 1.5, times more than “likes” in order to get more users to engage on the website, according to internal documents reported by the Washington Post.
- Facebook finally cut the weight to zero last September after it became obvious the algorithm was amplifying toxic misinformation that was often weaponized by politicians, according to the documents.
GOPer Doesn’t Know What Pre-K Is For
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) took to the House floor to argue yesterday that kids don’t need pre-K because “many stay-at-home parents” exist, and even if they don’t, “a lot of times kids stay with their grandparents or other relatives.”
GOPer Blames Society’s ‘Plagues’ On The Gays
Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) went off on an unhinged rant against the House’s bill to reauthorize the Family Violence and Prevention Services program yesterday, during which he accused Democrats of attacking “the very bedrock of our country, the moral principles and the traditional family that hold our families and communities together.”
- Then Good argued that “nearly everything that plagues our society” can be attributed to “a failure to follow God’s laws for morality and his rules and definition of marriage and family.”
- By the way, Good’s district director stood outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 with other Trump supporters as the insurrectionists broke into the building that day.
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