There hasn’t been much substantive pushback from the GOP against the Jan. 6 hearings and their many bombshells. Even after former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson laid out numerous shocking revelations, all Donald Trump could do was rage maniacally on his Twitter clone. Even Fox News has been admitting the House select committee is doing a pretty bang up job, even — or rather, especially — after the hearing that claimed Trump attacked a Secret Service agent and threw a ketchup-heavy lunch onto a wall.
Hutchinson’s testimony — which revealed, among many other things, that Trump knew his violent supporters were packing heat and didn’t care because “they’re not there to hurt me” — left Fox News host Bret Baier beside himself. “Listen, this testimony is, first of all, stunning, because we haven’t heard this. Two, it’s compelling because of her proximity to power, all of these people directly having conversations with her,” he said. He also pointed out, “all of this is firsthand,” lest anyone doubt she’s passing on secondhand news.
Fox News's Bret Baier describes Hutchinson's testimony as "stunning" and "compelling" pic.twitter.com/aBoJ2h43MK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2022
Another commentator, former assistant U.S. attorney Andy McCarthy, called it “devastating testimony.”
Even Fox News agrees — today’s January 6 hearing was “devastating” pic.twitter.com/9Djn7f08B5
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) June 28, 2022
At one point it left them speechless for a full five seconds.
This post-hearing moment of awkward silence on Fox kinda says a lot. pic.twitter.com/5yRNJ0btKd
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 28, 2022
Then there’s Neil Cavuto. This time last week, the host was admitting that the hearing about all the election worker lives Trump helped destroy made him “look awful, just awful.” After Hutchinson’s testimony, he brought on a legal expert who said they made have evidence of seditious conspiracy.
When asked if the claims, if true, have “criminal implications” for the former president, former U.S. attorney Alex Little replied, “I think a great of it does.” Little said Trump “had some awareness” of the potential for violence, which did come, and that was “ok with that risk.” He added, “The steps that he took allegedly in The Beast also show a president who was very, very adamant about getting to the Capitol even when his advisers advised him not to [and] when told that it could increase the violence. That’s extremely problematic.”
Little brought up the discussions in the West Wing after Trump was forbidden from joining the rioters at the Capitol, and Hutchinson’s claims “about the president really not caring about the fact that there were chants to hang Mike Pence.” He concluded, “I mean, that’s pretty damning stuff if you put that in front of a criminal jury in a criminal trial.”
Little later laid out the case against Trump:
Realistically, you’re the president of the United States. You owe an oath to everyone, including those police officers who were the Capitol and including people on both sides who are representatives inside that Capitol building. And if you are ok with there being a greater risk of harm because the folks have guns and weapons, and they’re marching towards the Capitol, that shows a betrayal of your oath.
And I think, again, goes directly in line with charges like seditious conspiracy. You can say, “Hey, I’m not worried about them hurting me.” But you need to be worried about them hurting the democratic process and the folks who are in the Capitol building.
Cavuto himself concluded that Trump is “clearly unhinged.”
There have been reports that Fox News is close to finally washing their hands of Trump and throwing their weight behind Florida governor Ron DeSantis instead. Then again, the big guy has never had to pay for his actions, apart from losing reelection and being booted from his favorite social media service.
(Via Mediaite)