LOS ANGELES.–Once 77-year-old President Donald Trump was acquitted Feb. 13, 2021 in the U.S. Senate of “incitement of insurrection,” 84-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was determined to stop Trump from ever running for president. Pelosi convened the Jan. 6 House Select Committee to follow up on what she couldn’t do in her impeachment of Trump, find legal grounds to charge Trump with insurrection. Pelosi’s legal team told her about a little known provision of the 1868 14th Amendment, Section 3, banning anyone involved in insurrection from serving in public office. Long after Trump was out of office, Pelosi continued the Jan. 6 Select Committee to develop facts that Trump actually planned-and-orchestrated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. House Democrats spent 18 months, passing their conclusions over to Special Counsel Jack Smith that Trump engaged in insurrection.
Pelosi’s Jan. 6 Select Committee heard from hundreds of anti-Trump witnesses, willing to state on the record that Trump planned-and-orchestrated the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Whether any of the testimony from biased witnesses served as real evidence or not, it didn’t stop the committee from reaching wild conclusions about Trump’s role in Jan. 6. Once such witness was Cassidy Hutchinson, saying Trump, on Jan. 6, lunged at his limo’s steering wheel to get his drive to go to the Capitol. House Select Committee used Huthinson’s testimony to characterized Trump’s state-fo-mind. Turns out Hutchinson was not in the limo at all. Former House Select Committee Co-Chairs, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and former Rep. Adam Kinsinger (R-Il.) concluded that Trump planned-and-orchestrated the Jan. 6 riots, transmitting their findings to Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Much of the testimony taken by the Jan. 6 House Select Committee was similar to that of Hutchinson, all anti-Trump voices trying to indict him for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection. “The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engle grabbed his arms, said ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol,’” Hutchinson testified under oath to the Committee. Like so much of the Committee’s testimony, it put Trump in the worst possible light to saying he was committing a crime, eventually transmitted to the Special Counsel. Smith charged Trump Aug. 2, 2023 for trying to obstruct an official U.S. government proceeding to certify the Electoral College vote. Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with trying to stay in power on specious testimony.
Smith charged Trump June 9, 2023 for possessing classified documents under the 1917 Espionage Act. Smith insisted, in charging Trump, that he endangered U.S. national security by possessing classified documents related to foreign intelligence operations. Smith knew that whatever documents Trump stored in White House moving boxes, the old documents threatened no one, certainly not U.S. national security. Similar charges of possessing classified documents were found in 81-year-old President Joe Biden’s possession. Former Special Counsel Robert Hur decided against charging Biden because he concluded he could not get a conviction from a sympathetic jury viewing Biden as a memory impaired old man. Democrats and press wildly objected to Hur’s statements calling them defamatory but agreeing that Biden should not be charged with possessing classified docs.
Testifying today in the House Judiciary Committee, Hur confirmed that Biden knew he possessed classified docs but decided not to prosecute because a sympathetic jury would find him too memory impaired to get any kind of conviction. Hur stood by his observations of Biden’s memory impairments something the White House spends overdrive disputing. When it comes to prosecuting Trump the public sees the hypocrisy is giving Biden a pass for whatever reason but moving to convict Trump of virtually the same thing. Hutchinson’s testimony shows for all to see the kind of specious testimony used by Special Counsel Smith to indict Trump. Smith is seen by Trump supporters as the kind to political bias that leaves Trump with 91 felonies all designed to obstruct his 2024 presidential campaign. When Trump talks about weaponizing the Department of Justice, this is what he means.
All the testimony used to indict former President Donald Trump is based on specious anti-Trump testimony, like that of Cassidy Hutchinson, who claimed she saw Trump l=lunge at his limo’s steering wheel Jan. 6, 2021. Cassidy was the Committee’s star witness to show Trump’s angry state-of-mind on Jan. 6. Turns out she wasn’t in the limo at all and reported second hand what she heard from others. If that’s not the definition on gossip-and-innuendo then what is? When Special Counsel said in indicting Trump for classified docs found in moving boxes in Mar-a-Lago’s basement that Trump violated the 1917 Espionage Act, you knew he held such egregious anti-Trump bias there was zero credibility to his charges. Listening to Special Counsel Robert Hur testify in the House Judiciary Committee today, it shows that the criminal justice system has been tainted by politics. Accused of Russia collusion for years, Trump knows all about a corrupt criminal justice system.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
