Seth Meyers
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021 resumed public hearings on Thursday afternoon, and Seth Meyers homed in on a particularly shocking section: evidence that Ginni Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, frequently corresponded with John Eastman, the Trump lawyer who orchestrated a plan for Mike Pence to decertify the 2020 election.
“The spouse of a sitting supreme court justice was apparently in direct communication with a key figure in the planning of a coup,” the Late Night host explained on Thursday evening. “That seems like a pretty clear conflict of interest. It’s like if I find out my parents were doing this year’s Thanksgiving show with James Corden.”
The committee also presented evidence that Ginni Thomas was in consistent contact with the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, about a bunch of, as Meyers said, “truly insane” election fraud theories. Her texts included one in which she claimed a group of co-conspirators, including the “Biden crime family”, elected officials, “social media censorship-mongers” and others were being arrested and would soon be “living in barges off Gitmo [Guantánamo Bay] to face military tribunals for sedition”.
“Whoa! Those texts make Mike Lindell sound like a levelheaded businessman,” Meyers exclaimed. “I know those texts all sound insane to you. But it’s important to remember: they really are fucking insane.
“I think my favorite part is when she says the Biden crime family and ballot fraud co-conspirators will be living in barges of Gitmo,” he added. “Obviously, all this stuff is bonkers, but I am curious about one thing: why would they live in a barge off Gitmo? Like, why wouldn’t they just be sent to Gitmo? Why would Trump who, I don’t know, would be the supreme leader in this scenario, incur the extra cost of running a barge offshore? … And why am I pitching ideas on this?”
Samantha Bee
On Full Frontal, Samantha Bee recapped the first week of public hearings, in which co-chair Liz Cheney “explicitly placed the turd of the flies at the center of a plot to destroy democracy”.
As Cheney told the committee: “President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election.”
“Let’s just ponder for a moment how evil you need to be to shock someone who grew up with Dick Cheney for a father,” said Bee.
“Look, anyone with a pulse knows that Donald Trump spurred on the insurrection, but it matters that we’re seeing hardcore evidence in the footage and also the testimony of his most trusted advisers,” she later added. “I know the January 6 insurrection was 17 months ago and with a continuous flow of horrifying news, it’s easy to forget just how bad that day was. And more importantly, it’s easy to forget how the person who encouraged it, the person who wants to announce his 2024 bid outside of Ron DeSantis’s house, still needs to be held responsible.
“It is a travesty,” she concluded. “Although it is kinda funny that he might announce outside Ron DeSantis’s house, just to fuck with him.”
Stephen Colbert
After Thursday’s hearing, “this is what we learned: all of the lawyers knew that overturning the election was a crime,” said Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. “They all told each other that they knew it was a crime. They all told everybody in the White House it was a crime, including the president. They said, ‘Sir, it’s a crime.’ He said, ‘Thank you for clearing that up – now let’s go do that crime.’
“Some of the crimes described today were procedural and constitutional – a little light sedition among friends,” he continued. And “some of them were more straightforward like, um, what’s the word? Trying to murder Mike Pence.”
The first part of the hearing focused on the now infamous plan to have Pence refuse to certify the election, a procedural move for which he had no authority. As former Pence lawyer Greg Jacobs told the committee, Trump lawyer John Eastman told him on 6 January: “Al Gore did not have the basis to do it in 2000, Kamala Harris shouldn’t be able to do it in 2024, but I think you should do it today.”
“Well, it’s just a classic case of do as I say, not as I coup,” Colbert quipped.
Trevor Noah
Trump tried to get Pence to join his election scheme by saying it would “be cool.” pic.twitter.com/tKFknfopuG
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) June 17, 2022
And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah reviewed “what might be the funniest recounting of the conversation that Trump actually had with Mike Pence” on the day of the insurrection.
According to the committee, Pence told Trump he didn’t want any one person to have the authority to overturn the election, to which the president responded: “But wouldn’t it almost be cool to have that power?”
Pence reportedly replied that he could not do it, to which Trump said: “You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend any more if you don’t do this.”
Noah laughed. “This is the paradox of Donald Trump: he has the most terrifying schemes in the world, but he executes them in the most hilarious ways. Because Trump, basically, he lives his entire life as if he’s the bad kid in one of those anti-smoking PSAs – ‘C’mon, Mike, just try overturning the election. I thought you wanted to be cool!’
“If there’s one person who you can’t entice with ‘cool’, it’s Mike Pence,” he added. “He’s the least cool man in the world. The man wouldn’t even watch the Teletubbies because they don’t wear pants.”
