“They’re not here to hurt me,” White House Aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the 1/6 select committee, quoting Donald Trump’s reaction to the crowd on that fateful day. “Let them in. Let my people go. After the rallies have ended, they can march towards the Capitol. They can march from — they can march from the ellipse. Get rid of the effing mags. Then they can march to the Capitol.”
This was the end of the case against Donald Trump. He and others in the room knew that protesters were armed with AR-15s, and other weapons, outside the perimeter. They did not want to pass through the magnetic weapons scanners — the “mags” — and have their weapons confiscated. Trump didn’t care; he You already knewThey weren’t after him.He wanted them to be in the crowd for his speech and then he wanted them take the Capitol. Cassidy Hutchinson spoke directly to us on the stand.
“I remember Pat [Cipollone]Say something to the effect that Mark [Meadows], we need to do something more,” relatedHutchinson was once. “They’re literally calling for the vice president to be f’ing hung. Mark replied, “You heard him, Pat.” He believes Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong, to which Pat said something, this is f’ing crazy, we need to be doing something more.”
Meadows appeared not long after 1/6. sought a presidential pardonHis actions on that day.
Hutchinson’s testimony painted a very clear portrait. She described a tyrant who was full of froth after his plot was foiled. End of file. Questions have arisen over an alleged violent incident in the presidential limo after Trump was barred from joining the marchers, but that has not seemed to diminish Hutchinson’s credibility to any great degree. The truth is that people with guns wanted access to the Capitol, and Trump wanted them to let them.
So here’s the really funny part: If you’ve been following the multifaceted drama surrounding the hearings, you know part of that drama involved Fox NewsThey were initially refused by the network. This led to a range war between the daytime “news” anchors and the evening “talent.” The network relented and started showing portions of the testimony, heavily buttered with right-wing retorts before and after.
Tuesday Fox News chose to air every second of Hutchinson’s light-bending testimony before that committee. The question — “will the people who really need to see this stuff actually ever see it?” — has been answered. The answer was yes. Fox NewsAudience sees some 1/6 testimony. They saw what many consider the most important testimony in Congress since Watergate.
It was over. Fox NewsAnchor Bret Baier gave praise to the proceedings and left his hosts stunned and silent. “Cassidy Hutchinson is under oath on Capitol Hill,” saidBaier looked intently at the camera. “The president is on Truth Social making his statements. What is so compelling, I think, is how it was laid out…. The testimony in and of itself is really, really powerful.”
The hard right magazine National Review was likewise gobsmacked by Hutchinson’s testimony, and ReviewAndrew McCarthy, the writer, made no secret of it. “Things will not be the same after this,” he intoned. “It was worse than America thought. Even Americans with extraordinarily low expectations about the former president’s previously undisclosed, behind-the-scenes behavior during the hours when the riot unfolded.”
The seemingly impenetrable bubble is now broken. You can beat that with a stick.
There is still much to do, more hearings, and finally a decision. Attorney General Merrick Garland on whether or not to bring actual charges based on the committee’s data, and his own. Despite his outward appearance as an inert decorative object in this matter, I wouldn’t trade places with Garland for all the whiskey in Ireland. He will have to decide if he should file criminal charges against a former President for the first time ever in history. This will cause mass unrest, regardless of his decision, and one Trump fan on the juror can blow the whole thing up to hell.
That being said, if Garland was not compelled by yesterday’s astonishing testimony, someone needs to put him in a sunbeam and water him twice a week. As for myself, Hutchinson’s performance reminded me of the story of the man walking on a beach that was covered with thousands of dying starfish. He picked up one of the starfish and carried it back to the sea. A second man nearby shouted, “Why did you do that? Take a look at how many there is! You can’t fix this! Why does it matter?” The first man pointed to the water and said, “It mattered to that one.”
Today, I feel a little like the starfish who was put back into sea. Please, I’d like more of the same.
