The Jan. 6 committee appears unable to make a case

 Red States:

As we’ve noted, most Americans believe the Jan. 6 Committee is biased and are not watching the hearings. Despite the Committee trying to throw anything they can up against the wall, the ratings of the hearings have gone down from the first trainwreck primetime hearing. After throwing up a fantastical, hearsay story from Cassidy Hutchinson that was reportedly disputed by the man she said told it to her, they’ve so far failed to show any corroboration of the story. All they have been left with is claiming there was a “heated discussion” between President Donald Trump and the Secret Service–which leaves them with a lot of nothing.

As Jonathan Turley noted, they haven’t laid out anything for any kind of criminal case against Trump.

Yet, on the eve of the primetime hearing this week, committee members sound strikingly less prosecutorial. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) told CNN that “I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn’t act. He did not take action to stop the violence.”

It is difficult to make a criminal case over what an official failed to do.

This is what they’re left with, even with a completely biased presentation by the Committee — all the members appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and all are very anti-Trump, including the two Republicans that she picked exactly for that reason.

What the Committee hasn’t done is be fair in the presentation or present the evidence that goes against their ridiculous claims about Trump.

Fox’s Brit Hume blasted the proceedings and pointed out how the supposed Republicans on the Committee weren’t ensuring that it was a fair proceeding.

They’re leaving out some rather critical things.

First, there was this, where Trump told people to act “peacefully and patriotically.” Not exactly inciting.

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Then the Trump Pentagon reached out to the Capitol Police to ask if they wanted the National Guard on Jan. 2, but the Capitol Police were turned them down.

On top of that, as Just the News notes, Trump wanted to ensure it was going to be a safe event.

But the most compelling piece of evidence that Trump wanted to thwart — rather than incite —violence is contained in a lengthy memo written by the Pentagon inspector general that chronicled the assistance the Defense Department offered Congress both ahead of and during the riot

In it, the IG recounts a fateful meeting on Jan. 3, 2021 in the White House when then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Trump on national security matters.

The complete passage — hardly mentioned by Democrats at the hearings or the news media covering them — is worth absorbing in its entirety.

“Mr. Miller and GEN Milley met with the President at the White House at 5:30 p.m.,” the IG reported. “The primary topic they discussed was unrelated to the scheduled rally. GEN Milley told us that at the end of the meeting, the President told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protestors on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or Soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event. Gen Milley told us that Mr. Miller responded, ‘We’ve got a plan and we’ve got it covered.'”

The problem wasn’t Trump — it was the other folks that turned down the National Guard.

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The committee is a kangaroo court operation with the objective of thwarting democracy in an attempt to block Trump from running for election in 2024.  By blocking committee members appointed by the GOP leadership, the committee immediately lost credibility.  That has not changed with its hearsay witnesses.  By ignoring all witnesses whose testimony rebuts their narratives it is clear that they have no interest in fairness.