DL Open Thread: Sunday, July 3, 2022
I hereby grant you temporary dispensation from reading and commenting on DL. These last few days have been so much fun, with all the news and all the comments from you.
Such dispensation, however, does not extend to me. Let’s see what tickles my fancy today…
Secret Service: Gutsy Heroes Or Trump Yes-Men? WaPo’s Carol Leonnig (one of our best reporters) shines a light:
On one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump unsuccessfully cajoled his agents to drive him to Capitol Hill, where he would have joined a mob of his supporters descending violently on the grand symbol of democracy. Some 45 minutes later on the other end, Vice President Mike Pence refused a request of his security detail to get into an armored car — concerned, according to testimony, that his protectors would take him away from the Capitol and prevent him from carrying out his duty to oversee the final count of electoral college votes.
At the center of the current storm is one key agent — Tony Ornato — who held a highly unusual role in Trump’s orbit. The onetime head of the president’s security detail temporarily left his Secret Service job to work as deputy White House chief of staff. The political assignment was unprecedented in the Secret Service, as Ornato effectively crossed over from civil servant to become a key part of Trump’s effort to get reelected.
Through an agency spokesperson, Ornato has denied Hutchinson’s blockbuster claims given under oath Tuesday that he told her that Trump had lunged at the steering wheel of the Secret Service vehicle carrying the president away from his Jan. 6 rally and that he had reached toward the head of his detail, Robert Engel, in a fit of rage over not being taken to the Capitol.
Ornato and Engel were previously questioned by the committee about that day, and both had confirmed that Trump demanded to be taken to the Capitol and was furious about being told they would not do so, according to people familiar with their testimony. Neither had been asked about Trump’s alleged physical altercation in the car, according to two people briefed on their testimony.
My take?: The Secret Service performed admirably under almost impossible circumstances. But this Tony Ornato–he should be brought up on charges. Excellent article–and scary.
Richmond Police Admit To Tear-gassing Peaceful Protestors. A classic holiday weekend news dump:
On Friday, the Richmond, Virginia, police department sent out an important clarification: Contrary to what it had previously insisted, the protesters they tear-gassed at a Confederate monument in June of 2020 were entirely peaceful.
You may be thinking: Okay, but it is July of 2022, why are they saying all of this now?
The answer, of course, is that the police department was required to issue this incredibly passive-voiced mea culpa under the terms of a settlement arising from a federal lawsuit. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in addition to retracting the claim that officers had only fired tear gas into the crowd because “they were cut off by violent protesters”—the protestors, it turns out, were not violent at all—the city also has to provide video and paper records of the event to the state library.
Well, they’ve fulfilled their obligation. While still hiding it from the public.
Biden To Protect Saudi Murderer?? AYFKM?:
A US judge has asked the Biden administration to weigh in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case brought against him in the US by Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was killed by Saudi agents in 2018.
John Bates, a district court judge, gave the US government until 1 August to declare its interests in the civil case or give the court notice that it has no view on the matter.
The civil complaint against Prince Mohammed, which was filed by Cengiz in the federal district court of Washington DC in October 2020, alleges that he and other Saudi officials acted in a “conspiracy and with premeditation” when Saudi agents kidnapped, bound, drugged, tortured and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
After years of inaction against Prince Mohammed by Donald Trump, who was president when Khashoggi was killed, the Biden administration moved to release an unclassified US intelligence report in 2021, shortly after Biden entered the White House, that concluded Prince Mohammed was likely to have ordered the murder of Khashoggi.
Biden has dragged his feet on this. He wouldn’t dare give Khashoggi a pass. Would he?
Mavis Staples: An American Treasure. A mustn’t-miss profile of Mavis and the entire Staples family. What better way to close out this column than with Mavis, Levon Helm, and their friends and family singing this incredible should-be national anthem from Curtis Mayfield?:
One interesting tidbit from the Mavis Staples piece was that fellow Chicagoan (and my personal musical Mt. Rushmore inhabitant) Curtis Mayfield convinced Pops Staples to go more secular.
Many “legitimate” media operations used Ornato as source to try and debunk Cassidy Hutchinson testimony in real time. This country is so fucked up.
“This country is so fucked up”. And I could not agree more, every time I get to feeling I can live out my old age here the reality of what we are becoming tells me to get gone before the shooting starts. Alby split, I can too.
The GQP strategy to counter Hutchinson is to flood the zone with not-under-oath rebuttals that they hope will shape the narrative their way.
In the unlikely event Garland gets around to charging Trump, Trump’s best chance to avoid a trial is to be elected president.
And Liz Cheney again:
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/not-prosecuting-trump-jan-6-130300130.html