This is a “Bias Makes You Stupid” spectacular. It’s kind of sad, really. The Democrats, the NeverTrump Republicans and the disgraced news media hate Donald Trump so, so much that they have allowed confirmation bias and desperation make total fools of them all. Oh, the American who are dim, gullible, ignorant or just as warped by hate and bias won’t notice, but it’s still a tragic spectacle.
I’m not watching the hearings; sock drawer emergency, you know. I didn’t learn about 23-year-old, Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, testifying before the single-minded, hyper-partisan “Get Trump” “commission” until I was snagged by the title of a column in Commentary by my old friend (acquaintance, really) John Podhoretz, its editor. The title was “Trump Is In Deep, Deep, Deep, Deep Trouble.” John—I love ya, man, but—is a true NeverTrumper, and he was positively giddy over what he saw as damning revelations from Cassidy under oath. “If what she has testified to, sworn under oath, is not countered or contradicted by Meadows or Trump’s White House counsel Pat Cippolone,” he wrote, “then there is a credible criminal case that Trump violated the law in ways not dealt with by the second impeachment, and from which he would not be shielded by executive privilege…she has reported directly on things that went on inside the White House and around the Oval Office on January 5 and January 6 that go beyond the merely circumstantial.”
I read John’ piece, and I couldn’t imagine what he thought was so explosive. Most of her testimony, as far as I can see, is hearsay. John informed his readers,”You’re going to hear people call this ‘hearsay.’ It is not hearsay. It is direct testimony of contemporaneous things said in Hutchinson’s earshot about events that were taking place while she was listening.”
John is a smart guy, but he isn’t a lawyer, and most of what Cassidy testified to is hearsay. It is hearsay whenever one person’s account of what a second person said is used to prove that what the second person said is true. It doesn’t matter if the speaker she is quoting was describing events “contemporaneous” ti when she was listening. It still doesn’t prove what she heard others say was true. For example, Podhoretz writes, “She reported Meadows saying of the chant to hang Vice President Mike Pence that Trump “doesn’t want to do anything,” and that “he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
A. So what? and B. That doesn’t prove Trump felt or thought or even said anything of the kind, and isn’t evidence, except of what Meadows said he thought Trump thought. Maybe.
But that’s not all, no sirree! Cassidy also testified that the Secret Service told her that Trump physically tussled with the Secret Service in his SUV and tried to grab the wheel when he was told that it would not take him to the Capitol weren’t because they could not guarantee his safety. The Secret Service says that this is flat-out false and agents will so testify under oath. It’s pretty hard to imagine anyway: the President sits in the back seat.
What happens to a witness who is credibly proven to have made up a tale and told it under oath? She is worthless. She is impeached, and completely without credibility. Trump may eventually be in “Deep, Deep, Deep, Deep Trouble,” but not based on anything Cassidy Hutchinson has said.
But the Trump Deranged couldn’t help themselves! That photo above shows Liz Cheney hugging the witness: now that shows objectivity and lack of bias! Ever see a judge get down off the bench and hug a witness during a trail? You never will, either, because it would be an instant mistrial, and the judge would be suspended. In this case, it shows us exactly what’s going on here, but they couldn’t even wait for a good witness before celebrating.
And then there’s the media:
That’s ABC White House correspondent Jonathan Karl. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Oopsie—Karl let the metaphorical cat out of the metaphorical bag, not that it hasn’t been running amuck for years. Journalists are rooting for the Jan. 6 lynch mob to “get Trump.” Unfortunately for Karl,
Hutchinson’s testimony was already falling apart, and Karl’s explanatory follow-up tweet just dug his hole deeper:
Except she didn’t testify to what she witnessed, but mostly what she heard, or said she heard, or pretended she heard, or what other people say they witnessed.
Yes, bias makes you stupid. When will they ever learn?
Ethics Alarms 
Oh boy, can’t wait until Hutchinson writes her tell all bombshell book, where she will spill secrets, such as: Trump likes ketchup on steaks, two scoops of ice cream, he doesn’t mind pretty women, he likes to shoot the bull on various topics, and so on and so forth. I really hope selling her soul for a MSNBC or a “The View” appearance was worth the price. Meanwhile, we will get a tell all book about Biden in 50 years, with the most damning thing in it being, that Biden would sometimes get confused, but his heart was always in the right place.
People often complain that kids are not taught critical thinking in school.
I would be happy if they were simply taught a modified course on the Rules of Evidence. Applying the Rules of Evidence to one’s daily experience would go a long way to making people less gullible and impulsive.
-Jut
It wouldn’t help. I have otherwise brilliant lawyer friends who acknowledge the show trial nature of this but still talk about how persuasive it is. At least they’re not judges…
Ditto. It’s very discouraging.
My personal head count shows the vast majority of lawyers are never Trumpers. I think it’s because, frankly, Trump’s simply not “one of us, you know, the good guys, the educated, the reasonable, the mature, the responsible.” That is, frankly, the elite, the cognoscenti. I find it shocking: a total lack of self-awareness in an entire, one would think important, segment of the population. So smug and self-assured.
You are absolutely correct.
Moreover, I keep reading desperate and strained explanations from “legal experts” who claim that Hutchinson’s hearsay isn’t really hearsay, but even if it is, it doesn’t matter because this isn’t a court and it doesn’t have to pass the court standards of evidence. But hearsay is hearsay, and the reason it’s not admissible (except for a few exceptions that aren’t relevant to her testimony) in court is because it’s UNRELIABLE. It isn’t more reliable because it’s in a hearing rather than a trial. Who are these “legal experts”? They are the ones who replied the way the reporter hoped when he or she asked the question, because the experts were also biased, and want Hutchinson’s testimony to be devastating to Trump, so they say it is.
My two cents: for those who are proponents of the statements, there are two possible bases I see for considering it: 1) an excited utterance; or 2) a present sense impression.
Now, having gone a bit “inside baseball,” I will merely observe that you have to go “inside baseball” to make those arguments. It is not a position that does not become obviously correct by its mere utterance; it would be the beginning of a more complicated analysis.
-Jut
It being an investigation, her hearsay could lead to new witnesses being subpoenaed to obtain firsthand evidence. Absent that follow through, her statements are not evidence in an of themselves.
Except that it’s not an investigation; it’s a one-way effort to find evidence that points to a single result.
Since hearsay is generally inadmissible, I think there’s a tendency to think of statements that fall under hearsay exceptions as non-hearsay. I’ve seen it among lawyers in my office.
Rather than describe a statement as “admissible under the present-sense-impression exception to the hearsay rule,” the statement might be described as “not hearsay because it’s a present sense impression.” It’s lazy, inaccurate phrasing. But there’s no real harm done, so long as the lawyer directs the judge to a hearsay exception that actually applies to the statement and renders it admissible.
Like damn near everything that has taken place in this made for prime time witch hunt, this Cassidy Hutchinson gotcha fiasco is signature significant showing us that the Committee is fully consumed by the ends justifies the means.
If they had something concrete to criminally charge Donald Trump with they would have already sent it to the DOJ, they haven’t, so this biased political witch hunt hit job is their chosen recourse.
Short of the constant implications of Trump’s criminal activity with no supporting evidence, multiple gotchas is exactly what this witch hunt is going for and with the vast majority of the media solidly behind the Democrats they’ve presented a spectacular made for prime time political propaganda hit job. The ignorant court of public opinion will hear and see the multiple gotchas repeated ad nauseum and anything that contradicts the gotchas will intentionally get limited exposure or outright suppressed thus enforcing the gotchas to the court of public opinion.
This witch hunt is pure unadulterated political propaganda, a political hit job, presented to the public to intentionally manipulate the court of public opinion prior to the next elections. The Democrats are using millions of federal government taxpayer dollars, elected officials, federal employees and the full power of the House of Representatives to destroy their political opposition in the eyes of the voter. The short term riot on January 6th was really ethically, morally, and politically bad and never should have happened but this made for TV pure biased propaganda political witch hunt is much, much worse for the country as a whole. Short of the two unconstitutional impeachments by unethical Democrats, this is probably one of the worst pure abuses of power that we’ll ever see from the House of Representatives.
If the United States of America ends up surviving the onslaught of political and cultural absurdities that have been unleashed in the 21st century, these Democrats are not going to fare well in truthful history books.
Nice synopsis Steve W.,
I intended to write exactly the same thing, virtually word for word, but then noticed your comment, so thank you.
Is FoxNews pushing back on this show trial? I do not watch television.
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“That’s it. Nothing more. Now, ask yourselves why they are so terrified by Trump.”
That is actually a really good question.
If the fascist Left is unable to take Trump out the soft way, there will most certainly be some kind of explainable calamity to befall him should he become a real threat. Either that or another stolen election.
The point isn’t whether Hutchinson’s testimony is inadmissible in court. The point of this proceeding is to kill Trump’s 2024 presidential run. That’s it. Nothing more. Now, ask yourselves why they are so terrified by Trump.
jvb
johnburger2013 wrote, “The point of this proceeding is to Jill Trump’s 2024 presidential run. That’s it. Nothing more.”
Yes that is a point of the proceedings but certainly not the only point. IT’s clear that they want to first completely destroy Trump’s ability to run in 2024 but they also want to destroy any Republican running for public office across the USA that they can remotely link to Trump. As far as the Democrats are concerned all Republicans in the USA (except for a select few) are Trump Republicans and they will be smeared as such.
johnburger2013 wrote, “Now, ask yourselves why they [Democrats] are so terrified by Trump.”
It’s simple; they’ve been effectively told via constant anti-Trump propaganda to fear Donald Trump. The hive mind listened and swallowed 100% of the anti-Trump propaganda.
There must be a long line up of psychologists and psychiatrists in dark smoky rooms behind the scenes of the political left that are directly influencing how all this propaganda is produced so it directly targets the emotions of people that way it has the best chance of getting the greatest permanent psychological effect on their minds and actions.
i disagree. Trump terrifies the power structure, those entrenched bureaucrats who see their job as setting policy, mostly with a leftist agenda. Trump came along and upset the apple cart. He said, “uh, no. It’s my policy, not your policy.” That is why so many worked against him and his interests.
jvb
I “think” you’re talking about the only DC politicians and the bureaucrats where I’m talking about the general public.
What I’m talking about in my comment above is mass brainwashing via propaganda.
Here’s an Actual Comment to the article entitled “Dramatic testimony sheds damning light on Donald Trump’s actions on January 6” from yesterday’s Financial Times:
https://www.ft.com/content/0e729df8-cd60-409a-8d72-b49c23b712ba
My typically tactless reply:
I’ve seen Ms. Hutchinson referred to most often as the Committee’s “special guest.”
I wonder if the progressives know they would have absolutely no case in an actual trial, so they gin up all these “victories” in a non-trial that looks like a trial, so that when they pursue an actual trial that goes down in flames, they can further seed hatred of the American political and judicial system. A hatred that only fuels their ability to destabilize the nation.
They might as well have had Colbert conduct the “hearing” on his show’s set.
Tell the democrats that henceforth we will use this process of determining guilt of those charged with various felonies. We will dispense with the adversarial system, letting only select witnesses come forth and foregoing the cumbersome process of cross examination. We will then make it a TV show called America’s Most Guilty and let the audience determine punishment.
Remember, these are the same people in Congress and the media who though Michael Avenatti would be a great president and that Christine Blasey Ford was the champion of truthful women…….
Thank you for putting into words what my intuition is telling me. I know what I think and feel, but sometimes I can’t find the words to express it. I know people who are telling me that because so many people have taken the fifth, there HAS to be something that Trump did wrong. How do I reply to that???
Nell
The best response is that it is the state that must prove guilt. It is not up to the accused to be their punching bag. A non- lawyer can be a victim of a trained litigator who can take one innocent acknowledgement or statement and twist the meaning understood by lay people to suggest guilt.
I’ve done nothing illegal, but if I was appearing before an unethical committee like this one, determined to harass and ruin anyone who dared to assist or be involved with the previous President, I’d take the Fifth on every question. It wouldn’t mean guilt—it would mean “I don’t trust you not to abuse your power.”
Thank you Chris and Jack for your replies! I’ve actually had a couple of people say to me that because so many people have taken the 5th, then there must be some criminal activity. How can anybody infer anything from somebody who has not said anything? It’s twisted logic. We have no idea what the people taking the 5th would have said. Thanks again!
I like Megyn Kelly’s criticism of Cassidy Hutchinson’s constant use of the phrase “to the effect of” in her testimony and the complete lack of anyone on the committee challenging Hutchinson on her second and third hand “to the effect of” recollections.
Just thinking “aloud” here…
I think it would be “interesting” to see someone like Megyn Kelly in a real one-on-one Presidential Candidate debate with President Biden on the hot topics of the day. Over the years she has shown to be a reasonably quick study, fast on her feet and has a dynamic personality as opposed to many of the purely scripted news reporters/anchors/commentators out there. Who knows how she would handle herself in a Presidential debate. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone from the news world has entered the political world as a candidate. Megyn Kelly could run with the Kayleigh McEnany as her running mate, how could the left oppose that kind of Presidential ticket without looking hypocritical?
At least I’m fully aware that I’m nuts. 😉
But Megyn has been permanently tarred as a racist for insisting that Santa Claus is white.