This is the master link for our live-tweeting of tonight's January 6th Committee hearings; feel free to share far & wide.
1/ All the best to Rep. Bennie Thompson from someone who also caught COVID despite being fully vaxxed & boosted; it sucks & get better soon. Also, way to make sure the Q crazies start off the night all disoriented.
2/ Everything I've read & heard coming into tonight is that "187 minutes of inaction" will be the theme for tonight's hearing.
/3 I think this is the most direct plea yet that there must be consequences FOR TRUMP if our democracy is to survive.
/4 Liz Cheney delivers what at first sounded like a closing argument - referencing back to her opening statement that we covered here - before throwing us a curveball. "The dam has broken ... we will convene further hearings in September."
/5 ooooof playing the Mitch McConnell clip from 1/7 has to feel like a hit below the belt if you're a Republican, no?
/6 🚨 Now we know at least one of the reasons the #Jan6thCommittee committee subpoenaed the (now suspiciously missing) Secret Service texts: they were apparently terrified
/7 and Rep. Luria shares ANOTHER important role of Secret Service texts: AT THE TIME Trump was instructing his supporters to march to the Capitol, the Proud Boys were already assembling
/8 I wish Rep. Luria would call the insurrectionists "insurrectionists" and not "rioters."
/9 do you remember watching the Jan. 6th insurrection on TV, unfolding in real time? I sure as hell do. I have the panicked texts I sent to @seriouspod, @allisongill & others wishing we could do something, ANYTHING. The committee is up against 18 months of Repub gaslighting
/10 Kinzinger: "Trump did not fail to act... he *chose* not to act."
/11 removed - error
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/12 Cheney very smartly plays up that these are NOT "RINOs" - asking leading ?s & letting them, in their own words, talk about abject nonsense like how great Trump's foreign policy was or how much you admire Kayleigh McEnany (!). Adds credibility, obviously, but ...yeesh
/13 I take seriously that these witnesses are feeling intimidated.
/14 so far we're half an hour in and there hasn't been significant new evidence. As of now, I'm a little puzzled why this was a prime-time hearing.
1/ Nice to see Chairman Bennie Thompson set the stage: the election was OVER as of December 14. Almost all of the communications and activity postdates that point.
2/ Liz Cheney makes it clear that the correct pronunciation is S-ippolone. Will take that under advisement, Ms. Co-Chair.
Prelim thoughts as ppl inevitably compare tonight to Mueller Report: 1) there's no Bill Barr systematic disinfo discrediting J6 in advance; 2) there's likely a strong bipartisan face in Liz Cheney & 3) J6 needs to make strong statement of crime up front - unlike Mueller /2
Time to go check the committee website to see which depositions are being released! #documents /3
So, here's the summary: it may not look like it, but this is DEVASTATING for Eastman so far. Judge is going methodically through all the reasons why no atty-client relationship may exist AT ALL, which would enable him to skip the crime/fraud stuff AND would bulletproof .. /1 of x
..the opinion on appeal even from the hackiest of right-wing activists. Right now we have a tough set of questions pending for Chapman Univ regarding the fact that Eastman represented W in 2000 election litigation & was commended for it - that seems to contradict the arg now ../2
...that Eastman's rep of Trump would violate university policies. If Chapman U comes back with a good answer here - and it's hard to imagine they haven't thought through this - this could be over on no expectation of privacy. If they can't, THEN Judge Carter will look at ... /3
This will be the formal live-tweeting of the @DrJohnEastman Privilege hearing with replies below. 111 documents at issue. Hearing begins with #Eastman lawyer trying to clean up issues that should be clear (i.e., was there attorney-client relationship with Trump)
#Eastman begins with argument that the 111 docs are all basically work product & the standard for wp waiver is higher than just bare communication - key case here is US v Sanmina, 968 F.3d 1107 scholar.google.com/scholar_case?c…
After wp doctrine, now we're getting into crime/fraud exception, which #Eastman notes is why we're all here
Here is what I can tell about the DFEH/EEOC dustup over the settlement we discussed in Episode 530. Buckle up! /1 openargs.com/oa530-andrew-t…
Two days ago, the DFEH moved to intervene (and to shorten time for consideration of that motion) in the case in order to object to the settlement on the grounds that it was inequitable. So I went to see if the EEOC intends to object to that intervention... /2
Turns out: YES, the EEOC filed their objection yesterday, under seal, and for VERY different reasons than I suspected. The EEOC has argued that the two main California state DFEH lawyers were former EEOC lawyers... /3