JAN. 6^th COMMITTEE & JUSTICE DEPARTMENT NEED TO GET TOGETHER

 

                         … J. Michael Luttig, the retired judge that told it like it is

 

The Jan. 6^th Committee showed how illegal Trump’s efforts were

 

J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals judge and renowned conservative, who advised Pence during the January 6^th crisis, testified that what Trump was asking Pence to do amounted to “constitutional mischief” and posed a “grave threat to American democracy.”

“I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the vice president overturn the 2020 election,” Luttig testified.

None of that stopped Trump from ratcheting up the pressure as the Jan. 6 congressional proceedings approached. On that day, the effort began in the morning, when Trump called Pence at his official residence. Both Jacob and Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, recalled being with the vice president when the call came in, and watching Pence step out of the room.

Several Trump aides, including his daughter, Ivanka, were in the Oval Office at the time and could hear the president’s side of the conversation. In video testimony played at the hearing, Ivanka Trump described her father taking a “different tone” than she had heard him take with the vice president before.

Ivanka Trump also told others in the West Wing that her father had called the vice president “the p-word” (wimp) and talked about Pence’s lack of courage.  Ivanka’s former chief of staff, Julie Radford, testified.  During the conversation, Pence made it clear to Trump that he did not have the authority to do what Trump asked.

The committee also detailed how Trump’s pressuring of Pence during his rally appearance on the Ellipse that day was not part of his original speech, and was instead ad-libbed.

Trump told those gathered that he talked to Pence before the rally about needing to have the “courage” to help him stay in office for four more years.

“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing,” Trump told his supporters. “I hope so. I hope so, because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.”

Later, with the attack at the Capitol underway, Trump “poured gasoline on the fire” by tweeting an angry message directed at Pence.  Sarah Matthews, a former Trump press aide said this in a videotaped interview with investigators.

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” Trump tweeted. “USA demands truth!”

The committee showed footage of rioters reading the tweet aloud, and of others angrily demanding Pence’s head. Moments later, rioters inside the Capitol reached the eastern side of the Rotunda.

Several Pence aides testified that they were shocked and disappointed when Trump issued a false statement the day before the riot that Pence and Trump were “in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act” in overturning the results of the 2020 election.

Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, said the information in the statement was “incorrect” and he recalled an angry conversation with Trump aide Jason Miller, who separately testified that he wrote the statement with Trump’s input.

“I was irritated and expressed displeasure that a statement could have gone out that misrepresented the vice president’s viewpoint without consultation,” Short said he told Miller.

More than any other figure in the days leading to and including Jan. 6, the hearing showcased Eastman, a Trump attorney who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in legal memos and in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Pence and Trump.

Eastman repeatedly sought to convince Pence and his lawyers that the vice president could unilaterally overturn the results of the election. A prolific emailer, Eastman fought for months to withhold emails the committee requested and only last week did a federal judge order that Eastman hand over an additional 400 documents to the committee.

Thursday was likely only the first hearing to feature Eastman as the committee continues its investigation behind closed doors, shaping the proceedings as new information rolls in.

Thompson said the panel plans to invite Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to be interviewed. The Post reported that the committee has obtained email correspondence between Thomas and Eastman. The emails show that Ginni Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election were more extensive than previously known. 

Former vice-presidential counsel Greg Jacob, along with former Trump White House lawyer Eric Hershmann, made clear in testimony, they believe Eastman’s plan was ridiculous and illegal. Jacob recalled emailing Eastman after Pence had been evacuated to a secure location: “Thanks to your bull---t, we are now under siege.”

Eastman was unrepentant in reply, blaming Pence for not having gone along with the plot, and encouraging Pence’s team to consider a “relatively minor violation” of the law, by adjourning Congress for 10 days so state legislatures could reconsider their electoral college votes. Jacob said Pence described Eastman’s response as “rubber room stuff.”

Hershmann recounted speaking to Eastman the next day, when Eastman brought up a new idea to contest the result in Georgia, “And I said to him, ‘Are you out of your effing mind?’ I said, ‘I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on: Orderly transition,' " Herschmann said.

“Now I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life,'” Herschmann said he added. "'Get a great effing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.”

Herschmann called Eastman’s push to steal the election ‘completely crazy’

Separately Thursday, tensions ratcheted up between the Jan. 6 committee and the Justice Department, with prosecutors complaining their lack of access to committee interview transcripts is hampering their ability to complete criminal cases, as evidence is aired in widely watched public hearings ahead of key trials.

In a letter to the committee, the heads of the Justice Department’s national security and criminal divisions wrote that not granting the department access to transcripts complicates the “ability to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct.”

The letter is the strongest salvo in the months-long back-and-forth between the committee and the department, whose parallel investigations have generally tried to steer clear of each other but now seem to be on a collision course.

The committee has repeatedly turned to Trump’s own aides, and Republicans generally, to make its case against the former president. Thursday’s hearing at times had the feel of a meeting of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group.

Greg Jacob and Luttig are conservative lawyers. One of Thursday’s questioners was John Wood, a Republican lawyer who noted that he and Eastman clerked for Luttig. Eastman, Jacob and the vice chairwoman of the committee, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), received their law degrees from the University of Chicago, which is known for producing conservative lawyers.

Luttig on Thursday was unsparing in describing the harm that his fellow conservatives who have cast their lot with Trump could have done to the U.S. government, and still could do.

“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” Luttig said.

J. Michael Luttig, the conservative and retired federal appeals judge said what was needed to be said.

Copyright G. Ater 2022