Fifth Hearing: Watergate 2.0
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You’re watching the Watergate hearings,” all over again, assuming you’re watching.
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I was in college when the Watergate scandal broke and remember a two, or three-paragraph item in the Ohio University student newspaper. The burglary at the Watergate building in Washington D.C. was only briefly noted. By that summer, however, Nixon had already earned the nickname, “Tricky Dick.”
I remember thinking something was amiss when I saw that item, and in the next two years, a whiff of criminality became a stench.
Yesterday, I thought to myself, “You’re watching the Watergate hearings, all over again,” assuming you were watching.
There’s one sad difference now. As evidence piled up in 1972, 1973 and 1974, and rational Republicans came face to face with the truth, they did not blanch. They came to acknowledge, grudgingly, true, that Richard Nixon, who had announced on TV that he was “not a crook,” in fact was.
In those days, even Nixon had never had the audacity to claim that everything illegal he was caught doing was “Fake News.” And if there were members of Congress as craven as Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Louie Gohmert, and Rep. Mo Brooks, they never had the nerve to approach the Nixon White House and ask for “all-purpose” pardons, stretching “from the beginning of time” to the last moment of Donald J. Trump’s first term in office.
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John Dean, Richard M. Nixon's personal lawyer testified in the Watergate hearings. |
Yet, as we learned in yesterday’s hearings, Gaetz, et. al., did seek blanket pardons from Trump.
And it wasn’t “Fake News.” We heard that from a White House lawyer, a member of the Trump administration.
Thursday, we had the fifth hearing from the House Select Committee on January 6. For Jeffrey Clark, former Assistant Attorney General, it was a very, very bad day – the kind that can lead to a stint in an orange jumpsuit. (We don’t shout, “Lock him up!” at this blog. We are not like the fools who love to shout at Trump rallies. But we do smile as evidence piles high.) Clark was the linchpin in a last-ditch plan hatched by President Trump and the worst aides and advisors still willing to do his bidding, to thwart the results of the 2020 election and “remain in power” at any cost.
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Every important witness called so far is a Republican.
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First, we should remember that every important witness called so far is a Republican. Often these witnesses worked in the White House. These are men and women selected to fill their posts by Trump himself. Clark was an Assistant AG for Civil Affairs, tasked with litigation in environmental matters. (He was forced to testify under subpoena, and when compelled repeatedly took the Fifth.)
The three live witnesses for the Thursday hearing were former top officials at the Department of Justice: Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Engel explained to the Committee, and the American people, that it was part of his job to meet with the president and top administration officials when they required legal advice. He would offer options they might choose to achieve policy goals and he would guide them around pitfalls if what they wished to do might be illegal under U.S. law. All three had been nominated by Donald J. Trump, with Rosen serving in three successive roles in the Trump administration.
Fortunately, for those of us who still value the rule of law, in the weeks following the 2020 election, all three witnesses came to realize that a far-reaching plot was afoot to keep the president in power – one foundation of which was to pollute the national discourse with false claims of voter fraud. The President of the United States, all three agreed, although none deployed the harshest possible word, was spreading lies.
They politely, and repeatedly told him his allegations of voter fraud were untrue, unsupported by evidence.
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Rep. Kinzinger is a veteran and served in Iraq. |
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of only two Republicans brave enough to serve on the Committee, did most of the questioning for the day. As he explained to the audience in the hearing room, and those watching on TV, what the fifth hearing would reveal was President Trump’s “total disregard for the Constitution and his oath” to uphold same. Donald Trump, he insisted, had only one goal. He wanted “to stay in power.”
If a Democratic politician, appearing on CNN, made a similar claim, you could chalk it up to political pontificating. To have a Republican member of Congress making that claim was a different matter.
And to hear three additional Republican witnesses supporting that claim should have been a sobering moment for all Americans. If you haven’t been keeping track, here are all the other key witnesses, so far.
All are Republicans. Many worked for President Trump:
1. Former Attorney General Bill Barr
2. Rusty Bowers, Arizona Speaker of the House
3. Alex Cannon, former Trump campaign lawyer
4. Jeffrey Clark (his testimony was shown via video, and he was shown repeatedly pleading the Fifth)
5. Pat Cipollone, former White House Chief Counsel (limited testimony, Trump had invoked executive privilege)
6. Laura Cox, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party
7. Brian Cutler, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader
8. Dr. John Eastman, linchpin to the plan to keep Trump in office (reluctant witness, repeatedly plead the Fifth)
9. Benjamin Ginsberg, Republican election strategist
10. Eric Herschmann, White House lawyer
11. Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
12. Greg Jacob, lawyer on the staff of Vice President Pence
13. Judge J. Michael Luttig, conservative judge
14. Jason Miller, Trump advisor
15. Matt Morgan, chief counsel for the Trump 2020 campaign
16. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State
17. Al Schmidt, member of Philadelphia election board
18. Mike Shirkey, Majority Leader of the Michigan Senate
19. Marc Short, chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence
20. Bill Stepien, Trump 2020 campaign manager
21. Gabriel Sterling, Georgia election officer
22. Chris Stirewalt, former Fox News election expert
23. Bjay Pak, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia
So, Rosen, Engel and Donoghue would make #24-26.
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Bill Barr called Trump’s claims of voter fraud “bullshit.
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In case you’ve forgotten, Mr. Rosen took over at DOJ when his predecessor, Mr. Barr, resigned his post.
Barr, of course, has already testified, via video link. Asked repeatedly about the president’s claims of massive voter fraud, Barr has just as often referred to such claims as “bullshit.” While still at the Department of Justice, he told Trump that that’s what they were.
And Trump refused to listen.
Now it was Rosen’s turn to have to deal with a mercurial, unbalanced, and criminally-inclined President of the United States. His first official day in office was December 24, 2020. Under questioning from Rep. Kinzinger, he noted that starting on December 23, up through January 3, the president pressed him daily (except Christmas). He wanted Rosen to meet with Rudy Giuliani, who was helping spread the fairy tale of the stolen election. He wanted DOJ to file a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to intervene in the final stages of election certification. He wanted Justice to make a public statement supporting claims of widespread voter fraud. Rosen rebuffed each of the president’s entreaties. “We did not think they were appropriate based on the facts and the law as we understood them,” he told members of the Committee.
In fact, Trump had been pressing the Justice Department for weeks. At a meeting on December 15, he brought up the vote in Antrim County, Michigan. He had a report, he said, that proved there had been a 68% error rate in Antrim. That was only possible if the machines were rigged. Rep. Kinzinger asked Mr. Engel about such claims. Engel said DOJ had examined all credible allegations, and to “this date,” the hearing date, he meant, there had been no evidence of widespread fraud. He had, he said, no reason to doubt Barr’s conclusion, but did not deign to repeat the word “bullshit.”
On December 21, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows put out a tweet amplifying his boss’s claims – inadvertently revealing a troubling gathering, just concluded. “Several members of Congress,” he wrote, “just finished a meeting in the Oval Office with the President @realDonaldTrump, preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud. Stay tuned.”
Six days later, Donoghue testified, he had a 90-minute phone conversation with the president, during which he took notes. Trump brought up the Antrim claim, and aired a number of allegations. All, Donoghue noted, had been repeatedly debunked. He said that he was “very blunt.” He said he “tried to correct him in a serial fashion,” knocking down the president’s multiple misconceptions. A hand recount of the more than 15,000 votes in Antrim, for example, had shown the machines were off by a single vote, not by 68% as Trump insisted. “What people are telling you is not true,” he told him. Donoghue said he “tried to educate the president,” for his own good.
Trump simply shifted his attack. He brought up the story of a truck driver who claimed to have delivered a truckload of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania. (The same driver was a ghost hunter in his spare time, so there’s that.) Donoghue explained that that allegation had been investigated. The story was false.
Trump insisted 200,000 Pennsylvania ballots had not been certified. He was told, again, that investigations revealed no evidence of serious fraud – almost none in fact – in any of the cases mentioned.
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“An obligation to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election.”
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Trump grew agitated. He wanted DOJ to investigate – to do his bidding. Donoghue said Justice could not just “snap its fingers” and change election results. According to Donoghue, Trump responded, “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman.”
Think about that, too.
Those congressmen were the very same lawmakers who had met with Chief of Staff Meadows six days before. They were the same men who would, as the clock ran out on the Trump presidency, seek blanket pardons.
More on that in a bit.
Balked again, Trump insisted that DOJ had “an obligation to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election.”
Donoghue told the Committee that was a direct quote. Trump, he added, wanted DOJ to “put the stamp of approval” on the stolen election lie.
Rosen was asked about Jeffrey Clark, and his position at Justice. He said he learned only afterwards that Clark had had a meeting at the White House with Trump on December 22. This was a clear violation of DOJ protocols. When Rosen questioned Mr. Clark, the latter claimed the meeting was “inadvertent.”
Engel explained that DOJ limits who speaks to the president, because even the appearance of political interference can do serious damage.
White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone, we learned, also warned Mr. Clark to “stand down.”
In fact, Clark had been taken to the White House by Rep. Scott Perry, of Pennsylvania. Perry was one of the lawmakers working hardest to overturn election results. At one point, he insisted (and Trump believed) that more votes were certified in that state than had been cast. Donoghue explained. Four counties in Pennsylvania had failed to upload results to a state elections website.
As for Perry’s claim of massive fraud, he said, “there was zero to that.”
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The first step to “committing a felony.”
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It was now that a
desperate president, listening to the worst legal voices he could find, latched
onto a desperate idea. He would have the Department of Justice send a letter to
the Governor of Georgia, with copies going to legislatures ins key battleground
states, as well as federal lawmakers. In that letter, top DOJ officials would
say that there had been “widespread fraud” in the vote. The key, second
sentence would read: “At this time we have identified significant concerns that
may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the
State of Georgia.”
Only the DOJ had not identified “significant concerns.” Nor had they uncovered significant concerns “in multiple states.”
Barr, and now Rosen, Donoghue and Engel had made this perfectly clear. They had repeatedly informed Mr. Trump that his allegations of fraud (which he continues to spew to this day) were unsupported by fact. During one contentious exchange, Trump insisted that DOJ investigations couldn’t be right. He had all the evidence he needed. “You guys may not be following the internet the way I do,” he explained.
Think about that…
The three officials were unmoved. They would not sign the letter. In fact, a draft had been prepared by Trump loyalists, with three signature lines. One for Rosen. One for Donoghue. One for Clark.
Donoghue told the Committee that when he first read what he termed an “extreme” letter he had to read it twice. Horrified, he sat down to send a “prompt” response. He said that Justice would not “insert itself into the political process. He warned Clark that he was asking DOJ “to meddle in an election.”
Rosen, who had a nervous tic, often tilting his head to left, and giving it a little shake as if to clear his mind when he answered, testified he had two reasons he had decided not to sign the letter.
First, the letter was “not consistent with the truth.”
Second, it was “not consistent with the Constitution. ” For most men and women of principle, that would clinch.
Kinzinger noted that the letter was the work of two individuals, Clark, and Ken Klukowski. The latter had been hired on at DOJ only on December 15, and likely for one reason. Previously, Klukowski had worked with John Eastman – the mastermind of the overarching plot to keep Trump in power.
When Rosen and Donoghue refused to sign a false statement, Trump, who has no principles, except one (to do what is best for himself) latched onto the idea of firing Rosen and replacing him with the malleable, conscienceless Mr. Clark.
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Assistant AG Jeffrey Clark. |
On January 3, a Sunday, with only three days left until the certification of the official electoral votes, matters came to a head in an explosive meeting in the Oval Office. Rosen had called White House Chief of Staff Meadows, and set it up. If you missed the story – and if you were watching Fox News you did, because they chose not to televise the hearings – Clark and the president ran into universal condemnation of their scheme. (When I switched over for a moment, during the televised Thursday hearings, to see what Fox was discussing, they were doing a story on Jussie Smollett – who last time I checked did deserve time in jail, but never tried to steal a national election.
Testifying via video, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, who sat in that Sunday, offered Clark blunt warning. If he went through with the letter, he would be taking his first step, as Acting Attorney General, to “committing a felony.”
Think about that.
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“We’ll call you if there’s an oil spill.”
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Donoghue was contemptuous. He told the president Clark would have no competency to lead the massive Justice Department. Clark had zero experience with criminal investigations. During one contentious meeting, previously, he had told Clark, “Why don’t you go back to your office, and we’ll call you if there’s an oil spill.” That, I thought, was the funniest line in five days of hearings. Only what Clark and the President of the United States were planning was not humorous at all. White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone knew an illegal scheme when he heard one. According to the three witnesses testifying Thursday, he warned that the letter was a “murder-suicide pact.” He told everyone in the meeting “we should have nothing to do with it.”
(Cipollone has not yet answered many questions, because President Trump invoked executive privilege.)
By this time, the plot to install Clark and send the bogus missive had advanced to the last step. According to White House phone logs, Clark and the president had been in contact since seven a.m. on January 3. In several earlier calls, the log identified him as “Mr. Jeffrey Clark.” At 4:19 p.m., that also changed. The next call came from “Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.”
Now, in the Oval Office, Trump announced that he was ready to replace Rosen with Clark. “What have I got to lose?” he asked. Top DOJ officials wouldn’t do what he asked, as Rosen testified now, because the Department functioned on the basis of “facts, evidence, and the law.”
None of which supported the plot. Rosen made it clear. He had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.
He wouldn’t sign. So he was going to be ousted.
Donoghue was ready with an answer to Trump’s last question. “Mr. President,” he replied, “you have got a great deal to lose.” So did the DOJ, the country, and quite possibly the Constitution. He and Rosen had consulted with other top officials. Donoghue pointedly announced that he wouldn’t work “one minute for this guy,” meaning Clark. Engel was seated in the meeting, too. Trump asked, “Steve, you wouldn’t resign, would you?” Engel had worked for the administration for four years. “I couldn’t be part of this,” he replied. Five top officials at Justice had assured Donoghue. If Rosen was out, and Donoghue and Engel were out, they too would resign. None had any hesitation. Those five, the Committee noted for viewers, were Assistant Attorney Generals Eric Dreiband, Claire Murray, Jeff Wall, David P. Burns and Makan Delrahim. All five were nominated by President Trump, with Delrahim, a native of Iran, being gifted a red baseball cap with the words, “Makan Antitrust Great Again,” when he was sworn in.
A sixth Assistant AG, in charge of national security affairs, had also said he would resign, but given the nature of his duties, Rosen and Donoghue asked him to remain in his post. (This blog post is based on my own notes; and I failed to catch that official’s name). Donoghue went further. He warned the president that there would be a cascade of resignations among U.S. District Attorneys, and that others at DOJ, and in those district offices – likely hundreds – would quit in a cascade.
Clark, he said, would be “leading a graveyard.”
With that, Clark’s chance of becoming Acting Attorney General died an ignominious death. Trump backed down; but we know he wasn’t done. He had one last part of the plot that still might work.
For the next three days, he would redouble his efforts to convince Vice President Pence to break the law.
That same night, Clark had the nerve to call Donoghue at home. Trump had heard that there was a truckload of shredded ballots, down in Georgia, and that an ICE agent had the truck impounded. The agent supposedly wanted to know what to do. Donoghue said ICE would be under Homeland Security, but promised to let them know.
By this time, if President Trump had suggested that an alien spaceship landed, and dropped off 81,000,000 ballots, all marked for Joe Biden, I imagine no one at DOJ would have been surprised.
In fact, the truckload of shredded Biden ballots didn’t exist.
There were no aliens and there was no significant voter fraud, either.
The hearing finally reached an end. The witnesses were asked about the events of January 6 itself. Rosen said he was in his office at the Justice Department, and had to handle “very urgent” business all day. He was making and taking phone calls nearly non-stop. A force of 500 federal marshals, DOJ guards, and F.B.I. agents was cobbled together and sent to Capitol Hill to help restore order. Rosen said he talked to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. He had two calls with Vice President Pence. He talked to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Chuck Schumer, multiple lawmakers from both parties, cabinet members, and various law enforcement heads.
Rep. Kinzinger wondered. Had he talked to Mr. Trump that day?
“No,” Rosen said.
Donoghue was asked the same question.
“No,” he replied.
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Rep. Mo Brooks and Rep. Matt Gaetz request all-purpose pardons.
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In closing, we learned that various participants in the scheme to overturn the election reached out to the White House after January 6. The Committee had hard evidence, too. In an email, Rep. Mo Brooks, who fired up the crowd that morning, and said it was time for patriots to “start taking names and kicking ass,” wondered. Would it be possible for Mr. Trump to provide a “general (all purpose) pardon” for himself, for Rep. Matt Gaetz, and all those who had voted on the evening of January 6 to question, in a last-ditch effort to keep Trump in office, certification of the Pennsylvania and Arizona electoral votes.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mr. Meadows, was shown in video-taped testimony. She said that Brooks and Gaetz both pushed for pardons for everyone involved in the December 21 meeting (about which Meadows had tweeted, as we know.) She said Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Perry, and Rep. Andy Biggs had all inquired about pardons. Johnny McEntee, also via video, admitted that in the White House there had been discussions about blanket pardons for everyone charged in the attack on January 6, and about pardons for members of the Trump family, itself.
Rep. Kinzinger closed the hearings for the day by saying it was now up to “every American to stand up for the truth.”
No one who had listened to the five hearings, so far, could have had any doubt about how Trump would respond. As AG Barr had said, there was never any sign, during the days and weeks after the election, that the president cared “what the actual facts were.”
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Rep. Matt Gaetz (center) with two pals: Convicted felons Roger Stone (left) and Joel Greenberg (right). |
BLOGGER’S MAIN TAKEAWAY:
EVIDENCE PRESENTED TODAY IS LIKELY TO DO SEVERE DAMAGE TO THE FORMER PRESIDENT, IN REGARD TO THE GEORGIA GRAND JURY NOW IN SESSION. WE NOW HAVE MULTIPLE WITNESSES WHO CAN TESTIFY TO THE FACT THEY TOLD TRUMP HIS ALLEGATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD WERE FALSE.
HE REPEATED ALMOST ALL OF THOSE ALLEGATIONS IN HIS PHONE CALL ON JANUARY 2, 2021, TO SECRETARY OF STATE BRAD RAFFENSPERGER.
IN THAT CALL, HE ASKED THREE GEORGIA OFFICIALS TO “FIND” THE VOTES HE NEEDED TO CARRY THE STATE. HE ONLY BACKED AWAY FROM THE CLARK-LETTER SCHEME THE NEXT DAY, WHEN DOJ LEADERS REFUSED TO BREAK THE LAW.
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About the only trick Trump didn't try: poisoning the victor. |
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