By Mike Huckabee
February 7, 2024
|
|
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is introducing a resolution to get members of Congress on record saying that Trump did NOT commit “insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”
As reported by the WASHINGTON EXAMINER:
“Gaetz introduced a resolution on Tuesday that would ‘clarify the stance of the House of Representatives’ to declare Trump ‘did not participate in actions that would bar him from again holding public office.’ The resolution would expressly assert that Trump did not ‘engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.’”
“‘We believe Congress has a unique role in making that declaration,’ Gaetz said. ‘It’s not the job of the states, and especially not the job of some Democrats in Colorado, to make this assessment and interfere with the rights of voters to cast their vote for the candidate of their choice.’”
Gaetz is right --- it’s NOT the job of the states to impose the 14th Amendment; this is one of the arguments against the action taken against Trump by the Colorado Supreme Court. Ohio Sen. J. D. Vance is set to introduce a similar resolution in the Senate.
On the Tuesday podcast of “Coffee With Scott Adams,” Adams praised this idea. “I just love it,” he said. Initially, it seems like a kind of Trump loyalty test, he said, but he looks at it differently…
It’s an IQ test.
“If you think that January 6 was an insurrection, today --- TODAY --- you’re a (bleeping) idiot,” he said. “That’s the end of the story. And I would love to get a list of all the idiots. This is really useful...If you can get everybody to sign up whether they’re so...dumb that today they actually think that was an insurrection or rebellion, I do want to know them. I want to know their names. Don’t you want to know the name of somebody who would be this dumb? ‘Cause that’s too dumb to be an elected official.
“...If you believe it at this point, that should be the end of your career.”
Later in the same podcast, Adams brought up Monday’s Judiciary Committee hearing in which Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie questioned J6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson about the Secret Service texts from January 5 and 6 that were deleted in violation of records retention laws.
“How many times have Democrats destroyed records and gotten away with it?” Adams mused. “Is anybody keeping a record?” He cited perhaps the prime example, Hillary, but went on to say, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there several stories like that? And they’re all Democrats...people who were caught red-handed, and they’d deleted the only thing that would get them into trouble?” (We would cite the “disappeared” deposition transcripts from Thompson’s own committee.)
“I don’t know, it’s sort of telling me that as a legal strategy, you should destroy any records no matter how legally they’ve been requested,” he said. “I feel like destroying records is just a smart play at this point, because it keeps working.”
Scott forgot to mention one thing: this will work for you only if you’re a Democrat. If that’s you, grab a hammer and knock yourself out.
If you’re like us, every time you see Rep. Massie’s name in a headline these days, you think, “Oh, yeah --- this is gonna be GOOD!” And in Monday’s hearing, Massie did not disappoint.
You’d think Massie had studied law, with his masterful questioning of Thompson. He asked Thompson whether his committee’s investigation had been “hindered in part” by the deletion of Secret Service text messages from January 6, and Thompson responded, “We could have had a better and more thorough report had we access to all those records.”
Massie then showed that Thompson and committee member Liz Cheney had said in a statement from July 2022 that it would be a violation of the Congressional Records Act to delete cellphone records after they’d been requested by Congress. It read in part, “Four House committees [note: this was at the time they were all chaired by Democrats] had already sought these critical records from the Department of Homeland Security before the records were apparently lost. Additionally, the procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to Federal Records Retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act. The Committee is seeking additional Secret Service records as well...”
He then got Thompson to agree that deleting the records was indeed a violation. Thompson said the records were deleted “when President Trump was in office.” But Massie established through a statement from the Secret Service that the Office of Inspector General had requested the records on February 26, 2021, and found out the process for “migrating” (switching) phones was “still underway.” Mayorkas had been confirmed on February 2, almost a month before. (Note: Trump had also left office on January 20.)
Massie said this looked like obstruction of Congress and should still be looked into, “regardless of who found out about it, and frankly, regardless of who was the President is.” It seemed to him that “Mayorkas hasn’t done anything about this.”
After establishing with Thompson that the Secret Service was ultimately responsible for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ safety on January 6, he asked Thompson where Harris was that day.
“I don’t know,” he said.
When asked if he knew about the two pipe bombs, Thompson said he did. So Massie pressed, “So you’re in charge of the entire investigation of what happened on January 6 and what led up to January 6, and you don’t know that the...incoming Vice President was in the DNC when that pipe bomb was sitting there?”
Thompson’s interest in this was curiously underwhelming. “I don’t, you know, we did not --- our investigation was looking at the facts and circumstances. We knew that there were pipe bombs. We just --- I’m sure the evidence will say she was wherever she is. But, you know, I’m trying to get to your point.”
Massie had to explain to him that if the bomb had gone off, it could have been “the worst assassination since JFK.”
When asked if his committee did or did not investigate the pipe bomb, Thompson said they were “not a criminal investigation.” They weren’t there to determine “who laid the bomb or anything like that.” To that, Massie pointed out that “a lot of criminal indictments” came out of their investigation.
Massie then walked Thompson through the recently revealed pipe bomb video that showed problems with the government’s narrative. The government has maintained these were viable bombs that had been planted the night before, he said, but they had kitchen timers that could only be set for an hour. Also, even though it has since been established that VP-elect Harris was at DNC headquarters, the discovery of the bomb by a plainclothes Capitol Hill police officer seems to have spurred no quick reaction; in fact, it took them “about four minutes” to start responding. And we know now that it took ten minutes to evacuate Harris.
(Later in the conversation, Thompson said he hadn’t seen this video, claiming that “a lot of what you’ve said today, I have not been privy to.” This is THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE.)
The odd nature of the Secret Service response, Massie told Thompson, was why he’s interested in the deletion of those Secret Service text messages. “And I would’ve thought,” he said, “the January 6 Committee would have been interested in the two most threatening weapons that were present on January 6 that day.” He couldn’t help but wonder if Thompson was interested in whether Secretary Mayorkas was concerned about the deletion of those texts. Four committees, including theirs, had specifically requested these electronic communications, yet the Secret Service continued deleting them.
“I’m not as concerned about that day [January 6] as I am now about the information we can’t get and the information that he [Mayorkas] hasn’t tried to get, as far as I can tell,” Massie said, calling the pipe bomb story “the most serious but least investigated event of January 6.” “...Apparently, it’s still the word of the Secret Service that this stuff is deleted and it ain’t never comin’ back. Because they didn’t just delete the electronics; they destroyed phones.”
“...I am concerned,” Massie said, “that Secretary Mayorkas is, either through acts of commission or omission, involved in this obstruction of Congress.” It seems to Massie like “a clear-cut case.”
The video of this full exchange is not to be missed.
REDSTATE includes some reactions online to this fascinating conversation.
If you’d like to know more about Rep. Massie, here’s his website bio. He might not be a lawyer, but he sure can question like one. His degrees are in science and engineering, so he actually cares about getting facts straight. He’s one smart guy and a real conservative.
https://massie.house.gov/
Leave a Comment
Note: Fields marked with an * are required.