The Cruelty is Just Beginning

which Donald Trump has no defense whatsoever. That the initial defense that we thought that Donald Trump could potentially bring if in fact the Department of Justice gets off of their ass and issues the series of fucking indictments that should have been issued, oh, I don't know, eighteen fucking

months ago. But nonetheless, that Donald Trump's only defense was going to be that he was unaware that he did not win the election, that he truly and completely believed that he had the right to continue fighting until every vote was counted. Right. Well, what we have come to understand through the series of testimonies that we have now seen through the one six House Commission, and now we are on pause, but they will be back and I'm

certain with more bombshells. As for the way that they closed out with Cassidy Hutchinson, is that we all know now Donald Trump knew he lost. He was told by his attorney general, he was told by his children, he was told by his inner circle, he was told by everyone. We also know that Donald Trump cannot say that he had no idea that the people in the crowd right at the Ellipsus that his bullshit stopped the Steel rally were armed. That he can't feign ignorance there either, that

he actually knew that they were armed. And not only did he know that they were armed, he knew what kind of violent fucking weapons they had on them. Brass knuckles, teflar, vest a, glock ar fifteens, bear spray, a series a series of things that these people had on them, and Donald Trump knew. And what did he say, take away the metal detectors. They're not here to hurt me. How does a president of the United States not care about the rest of the people that clearly that crowd was

there to hurt. How do you say they're not here to hurt me? So I need the optics to show that I got this big crowd and you're gonna take me to the fucking capital, and I'm the fucking president and I get to do whatever I want. How is it that fucking Republicans listen to this and say to themselves, Yeah, that's the guy I want in twenty twenty four. It just makes you understand that this is a cult. They are violent, They will do anything in everything in order

to stay in power. What should then set off alarm bells for the Democrats and realizing that these people actively try to fucking kill them on January six, these people that they still continue to refer to as their colleagues are not trying to fun with them. And not only are they not trying to fun with them, they're either trying to physically harm them or put them into jail. Right, So that's what we know because these fucking super Bond villains are organizing and telling us in plain sight what

it is that they're trying to do. So we sit here now and we wait as this Commission is now on break for the next two weeks, and when they come back, wondering what if any movement we will have heard during their break from the fucking Department of Justice.

Because what Glenn will lay out is that Liz Cheney made it very clear at the end of the hearing with Cassidy Hutchinson when she put up the quotes from those people that had already testified, the ways in which Donald Trump's mafia mind was sending his lackeys to go and to intimidate the witnesses by saying things like, we know your loyal we know that you're going to testify tomorrow and do the right thing. He's watching, he knows that you're going to protect the people that need protecting.

Is this good Fellas is a casino? What kind of mobster shit we're Republicans allowing to happen in the Trump administration for this behavior to seem somewhat normal, It is not so. Coming up next, friends, my in depth dive with our friend Glenn Kirshner about what we can expect with the upcoming hearings and what we can expect from

this Department of Justice. Folks, you know that whenever I have the opportunity to speak with our dear friend, the host of Justice Matters and MSNBC legal analyst, Glenn Kirshner, I am always grateful because I'm waiting for the day, the day, Glenn when we get to sit here and say, so, let's run through all of the annitements that came out today.

It's not that day, Glenn. But what has happened is that the House WON six Commission has closed out this ramund of their public hearings, the final being the surprise hearing with former Senior aid to Mark Meadows Cassidy Hutchinson, and I got to tell you, Glenn, I watched that. I was glued to the screen because every awful thing that I believed in my heart was happening in the

Trump White House was actually happening and worse. So before we dig into the specifics of what Cassidy Hutchinson laid out, tell us your reactions, just your overall reaction to how the Commission has been building up this case. And then to the final surprise hearing as they take a break

for the next couple of weeks. Thank goodness for the J six Committee because they are leading the way when it comes to exposing to the American people, frankly to the world, the crimes the sort of runaway criminal organization in the rico sense that Donald Trump and Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone at all are And I hate to lead with this, but my overwhelming sense is discussed that they're

eighteen months after we saw Donald Trump in sight an attack on the Capitol. None of the hierarchy of the

insurrection has been touched with criminal charges. And I don't want to go negative early, but you know, we got more devastating information from Cassidy Hutchinson that, as you say, just when you think they can't be any more corrupt or any more dangerous in the way they went about conducting themselves, we find out from people who were in the room behind the scenes, Mark Meadows insisted on having Cassidy Hutchinson in the room for so many of these meetings.

We find out that Donald Trump launched an armed insurrection on the Capitol. He was told Danielle, people in the crowd have weapons, assault rifles, glock pistols, knives, brass knuckles, bare spray body armor, and he said, take the effing metal detectors down, yep, because they're not here to hurt me. And then they can march on the Capitol. I mean, that's treason that is launched. That's levying war against the United States, against the democratic process. And it's not just

that he led an attack. He led what he knew to be an armed attack. And at what point, at what point is he held accountable for any of it? At what point do the American people get some protection from this criminal organization? And now I'll tell you, I'm not going to use the word inflection point, but I think there is now a moment of truth. And here's

why I say that. We now know, courtesy of Liz Cheney and the members of the J six Committee revealing this to us, that Team Trump has been threatening and intimidating and obstructing and impeding and tampering with witnesses. And whereas you can say, okay, the Department of Justice has to take eighteen months to investigate things before they bring charges, you can't say that when it comes to tampering with witnesses. Let me tell you what law enforcement looks like when

witnesses get tampered with. And I know this firsthand. People asked me, Danielle, you know, for twenty two of my thirty years I was a homicide prosecutor in the courts of DC, and people ask me what was what's the worst thing about being a homicide prosecutor. I always have the same answer, dead witnesses, Because I had witnesses not just threatened, not just intimidated, not just tampered with, killed.

And then you have to go into what's called the missing witness doctrine to introduce the hearsay statements of the dead witness if you can prove that the bad guys made the witness unavailable. Here's how law enforcement responds to witness tampering. You don't open a six month long grand jury investigation. The FBI interviews Cassidy Hutchinson yesterday and every other witness that was tampered with by Team Trump or

anybody else. They take the substance of that interview, they immediately put it in an affidavit in support of an application for an arrest warrant. And six o'clock this morning, doors should have been banged on, and the people who tampered with witnesses should be locked up right now, not tomorrow, and not next week. This is not let's launch a nice, thorough, detailed,

leisurely grand jury investigation. Witness tampering. It undermines, you know, it strikes at the very heart of the integrity of any investigation, whether criminal or congressional. And I swear if DJ doesn't take real time action on witness tampering charges, then I have little hope that anybody will ever be indicted for anything. You know. Let's let's let's break it

down a minute. Because at the closing of the final hearing in in this session, in this grouping, when Liz Cheney put up on the screen the quotes from witnesses, and she said, we're not going to put up their names, obviously for fear right, for concern let me say that I'll use their words for concern um. They all said, right here, right and there. This they all said in some way or fashion. What stood out for me, Glenn was dot was whoever called and said, he's thinking about you.

He's thinking about you, and he knows your loyal he knows that you will do the right thing and protect who you need to protect. I swear to God, Glenn, I'm sitting in my parents' theater. I swear to God. They have a picture of Goodfellas and Casino up on the wall I thought that that was a clip from

a mobster movie. It like did not. I could not imagine the president, the former president of the United States, saying to his lackey, go call Cassidy, go call you know, any number of these people that have testified and let

them know I'm thinking about them. How I mean, Glenn, is it possible that we have had way too much faith in the FBI in the Department of Justice, Because I got to tell you that I don't understand what the hell they are waiting for and why after that was put up on the screen, or better yet, why they needed to do a goddamn surprise hearing in the first place. Is because they are worried concerned about the

safety of their witnesses. And instead of being direct in that communication to the American people and saying, we are having this here hearing right now and changing up our protocols for security measures because we are concerned about Donald Trump and his lackeys and what they could do right to Cassidy Hutchinson and two others, they didn't say that explicitly. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer look at how and why these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever

you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday. Hey there, I want to tell you about another podcast I think you'll The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Goehler, the president of Emerge BGG, is the one stop shop for women of color who want to hear

and talk about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season as she talks to incredible women of color who are changing the face of politics and tackling some of the most important issues basing the United States, from reproductive justice to voting rights, to climate change and more. Tune in every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. So the question here is, I mean, what else do you

think is needed? So first of all, this language that you just recited, you know, what team you're on, you know who you need to stay loyal too, that do the right thing, which we all know means do the wrong thing in life for Donald Trump. And there was even a statement that you know, if you want to continue to stay in good graces in Trump world world, this is Heartland witness tampering language, Danielle. I heard it for decades because less usual was getting information that somebody said,

if you testify against me, I'm gonna kill you. That's not the way it's done. It is done precisely the way you just described in these messages that were revealed by the J six Committee. And here is the only wiggle room I can give the Department of Justice. Maybe they didn't know about any of this because the J

six Committee hadn't shared it with them. That's not a complete defense, because they should have been investigating this in the grand jury eighteen months ago, and they would have interviewed Cassidy Hutchinson seventeen months and three weeks ago, so you know, yes, this probably happened recently, and I understand. I actually am one of those people who thinks that there has been some healthy flexing of muscles. The coequal

branches of government. I'm not offended that the legislative branch, the J six Committee, said, I know you want all of our evidence, a thousand transcripts that we developed, thank you very much, and you'll get them once we do our coequal branch of government thing. We have our hearings, we show to the American people what Trump and his criminal cabal did. We issue a report, and oh, here you go. Of course, DJ could have been doing all

of this on a parallel track from Jump itself. So but listen, maybe now that DJ knows that there is witness tampering going on what strikes right to the heart of the integrity of any investigation, they will do the real time law enforcement stuff they need to do. But if we don't hear that in the next couple of days the people who issued these three who intimidated this witness, and I'm sure others have not been locked up, then I will begin to lose all hope that anybody's going

to be held accountable. You know, I got to tell you some of the striking points of Cassidy's testimony to me was what we opened with, which is that Donald Trump's defense was going to be that he didn't know that he lost the election and that he was going to use every mechanism within his power in order to get to the heart of what he believed was a fraudulent election. What Hutchinson laid out is that No, just

like everyone before her, he knew. He also knew that that crowd was armed and dangerous, and that for optics sakes, in the same way that he did with his effing inauguration, He's like, no, bring the people in because I don't want it to look like it's not full right. And they're saying no, no, they have weapons on them, Donald Trump says, And so he can't say, well, I didn't know. The lawyers in defense can't say he didn't know what kind of weapons that he had, or no one told

him that they had weapons. No, he knew. They gave him a laundry list of the weapons that they had. They're not here to hurt me. Then he directs those people that are armed in dangerous, tells them to go and take their country back, and that Mike Pence is their key for him to stay in power. So putting your other hat on, Glenn, what is the defense that his attorneys from Trump University, Because that's all that can

actually defend this man. What is the defense that they would offer in if in fact criminal charges are brought. What does it look like The only defense he has, to Yelle, is if no charges are brought against him. That's the only way he can avoid being held accountable for his crimes. There is no straight faced defense. And when it comes to criminal intent, you just laid it out there based on what Cassidy Hutchinson told us. But even before her testimony, I'm going to cite a tweet

from my old boss, Eric Holder. And when I say my old boss, I don't mean when he was Attorney general. Even though he was my boss as Attorney General, you know, four levels above me. He was my US attorney in the District of Columbia. He hired me, he gave me the opportunity to be a federal prosecutor, and I will always stand on his shoulders. People might not know this, but before he was nominated to be a US Attorney for d C, he was a judge on the Superior

Court for the District of Columbia. And do you know who made him a judge? Do you know which president nominated him? Ronald Reagan? So you know, you can have all the partisan fighting you want, but he was actually somebody who was always respected on both sides of the

aisle until the Republicans just completely lost their minds. He said when the testimony of Richard Donohue and Jeffrey Rose and high DJ officials was introduced at an earlier j six hearing, and Donald Trump said, I don't care if the election was not fraudulent, just say it was and leave the rest to me and my alb my Republican allies in Congress. That was the moment at which all

the possibility of an innocent, innocent defense evaporated. And what Eric Holder tweeted out after that is that he cataloged all of the evidence of Donald Trump's corrupt intent, and then he said, and if Donald Trump tried to go into court and claim his intent was not corrupt, he would be laughed out of court. And that was before we knew from Cassidy Hutchinson. He led an armed attack on the Capitol. So he does not have a defense

in court. Take it from me. I've seen all kinds of defenses, good, good, bad, ugly, and he doesn't have a defense. They will, they will mount some frivolous defense, because that's how trials play out. He has no viable defense in court. The only defense he has is if he's never charged in the first place, and then that

that represents the end of our democracy. So I still, as I sit here, cannot conceive of a department of Justice that gives its stamp of approval to everything Donald Trump has done by declining to secute him, because then it is game over for America. So let's go to the car incident that Cassidy Hutchinson laid out. Now, she was not in the car right and that that was

made clear. So this is I'm assuming considered hearsay Donald Trump being in a suburban lunging towards the Secret Service driver and saying, I am the fffing President, take me to the FFing Capitol, grabbing the clavicle of said driver. Does that sound like something that Donald Trump would never do, because I'm pretty sure that Eegene Carroll had laid out for us in no one certain terms that Donald Trump doesn't like to be told no, and what his reactions

are to being told no? What did you make of that account? And then of course being whisked to the West wing to then throw his launch at the wall. Having catchup, sneered down the people's house like he is some tyrannical toddler. Yeah, that's the dangerous, petulant little child that Donald Trump is. I mean, when I heard that incident, it's like, you know, I expect that he did something like that three times before, you know, eleven am every

Monday morning while he was president. That is the person he is. And you know, it's obviously a side show. Now if people are going to say, well, you know Onorado, Donald Trump Flunkey disagrees that that happened, Well, first of all, Cassidy Hutchinson said, this is what Onorato came back and described to me. And it was interesting because Angle was there, right, The Secret Service officer was there. Angle listed listened to

every word, and he did not disagree with it. That's a little something called an adoptive admission that's admissible in court because it's an exception to the hearsay rule. So real quickly, if you and I went out and robbed the seven to eleven, we would never do that, but if we did, and then you and I afterwards told the story of how we just robbed the seven eleven. I said, man, you should have seen Danielle and she was kicking to you, and after the clerk, she grabbed

up all the twinkies. Here you want a twinkie? And you sat there and you were like, you didn't disagree. You didn't, you didn't distance yourself. My words would be admissible against you in court as an adoptive admission. And that was what Liz Cheney set up in her testimon in her questioning of Cassidy Hutchinson, Angle told the story. I'm sorry, uh Amorado told the story in Angel's presence. Angle did not disagree or correct or chime in or

distance himself from the account of what just happened. So you know, listen, we can talk about the side show of what happened in the limo, but none of that, none of it the tracks from Cassidy Hutchinson's credibility. So finally, Glenn, here we are. We have had John Eastman's phone seized, h Clark was put out on Jeffrey Clark was put out on the street while his house was turned over. You have Mike Flynn, who wouldn't even admit that there should be a peaceful transfer of power. You. We now

know Mark Meadows and Rudy Leani both asks for pardons. Right, according to Cassidy Hutchinson's report, how does the Department of Justice not move forward? And what do you think if they don't? I mean, democracy is done, as we've been saying for well over a year now. How do they move forward? What does that look like in the next couple of months? And again, I know it's not a political body, but I do know that we have midterm

elections in five months. I do know that the Supreme Court has made it very clear what their new vision is of the new world order in America. So if the Department of Justice doesn't take action, what happens here? So if DAJ fails to indict Trump and all of his co conspirators, that will be a political decision. It will not be a decision based on the facts and the law, because the facts and the law support indicting

Trump for his many crimes. I mean, not only do we have a federal judge who's already concluded by a preponderance of the evidence that Donald Trump committed the crime of obstructing an official proceeding the certification of Joe Biden's win.

The judge also ruled that Donald Trump committed the crime of conspiracy to defraud or commit offenses against the United States, but now based on Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, in aggregate with everything else, he's good for the seditious conspiracy that the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers are already charged with. He was part of launching that armed attack on the Capitol. He also incited not only a riot, which is a

separate charge, he incited an insurrection. Not only that he incited an armed insurrection because we now know that he knew they were armed. And he also committed the crime of reason I think another crime that I had to crack my big blue, ugly blue book of Federal crimes the other day. He also assaulted or impeded or interfered with a public official doing his official duties. Mike Pence. That's eighteen United States Code Section one hundred and eleven

one one one. That is an eight year offense if you impede or try to influence or obstruct or assault a public official during the course of, or on account of them performing their official duties like certifying a presidential election, and if you do it while you're armed, or while people you set on the Capitol that day were armed and you knew it. That's a twenty year offense. It's an eight year offense if unarmed. So you can only

confine a man for but one life. But there are so many criminal charge that could be stacked up against Donald Trump and company. What does it look like? I believe it looks like a great big conspiracy indictment with Trump and Rudy and Bannon and Flynn and Stone and Eastman and Clark and Meadows and others. We've yet to learn much about Jim Jordan, but I believe he was

inquiring about pardons as well. Think about how it dove tails when Donald Trump says, I don't care if it wasn't a fraudulent election, just say it was and leave the rest to me and my Republican allies in Congress. Helpfully, some of those Republican allies have self identified as co conspirators because Gomer and Biggs and Perry and the rest of these clowns, Rook and Mt. Marjorie Telligred asked for party, which is an admission that I committed a crime. I

need to get away with it. And the only way I'm going to get away with it is by getting a pardon from my co conspirator, Donald Trump. All of this dovetails, Danielle. There's only one thing we need. We need an indictment, and we need a prosecutor standing in the well of the court making these arguments to twelve citizens in a jury box. And I would bet a buck my betting limit a jury will vote guilty because Donald Trump has no viable defense. Last question for you, though,

glearn this actually happens. We get indictments, they go to court, they appeal all the way up to our corrupt Supreme Court. Yeah, what happens. So I have two responses and there, and they're both optimistic responses, but realistic responses. One by then hopefully we have thirteen justices, which is a non negotiable priority to up the number of Supreme Court justices to level the playing field, because right now you only got one team on the playing field at the Supreme Court.

The other team can't even get out of the damn locker room. But then the other thing is, I still I have no confidence in the Supreme Court. They have become a theocracy. I mean, if they're tearing down the wall that separates church and state in all kinds of horrific ways. But I still do not believe they will do anything that will help install Donald Trump back into power, because he will then be a dictator, and dictators have

no use for a Supreme Court. So it's not because I believe the Supreme Court wants to do the right thing. It's because I think they covet their own power and they will be very protective of it. I think that's why they rejected review of all of the election challenge cases when Donald Trump's cruddy lawyers were challenging the election results. Not because they're interested in doing the right thing, but

because they love their position of power. They love being the last stop, the highest stop on governmental challenges, and they're not going to do anything to give that away to a tyrant or an autocrat or a dictator. So we're going to rely on their ego and vanity to be what saves the American people, not because they actually believe in doing the right thing or in the oaths that they've taken. Got it, not their honor or their

ethics exactly. Glenn, I gotta tell you thank you so much for this supersized recap of where the one six Commission hearings stand. We will of course be back in conversation when the gavel back in and we see what they got left, because we know that they need to rap or their deadline to rap is the fall. So there's just but a handful of months standing between their final report and midterms, so we will come back to

you for your analysis. Appreciate you, Thanks, Danielle. The Damage Report with John Idarola is one of the most popular shows on the TYT Network that serves as your daily breakdown of the genuine threats and challenges facing our country and world. These days, we're confronted with an overwhelming sea

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the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a close us to look at how and why

these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday.