YEAH I DID IT AND I WILL DO IT AGAIN

For anyone who thought the January 6 Committee hearings might have a “salutory effect” on either Trump or the Trumpublicans, you were sadly mistaken.

Since the hearings began two weeks ago, Trump has responded on his Truth Social and at his Hatealong rallies by insisting the election was definitely stolen from him regardless of any evidence to the contrary, that former Vice President Mike Pence really did have the power to overturn the electors and keep Trump in office, and that the January 6th insurrectionists are being unfairly prosecuted.

If further proof was needed of the committee’s central point that the Republican Party’s threat to democracy continues as long as Trump and his supporters still deny the outcome of the 2020 election and what took place on January 6th, Trump is giving to them; he may not be testifying to the committee, but his public reaction to their work cannot be ignored. His responses make him a witness against himself.

His Friday speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Nashville shows clearly what a continuing national security threat both he and his followers are. In the speech, he didn’t dwell on any policy achievements as president or propose any legislative reforms for the future. (Not that he had any achievements or has any plans other than revenge).

Nope: He stewed on January 6th, which he is fixated on.

He attacked Barr for not supporting his efforts to unconstitutionally and illegally overturn the election. According to Trump, Barr “was afraid of certain things” - namely, being impeached as attorney general. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with being impeached? I got impeached twice, and my poll numbers went up.” That he can actually think like that to say such a thing shows how far out of touch with reality he is.

He saved his greatest scorn for Pence: “Mike Pence had the chance to be great. He had the chance to be, frankly, historic. But just like Bill Barr and the rest of these weak people, Mike - and I say it sadly because I like him - but Mike did not have the courage to act.”

He continued: “As you heard a year and a half ago, Mike Pence had absolutely no choice but to be a human conveyor belt [of state-certified electoral slates], a human conveyor belt. . . . So I said to Mike, ‘If you do this you can be Thomas Jefferson.’ And then after it all went down I looked at him one day and I said, ‘Mike, hate to say this, but you’re no Thomas Jefferson.” He was afraid of whatever he was afraid of.”

Let’s clear up the historical record. Vice President Thomas Jefferson did not throw out any election certifications or electors in the election of 1800. Once again, Trump and the Trumpublicans live in alternative reality. No Vice President ever acted in such a way as Trump was demanding of Pence.

What Pence and his team worried about was what would happen once his refusal to go along with Trump’s plot to steal the election went public. Pence aide Marc Short testified he believed “the president would lash out in some way,” which was why he alerted the Secret Service ahead of January 6th that the vice president’s security warranted more attention.

Short was right to be concerned. Committee member Representative Pete Aguilar stated plainly that Pence’s life was in danger: “A recent court filing by the Department of Justice explains that a confidential informant from the Proud Boys told the FBI the Proud Boys would have killed Mike Pence if given a chance.”

But Trump continues to repeat the same lies about Pence that led the mob to chant “Hang Mike Pence” on January 6.

Not only that, but he sees nothing wrong with what the Proud Boys or anyone else in the insurrectionist mob did. He stated clearly that if he becomes president again, he would “very seriously” consider pardons for rioters: “January 6th defendants are having their lives totally destroyed and being treated worse than terrorists and murderers, despite most being charged with parading through the Capitol. Most people should not be treated the way they are being treated. And if I become president, someday, if I decide to do it, I will be looking at them very, very seriously for pardons. Very, very seriously. . . . Should I decide to do that.”

The crowd of evangelical mostly white Christians, cheered his cutesy remark about the possibility of running again in 2024.

Friday wasn’t the first time he responded to the January 6th Committee’s hearings.

After the second hearing, which focused on Trump’s false claims about the election, he responded by issuing a 12-page fax full of disinformation in which he called committee members “treasonous” and said that “Democrats created the narrative of January 6th to detract from the much larger and more important truth that the 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen. This entire charade of the Unselect Committee is a brazen attempt to detract the public’s attention from the truth. The truth is that Americans showed up in Washington, D.C. in massive numbers (but seldom revealed by the press), on January 6th, 2021, to hold their elected officials accountable for the obvious signs of criminal activity throughout the Election. Those who are supposed to be public servants are using the power of government against the people who entrusted them with the power. We’ve been betrayed. This is all a ridiculous and treasonous attempt to cover up the fact that Democrats rigged the Election and are siphoning Americans’ freedoms and power for their own benefit.”

That this all demonstrates the prescience of Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia election official and lifelong Republican, warned about in December 2020 when he said, “Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed.”

Over the weekend, Adam Kinzinger reported that his wife received a letter from someone threatening to execute them and their 5-month-old child. He told ABC’s This Week: “There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you. And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”

Fortunately, today, the Committee continued the damnation of Trump through the testimony of conservative Republicans who had supported him, but drew the line at treason and overthrowing the rule of law.

To me, the most remarkable testimony came from Rusty Bowers, the Republican Speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives. Bowers directly connected Trump to the attempt to have Arizona decertify the election results that had Trumpe defeated by Biden, recounting the phone call in which Trump, calling with Giuliani, directly asked him to convene the Arizona Legislature and decertify the election Bowers recounted how he continued to press Giuliani for any evidence of voter fraud, with Rudy admitting at one point that he had "theories but no evidence."

Bowers defenestrated Trump in the hearings after Trump stated today during the hearings that Bowers had told him he had won Arizona.

Schiff: To quote the former president, “He told me the election was rigged and I won Arizona.” Did you have such a conversation with the president?

Spkr. Bowers: I did have a conversation with the president. That certainly isn’t it. There were parts of it that are true. There are parts that are not.

Schiff: The part that I read to you, is that false?

Spkr. Bowers: Anywhere, anyone, anytime has said I said the election was rigged, that would not be true.

Rep. Schiff: And when the former president in his statement today claimed that you told him that he won Arizona, is that also false?

Spkr. Bowers: That is also false.

Evidence Trump lied about conversations he had with various state elected officials would be critical in a number of different possible charges prosecutors might consider filing against him. An intentional lie intended to shape beliefs and a false narrative could apply to a crime involving Trump’s treatment of Bowers himself, pressuring Bowers to commit a crime. Trump then intentionally put Bowers in danger as Bowers then had to disagree with him and set forth the truth that he never told Trump he won Arizona. This testimony would be extremely powerful evidence if Trump were charged with obstructing Congress by providing alternate electors and pressuring Pence to count those electors. Arizona’s Speaker of the House said that he would not consider sending other electors.

Last and perhaps most dangerously to Trump, if he was charged with conspiring to commit sedition against the United States, the fact that he knew the truth about the Arizona election and chose to lie about it, proves he intended to inflame his supporters, spurring them to action while also putting the country’s democracy in jeopardy by ignoring the election itself.

Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel taped deposition that Trump personally connected her on a phone call with conservative lawyer John Eastman, architect of the "alternate elector" scheme, to ask the RNC to help coordinate false sets of electors, further cements Trump’s direct involvement in the crime.

The testimony of Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, recounting what they experienced after Trump and Giuliani personally identified and attacked them for their election-night processing of ballots, which the two traitors claimed was proof of “vote rigging” was heart-wrenching. Moss said: “It's turned my life upside down. I no longer give out my business card. I don't transfer calls. I don't want anyone knowing my name. ... I've gained about 60 pounds. I just don't do nothing anymore. I don't want to go anywhere. I second-guess everything that I do. It's affected my life in a major way. In every way. All because of lies. For me doing my job. Same thing I've been doing forever.” And her mother, Ruby Freeman: “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one.”

Trump is truly the most despicable human ever to live in this country.

Trump is saying to us all, “Yeah, I did it. And I’ll do it again when I win in 2024.”

These next two years are the most important and dangerous in the history of the United States.

Thanks to all of you who support That’s Another Fine Mess as paid supporters. I hope the rest of you will consider doing that. Thank you again.

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