The Big Rip-Off
The Big Rip-Off
A second day of hearings concluded, revealing many attempts made by Trump's own family and advisors to stop "the Big Lie," as Trump used the narrative to fleece his supporters of millions of dollars.
The Jan. 6 Special Committee held its second of seven promised hearings on Monday morning, and the information gave the American public an inside seat for what we all imagined was the show of the century: Trump’s family members and advisors all telling him on election night that the results did not look good.
The committee, directed this time by Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), included several video clip montages of Trump’s inner circle explaining everything from the atmosphere at the White House, to how they told then-President Trump that he would likely not win the election, and that concerns over Dominion voting machines and election fraud were not plausible.
The video exhibits presented by the January 6 panel painted a detailed picture of what it was like to be in Trump’s orbit following the election, and how the president refused to listen to facts and reason as he buried his head in the sands of Giuliani concocted conspiracies.
Perhaps the most damning evidence against Trump, who appeared to be insulating himself in his own fantasies, was the evidence that Trump sold his lies about the election to fundraise a quarter of a billion dollars from his grassroots donors. Had the lies about the election stopped, so would the large influx of money. As the committee lays out the case against Trump, where a pre-requisite for charging him criminally will be proving intent, the committee firmly establishes a motive.
People at the Top
Vice-Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), used her opening statement to emphasize the consequences that many citizens have already experienced stemming from their actions on Jan. 6. "Hundreds of our countrymen have faced criminal charges," Cheney said.
"Many are serving criminal sentences because they believed what Donald Trump said about the election and they acted on it. They came to Washington DC, at his request, they marched on the Capitol at his request and hundreds of them besieged and invaded the building at the heart of our constitutional Republic."
While more than 840 people have been charged from the Jan. 6 riot, Cheney placed the emphasis on Trump’s culpability for the actions of his most fervent supporters. The committee has shown through the use of video clips that it was Donald Trump who inspired the insurrectionists to be there and to take place in an event that would forever change everyone’s lives.
Cheney drove home the resounding conclusion that despite all of this intentional influence, there have been relatively few consequences for Donald Trump and those who participated within his inner circle, who spurred people on to commit crimes in his name. “As one conservative editorial board put it recently, 'Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on January 6th, and he is still doing it," Cheney said.
“Team Normal”
The committee presented exhibits throughout the hearing that were clipped from interviews with prominent political Republicans, many of whom were in Trump’s inner circle. Trump's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, senior adviser Jason Miller and multiple lawyers gave their accounts of the days following the election and their attempts to reason with the president.
Former Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien was originally scheduled to testify in person, but was unable to attend the hearing at the last minute due to his wife going into labor. Video of Stepien was played instead of live testimony, including a clip of him saying that Giuliani formed his own team to pursue the election lie and that he was happy to be referred to as "Team Normal."
A significant group of conservative campaign professionals claimed they all gave Trump the same message – that the outlook was bleak, he should not declare victory on election night, and that he was going to lose. Many of these Republican pundits in Trump’s orbit explained that the idea that there was fraud or that the Dominion voting machines had created a false number was clearly and visibly false, and that they did their best to convey that to the president.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr called the claims of fraud and a stolen election: "bogus and silly," "idiotic," "stupid," "complete nonsense," and "crazy stuff." Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, explained that he believed the information Trump was getting from Rudy Giuliani was not credible and after a long pause, he admitted that he told Trump it was “not the approach to take.”
“Detached from Reality”
More testimony from Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr said that he had repeatedly told Trump there was no basis to claim that voting machines had been rigged or that there had been ballot "dumps" where Trump lost critical votes. Barr referred to all of these ideas being floated by Trump in the media as "crazy stuff."
Barr explained that Trump quickly broke with the team that had run his campaign and was trying to get him re-elected, and instead went down a deep rabbit hole of false conspiracies that were continually debunked by lawyers and Justice Department officials. Barr described the fast-and-furious nature of the new conspiracies that were brought up by Trump as a condition similar to "whack-a-mole."
While Trump refused to acknowledge any of the concerns being presented to him by his Attorney General and he continued to spread the fraud claims all over the world, Barr said his reaction to Trump’s behavior was that he was "demoralized." Barr explained his reaction to Trump’s outlandish actions by saying, "I thought, 'Boy if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with - he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.'"
Former Acting Attorney General Richard Donoghue, who took over after Bill Barr resigned, confirmed in a video clip that the Justice Department had indeed looked into specifics, but they had debunked all of the conspiracies and had relayed those results to the president. When asked how Trump responded to being advised that one of his crazy theories was not based in fact, Donaghue said in taped testimony: "He wouldn't fight us on it, he would just move on to another."
Emphasis on Republican Testimony
Despite being told by the attorney general, his own campaign lawyers, and many other senior advisers that his claims of election fraud were wrong, Donald Trump pressed ahead with the “big lie” that the election was stolen. The Jan. 6 Select Committee used the testimony of Republican officials and aides closest to Trump to show that Trump’s approach appeared to be crazy, even to the most staunch conservatives who worked for him.
Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann was among the many others who were opposing debunked election fraud claims, and he described the theories as “nuts.” The committee played testimony from Herschmann, who explained how he never saw any real substance to the claims that Dominion voting machines had miscalculated votes saying, “What they were proposing, I thought was nuts and in theory was also completely nuts.”
Chris Stirewalt, the former political director for conservative Fox News, explained the fallout after his team projected that Joe Biden would win the state of Arizona on election night. Stirewalt said the Arizona call made by Fox's decision desk — before any other US television network was risky due to alarmed Fox executives who were fearful of alienating Trump voters. Stirewalt also explained that his call angered his many allies within the Trump-supporting network.
"We don't award any electoral votes. We don't count any ballots. We are some nerds in a room, and that's it," Stirewalt explained."We're just telling you what's going to happen. We're not making anything happen." The producer went on to explain how twisted the Fox News “reality” had become from real life saying, "it showed to me how much television — the perceptions of events, of television as entertainment, news as entertainment and treating it like a sport - had really damaged the capacity of Americans to be good citizens in a republic because they confused the TV show with the real thing."
Conservative Republican election attorney Ben Ginsberg was also among those witnesses who testified in person before the committee on Monday. Ginsberg is considered a leading Republican expert on election fraud and played a critical role in the Florida recount case in 2000 when then-candidate George W. Bush defeated then-Vice President Al Gore. Even before the last presidential election, in a September 2020 essay, Ginsberg was vocal about the weakness of the former President's outlandish claims of widespread voter fraud and criticized the assertions as lacking evidence and "unsustainable."
“The Big Rip-Off”
As the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol wrapped up its second day of public hearings, Rep. Lofgren connected Trump's false claims about election fraud to the campaign’s extensive litigation of the 2020 election. This was the impetus for Trump’s repeated calls to his supporters, so that they could fund him in proving the truth of what he was saying, which Trump knew was a lie.
"If the litigation had stopped on Dec. 14, there would have been no fight to defend the election and no clear path to continue to raise millions of dollars," Lofgren explained. Lofgren played a video that featured Amanda Wick, senior investigative counsel for the committee, whose comments were interspersed with snapshots of Trump campaign fundraising emails sent to donors between Election Day and Jan. 6, many of which claimed the "left-wing mob was undermining the election."
Wick explained the truth of what was happening during Trump’s attempts to fundraise: "As the select committee has demonstrated, the Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false, yet they continued to barrage small-dollar donors with emails, encouraging them to donate to something called an Official Election Defense Fund."
"Claims that the election was stolen were so successful, President Trump and his allies raised $250 million, nearly $100 million in the first week after the election," Wick continued as she added that the committee discovered that the fund did not exist.
Wick detailed how Trump created a separate entity called the "Save America" PAC on Nov. 9, 2020. "Most of the money raised went to this newly created PAC, not to election-related litigation," she said, adding that the committee discovered that this PAC gave millions in contributions to pro-Trump organizations.
Lofgren said that political fundraising is part of the electoral process and allows voters to make their voices heard, but that they "deserve the truth about what those funds will be used for." Lofgren closed by playing another video montage exhibit (see the video embedded in the tweet below) and made the following summary: "Not only was there the Big Lie, there was the Big Rip-Off."
So far, the committee has methodically shown that the case against Trump in the Court of public opinion is rock solid, and a case against him in a forthcoming criminal trial could be strong as well. Trump had the motive and the opportunity, as president, to plan and incite the insurrection and then commit fraud through his fundraising tactics that followed.
Trump had the capacity to incite violence, and the testimony of former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt made that evident as he explained how Trump went after him personally on Twitter and endangered his life and the lives of his family.
Trump’s supporters acted on the information he was giving them and relied on this to their detriment. The committee has continually shown video testimony from Trump supporters, including white nationalists, who said they went to DC because they believed they were acting at Trump's behest.
There are more hearings scheduled Thursday morning of this week — the hearing that was scheduled on Wednesday was postponed. Be sure to tune into my Twitter feed as I live tweet all of the Committee’s proceedings and here on SHERO, where I will be covering all of it.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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