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January 6 Committee Details The Big Fraud Monetizing The Big Lie

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The second hearing from the January 6 Committee was just as well choreographed as the first one, with an even greater reliance on Republican voices to make the case against Trump, including:

  • Bill Barr
  • Bill Stepien
  • Al Schmidt
  • Alex Cannon
  • Ivanka
  • Rudy Giuliani
  • Sidney Powell
  • Chris Stirewalt
  • Jason Miller
  • Ben Ginsberg

Here’s my live tweet of the hearing.

The presentation started by describing how Trump was told on election night that the news looked bad. The presentation ended by showing how those attacking the Capitol cited Trump’s lies to justify their actions.

Perhaps the most effective part of the hearing, however, was a video shown near the end that talked about how Trump monetized the Big Lie. He raised $250M telling lies about voter fraud.

Some of that money went to Mark Meadows’ “charity,” the Conservative Partnership Institute and even more went to Paul Manafort’s company, Event Strategies.

This is the kind of activity, fundraising making false claim, that got Steve Bannon charged with wire fraud and it’s the kind of scheme behind the investigation into Sidney Powell.

House January 6 Committee: Public Hearings – Day 2 [UPDATE-1]

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This post and comment thread are dedicated to the House January 6 Committee hearings scheduled to continue today June 13, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Please take all comments unrelated to the hearings to a different thread. Updates will appear at the bottom of this post.

This week’s hearings are expected to tackle these topics:

Monday, June 13 – Trump’s Big Lie
Wednesday, June 15 – The Department of Justice’s role
Thursday, June 16 – Campaign to pressure Mike Pence into breaking election law

The hearings will stream on:

House J6 Committee’s website: https://january6th.house.gov/news/watch-live

House J6 Committee’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ0yNe3cFx4

C-SPAN’s House J6 hearing page: https://www.c-span.org/video/?520282-1/open-testimony-january-6-committee

C-SPAN’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/c/C-SPAN/featured

Check PBS for your local affiliate’s stream: https://www.pbs.org/ (see upper right corner)

Twitter is carrying multiple live streams (NBC, PBS, Washington Post, Reuters, CSPAN, Bloomberg): https://twitter.com/i/events/1536343313325821952

MSNBC will carry coverage on their cable network; special coverage has already begun with their Morning Joe program on https://www.msnbc.com/live.

ABC, NBC, CBS will carry the hearings live on broadcast and CNN will carry on its cable network.

Twitter accounts live tweeting today’s hearing (subject to change):

Marcy’s thread: https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1536361021564243971

Brandi Buchman-DailyKos: https://twitter.com/Brandi_Buchman/status/1536285741088751616

Scott MacFarlane-CBS: https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1536348494931406850

Jennifer Taub: https://twitter.com/jentaub/status/1536343525398224897

Laura Rozen: https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1536361217450725376

JustSecurity’s team live tweeting: https://twitter.com/just_security/status/1536338931104550913 (check their feed, they don’t live tweet as frequently or thoroughly as others)

Check also these Twitter accounts for coverage (no live tweet thread established yet):

Jordan Fischer: https://twitter.com/JordanOnRecord
Aaron Rupar: https://twitter.com/atrupar

If you know of any other credible source tweeting the coverage, please share a link in comments.

The original agenda for this hearing:


Shortly after 9:00 a.m. this morning the agenda and hearing timing was changed to reflect Stepien’s omission from the witness lineup due to a family emergency. The hearing’s start time was pushed back a half-hour to 10:30 a.m.; Stepien’s attorney is expected to make a statement.

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Any updates will appear at the bottom of this post; please bear with any content burps as this page may be edited as the hearing progresses.

Again, this post is dedicated to the House January 6 Committee  and topics addressed in testimony and evidence produced during the hearing.

All other discussion should be in threads under the appropriate post with open discussion under the most recent Trash Talk.

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ADDER — 10:02 A.M. ET —

Not really an update since the hearing hasn’t started. The Senate Jucidiary Committee Dems have posted a Twitter thread about former US Attorney BJay Pak’s testimony before their committee regarding the demands made to investigate “irregularities” in Atlanta’s 2020 handling of ballots and vote counting.


Excellent prep work to read before Pak’s testimony today.

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UPDATE — 12:30 P.M. ET —

Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election law lawyer, has been added as a witness appearing in person before the committee along with the rest of the second panel (i.e., Pak and Schmidt after a 10-minute break).