Today is Wednesday, June 15, 2022. On the eve of the upcoming House January 6 Committee hearing tomorrow at 1 p.m., not at 10 a.m. as it was originally projected to be scheduled, more startling revelations are coming out to make the case that the former president was embroiled in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. Tomorrow the committee will use its third hearing to hit home the point that then-president Dumpf’s pressured his Vice President Mike Pence to throw out votes for presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden. This pressure, committee members will indicate, “directly contributed” to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol which put Pence’s life in mortal danger, aides said today. This focus of the hearing tomorrow is covered in an online article for CNN by Jeremy Herb, Zachary Cohen, Annie Grayer, and Ryan Nobles entitled “January 6 hearing will show Trump pressure campaign on Pence ‘directly contributed’ to Capitol attack, committee says.”

Thus tomorrow’s hearing will zero in on the pressure mounted by Dumpf toward Pence, despite being told by White House lawyers in the counsel’s office that the Vice President did not have the authority to unilaterally subvert the election results. “The panel also intends to demonstrate at the hearing that there’s an ‘ongoing threat’ to democracy from people advocating the false view that the 2020 election was rigged, the aides say.”

The committee plans to concentrate on the origination of the crazy theory put forth by Dumpf attorney John Eastman that Pence did have the authority to overturn the election results through Dumpf’s weeks-long pressure that led to the insurrection. The hearing, aides say, will include new materials on what the vanilla Vice President was doing on January 6, including his whereabouts.

Much of Thursday’s presentation will be led by Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, and a committee counsel will be asking questions during tomorrow’s proceeding.

Once again, the format of the hearing will encompass live witness testimony coupled with depositions the panel has on video. One of those witnesses, former Dumpf White House attorney Eric Herschmann, was seen on video on Tuesday saying that he told Eastman on January 7 that he should “get a great effing criminal defense attorney” when pressed about commenting on Eastman’s plot to overturn the election with the assistance of the Vice President. Other people who will testify on Thursday are Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Pence when he was vice president, and J. Michael Luttig, a retired judge and informal Pence adviser. While former Pence chief of staff Marc Short is not testifying in person tomorrow, aides said that his deposition testimony is expected to be shown.

With regard to Short’s video testimony, it was The New York Times that reported Short warned the Secret Service that Dumpf was going to turn on Pence and that there could be a security risk to the Vice President. Probed as to what he believed would occur on January 6, Short stated that “I don’t think any of us ever envisioned what would happen on January 6.” Short then mentioned that Dumpf was poorly served by people who gave him very poor advice. What an understatement!

Some new revelations regarding the January 6 revolt revolve around one GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk (what a silly name!) of Georgia who now has been shown in a video released by the House Select Committee giving a tour to people who might have been involved in the actual riot. The video, portions of which were released by the committee today, appears to show a man taking photos of tunnels, hallways, and staircases within the Capitol complex while on a tour led by the congressman. What is incriminating for Loudermilk is new footage that shows that same man marching to the Capitol on January 6 and making threatening comments toward Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members.

The committee did write to Loudermilk seeking his testimony as early as May 19, 2022, but he has yet to comply with their request. In defense of releasing the video at this moment, Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat and committee member, said, “We asked him to come in and talk to us about this tour, which he has not done yet.”

When confronted with the truth of the video, Rep. Loudermilk loudly demurred that he ever gave a tour to Dumpf MAGA nut jobs, since he admits to only providing tours to his own constituents that usually include families with children. Hell, what a fucking liar! If you look closely at the video released by the committee, there are no families with children in the supposed tour. We see several adult men taking pictures of hallways, staircases, and the like, which seems quite untoward. So let’s see what happens with this still-evolving story.

Since it’s getting late here (I was on the phone talking to my New Jersey friend “Harold” for an extended length of time this evening with the express purpose of wishing him and his wife a very safe and wonderful trip next week to California), I will take my leave and wish everyone a pleasant Thursday.

Stay safe and be well.