What Past Congressional Investigations Can Teach Us About The Jan 6 Hearings

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

Public hearings to be held in June by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection will attempt to answer the question of whether former President Donald Trump and his political allies broke the law in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.

The Jan. 6 hearings are part of a long history of congressional investigation.

Continue reading “What Past Congressional Investigations Can Teach Us About The Jan 6 Hearings” →

Trump-Backed Masters Boosts Far-Right Conspiracy That FBI Was Behind Jan 6

Posted on by Summer Concepcion

Blake Masters, who is endorsed by former President Trump in the Arizona Senate GOP primary, reportedly pushed a debunked conspiracy theory that suggests that the FBI was behind the Jan. 6 attack, according to new audio obtained by CNN of Masters’ meeting with conservative activists in March.

Continue reading “Trump-Backed Masters Boosts Far-Right Conspiracy That FBI Was Behind Jan 6” →

Report: Jan. 6 Panel In Talks With Cipollone To Testify Publicly

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

The House Jan. 6 Committee and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who had a front-row seat to Donald Trump’s 2020 election steal efforts, are hashing out terms for the attorney’s potential public testimony, according to ABC News.

Continue reading “Report: Jan. 6 Panel In Talks With Cipollone To Testify Publicly” →

Judge Orders Eastman To Turn Over Emails On Potential ‘Crime,’ Secretive Group’s Meetings

Posted on by Matt Shuham

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered former Trump attorney John Eastman to turn over dozens of additional emails to the congressional Jan. 6 committee, including what the judge described as potential evidence of a crime and notes on secretive meetings that included a member of Congress and a Trump elector.

Continue reading “Judge Orders Eastman To Turn Over Emails On Potential ‘Crime,’ Secretive Group’s Meetings” →

Armed Man Arrested Near Kavanaugh’s Home After Threatening To Kill Justice

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

This post has been updated.

An armed California man named Nicholas John Roske was arrested early Wednesday morning near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland after he allegedly told law enforcement that he wanted to kill the justice.

Continue reading “Armed Man Arrested Near Kavanaugh’s Home After Threatening To Kill Justice” →

GOP Candidate Shared Conspiracy Theories Claiming Uvalde And Buffalo Shootings Were False Flags

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

Republican New York House candidate Carl Paladino, who’s been endorsed by House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), shared an unhinged rant on his Facebook page last week that pushed conspiracy theories about the shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo.

Continue reading “GOP Candidate Shared Conspiracy Theories Claiming Uvalde And Buffalo Shootings Were False Flags” →

The Failson’s Tale

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I see this as largely comic relief in contrast to the weighty issues currently coming down the pike. But it’s remarkable that these pieces still get written. The Times Peter Baker has a new piece out which makes clear that, according to Jared Kushner, Kushner washed his hands of all of the post-election Big Lie politicking and had nothing to do with any of that bad stuff. “[H]e chose at that pivotal moment to focus instead on his personal project of Middle East diplomacy.” In fact, not only did he have nothing to do with it and not do any bad things, but his lack of presence as a moderating influence meant that the post-election conspiracy leading up to the January 6th insurrection was even crazier and more dangerous than it otherwise would have been. In fact, the whole Trump presidency would have been much worse if not for Kushner’s steadying presence. This may sound like a hyperbolic summary of the article. It’s not. Read it and see for yourself. It’s based on a forthcoming book by Baker and his wife Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that in fact Kushner did no bad things, according to the account of Mr. Kushner provided to Mr. Baker.

What They Say

Posted on by Josh Marshall

You learn a lot of things when you hear from TPM Readers talking to the offices of their congressional representatives. One thing is straightforward answers to constituent questions: I oppose the filibuster; I support the filibuster. But just as interesting in some ways is the culture of different offices. Some are very solicitous of constituent feedback and questions — some even perhaps overeager to tell constituents’ what they want to hear. But others take a very different approach. So for instance, when TPM Reader DM contacted Robert Menendez’s office, a staffer simply told her they didn’t want to answer the question. Well, okay. Meanwhile a staffer in Angus King’s office walked TPM Reader PL through King’s conflicted feelings and thoughts about the filibuster.

Continue reading “What They Say” →

Laura Ingraham Admits Fox Is Catering To Viewers By Not Airing Jan. 6 Hearings

Posted on by Cristina Cabrera

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Laura, You’re Not Supposed To Say That Out Loud

Fox News is getting a lot of heat for not airing the House Jan. 6 Committee’s upcoming public hearings live during primetime on Fox News Channel tomorrow–to which Fox News host Laura Ingraham says, you fools, you simpletons, we’re proud to say we tell our viewers exactly what they wanna hear, unlike those nerds at CNN and MSNBC!

  • “We actually do something called, you know, cater to our audience,” Ingraham snarked on Tuesday night.

(You really gotta love the way she catches herself like uh actually our viewers are too well-informed to need to watch it live! with that “Our audience knows what this is.”)

Jan. 6 Panel Interviews Trump’s Secret Service Chief

The House Jan. 6 Committee has interviewed Robert Engel, the Secret Service agent who was in charge of Trump’s security detail on the day of the Capitol attack, and other Secret Service personnel, according to Politico.

  • Engel was close to Trump all day on Jan. 6: He rode with the President from the White House to the infamous Ellipse rally, where Engel stood backstage.
  • For nearly two weeks before the rally, Trump had pushed his Secret Service to allow him to march with his supporters to the Capitol that day, which the agency refused to do, the Washington Post reports. Then on Jan. 6, the agency reportedly had to scramble to figure out how to get Trump to the Capitol after he went ahead and told the rally crowd he’d be marching with them there.
  • One specific element of the Jan. 6 panel’s interest in the Secret Service: Whether Trump and his cronies were involved in the Secret Service rushing to remove Vice President Mike Pence–who hadn’t yet certified the 2020 election results–from the Capitol during the attack, according to the Post.

GOP Senate Leader Needs AR-15s To Obliterate Varmints

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) told CNN on Tuesday that AR-15 rifles are needed for the following reason:

Iowa Dem Finkenauer Defeated In Primary

Retired Navy Adm. Mike Franken trounced ex-Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) in the Democratic Iowa Senate primary on Tuesday to face off against Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Finkenauer, who had been entangled in a court struggle to make it onto the ballot, was widely seen as the top contender for the nomination.

Jan. 6 Panel In Talks With Cipollone To Testify Publicly

The House Jan. 6 Committee and Pat Cipollone, Trump’s top White House lawyer, are discussing Cipollone potentially speaking during one of the committee’s public hearings, according to ABC News and the New York Times (not a great headline there, NYT).

  • The panel’s also reached out to former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, a key witness in Trump’s plot to use the DOJ to steal the 2020 election, to invite him to testify publicly, according to CNN and the Times.
  • Read more on what else we know about the upcoming hearings here.

Bannon Subpoenas House Dem Leaders And Jan. 6 Panel Members

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, fighting federal criminal contempt charges, has subpoenaed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) plus all the members of the House Jan. 6 Committee.

Suspect In Wisconsin Judge’s Murder Dies

Douglas Uhde, the man who allegedly killed retired Juneau County Circuit Court Judge John Roemer in Wisconsin, died while he was in the hospital on Tuesday, according to local authorities. 

  • Uhde was being treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police found him at Roemer’s home on the day of the shooting on Friday, per the Wisconsin attorney general.
  • We still don’t know what Uhde’s alleged motive was or why he allegedly had a list of targets that, in addition to Roemer, included Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R). 

Biden To Appear On Kimmel

The President’s taping an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! today, and Fox found a way to get mad about that:

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

What Would It Take For Guns To One Day Go The Way Of Cigarettes?

Posted on by Kate Riga

An object, cloaked in an aura of glamor and cool, is, or at least feels, ubiquitous in American society. The object is a clear threat to public health — though that fact often gets eclipsed by arguments emphasizing the rights of those who like to use the object. Powerful, monied and well-connected special interest groups stand behind the object, and work fervently to thwart regulation and restrictions on it. 

Today, that object is a gun. In our recent past, it was a cigarette. 

Continue reading “What Would It Take For Guns To One Day Go The Way Of Cigarettes?” →