Thread by @AkivaMCohen

OK. Yesterday's #Jan6thHearings recap, on 2x speed.

Thompson giving another version of his standard opening: Come on, elections matter and you can't turn violent. Candidates have obligations to stop followers from getting violent. Any American leader had to do that.

Trump didn't; instead, he summoned a mob to Washington.

Cheney: No hearing last week, but we got Cippolone's testimony, and it "met our expectations"

This hearing is going to focus on Trump summoning the mob to fight for him.

Trump lawyers have changed their tunes - they recognize the Committee has established what happened and that it was wrong and illegal, now they're saying Trump was misled by bad advisors

But come on, Trump is 76, not a child; he's responsible for his own actions. He had access to all the details; no rational or sane person could have believed the election was rigged.

You'll hear evidence that Rudy's team knew they had no evidence for their insanity

Trump fooled people who didn't have that info. And his conduct on the 6th itself is completely indefensible.

She's done. On to Murphy

Murphy recapping what Trump did.

Oooh - she used "aid and abet" to describe people supporting Trump's post 12/14 conduct.

Now the "come 1/6" tweet

They're going to provide evidence of how Trump edited his 1/6 speech that day to inflame the crowd.

Now onto the Trump meeting with Powell, Byrne, Rudy, and "team not completely insane"

Oh, this is Raskin talking now.

Trump energized the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, etc., as intended

Quoting Lincoln: If America ever falls, it'll be at the hands of an American mob, not an external enemy

Back to Murphy.

12/14: Electoral college vote. Trump lost.

Quoting courts rejecting Trump challenges. Playing McConnell's "we have a President-Elect" speech.

Eugene Scalia testifying that he told Trump that it was over.

We're getting some Cipollone today, but most will be in the next hearing (can't wait). Cip advised Trump to concede. The process is done.

Barr: 12/14 was the end. Should've been.

Cipollone: Meadows agreed. Repeatedly.

McEnany: Once the litigation was over, it should have been over.

Ivanka: 12/14 should have been the end

Deere (Deputy Press Secretary): I told him it was over. Trump disagreed

Barr: I asked Scavino how long Trump was gonna carry on with it, and Meadows said "he knows there's a limit". Jared said "we're working on it"

Cipollone: President had an obligation to abide by the court rulings, take care that the laws were followed.

Back to Raskin: Going back to Barr's testimony that the machine allegations were nonsense and damaging the company and he told Trump that.

Cipollone: Me too

Barr: Trump asked DoJ to seize the machines. I said fuck no.

On to the insane meeting

12/16 memo for Trump's signature: Seizing voting machines and appointing Sidney Powell as special counsel.

(We're going to hear testimony that Trump actually orally appointed Powell)

Cipollone: That's not how we do things in America

The 12/18 meeting was important because Trump got to watch Powell's/Rudy's arguments get destroyed in front of him.

Bernie Kerik (Rudy's lead investigator) had told them "we're not going to have evidence of this"

Buncha people saying "there was never any evidence"

Meadows told Trump to concede, later worked to help Trump try to overturn the election anyway

Raskin: The conclusion is this: Even an acknowledged complete lack of evidence couldn't stop Trump from trying to overturn the election

Testimony about the bonkers meeting.

Powell: We got 15 minutes alone with the President before Cipollone raced in.

Cipollone: I was pissed. How did they get in? These people were nuts and I had no idea who overstock guy was

Herschmann - they were saying crazy stuff about Venezuela

Meeting was very intense.

Cipollone: We kept asking where the evidence was. They had none

🚨🚨🚨Trump said "they're the only ones giving me any solutions so why not try"🚨🚨🚨

Rudy: I called them pussies

Meeting broke after midnight.

Contemporaneous texts from Hutchinson to Ornato: Meeting is unhinged

Powell: Trump orally appointed me special counsel and gave me security clearance. Then WH Counsel said "you can appoint her whatever you want but nobody's going to pay any attention to her"

Cipollone: In my view she hadn't been appointed to anything. There would have to be paperwork that never got done. Powell thought she had been, but she hadn't

Raskin: When the person Trump tried to make Special Counsel got sued for defamation, she said "come on, no sane person would think these were statements of fact"

That night, after the meeting ended, Trump sent his 1:22 am tweet: No way I lost, come to DC 1/6 for a wild protest.

Trump fans who were planning a post-inauguration protests immediately moved the protest to 1/6

Right wing shouty-men (Pool, Jones, etc.) immediately saying "come down, we need to act, we've been called to stop the election", references to violence

Anonymous Twitter employee talking about Twitter reaction to "stand back and stand by" - we were concerned Trump might use Twitter to incite violence, considered changing moderation policy but never did

Same guy re 12/19 Tweet: A mob was being organized. It became clear that Trump was asking people who were ready and willing to engage in violence to join him 1/6.

Examples of responses immediately recognizing that Trump was calling for a violent reaction.

LOTS of responses like this.

Meanwhile, Trump continued to rile up people on Twitter.

Hearing on a break. Me now: Trump 100% knew about the reaction of his fans and the violent discussions. Not only would he have seen it, but he'd have to have been briefed on it; would be insane not to

Back. Now testimony from an expert on extremism talking about how violent conspiracy groups started cooperating on operational aspects of 1/6, "very concerning"

After Trump's tweet, Kelly Meggs declared an alliance between the PBs, OKs, and Threeper militia

Flynn and Stone were backchannels to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Trump pardoned both between the electoral vote (12/14) & 1/6

Katrina Pierson contemporaneous text on why people like Stone and OK/PB extremists would be invited to speak at a 1/5 rally: Trump likes the crazies

Testimony: The more vicious the defense the better

Pierson reached out to Meadows with concerns about how crazy things were getting, the rhetoric from Jones and Ali Alexander. 1/2 call with Meadows to discuss - same day Meadows told Hutchinson things would get very bad

President had already decided to call for a march to the Capitol 1/6 but decided to keep it quiet until the morning of 1/6

Ali Alexander 1/5 text: "the president is going to order us to march to the capitol at the end of his speech tomorrow"

This wasn't spontaneous; it was planned

Meetings with Republican congressmen about 1/6 as early as 12/21.

Murphy ties it to Trump's demand that the DOJ "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen"

1/4 meeting between Eastman and Trump: Cipollone was ordered out of the meeting. (Would have to be by Trump)

Quoting Judge Carter: This was a crime.

Everyone knew there was no basis.

1/5: Trump spoke to Bannon twice. Bannon between those calls: "It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. ... Strap in"

Phone logs show the second call was 6 minutes.

Rally the night of 1/5 with the speakers too extreme for 1/6. Trump ordered the doors opened because he wanted to hear the crowd

Trump was in a very good mood, which was unusual for those weeks.

He asked if members of congress "would be with them" and how he could "make the RINOs do the right thing". The staff was quiet.

Trump mentioned how angry the crowd was

Stone, Flynn, Alexander, Jones: Calling for war.

Trump tweet that night: We hear you and love you from the oval office

Twitter guy: Sent a slack message "when people are shooting at each other tomorrow, at least we'll know we tried". "People were going to die"

Debbie Lesko: People are going to go nuts when we don't overturn the election.

Edits to the speech: Revised by Trump "we will not take it any more. We will stop the steal."

Revised to add Pence and his role.

Stephen Miller: Herschmann wanted the Pence lines out. The speechwriters took it out.

Then Pence told Trump he wasn't going to do the "just don't count the votes thing" and after that meeting, Trump emailed the speechwriters a demand that they put the Pence lines back in

That was the morning of 1/6

Ivanka could tell Trump was spinning out of control, was hoping she could calm the situation down.

Last minute adlibs by Trump: 1 reference to Pence became 8. 1 reference to going to the Capitol became 4.

Added throughout the speech: references to "fighting" and the need to "be strong" and "have courage"

"Peacefully" was in the staff-written script and used only once.

(i.e. *Trump's* real message was "fight"; 'peacefully' was not his language, he just mouthed it - and that's exactly how it came across)

"You'll never take back you country with weakness" ... "fight like hell"

The entire thing was built on a foundation of lies, and it ruined his supporters lives.

Parscale 1/6 texts: Trump asked for civil war. Trump's rhetoric killed people.

Now the witnesses. Gonna break here, will be back later