The Federal Jan. 6th Indictment/Trial of Donald J. Trump

(The Guardian) In the minutes after the Trump indictment was filed in federal district court in Washington, conservative commentators rapidly scrambled to his defense. Rightwing pundits lined up to compare the charges to “criminalizing thoughts” and the dropping of “fifteen dozen” atomic bombs – and that was just on Fox News.

Rightwing TV channel Newsmax, which has drained some of Fox News’s audience in recent months, brought on Rudy Giuliani, an unnamed co-conspirator in Tuesday’s indictment, who railed for seven minutes about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Biden being a “crooked president”.

In America’s rightwing media ecosystem it was a largely united front. News outlets repeatedly pressed the idea that Trump’s free speech was being criminalized: that the former president had done nothing more than talk about the election being stolen.

The effort, perhaps deliberately, ignored prosecutors’ allegations that Trump had convened false slates of electors and attempted to block the certification of the election on 6 January.

One America News Network pivoted to Hunter Biden – always a source of interest among right-wing news – with an OANN correspondent pushing an emerging conspiracy theory that the Trump indictment was timed to coincide with Biden Jr’s tax charges trial.

Elsewhere, a senior editor of the Blaze website suggested that the Republican-led House should force a government shutdown – which could see about 800,000 federal employees furloughed or forced to work without pay – in the hope that the case against Trump would collapse.

Perhaps the most berserk take, however, was the one pushed by Trump’s own campaign. “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the campaign posted to Truth Social. On a day when the rightwing media seemed willing to do and say anything to defend their man, none of them was willing to go as far as that.

(The Guardian) Trump 'knew well he had lost the election', says William Barr
Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Bar said he believes Trump “knew well he lost the election” and that special counsel Jack Smith has more evidence to prove that the former president knew the 2020 election was not stolen.

Barr, who resigned as Trump’s attorney general weeks after the election in December 2020, told CNN: At first I wasn’t sure, but I have come to believe he knew well he had lost the election.

He went on to say that the four charges Trump is accused of in the latest indictment are just the “tip of the iceberg” and that Smith has “a lot more evidence” against him.

I think there is a lot more to come, and I think they have a lot more evidence as to President Trump’s state of mind. -- “It would not come out very well for him” if Trump took the stand on that defense, Barr said, adding that he doubted if the former president “remembers all the different versions of events he has given over the last few years.”

(The Guardian) The indictment comes more than two years after a group of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The January 6 attack, which has already resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, caused the deaths of seven people, a bipartisan Senate report found.

Despite the deadly consequences of the Capitol insurrection, past efforts to hold Trump accountable for the violence and his broader election subversion campaign have fallen short. The House voted to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection, but he was acquitted by the Senate. The House then passed a bill calling for the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Capitol attack, but that proposal also failed in the Senate.

House Democrats instead created a select committee to examine the origins and impact of the January 6 insurrection, and the panel held a series of hearings that painted a damning picture of a president hellbent on remaining in office even after it became clear he had fairly lost his bid for reelection. The select committee ultimately voted to refer Trump to the justice department for criminal prosecution, but the panel itself could not advance charges against the former president.

Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor and now counsel at the nonpartisan nonprofit Protect Democracy, said: The select committee did an outstanding job of presenting a lot of evidence that they gleaned from their interviews with people who essentially were willing to cooperate, but criminal investigators and prosecutors have the ability to subpoena people.

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or those involved with the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment brought a collective sigh of relief, according to a Washington Post report.

For them, the indictment served as the start of a final stage of accountability for Donald Trump and his allies that the committee long sought, but also as a validation of the group’s work, the paper wrote, citing sources. -- The indictment also elevated their findings outside of the political arena, where their work was subject to constant allegations of partisanship, bringing the credibility of the criminal justice system.

Retired group chats were revived and calls placed to old colleagues as lawmakers and investigators absorbed the news.

Tim Heaphy, the lead investigator for the committee, told the paper: As I read the indictment, it really struck me how closely it hews to our structure and our findings. Facts are what matters. And lawyers get too much credit for facts. We gathered really important facts because a lot of people came forward and gave us those facts. Those same facts are leading to a criminal indictment of the former president.

(The Guardian) A handful of right-wing outlets have been rushing to Donald Trump’s defense after the former president got indicted for the third time.

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports on how conservative outlets have been attempting to undermine the investigation: In the minutes after the Trump indictment was filed in federal district court in Washington, conservative commentators rapidly scrambled to his defense. Rightwing pundits lined up to compare the charges to “criminalizing thoughts” and the dropping of “fifteen dozen” atomic bombs – and that was just on Fox News.

Rightwing TV channel Newsmax, which has drained some of Fox News’s audience in recent months, brought on Rudy Giuliani, an unnamed co-conspirator in Tuesday’s indictment, who railed for seven minutes about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Biden being a “crooked president”.

In America’s rightwing media ecosystem it was a largely united front. News outlets repeatedly pressed the idea that Trump’s free speech was being criminalized: that the former president had done nothing more than talk about the election being stolen. The effort, perhaps deliberately, ignored prosecutors’ allegations that Trump had convened false slates of electors and attempted to block the certification of the election on January 6.

(The Guardian) Officers who responded to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 2021 plan to attend the first hearing in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Donald Trump today, NBC reported.

Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, Metropolitan police officer Daniel Hodges, and former Sgt Aquilino Gonell of the US Capitol police will reportedly head to the Washington courthouse, where Trump will be arraigned on efforts to overturn the 2020 election. All three officers suffered physical injuries as well as emotional and mental trauma as a result of the January 6 attack.

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Former vice president and GOP presidential candidate Mike Pence said his campaign received more than 7,400 donations since the release of Donald Trump’s most recent indictment, The Hill reported, citing a Pence adviser.

Trump was charged with four felonies this week over his attempts to meddle with the presidential election. The 45-page indictment shows that Pence was a crucial figure in Jack Smith, the special counsel, being able to bring those charges.

“Contemporaneous notes” taken by Pence, and referred to in the indictment, document how Trump and his advisers pressured Pence to reject the certification of the election in January, which could have resulted in the House of Representatives handing Trump a second-term in office.