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The January 6 th hearings have been a tour de force of factual testimony straight from the digital age. It’s an upgrade of a traditional format that should appeal to all the technologically savvy. Video clips, tapes of depositions, tweets, and direct testimony limited to the most pertinent information should help Americans understand that the events before, during, and after the violent attack on the US Capitol were orchestrated by our own President Trump and his loyal wingnuts.

Clearly, from testimony at the hearings, the staff at the White House knows what our documents say, and they know that they took an oath to uphold those documents which make up our contemporary US Constitution, and not an oath of loyalty to the President. There seems to be an element of fear on the part of White House staff that there will be repercussions if they dare to tell the truth, perhaps just in terms of ending their career in public service, perhaps in terms of violence against their person and their family members by avid Trumpers or militia members. Trump believes he has an army. Many Americas on both sides believe it too.

Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney have introduced and summed up the evidence presented at each of the eight public hearings. The Committee has spent hours and hours collecting data and testimonies. They hired ex-ABC news executive James Goldston to smoothly splice together the media presentations. And by refusing Kevin McCarthy’s appointees to the committee, which allowed Republicans to insist that the committee is not bipartisan (although it is), we did not have to endure the constant snide remarks, complaints about the investigation’s fairness that seems to be the behavior of many Republicans at hearings these days. We didn’t have to endure the 5-minute time limits designated to committee members and all the “I yield backs” to allow another nasty Republican to weigh in. Before the age of obstruction there were many successful committee investigations which used the strict structures that had evolved over time. But these new structures devised by the J6 Investigative Committee are just as professional and are more suited to this technological age.

Did the Committee prove that Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election involved criminal acts, unconstitutional acts, and incitements that involved Americans in committing criminal acts or acts of sedition and insurrection.

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Trump is an expert at simply ignoring things he sees as “witch hunts” even though if these were actual witch hunts, he would most likely be burning at a stake right now. He tunes out all the negative noise, blames his accusers for criticizing his behavior and heads back out to where he knows he will get the adulation he believes he so richly deserves. Over the weekend he held a rally in Arizona to back a candidate for governor while Pence held a dueling rally in the same state. On J6 Pence honored his oath to the Constitution, Trump did not, but guess who won the duel.

So it is only a few days after a powerful hearing that showed Trump sitting in the White House dining room watching as his rather undisciplined troops trash the US Capitol because it fed his ego. This was a hearing that proved that Trump let almost 3 hours go by while everyone except the right-wing crazies pleaded with him to get his ‘peeps’ to stand down. Three days later, because he insists he has done nothing wrong, here is Trump in Washington DC for the first time since January 6 to meet with his new think tank, lauded by Newt Gingrich, a combination that should strike terror into our hearts.

Trump’s think tank is called the America First Policy Institute, perhaps just to keep the subtle hints of white supremacy that excite his base. Google it to find the cast of characters. It is registered as a nonprofit 501(c3) although Trump has never been known to do anything without profiting from it. This time around, for 2024, the AFPI is attempting to advertise Trump’s ‘policies,’ although previously he never seemed to have any policies that did not originate in bygone administrations or in his capacious gut.

Politico tells us some of the policies we can expect to encounter when Trump takes office in 2024. He is certainly doing a great job of attempting to erase the hours of work and the presentations of the January Committee. Will we let him get away with it? It seems to be all up to the DOJ or “we the people.”

An article in Politico tells us:

“Rollins, Kudlow and others (Trump allies) haven’t discarded their project, though. Instead, they turned it into a blueprint for a new non-profit, the America First Policy Institute, often described as a “White House in waiting.”

“The draft version of “Vision 2025” reviewed by POLITICO outlined what Trump’s advisers believed would have been accomplished by the end of 2024, under the subhead: “renewed, restored, rebuilt.”

Some of those goals include job creation and low unemployment, expansion of affordable housing, eradicating Covid-19, reducing federal bureaucracy, cracking down on crime and illegal immigration, passing congressional term limits, and ending foreign war and reliance on China. There are social and cultural issues, too. But it doesn’t take on a central focus, at least not to the degree that has animated the right since Trump left office. Rollins, for one, did not want to get ahead of AFPI when asked about endorsing a national abortion ban in the wake of the striking down of Roe, but applauded the high court for giving the decision to the states.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/25/trump-america-first-policy-institute-think-tank-00047634

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