Is it getting too hot here or just me?
Follow the timeline, because it is simply delicious: After the election, Donald Trump — along with his team of boneheads and almost every Republican in the House (but I repeat myself) — began laboring to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a House Republican who supported Trump’s mission and embraced his team of boneheads, was one of the many who agreed to the task. McCarthy would like to be Speaker if the GOP wins November.
The Capitol Building attack on January 6th was the culmination of this effort. McCarthy was there and it deeply affected him. He claimed that Trump was to blame and needed to resign for the lethal fiasco. Over the next few days, however, McCarthy swerved away from what his own lyin’ eyes had told him on the 6th, going so far as to travel down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring and abase himself for his momentary apostasy.
McCarthy has done and said everything one would expect from a Trump loyalist since that humiliating moment. Trump, for his part, did not flay McCarthy alive for his post-1/6 remarks, a show of restraint that surprised many veteran Trump observers… until you realize that if McCarthy does become speaker, he will be a creature of Trump and not much more. Trump will be the one to hold the gauntlet after the red Nov wave most analysts predict. For him, this possibility is worth keeping McCarthy politically viable.
Trump supported McCarthy in his recent primary race but has yet to endorse him as speaker. Nobody knows why Trump has avoided such an endorsement, especially after that new bond was formed after the 1/6 riot, but it sounds an awful lot like there’s real trouble brewing between the would-be speaker and the would-be king.
Why? The hearings, The Washington Post explains:
Speaking to donors gathered at the Georgetown Four Seasons, McCarthy instead recommended Republicans talk about other issues that could help them regain the majority in both chambers of Congress, according to people familiar with the meeting, such as the soaring inflation rate and record-high gas prices — all under Democrats’ watch.
While most rank-and-file members in the Republican House conference have heeded his direction, another influential Republican has tuned into every hearing and has grown increasingly irate — to “the point of about to scream at the TV,” according to a close adviser — with what he views as the lack of defense by his Capitol Hill allies.
Former president Donald Trump has said privately for months that McCarthy’s decision to pull pro-Trump Republicans from sitting on the Jan. 6 select committee was a mistake, one that has become clearer as Trump watches the hearings that are working to build the case that he should be criminally charged for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
According to a close adviser, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations, Trump has made it clear to anyone who will listen that “there’s no one to defend me” on the dais before, during or after the hearings. The blame is falling squarely on McCarthy’s shoulders, according to some Republican congressional aides and advisers close to the former president.
It’s the scorpion and the frogAll over again. “Why did you sting me? Now we will both die,” husks the frog as he sinks into the lake. “Because it is my nature,” replies the scorpion from the frog’s back. In other words, if you spend enough time in Trump’s orbit, you will be defenestrated by Trump the first moment your destruction is advantageous to him. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has clearly set his sights on Trump’s nomination for GOP president. He has now learned the lesson. He is building his own power, media and money base to insulate him from Trump’s wrath. McCarthy, however, is like a shabby little kid’s kiteThe power lines leading to Trump Headquarters were captured.
Trump and the Republican leadership both disregarded the 1/6 hearings. McCarthy offered up a slate of potential participants that was deliberately intended to be a finger in the committee’s eye. (Jim Jordan was one, ‘nuff said.) Those were the choices were rebuffedAdam Kinzinger joined Liz Cheney in a Republican counterinsurgency that has made it far more productive, reliable, and efficient. This is clearly not going well for Trump, who blames McCarthy now for the thrashing he has absorbed at these hearings.
With the fifth 1/6 hearing looming large this afternoon — it is expected that a pile of Justice Department officials, including former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen, will testify — the bad noise is only getting louder. More hearings with new evidence are planned.
Investigators from the Justice Department have increased their focus on the 1/6 attack. They are currently focusing on the scheme to disrupt the 2020 election with a second, illegal and unauthorized set of electors. In short, the subpoenas have been flying like Tippi Hedron’s birds.
Once such was delivered in the pre-dawn raid at the home Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was involved in the effort to overturn Trump’s election. “The law enforcement action at Mr. Clark’s home in suburban Virginia came just one day before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was poised to hold a hearing examining Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department after his election defeat,” reports The New York Times.
Jeffrey Clark will be a large part of today’s hearing discussion.
Anything that makes Trump smile like this is a happy place. I’m not saying you should get your hopes up, as we’ve been to that dry well too many times before. You just have to be patient and keep your eyes open. The chips will fall when they fall.
