January 6

Washington, DC As former president Donald Trump was ushered into court in DC Thursday afternoon, dozens of protesters and counter-protesters lined the blocks around the E. Barrett Prettyman US Courthouse. Some danced in celebration at “Trump’s indictment party,” while others marched down the road waving American flags. Obscenities were flung, insults traded, but the presence of any real agitators was small.    For what was billed as such a historic event, the afternoon was shockingly calm. Protesters clashed occasionally, but the Trump supporters and his critics mostly ignored one another. Both groups were, perhaps unsurprisingly, far outnumbered by the media and onlookers on the street.

Donald Trump has now been indicted enough times for there to be a sense of routine around the news of a fresh batch of charges. The former president warns that an indictment is coming. Then it arrives, it’s unsealed, and he’s arraigned. Trump’s Republican primary rivals respond, their choice of words assessed for signs of obsequiousness and defiance (the former are usually easier to find than the latter). The jurisdiction and likely make-up of the jury is debated. As are the prejudices of the judge, when the name becomes known.  And so yesterday when Trump was indicted for the third time this year, in relation to January 6, there was a familiar, inevitable, almost unremarkable feel to what is, by any reasonable measure, a grave moment for the country.

Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has received notice he is a target in the federal criminal investigation into the January 6 riot and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.  Two sources with direct knowledge of the grand jury probe confirmed to NBC News that Smith had sent Trump the target letter.

Stilwell, Oklahoma Out of the ancient belly of the earth and through the pitch-black night, the giant wigwam rises, gold-tinged and glorious, the glint of rare winnings and the sound of 2,000-plus slot machines rolling toward despair rollicking through the dark in east Oklahoma. Inside, the electric-fused honkytonk band blares Del Shannon’s “Runaway” — “And I wonder, I wa- wa- wa- wa- wonder” — from a starlight backlit stage above the sea of penny slots, the bald lead singer strumming a skull-festooned full bass as he sweats through his camo shirt. Outside, there is a distinct noise coming from beneath a neon-yellow Maserati where a timber rattlesnake has found a warm asphalt home.

Is this news? Mike Pence “seized the spotlight” in DC this weekend when he “slammed former president Donald Trump in what amounts to his strongest criticism to date of his former running mate.”  Of course Pence did. He is, for the time being, running for president. Naturally he is going to set his sights on the the biggest beast in the room. And that beast, in case you haven’t noticed, is Donald Trump. (And, really, can’t Politico do better than “former running mate”?) Pence, having himself been subpoenaed by the January 6 Entertainment Committee (he doesn’t plan to testify) is nervous about his role in that jamboree.

“A hurt dog barks.” That’s what Tucker Carlson said as he aired various bits of the 41,000 hours of surveillance video captured at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. If you want to know what the hurt dog sounds like, just listen to Senator Chuck Schumer on March 7: “Rupert Murdoch has a special obligation to stop Tucker Carlson from going on tonight [and] from letting him go on again and again and again [because] our democracy depends on it.” Really, Chuck? Does “our democracy” depend on preventing the American people from seeing what really happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021?

In two weeks, with great sorrow, our nation will mark the second anniversary of the culmination of an unprecedented self-coup attempt by a sitting president: the January 6 Capitol riot, which resulted in five deaths. The callous barbarism we witnessed that day was nothing less than a brazen assault on the fountainhead of American self-governance, the Constitution. No amount of Tucker Carlson’s documentaries or Revolver News clickbait can change that inconvenient fact. Conservatives who dismiss what happened as nothing more than a false flag operation designed to initiate a “patriot purge” are doing themselves a grave disservice. Since July of last year, the January 6 Committee has been charged with investigating the events of the fateful day and what precipitated it.

The Select Committee to Investigate January 6 announced Monday that it would refer former president Donald Trump for charges to the Department of Justice’s special counsel. The committee also released its Executive Summary, which includes a description of findings and charges. Since its formation in July 2021, the committee has heard testimony from dozens of officials in the Trump administration and individuals who were associated with the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The Executive Summary lists seventeen findings of the Select Committee which inform their decision to refer Trump for charges.

Even doomed political campaigns throw victory parties — or pretend to. No-hope candidates have to keep up the pretense that they’re in with a chance — right down to the election-night canapés. On election night last month, a gathering of Republicans at a hotel in downtown Washington was set to be the real deal. To the assembled RNC employees, Hill staffers and assorted hangers-on, winning was a certainty and they were ready to celebrate. “Take back the house,” read the banners on the ballroom wall. The anticipatory chatter was of the margin of victory. All of which is to say, the crowd was confident. None more so than the party’s host. For Kevin McCarthy, November 8 was set to be more than just a very good night for his party.