Monthly Archives: June 2022

Donald Trump was the first seditious president in US history, surpassing in his efforts to hang on to power beyond even the criminal imagination of Richard Nixon, according to the two political reporters who were instrumental in securing Nixons downfall.

In a new foreword to their celebrated 1974 book on the Watergate scandal, All the Presidents Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein accuse Trump of pursuing his diabolical instincts by zeroing in on the certification of Joe Bidens presidential victory by Congress on January 6 last year. In the authors assessment, Trumps unleashing of the mob that day, culminating in the violent attack on the US Capitol, amounted to a deception that exceeded even Nixons imagination.

They write in their foreword, published by the Washington Post, they write: By legal definition this is clearly sedition thus Trump became the first seditious president in our history.

Woodward and Bernsteins comparison of Trump and Nixon carries singular weight, given that as young Washington Post reporters they helped to uncover Nixons campaign of political spying and cover-up that led in 1974 to the only resignation of a president in American history. In separate capacities, the two journalists have also reported extensively on the Trump presidency, with Woodward doing so in a series of three books: Fear, Rage and Peril.

The timing of their analysis is also potent. It comes just days before the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection stages the first of at least six televised hearings in which they will attempt to show the American people that Trump acted corruptly in his efforts to stop Bidens certification.

Woodward and Bernstein suggest that the two presidents had much in common, despite the almost half a century that stands between them. Nixons belief that it was for the greater good that he stayed in power whatever the means was embraced by Trump, they write.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits, Nixon told himself in 1969. That informed Trumps campaign to hold on to power through falsehoods even in the face of defeat.

Misinformation also unites the diabolical pair. Both Nixon and Trump created a conspiratorial world in which the US constitution, laws and fragile democratic traditions were to be manipulated or ignored, political opponents and the media were enemies, and there were few or no restraints on the powers entrusted to presidents, Woodward and Bernstein say in their new foreword.

The reporters also explore the differences between the two men, notably that Trump attempted his electoral subversion in public. Pulling no punches, they call the January 6 insurrection a Trump operation and predict that the House committee has an abundance of evidence to prove that point in the upcoming hearings.

Though Nixons criminal misdeeds tend to be remembered through the lens of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on 17 June 1972, and the cover-up that followed, the authors remind their readers that his core purpose was to subvert that years presidential election. They rehearse some of the extreme measures that Nixons team of operatives took to derail the presidential campaign of his main Democratic rival, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine.

Those measures included writing fake letters on Muskie stationery alleging sexual misconduct by other Democratic candidates and stealing Muskies shoes from outside his hotel room where he had left them for polishing in order to spook him out. Muskie ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to the liberal senator George McGovern of South Dakota.

Trump, the reporters argue, pursued equally ruthless tactics designed to undermine credibility in the 2020 presidential election. They reached a pitch on January 6 with the violent mob breaking into the Capitol chanting Hang Mike Pence against Trumps vice-president who was proceeding with certification of the election results.

In the last analysis, Woodward and Bernstein ask themselves why two such powerful men would embark on parallel efforts to destroy democracy. They have one overriding answer.

Fear of losing and being considered a loser was a common thread for Nixon and Trump, they write.

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Trumps bid to cling to power beyond Nixons imagination, Watergate duo say - The Guardian US

Former President Trump faces a number of investigations and lawsuits related to his business practices with the Trump Organization and his four-year stint in the White House as he considers running for reelection in 2024.

Heres every major legal challenge the former president is facing, from several investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to a family inheritance feud.

The Jan. 6 investigation and related cases

Trump is facing nine lawsuits related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and the 2020 presidential election.

New York officials probing the Trump Organizations property valuations

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is investigating whether Trump inflated property values for investors and deflated them in federal tax forms. She is pushing for Trump to hand over documents and for Trump himself to sit for a deposition, a call he has so far refused in violation of a court order.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D)is continuing a similar probe into potential tax fraud and financial crimes. The case already resulted in charges filed last year against former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg for his alleged role in a 15-year tax fraud scheme.

The Westchester County, N.Y., district attorneys office also launched an investigation in October into whether the Trump Organization misled officials about the property value ofTrump National Golf Club Westchester.

Federal investigators are looking at whether Trump mishandled classified documents

The National Archives has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the former president mishandled classified documents.

Fifteen boxes of official records that Trump was legally required to turn over were recovered from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Mary Trump is suing her uncle for allegedly defrauding her from the family inheritance

Trumps niece says she was defrauded out of millions of dollars from her inheritance.

The lawsuit is ongoing in the New York Supreme Court. Mary Trump has requested a preliminary conference to proceed, while Donald Trump has moved to dismiss the case.

Trump is suing his niece and The New York Times in a separate lawsuit over reporting on his taxes. Mary Trump revealed in her tell-all book that she gave information to the newspaper for the story.

E. Jean Carrolls sexual assault suit

E. Jean Carroll, a magazine writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in the 90s, is suing the former president for saying she fabricated her claims that he raped her.

The lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. A federal judge recently denied Trumps attempt to countersue.

Former personal attorney Michael Cohen is also suing Trump

In Manhattan federal court, Cohen is suing Trump, the U.S. government and other officials for allegedly retaliating against him after writing a tell-all book about his time serving Trump in a legal capacity.

The attorney says he was returned to federal prison in 2020 because of the book, according to The Associated Press.

Trump Tower lawsuit

Trump actually sat for a four-hour deposition on this one in October.

Six protesters are suing Trump, accusing his security guards of assaulting them outside Trump Tower during a 2015 protest.

Trump called the lawsuit pending in New York State Court ridiculous after his deposition.

Doe v. Trump Organization

A class-action lawsuit first filed in 2018 alleges the Trump Organization used their business to scam investors into supporting false or worthless business opportunities.

The case is taking place in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.

Tenants suing Trump for hiking prices

In a lawsuit filed in the New York Supreme Court, tenants who lived in a building once owned by Trumps father say the Trump family hiked rents by inflating prices for appliances.

The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in March.

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Where Trumps long list of legal challenges stand - The Hill

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Monday said the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has found evidence on former President Trump that supports a lot more than incitement.

The comment from Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 panel, referenced Trumps second impeachment in January 2021, when the House voted to impeach the then-president for incitement to insurrection.

The Jan. 6 panel is set to hold its first public hearing on Thursday, where Raskin said the committee will lay out information regarding individuals who played a role in the attack including Trump.

The select committee has found evidence about a lot more than incitement here, and were gonna be laying out the evidence about all of the actors who were pivotal to what took place on Jan. 6, Raskin said during an interview with Washington Post Live.

Trump was impeached in the House by a 232-197 vote, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in sanctioning the president. The following month, however, the Senate acquitted him in a 57-43 vote. Seven Senate Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus in voting to convict.

The select committee says Thursdays prime-time hearing, scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., will feature new material and witness testimony from the nearly yearlong investigation, which has largely been conducted behind the scenes

Raskin on Monday told The Washington Post Live that this weeks hearing will tell the story of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power.

Asked if Trump is at the center of that conspiracy, Raskin said I think that Donald Trump and the White House were at the center of these events.

Thats the only way really of making sense of them all, he added.

He noted, however, that people are going to have to make judgments themselves about the relative role that different people played.

The Maryland Democrat then pointed to Trumps second impeachment, in which Raskin was the lead manager of the Senate trial.

Of course the House and the Senate in bicameral and bipartisan fashion have already determined that the former president, Donald Trump, incited an insurrection by majority votes in the House and the Senate, Raskin said.

Although, Donald Trump wasnt convicted by the requisite two-thirds majority, but commanding majority found that he had in fact incited this insurrection, he added.

Updated at 2:21 p.m.

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Raskin says Jan. 6 panel has found more on Trump than incitement - The Hill

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Republican Rep. David Valadao infuriated conservatives in Californias Central Valley when he voted to impeach President Donald Trump in the days after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But the former president whos repeatedly targeted many of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him on a charge of inciting the deadly attack that unsuccessfully attempted to derail congressional certification of President Bidens 2020 Electoral College victory over Trump has been hands-off on Valadao, whos represented Californias 21st Congressional District for most of the past decade.

Valadao is one of two Golden State House Republicans along with Rep. Young Kim who face potentially challenging re-elections in the 2022 midterms, with the first test coming Tuesday in Californias primary, where all the candidates regardless of party identification are listed on the same ballot and the top two finishers move on to Novembers general election.

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National Republicans view the congressman, whos running for re-election in a district that Biden carried by double digits two years ago, as their best shot to keep the seat in GOP hands.

Valadao is facing three primary challengers for the renumbered and slightly redrawn district fellow Republicans Chris Mathys, a former Fresno city councilman, and King County school board member Adam Medeiros. Also running is Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas, who has represented much of the congressional district for the last decade in the state legislature in Sacramento.

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, six are running for re-election this year, but Valadaos race is the only one where the former president hasnt endorsed a challenger.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Jan. 15, 2022, in Florence, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

"I do think Valadaos a little bit different than the others. He hasnt doubled or tripled down [on impeachment]. All the other ones are going out and making hay, elongating the story. Valadaos stayed rather quiet and subdued," a source close to Trumps political orbit told Fox News.

"There hasnt been a credible challenger making noise either. So it was easy to move on from that race and not really give it much attention," explained the source, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

TRUMP-TARGETED LZ CHENEY TOUTS CONSERVATIVE CREDENTIALS

Even without facing Trumps ire, national Republicans were concerned enough regarding Valadaos prospects of making the November ballot that they lent a helping hand. The Congressional Leadership Fund the top super PAC that backs House Republicans and is aligned with GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy spent nearly $800,000 to take aim at Mathys, with a last-minute ad criticizing him as "dangerously liberal."

Congressional Leadership Fund communications director Calvin Moore told Fox News that "David Valadao is an important Member and the only conservative who can win this otherwise deep blue seat November. Hes a fighter, and were doing all we can to help him win."

The top pro-House Democrats outside group also jumped into the fight. The House Majority PAC, which is tied to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been running ads on TV and digital spotlighting Valadaos impeachment vote and calling Mathys "a true conservative" and "100% pro-Trump and proud."

Valadao has a history of grabbing independent voters and even some crossover Democrats in his electoral victories. But Democrats are hoping that Salas stems some of those crossover votes and Mathys eats into Valadaos support on the right, potentially shutting the incumbent out of the general election.

In the Orange County based 39th Congressional District, Kim defeated Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros one of four House pickups Republicans made in the state last cycle. Kim, one of only three Korean American women serving in Congress, was a top GOP recruit in the 2020 election.

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But her district was dramatically redrawn in the once-in-a-decade congressional redistricting process, and many of the constituents in the new district are new to the incumbent. Biden carried the seat by two-points in the 2020 election.

Kims facing primary challenges from Republican Greg Raths a councilman in Mission Viejo and a Trump fanatic and Democratic candidate Asif Mahmood, a physician.

Rep. Young Kim speaks with Fox News Digital

The Congressional Leadership Fund has spent nearly $1 million to run spots to boost Kim.

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While the Democrats won the White House and took control of the Senate in the 2020 elections, House Republicans defied expectations and took a big bite out of the Democrats' House majority. And the four seats the GOP flipped from red to blue in the Golden State were a key part of that success. As Republicans aim to win the House majority in November, California will once again be a major congressional battlefield.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.

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Why Trump is hands off in re-election race for CA House Republican who voted for impeachment - Fox News

Its something that has bedeviled quite a few previous presidents. Lots of things happen on your watch but it doesnt mean there is a magic wand to fix it, said Robert Gibbs, a press secretary under President Barack Obama. The limits of the presidency are not well grasped. The responsibility of the president is greater than the tools he has to fix it.

The West Wing believes there is still time for a course correction.

The plan is to put Biden on the road to highlight progress being made, even incrementally, in meeting the series of tests, with visits this week to California, where he will preside over a summit of Western Hemisphere allies, as well as New Mexico to push for his climate agenda. The administration will also set aside its reluctance to work with a pariah nation with hopes to spur oil production. And it plans to sharpen its attacks on Republicans, aiming to paint the GOP as out-of-touch with mainstream America on issues like gun safety and abortion, all while hoping the upcoming Jan. 6 congressional hearings will further color the party as too extremist and dangerous to return to power.

But first aides need to quell the finger-pointing thats been erupting internally and the increasing concern over staff shakeups, according to five White House officials and Democrats close to the administration not authorized to publicly discuss internal conversations. They also increasingly are trying to soothe the greatest source of West Wing frustration, coming from behind the Resolute Desk.

The president has expressed exasperation that his poll numbers have sunk below those of Donald Trump, whom Biden routinely refers to in private as the worst president in history and an existential threat to the nations democracy.

After publication, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: This depiction of the White House is simply divorced from reality.

Far more prone to salty language behind the scenes than popularly known, Biden also recently erupted over being kept out of the loop about the direness of the baby formula shortage that has gripped parts of the country, according to a White House staffer and a Democrat with knowledge of the conversation. He voiced his frustration in a series of phone calls to allies, his complaints triggered by heart-wrenching cable news coverage of young mothers crying in fear that they could not feed their children.

Biden didnt want to be painted as slow to act on a problem affecting the working-class people with whom he closely identifies. Therefore, when aides convened a meeting with formula company executives, the president against the advice of staffers publicly declared it took weeks before details of the shortage had reached him, even though the whistleblower complaint that led to the shutdown of a major production facility was issued months ago. Some aides feared the moment made Biden look out of touch, especially after the CEOs in the very same meeting made clear that warnings of the shortage were known for some time.

Members of Bidens inner circle, including first lady Jill Biden and the presidents sister, Valerie Biden Owens, have complained that West Wing staff has managed Biden with kid gloves, not putting him on the road more or allowing him to flash more of his genuine, relatable, albeit gaffe-prone self. One person close to the president pushed for more let Biden be Biden moments, with the president himself complaining he does not get to interact enough with voters. The White House has pointed to both security and Covid concerns in restricting the travel of the 79-year-old president.

A lot of things are out of his control and we are frustrated and all Democrats not just the White House but anyone with a platform need to do a better of job of reminding Americans of how terrible it would be if Republicans take control, said Adrienne Elrod, a senior aide on Bidens transition team and aide to Hillary Clintons presidential campaign.

Complicating the White Houses efforts to turn around the presidents midterm fate has been the exodus of staff from its communications shop: from press secretary Jen Psaki to several deputy press aides. Psakis successor, Karine Jean-Pierre, took the post with little experience, and allies were critical when, days later, the White House brought over her Pentagon counterpart, John Kirby to join the staff. Kirby has been a candidate for Jean-Pierres role but will serve on the national security team.

The staff drama hasnt ended there. While Biden is undyingly loyal to his small inner circle of advisers, whispers in the building have built over whether the return of Anita Dunn back to a senior adviser post could portend her eventually succeeding Ron Klain as chief of staff.

With worries rising about the Democrats fate this November, the White House switched to more aggressive attacks on Republicans recently. Frustrated that the GOP has not been called to task for releasing few policy ideas of its own, Biden has gone hard after a tax plan put out by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). But those broadsides have gained little traction.

The president is taking action to lower prices and fight the global rise in inflation, building on the unprecedented job creation and the manufacturing resurgence he has delivered, said Bates. And hes working with Congress to cut the deficit as well as many of the biggest costs families face, like energy and prescription drugs. He knows what families are going through and is moving to help them.

But much of what the White House can accomplish is only around the edges. Biden has sounded the alarm about the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade and continues to push Congress to act on guns in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas. But he also signaled in his Thursday evening speech that he knows that Congress, at most, will pass small measures on firearms that will leave much of his party dissatisfied.

And while Biden has received high marks even from some Republicans for holding together an alliance to stand up to Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, voters this fall will likely care far more about some of the wars aftershocks: its further strain on supply chains has only added to rising inflation and, most painfully for the White House, soaring gas prices.

For nearly a month, Biden and his inner circle have agonized over whether to make a trip to Saudi Arabia, a nation the president deemed a pariah after its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden, for a time, angrily rejected meeting with the crown prince, arguing the presidency should stand for something, according to two people with knowledge of his thinking.

But he has recently relented, recognizing a need to push Riyadh for more oil production. Still, the dates for the trip remain fluid, leaving some aides to wonder if the president will change his mind again.

Bidens inner circle is well aware of recent presidential precedent. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both overcame a rough first midterms only to benefit from economic turnarounds and cruise to reelection. But George H.W. Bush and, especially, Carter were felled by shaky economies and rising inflation.

[Carter] lost because of inflation and bad feelings about the economy and a sense that America was flailing and Biden is finding now that its hard to be a leader when other things are unraveling, said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian at Rice University. He cant just be a mourner-in-chief, he cant just play defense. He needs to be on offense and convince Americans that, despite the challenges, better days are ahead.

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Biden wants to get out more, seething that his standing is now worse than Trump's - POLITICO

For the 6 January committee, the key question about Donald Trumps involvement in the insurrection is: What did the former president do, and when did he do it?

Washington:Americans are processing the nightmare of the slaughter of children in Texas, the racist murders in Buffalo, New York, and the other numbingly repeated scenes of carnage in the United States.

Theyre contending with what feels like highway robbery at the gas pump, theyre nagged by a virus that the world cant shake, and theyre split into two hostile camps over politics and culture the twin pillars of the nations foundation.

Theyve already been through two set-piece dramas of presidential impeachment indeed, through the wringer on all things Donald Trump.

Now, beginning in prime time on Thursday, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is setting out to establish the historical record of an event damaging not only to a community or individual families but to the collective idea of democracy itself.

After more than 100 subpoenas, 1,000 interviews and 100,000 documents, the committee has a story to tell in hearings that open this week. A story for the ages, its been said.

The open question: How much will the country care?

The committees examination of the actions of Trump and all the presidents men and women, more aggressive than any inquiry before it, has produced a multitude of plot lines that together will tell the tale of a violent uprising fuelled by the venom and lies of a defeated president.

File photo of violent insurrectionists stand outside the US Capitol in Washington during the riot on 6 January. AP

Many Republicans, even those who condemned Trump and the violence in the moment, have adopted a nothing more to see here posture since, even rejecting calls for an independent Sept. 11-style commission to investigate.

An entire disinformation ecosystem sprung up with utterly false claims about the nature and character of the attack. Rather than condemn the attack, Trump continues to insist his defeat by 7 million votes should be overturned, in effect validating the rioters cause.

Dozens of the insurrectionists have been brought to justice, many of them being convicted or pleading guilty to serious crimes. But the committees goal is larger: Who in a position of power should also be held to account?

There are endless ribbons of inquiry.

Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., read the final certification of Electoral College votes cast in November's presidential election during a joint session of Congress after working through the night, at the Capitol in Washington. AP

Did Vice-President Mike Pence refuse to leave the besieged Capitol because he suspected the Secret Service, at the behest of Trump, was trying to take him away to stop him from certifying Democrat Joe Bidens victory?

Did Trump flush incriminating papers down the White House toilet?

How to explain the gap of more than seven hours in White House telephone logs of Trumps calls during the insurrection? Will it stand in history alongside the infamous 18 1/2-minute hole in President Richard Nixons secret White House recording system in 1972?

The Watergate affair, which exposed Nixons cover-up of politically motivated criminal acts and destroyed his presidency, centered on a question posed by a Republican senator, Howard Baker, in a Tennessee drawl: What did the president know, and when did he know it?

For the 6 January committee, the key question about Trumps involvement in the insurrection is: What did the president do, and when did he do it?

One aim is to establish whether Trumps acts are criminal, as one judge has mused they may be, and whether that would prompt a politically fraught Justice Department prosecution of an ex-president.

More broadly, the effort addresses who might be punished in the large circle of Trump enablers. Some of them are members of Congress who helped him plot how to try to overturn an honest election only to huddle in fear with everyone else in a Capitol hideout when the rioters in service of that plot swarmed the marbled corridors of power 6 January, 2021.

The prime time setting for the committee hearing is a rarity and something of a throwback to an era when people gathered en masse at their televisions in the evening before video streaming atomized viewership.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat on the committee, set expectations that may be hard to live up to as the committee tries to renew the interest of this short-attention-span country in machinations that are nearly 18 months in the rear-view mirror.

The hazards in that mirror are closer than they appear, as committee members see it.

The hearings will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House, Raskin said in April. Because it is a story of the most heinous and dastardly political offense ever organized by a president and his followers and his entourage in the history of the United States.

That offense? In short, he told a Washington forum, an inside coup coupled with a violent attack by neo-fascists.

Trump is not expected at any of the hearings, but his words and actions will hang heavy over the proceedings as lawmakers look to place him at the center of the chaos. It seems highly plausible that he will find a way to rail against them that does not involve being under oath.

The committee almost certainly will look to draw a tight connection between Trumps vociferous rejections of the election results and his 6 January rally outside the White House sending the angry crowd off to Capitol Hill.

Free from the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, committee members are likely to try to show that the riot that ravaged the Capitol was not a spontaneous gathering but part of a broader conspiracy and a natural outgrowth of weeks of denunciations of democratic processes.

Biden framed 6 January and its aftermath in existential terms about the threat posed to democracy. Its a battle for the soul of America, he said. But a president can only have one No. 1 priority at a time, and this isnt his. Time and again, hes said its inflation.

Whatever revelations the hearings may produce, much is already known because the attack played out on screens large and small in real time, and Trump exhorted supporters to fight like hell in shouts for the world to hear.

US president Joe Biden. AFP File

In quieter times, the hearings would have a stronger hold on public attention, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on political communications. But, as is, they will be competing for attention with topics with greater immediate relevance in our lives.

Hungry babies lacking formula. Soaring prices for gas and groceries. Rising COVID-19 hospitalization among the vaccinated. The scenes of destruction in Ukraine and the threat that the Russian invasion will escalate to include use of nuclear weapons. And theres monkeypox.

To say nothing of summer vacation, Jamieson added.

If the hearings are to do anything other than reinforce our existing political biases, she said, they will have to reveal previously covered-up goings-on that threatened something that Democrats, independents and most Republicans can agree should be sacrosanct.

Some of the inquirys juicy bits are out already. Text messages and emails, thought to be private when sent, have become public, including from chief of staff Mark Meadows.

But the committee has been sitting on much more information and will have tens of thousands of exhibits and hundreds of witnesses, said Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee chairman.

Seven Democrats and two Republicans both shunned by their party make up the committee. Among them the stakes are surely highest for Rep. Liz Cheney, the deeply conservative but fiercely independent Wyoming lawmaker who is practically alone in the GOP in assailing Trump while also seeking re-election to Congress.

Daughter of a vice president and once an embodiment of the Republican establishment, she is now a renegade in a new order dominated by Trump, who wants her unseated in her primary in August.

That new order became ever clearer in February, when the Republican Party censured Cheney and the committees other Republican, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whos not seeking re-election, for taking part in the inquiry. The party adopted a resolution saying the witnesses summoned by the committee for their actions on and around 6 January had only been engaging in legitimate political discourse.

Matthew Delmont, a Dartmouth College history professor specializing in Black history, said 6 January cast such an ominous shadow that he expects people in the United States, for all of their other pressing preoccupations, to be drawn to the inquiry.

I think people will watch the 6 January hearings because they want to understand how our democracy reached this precipice, he said. I dont know how many people will be willing to hear the evidence that will be presented, but I think it is important for the findings to be shared openly so people today and in the future can appreciate what happened.

6 January shares certain distinctions with other past agonies. As with 9/11, you can shorthand the date, 6 January, and people know. Like Watergate, it speaks to corrupt acts in the highest office. As with the Challenger space shuttle explosion and 9/11 and more, the scene brought so much visceral shock that many people remember where they were and what they were doing when they saw it.

As far as the far right is concerned, the historical analogy is the Boston Tea Party, with liberals, Democrats and the Washington establishment as the redcoats.

Former US president Donald Trump. AP

Trump-friendly Republicans sanitized what happened that day, once the shock that nearly all felt on 6 January subsided. In measurements of public opinion, Republican voters in the main said they believe the 2020 election was rigged, when by absolutely all measures the courts, nonpartisan and even Republican state officials, and the Trump administrations own election monitors, including his attorney general the election was purely fair.

A year later, the patently violent uprising was remembered as very or extremely violent by fewer than 4 in 10 Republicans polled, compared with almost 9 in 10 Democrats.

Even so, there were signs in the latest Republican primaries for the 2022 midterms that Trumps obsession about getting fired by the voters all those months ago is wearing thin even with them.

Trump won the 2016 election with a minority of voters, lost the House to the Democrats in 2018 and lost in 2020 by a decisive margin not a glowing electoral record.

Still, he holds sway over his party, thanks to supporters whose loyalty seems immovable. Unswayed by facts throughout the fight to discredit and upend Bidens election, they wont be easily dislodged by a congressional committees revelations.

Through Trumps presidency, audacious falsehoods and elaborate exaggerations were the order of the day. But Trump, at times, had a knack for speaking a larger truth that penetrated his fog of hyperbole and misinformation.

So it was with his comment in Iowa in January 2016, en route to the Republican nomination. The comment foretells that even if the 6 January committee manages to blow the roof off the House, Trump may remain golden with millions who love him.

I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldnt lose any voters, OK? Trump said then. Its, like, incredible.

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Televised hearings in Capitol riots case against Donald Trump to begin: Will America tune in? - Firstpost

Opinion: Trump attacks Mark Brnovich in his endorsement of Blake Masters. And Brnovich responds by reciting what he's doing to investigate Trump's claims?

Im not sure that Donald Trumps endorsement of Blake Masters in the Arizona GOP primary for U.S. Senate will have as much of an influence as commonly thought.

Jim Lamon has plenty of money to stay in the race and make his case. And hes more of the prototypical Trumpian than Masters. He was one of the Trump Electoral College voterswho made the phony claim to be the true, official slate for Arizona.

Politically, Masters is a bit of an odd duck. Hes part of a new right with sentiments that havent yet gelled into a discernible political philosophy. Hes certainly not a standard-issue small government conservative.

The Trump endorsement will shine a much brighter spotlight on him, since it will cause him to be regarded as the frontrunner. Not sure how well his political persona and new right attitude will hold up.

Trumps endorsement of Masters included a scathing dismissal of Mark Brnovich for not taking aggressive enough action as attorney general against the voting irregularities that Trump fantasizes cost him the 2020 election.

Brnovich, as usual, badly misplayed his response to the Masters endorsement and the Trump attack on him.

Brnovichs campaign manager issued a response basically sucking up to Trump.

Brnovich intends to fight and win this Primary Election, it said, and we look forward to working with President Trump to defeat Mark Kelly this fall.

Another view: Trump's endorsement didn't doom Brnovich. He did that himself

It then recited some things Brnovich is doing to investigate the minor voting irregularities that have been unearthed. In other words, what he has done to at least partially advance Trumps fantasy.

Dude, the guy just ripped you a new one. Have at least a modicum of self-respect.

Brnovich was never going to placate Trump or the Trump cult voters on the issue of election integrity. Making the attempt a central part of his campaign was a strategic mistake that probably doomed whatever chance he might have had.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

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Why is Mark Brnovich still sucking up to Trump after this? - The Arizona Republic