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WASHINGTON A day after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer, received an unexpected call from the conservative lawyer John Eastman, who had been working with President Donald J. Trump to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

To Mr. Herschmanns surprise even after the deadly riot Mr. Eastman was still pushing to fight the election results, an effort that resulted in mayhem and violence.

Mr. Herschmann cut him off.

Im going to give you the best free legal advice youre ever getting in your life, he recalled telling Mr. Eastman before recommending he find a criminal defense lawyer, adding, Youre going to need it.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol released video of Mr. Herschmanns testimony as it previewed a hearing Thursday in which the panel plans to delve into the pressure campaign Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman waged against Vice President Mike Pence as they tried to persuade him to throw out legitimate electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. to keep Mr. Trump in power.

President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing, and he had been told it was illegal, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said in a video previewing the hearing.

Thursdays hearing is expected to include potentially important revelations about the steps Mr. Trump and his allies took to try to compel his vice president to overturn the election.

J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who advised the vice president, is scheduled to testify. Judge Luttig advised Mr. Pence that Mr. Trumps idea that the vice president could unilaterally decide to invalidate election results was unconstitutional and that he should not go along with the plan.

Also scheduled to appear is Greg Jacob, Mr. Pences top White House lawyer, who has provided the committee with crucial evidence about the role played by Mr. Eastman, who wrote a memo that members of both parties have described as a blueprint for a coup.

Mr. Eastman advised Mr. Trump that Mr. Pence could throw out electoral votes from states he had lost, though he conceded during a conversation with Mr. Jacob that his arguments carried no legal weight and would fail before the Supreme Court.

As the mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 some of them chanting Hang Mike Pence! Mr. Jacob sent an email to Mr. Eastman blaming him for the violence.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege, Mr. Jacob wrote at 12:14 p.m.

It was gravely, gravely irresponsible for you to entice the president with an academic theory that had no legal viability, Mr. Jacob wrote in a subsequent email to Mr. Eastman.

The committee could also hear testimony about Mr. Trumps state of mind during the violence.

Ms. Cheney said last week that the panel had received testimony that when Mr. Trump learned of the mobs threats to hang Mr. Pence, he said, Maybe our supporters have the right idea, and added that Mr. Pence deserves it.

The committee could also hear testimony that a day before the mob violence, Mr. Pences chief of staff, Marc Short, grew so concerned about Mr. Trumps actions that he presented a warning to a Secret Service agent: The president was going to publicly turn against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.

The committee on Tuesday postponed a hearing that was scheduled for Wednesday to lay out its findings about Mr. Trumps attempt to use the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election.

Its just technical issues, said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a member of the committee. She said that for staff aides who were compiling a series of videos to be showcased at the session, it was overwhelming, so were trying to give them a little room.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Originally posted here:
Jan. 6 Panel Hints at Fresh Revelations as Hearing Is Delayed - The New York Times

Among the factors leading to "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" becoming the talked-about dramas of their debut season, as in 2004-2005, was their novel usage of bodies and questions in their respective premieres. "Lost" opens with wide shots of bodies scattered on a beach amidst a plane crash's wreckage. "Desperate Housewives" shocks with just one, that of the omniscient narrator who dies by suicide without warning.

Each show could have rolled along as straightforward relationship-driven dramas from there, save for the questions ending each pilot: "Oh Mary Alice, what did you do?" "Guys . . . where are we?" These simple queries establish there's something bigger going on than any individual character's story arc or their conflicts a potential threat that supersedes individual problems.

I can almost guarantee that nobody on the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection thought about either of these shows or the many subsequent series influenced by them when they laid the groundwork for their televised hearings.

Scratch that I'm positive of that, given the straightforward presentation witnessed by more than 20 million prime-time viewers on Thursday, June 9. None of the committee members made extra efforts to play to the cameras, and at times its chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Ms., stumbled when reading his lines from the teleprompter.

The unspoken understanding, at least among viewers watching in good faith, should be that none of these people were elected based on their acting ability. But the committee does understand how potent a tease, cliffhanger, and "coming up this season" montage can be to persuade a skeptical viewer to stick with the story. Rather, the man producing these televised hearings, former ABC News president James Goldston, understands this.

RELATED: Jan. 6 committee: Pointless spectacle

This approach is necessary given the grave danger the Jan. 6 insurrection represents and its relationship to a slow-moving, ongoing coup. Our entertainment landscape is awash with alternatives more exciting than a stodgy congressional committee hearing run by a bipartisan committee a team of Democrats and two Republicans who, can you believe it, appear to respect each other.

But that also means not enough people are paying attention or simply won't, abetted by Fox News' refusal to carry the first prime-time hearing live in favor of featuring Tucker Carlson deriding it as propaganda.

Thus, last Thursday's episode served as a plainspoken table-setting chapter and an educational reset for any tuned in to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, C-SPAN or MSNBC, with Thompson explaining why the committee embarked on its investigation against the wishes of nearly every Republican member of congress.

Our entertainment landscape is awash with alternatives more exciting than a stodgy congressional committee hearing.

"I come before you this evening not as a Democrat but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution," Thompson said, explaining that every member of Congress swears the same oath upon taking office: "to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

The prime-time opener of the Jan. 6 committee's hearings demonstrates comprehension of dramatic structure, not only regarding episodic presentation but in terms of spelling out a full season arc. Mind you, it was devoid of puzzle-box flourishes or the type of juiced-up "Desperate Housewives"-style heat that amplifies unscripted reality and episodic true crime.

Cheney introduced the committee's aim in these hearings to clearly spell out "plots to commit seditious conspiracy on Jan. 6" by explaining exactly what each episode is going to show us. Monday's second hearing presented recorded testimony from campaign chief Bill Stepien and aide Jason Miller, who told the committee that they informed Trump the election was lost and advised him against making any statement on the night of the election.

The next hearing is a dive into Trump's efforts to corrupt the Justice Department, a development about which former Attorney General Bill Barr has already dropped hints.

Some of its "loglines" were teased before the hearings began, mainly the revelations that in the days leading up to January 6, 2021, former President Donald Trump pressured his Vice President Mike Pence to assist him in overturning the election results. Because of this the first Pence-centered hearing, originally estimated to be the fourth, will probably be a popular one.

Other were announced by Cheney during the first telecast, along with scheduled appearances such as Monday's main "get": live testimony by former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, the man behind that network's controversial and ultimately correct decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night.

The coda of its curtain-raiser featured committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wy., spelling out the themes of each hearing to come and, where relevant, announcing corroborating testimony from a variety of witnesses many of them former members of Trump's inner circle.

Before that came the drama's introduction of its first hero, Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, and a few of this story's monsters, including the Proud Boys meeting and the Oath Keepers.

US Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testifies during a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 9, 2022. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

It injected unintentional comic relief in the guise of Barr's taped deposition in which he described Trump's claims about the 2020 election having been stolen as, among other epic terms, "crazy," "garbage," "idiotic" and "bulls**t."

In the telecast's closing moments, their members' words speak to the question driving the season, the hearing's "Guys . . . where are we?" equivalent. At the root of all of this, the premieres spell out, the committee endeavors to prove, is Donald Trump's desire to hold on to power at any cost.

To some, describing this historic televised chronicle in the terms of scripted drama may seem to cheapen the proceedings. The opposite is true it's a highly rational strategy to meet the audience where it is.

Goldston's hand in the hearings' production is light enough for the viewer to appreciate how easy-to-follow each installment is. For the most part, the committee has delivered as promised, save for a last-minute cancellation by Stepien, whose wife went into labor. Even then, his video deposition was edited in a way to fit within the flow of the committee's script.

It's also present in the "casting," as it were, of the committee's witnesses. Footage of Ivanka Trump's agreement with Barr made headlines, understandably. However, the conscious decision to call upon Edwards to testify is particularly savvy.

Describing this historic televised chronicle in the terms of scripted drama may seem to cheapen the proceedings. The opposite is true.

Edwards is a compelling witness in any forum; the footage shows her single-handedly doing her best to hold back a surge of insurrectionists and sustaining a head injury when they overwhelmed her. She's also a blonde, white woman and a veteran's daughter, which is to say she embodies the type of woman the far-right professes to champion.

Establishing a public record of the committee's findings is the main mission here, but so is persuading any skeptics or deniers. Edwards pushes back on those assumptions with her statements and her image.

But the hearings also employ the all-important element of unpredictability, keeping its most quotable segments under wraps until broadcast. Miller's and Stepien's testimony that Trump's false claims of a stolen election may have begun with a drunken suggestion by an "apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani," generated the second-best catchphrase of the day after Stepien's bumper sticker-ready "Team Normal," as he describes the group advising Trump against declaring victory.

Every show worth watching generates merchandising opportunities.

A few analyses of Thursday's primetime broadcast try to whet the reader's appetite by calling the committee's televised hearing the must-watch event of the summer. This is probably an exaggeration in a media environment as fractured as this one, to say nothing of how jaded we are after living through a presidency that warped reality for a frighteningly large percentage of the American population.

Our lawmakers have taught the modern TV audience that congressional and senatorial committee hearings deemed important enough to lead or drive the news cycle are merely opportunities for them to grandstand for their constituents. Since their votes are already decided and no amount of qualifying evidence or disqualifying evidence could change their minds, weighing facts doesn't enter the equation.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Viewers presumed to be actively engaged in watching this committee's presentations are accustomed to having such cases built up by cable news hosts and experts only to be denied a payoff of comeuppance. We all lived through televised hearings of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump courted Russian interference in the 2016 election, which was hyped for nearly two years and resulted in a flurry of criminal charges brought against Trump's associates but none against Trump himself.

In terms of the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and associate justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson, the notion that senators debated their fitness to hold a position was a farce, giving way to the spectacle of surmising how well one's "team" holds up against the opposition.

The viewer, therefore, expects chaos and cacophony from these events, not debate or elucidation or, heaven forbid, progress or results.

Jan. 6 committee members who have spoken to the press outside of the hearings have been careful to say they're not necessarily counting on results, either. They're focused on ensuring their findings are witnessed and considered, that they become the topic of whatever the equivalent of water cooler discussion is at a time when gathering around a single reference point feels impossible.

Obviously they committee is doing whatever they can to lay a narrative course solid enough to end with an indictment for Trump, regardless of how notoriously difficult finales are to nail to everyone's satisfaction ask the creators of both of those dramas mentioned up top. But if enough of us remain tuned in to that point, that counts as a win by any metric.

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Original post:
From clear scripts to big-name casting, the Jan. 6 hearings meet the standards of must-see TV - Salon

Follow live updates on the House committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Former Vice President Mike Pences chief counsel laid out in a memo the day before Jan. 6, 2021, that the vice president would violate federal law if he bowed to pressure from President Donald J. Trump to interfere with the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory.

The three-page memo, obtained by Politico and confirmed as authentic by The New York Times, included arguments from the chief counsel, Greg Jacob, that Mr. Pence could find himself in a legally precarious situation if he decided to block the certification of the Electoral College results either unilaterally or by calling for a 10-day delay in the proceedings.

A lawyer advising Mr. Trump, John Eastman, had insisted that Mr. Pence had the power to take both of those actions, emphasizing the 10-day delay as Jan. 6 grew closer. Mr. Eastman pressed his claims in a meeting with Mr. Pence and Mr. Jacob in the Oval Office on Jan. 4.

But Mr. Pence, who in the weeks after the election told Mr. Trump that he did not believe he had such power but would continue researching the matter, was given concrete guidance by his own aides.

Mr. Jacob wrote in the memo that Mr. Pence would most likely be overruled by the courts if he made such a move.

In a best-case scenario in which the courts refused to get involved, the vice president would likely find himself in an isolated standoff against both houses of Congress, as well as most or all of the applicable state legislatures, with no neutral arbiter available to break the impasse, Mr. Jacob wrote in the memo.

A spokesman for Mr. Pence declined to comment.

Following its prime-time hearing this past week, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot is scheduled to hold three more hearings in the coming week, including one on Thursday at which Mr. Jacob is set to be a key witness.

That session is slated to focus on the pressure campaign on Mr. Pence to insert himself into the certification of the Electoral College vote, a proceeding that is usually routine.

Mr. Jacob has told the committee that he wrote the memo after the meeting with Mr. Eastman, Politico reported.

Mr. Eastmans conduct has been a focal point of the House investigation into the events that took place leading up to the riot. In March, in a civil case stemming from Mr. Eastmans efforts to keep the committee from accessing a tranche of emails related to his advice to Mr. Trump, a federal judge said that he and Mr. Trumpmore likely than not committed crimes as they sought to overturn the results of the election.

The memo from Mr. Jacob was one in a series that he wrote related to the pressure on Mr. Pence following the 2020 election. One came at the beginning of December, after Mr. Pence asked Mr. Jacob to explore what his authority was in relation to the Jan. 6 certification.

Another memo, also obtained by Politico, was written on Jan. 1. It evaluated the various allegations of widespread fraud that Mr. Trumps advisers had pointed to, including in Georgia, where Mr. Trump repeatedly made claims that officials said were baseless.

The memo detailed claims from six key states the ones for which Mr. Pences advisers anticipated that House lawmakers would try to challenge the certification, potentially with support from senators from those states.

See the rest here:
Pence Aide Warned Against Blocking Electoral College Count, Memo Shows - The New York Times

The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack will hold the first of six televised hearings on Thursday 9 June over the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021, mounted by supporters of 45th president Donald Trump determined to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The panel, chaired by Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson, has already interviewed over 1,000 witnesses behind closed doors, including integral members of Mr Trumps inner circle, about precisely what happened on 6 January 2021, a date to live in infamy on which five people were killed as a violent mob, geed up by their candidates false election fraud narrative, smashed through security barriers and stormed the legislative complex.

The committee has yet to lay out a full schedule or say precisely who most of its witnesses will be for the blockbuster hearings, although two men central to the discussion will of course be Mr Trump and his estranged former vice president Mike Pence.

Having lost the electoral vote on 3 November 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden by 306 to 232 and the popular vote by 81.3m ballots to 74.2m, Mr Trump immediately and baselessly began to insist the contest had been rigged in a vast nationwide conspiracy orchestrated by his opponents, a fallacy he has kept up ever since.

Two months of farcical legal proceedings led by the outgoing presidents personal attorney, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had concluded with Mr Trumps allies entirely failing to prove his bogus allegations, although his base remained unshakeable in its conviction that the vote had indeed been stolen.

Increasingly desperate, the president began to pile pressure on his own deputy, Mr Pence, whom he implored to use his position overseeing a joint-session of Congress on 6 January to render the election results null and void, keeping the heat on his ally with a series of tweets and in person on the campaign trail.

I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, Mr Trump said, stumping for Republican Senate runoff candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia. I hope our great vice president comes through for us. Hes a great guy. Of course, if he doesnt come through, I wont like him very much.

Story continues

Mr Pence refused to oblige, writing a letter to Congress in which he explained: I do not believe that the founders of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the joint session of Congress, and no vice president in American history has ever asserted such authority.

On the day itself, as the elected representatives convened to ratify the results, Mr Trump, Mr Giuliani and other MAGA luminaries addressed a rally organised by the Stop the Steal movement in Washington, DC, in which the president told his followers to fight like hell and beseeched them to march on the Capitol, pledging to join them before slinking off back to the White House instead to watch the carnage unfold on TV.

The rest is history and for the committee to determine, suffice to say that Mr Trumps mob, whose number included armed members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and QAnon, came uncomfortably close to confronting Mr Pence and other lawmakers opposed to their misguided cause like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Mitt Romney after forcing their way through the barricades.

So incensed were the would-be insurrections by Mr Pences refusal to support Mr Trump that they called for his hanging on the National Mall and even erected a gallows before order could be restored later that evening, as a shocked world looked on.

Former US vice president Mike Pence gives a lecture at Stanford University in California on 17 February 2022 (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: you did not win, Mr Pence said in the aftermath.

Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the peoples house. And as we reconvene in this chamber the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy.

His justifiably indignant tone stood in sharp contrast to that of the president, who issued a number of tweets that day calling on his supporters to Stay peaceful! and respect law enforcement before appearing in a hastily shot, somewhat reluctant video from the White House Rose Garden in which, without admitting he had been wrong, he urged his great patriots to go home, telling them: We love you. Youre very special.

The former running -mates would not speak for several days after 6 January but did eventually hold clear-the-air talks on 11 January that would expose how far apart the two men stood in their attitudes to what had unfolded.

Mr Trump had never once inquired about the wellbeing of Mr Pence and his family after the ordeal they had been exposed to and their relationship would never recover.

Since leaving DC after attending President Bidens inauguration, an event at which he stood in for him for Mr Trump the final time, Mr Pence has kept busy, joining the conservative think tanks the Heritage Foundation and the Young Americas Foundation, travelling abroad, making endorsement speeches on behalf of preferred Republican candidates and working on a pair of books.

MAGA rioters lay siege to the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 (AP)

He has gradually begun to be more forthcoming about the thwarted insurrection, however.

That day, 6 January, was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol, he told a Republican dinner in New Hampshire in June 2021.

But thanks to the swift action of the Capitol police and federal law enforcement, violence was quelled. The Capitol was secured. And that same day, we reconvened the Congress and did our duty under the constitution and the laws of the United States.

He concluded by saying: You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I dont know if well ever see eye to eye on that day.

Speaking to Sean Hannity of Fox News the following October, Mr Pence said of his former boss: Look, you cant spend almost five years in a political foxhole with somebody without developing a strong relationship.

And, you know, 6 January was a tragic day in the history of our Capitol Building. But thanks to the efforts of Capitol Hill Police, federal officials, the Capitol was secured. We finished our work, and the president and I sat down a few days later and talked through all of it.

He also issued a distinctly Trumpian attack on the press, commenting: I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administrations failed agenda by focusing on one day in January.

They want to use that one day to try and demean the character and intentions of 74m Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported our administration in 2016 and 2020.

But for our part, I truly believe we all ought to remain completely focused on the future. Thats where Im focused and I believe the future is bright.

Those comments drew plenty of criticism, not least from people astonished that the former veep was apparently happy to continue to toe the party line even after a serious threat had been made against his own life.

By February 2022, perhaps with one eye on a possible run for the presidency himself within two years, Mr Pence began to change his attitude towards Mr Trump.

Donald Trump (AP)

He told the conservative Federalist Society: I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.

Furious, Mr Trump hit back, insisting in a statement that Mr Pence could have sent back the election results and argued that the House investigators should be probing Mr Pence more closely.

Later that month, following the outbreak of Russias unjust invasion of Ukraine, the ex-Indiana governor again broke with Mr Trump to tell Republican donors congregating in New Orleans that there is no room in this party for apologists for Vladimir Putin, seemingly a nod to the former presidents admiration for the Kremlin leader, whom he had called a genius and whose denials of election meddling in 2016 he had accepted at face value at the Helsinki summit of July 2018, publicly favouring Mr Putins version of events over that of his own intelligence officials.

Most recently, Mr Pence has broken with Mr Trump once again by backing Georgia governor Brian Kemp and hinted in an interview with The New York Times that he could run for the presidency himself in 2024, saying that prayer will guide his decision-making.

For his part, Mr Trump has sneered at the prospect of a challenge from Mr Pence and indicated that his base would not permit a second Trump-Pence ticket, even if their damaged relationship could be repaired.

Read more from the original source:
What Mike Pence has said about the January 6 riot - Yahoo News

Former Vice President Mike Pence recently joined Focus on the Family for a wide-ranging and insightful interview on the Focus on the Familys Daily Broadcast.

The former vice president sat down to discuss his Christian faith, his passion for the pro-life cause, and his convictions on the importance of religious freedom with Tim Goeglein, Focus Vice President of External and Government Affairs.

Goeglein began by asking the vice president how, as a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a former state governor, and then as vice president, his faith has changed or grown.

For us, our family, our relationship with Christ is everything, Pence said. Its where everything begins. Its where our best days begin. And as our life has changed, and our family has changed, that hasnt changed.

Goeglein then asked about Pences passionate pro-life convictions.

In fact, the pro-life issue had led you into politics, even though the issue in one sense should not even be political. What are you and Karen doing now as private citizens to advance the cause of human life? Goeglein asked.

For me to have been a part of a season of service, where I was able to author the first legislation to defund Planned Parenthood in the Congress, where we were able to pass pro-life legislation that made it all the way to the Supreme Court, expand adoption in Indiana when I was governor, was deeply meaningful, Vice President Pence answered.

It is hard to describe, uh, the sense of privilege I felt being vice president in the most pro-life administration in American history. I mean, I saw this administration from day one, stand without apology for the sanctity of life. And not only in policies like, making sure taxpayer dollars were not being used to fund abortion at home and abroad, but also in the way we protected conscience rights of doctors and nurses around the country and stood for religious liberty.

Pence also mentioned the importance of the nomination and confirmation of three justices to the United States Supreme Court, who may all soon be vital in the courts potential decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

My hope and my prayer, is that that draft decision will soon become the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, that well send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history and give America a new beginning on the right to life, Pence stated.

If you would like to listen to the entire interview with former Vice President Mike Pence, titled Optimism, Faith and Freedom in America, click here. In it, youll hear about Vice President Pences Christian faith, his bold and passionate defense of preborn life, and his discussion of the importance of religious freedom in America.

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Vice President Mike Pence Talks Faith and Freedom in America with Focus on the Family - Daily Citizen