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Good morning! Your Wonkette preview of today’s January 6 hearings is right here. And your liveblog of the proceedings is right here, where you currently are.
Updates start when the hearing starts. We’re hearing it may be delayed a bit, after news that Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien has suddenly pulled out.
10:47: And here we go! Bennie Thompson, who opens by explaining that if there is an actual problem with the numbers in an election, you go to Court, and if you lose, you lose. Because that’s how democracy works.
Donald Trump never had the numbers, and he ignored the will of the American people.
10:50: And then Liz Cheney gives her opening. Says today the focus is Trump’s campaign to convince Americans the election had been stolen from him via imaginary fraud. Says we’re going to hear a bunch more from Bill Barr’s recorded testimony.
10:52: Cheney notes that Trump very much knew beforehand that, because he had told his voters not to vote by mail, Biden mail-in votes would be counted late into the night and would take days to count. Says instead Trump decided to take advice from an apparently drunk Rudy Giuliani and just declare victory.
10:56: Cheney says they have more evidence than they can possibly show in one hearing, but they’re gonna sure get started.
Also there was just a mention of Dinesh D’Souza’s piece of crap movie 2,000 Mules, so if you’re doing a morning drinking game and that is part of it, then drink!
10:58: And now a highlight reel of Trump making up lies about how the only way he could lose would be if it was stolen, for months beforehand. Lest we all forget that he started telling that lie early and often.
11:02: Now the first witness begins, and it is Chris Stirewalt, the Fox News guy who called Arizona correctly and then became persona non grata forever, among people who don’t believe in democracy. Bennie Thompson explains that Trump 2020 campaign director Bill Stepien was supposed to be there under subpoena this morning, but his wife went into labor.
So … OK, that is a good excuse.
11:04: Now we are hearing videotaped testimony from assholes like Ivanka and Jared, about what happened that election night when Fox News (correctly) called Arizona for Biden so early.
11:07: Hahahaha, tiny-mouthed weirdo Jason Miller is the first one on tape to confirm that people were talking about how Rudy Giuliani was DRUNK.
11:09: Ivanka does not know if she had an opinion over whether her father should declare victory on election night even though he had not won.
11:13: Zoe Lofgren asks Stirewalt to explain what is “red mirage.” Remember, that is what we all knew was going to happen, as election day votes were counted, which looks good for Republicans, and then mail-in votes are counted, and that’s good for Democrats. If you count those election day votes first, then it might look like Republicans are winning, even when they are not.
Stirewalt notes that Trump had completely telegraphed that he was going to exploit that, so this former Fox News guy says they made sure to explain that over and over again to viewers.
Lofgren plays a clip of Bill Barr also talking about this very same thing.
11:16: Lofgren also plays clip of Stepien testifying that he had explained how “red mirage” worked to Trump. Trump knew.
11:21: Stirewalt says the Fox News team actually had better forecasting tools than competitors and it became clear that their models were performing beeeeeeautifully. And that’s why they were able to so confidently call it so early.
11:23: Stirewalt also says that once they knew Trump had lost Arizona, there was pretty much a zero percent chance Trump was going to win the election.
11:28: It’s amazing hearing these recordings of Stepien’s testimony how he, like so many people, sounds like he’s describing his interactions with a toddler when he talks about his interactions with Trump. Golly, he just hated it when people would fill the idiot’s head with all this nonsense!
11:32: Bill Stepien said in videotaped testimony that he didn’t have a problem being associated with “Team Normal,” AKA the Trump lawyers who weren’t led by Giuliani.
11:34: Now they’re just playing batshit clips of Giuliani and Sidney Powell, including the batshit they said out loud during their depositions with the committee. Sidney Powell told the committee that you could just TELL the election was stolen, using an analogy that if you see a gunshot victim on the ground, you don’t have to see the gun itself to know they were shot with a gun.
So her brain is doing the same as it’s been doing.
11:37: And that concludes the first part of the hearing, and the Fox News guy gets to leave.
Zoe Lofgren says we get to watch more Bill Barr now.
11:41: Bill Barr saying that his Justice Department was not an extension of Trump’s legal team is kinda fuckin’ wild, you know, considering every other thing Bill Barr did for Trump.
11:45: Oh my god, Bill Barr talking about going to the White House the day he did that AP interview where he said there was no significant fraud is just amazing. Barr talking about Trump having temper tantrums and crying that Bill is only doing this because he “hates Trump.”
11:48: How many times did Bill Barr tell Trump all the weird conspiracy theories about Dominion machines and so forth were “bullshit?” One million times, apparently.
11:50: Hahahahahahaha, Bill Barr and the entire committee openly laughing at Dinesh D’Souza’s shit movie is amazing. Barr calls basically the entire premise of it stupid and ridiculous.
11:53: Barr says before the election it was possible to have a regular conversation with Trump sorta kinda, but after the election that was over. So he quit.
11:59: Lofgren playing clip of former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, who also tried to explain to Trump like a toddler that everything he believed was wrong and people were lying to him and oh boy, Trump just never understood.
12:00: Trump thought there was a truck driver in Pennsylvania who had a bunch of ballots of something. Donoghue had to explain there was nothing there. Trump thought there was a special suitcase in Georgia that ran away with his votes, or something. Donoghue had to explain there was no suitcase. And apparently Trump would just come up with a new bullshit every time the last bullshit was debunked.
12:03: Let’s take a break for a few minutes!
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