Category: January 6

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Congress Fox News January 6

Tucker Carlson Pitched An On-Air Hissy Fit During Thursday’s Jan. 6 Committee Hearing

Fox News host Tucker Carlson proved once again Thursday evening that he and the network he works for have zero credibility and are nothing more than a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and its would-be dictator for life, Donald Trump.

As the first evening of hearings from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol were beginning at 8:00 p.m., Carlson was starting his nightly show, and he made it clear from the get-go that he had no intention of letting any truth into his broadcast:

“This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live.

“They are lying, and we will not let them do it.”

HuffPost notes it wasn’t just Carlson’s ranting that was completely fact-free and at times hysterical:

He and his producers plastered hysterical chyrons across the screen for their millions of viewers to see: “JAN 6 CMTE FUELS FALSE NARRATIVES AS SHAM INVESTIGATION DRAGS ON.” “LEADERS WILL SPEND 90 MINUTES GIVING MORAL LECTURE.” “OUR LEADERS ARE FOCUSING ON JAN. 6 WHILE IGNORING THE REAL THREATS.”

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Carlson also suggested that investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection might just led to another insurrection, which is ironic since he insisted there had been no insurrection in the first place:

“This was not an insurrection, but you know what will give you an insurrection? If you ignore legitimate concerns of a population. If you brush them aside like they don’t matter when gas goes to $5 and say ‘Buy an electric car.’ When cities become so filthy and dangerous that you can’t live there. When the economy becomes so distorted your children have no hope of getting married and giving you grandchildren. When you don’t care at all about any of that and all you do is talk about yourself, nonstop, you might get an insurrection if you behave like that, speaking of insurrections.”

Is that right, Tuck? Well, at least the FBI will know who to visit if and when that happens.

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Capitol Insurrection Fox News January 6

Hillary Shreds Fox For Refusing To Air Jan. 6 Hearings: ‘They Prefer Their Sedition Made Fresh On-Site’

Just hours after Fox News announced they would refuse to cover any of the televised public hearings from the House Select Committee on the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gone viral with a tweet she sent out suggesting that the network is actively engaged in sedition.

For those unfamiliar with exactly what the word sedition means, here’s a definition:

“Incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”

 

According to the New York Times, Fox’s decision to ignore the hearings clearly makes them an outlier:

“(Fox) anchors have held a dim view of the committee. Mr. Carlson called the committee ‘grotesque’ on his program on Monday night, and Mr. Hannity has called the group of five Democrats and two Republicans ‘fake’ on his 9 p.m. show.”

Sounds like classic psychological projection on the part of the Fox hosts, doesn’t it?

The move by the right-wing “news” network prompted Clinton to eviscerate them on Twitter, with a posting that quickly went viral:

Others then joined the debate and also pilloried Fox.

Keep in mind that Fox (and it’s prime time hosts) had absolutely no compunction about repeating lies about how the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” from Donald Trump, even going to far as to suggest that voting machines had been manipulated to guarantee that Joe Biden was the victor.

Fox has backed off the election conspiracy theories since a massive $2.7 billion lawsuit was filed by Smartmatic, an election technology company which claims it was defamed by the lies told on the network. A judge ruled in March that the lawsuit will move forward, despite Fox’s asking for it be dismissed, according to Vanity Fair:

A New York judge said much of Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation case against the network can proceed. There is “substantial basis” for the claim “that, at a minimum, Fox News turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims about [Smartmatic], unprecedented in the history of American elections, so inherently improbable that it evinced a reckless disregard for the truth,” Judge David Cohen wrote in a 61-page ruling.

Sedition and defamation. Sounds like that’s what Fox needs to have as part of their on-screen graphics. It’d be the first time they’ve ever told the truth about anything.

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Capitol Insurrection Congress Donald Trump January 6

Jamie Raskin: 1/6 Committee Has Evidence Of A ‘Lot More Than Incitement’ Against Trump

In a little more than 48 hours, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold its first public hearing, and one of the key members of the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), is making it clear that the evidence will show former President Donald Trump did a great deal more than just incite the insurrection that left five people dead.

Speaking to the Washington Post on Monday, Raskin noted:

“The select committee has found evidence about a lot more than incitement here.”

Raskin added that what transpired on Jan. 6 had been carefully planned and coordinated, and that the committee has found evidence of concerted planning and premeditated activity.”

“The idea that all of this was just a rowdy demonstration that spontaneously got a little bit out of control is absurd. You don’t almost knock over the U.S. government by accident.”

The committee will explain, Raskin told The Post, all of the details regarding the larger conspiracy to “overturn the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power.”

“This is an extraordinary and unprecedented event in our history. You really have to go back to the Civil War to understand anything like it.”

According to HuffPost, Raskin believes the facts support indictments against everyone who played a role in the attack:

Following the committee’s lengthy investigation involving some 1,000 witnesses and the examination of 125,000 documents, “we think that there is overwhelming evidence of this plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election in coordination with a violent assault on our body,” Raskin noted.

“We’re going to lay it all out there, but the prosecutors are going to have to sort it out with respect to individual defendants … I have confidence in the ability of the Department of Justice to do their job.”

The first hearing begins at 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 9 and can be viewed on most of the major news networks.

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Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump January 6 The Trump Adminstration

Security Expert: DOJ May Have Already Charged Trump’s Associates For Their Role In January 6

Considering what we already know about what transpired on January 6 and the revelations we’ve had from the House Select Committee on the Capitol insurrection, some have suggested that the Justice Department should have begun arresting top Trump administration officials and associates for their role in riots.

Recently, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe noted that he believes Attorney General Merrick Garland is moving far too slowly:

But what if people have already been arrested and charged without any announcement? Could that have taken place in secret?

Security expert and journalist Marcy Wheeler notes on Twitter that arrests may have been made and the DOJ is now using those people to work their way up the food chain for even bigger fish.

Wheeler, who publishes on her own highly-acclaimed web site, Emptywheel.net, laid out a fascinating premise:

Think about it: Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s so-called “attorney,” Rudy Giuliani, could already have been arrested, booked, and charged with all sorts of crimes related to Jan. 6. Now DOJ prosecutors are getting them to cooperate in exchange for sentencing consideration.

That’s the way the FBI and Justice Department has worked when going after the mafia: They get lower level soldiers in the organization to tell what they know about the capos and bosses. It’s a bottom-up way of dealing with criminal acts that’s been used for decades by law enforcement.

Now that the House Select Committee is about to hold public hearings, it’s not a stretch to suggest we may start seeing who has been charged and some of the court filings that could still be under seal.

Stay tuned.