{"id":1534322,"date":"2022-07-01T07:49:10","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T11:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1534322"},"modified":"2022-07-01T07:49:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T11:49:33","slug":"heres-what-the-jan-6-show-trials-are-really-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-what-the-jan-6-show-trials-are-really-after\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s What The Jan. 6 Show Trials Are Really After"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fheres-what-the-jan-6-show-trials-are-really-after%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1534322&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Liz-Cheney-on-Jan.-6-Anniversary-e1641952020920.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The Jan. 6 Committee\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MZHemingway\/status\/1539610539588034561\">Stalinist show trial<\/a> serves many purposes, but truth is not one of them. On Wednesday, the House committee holding hearings on the violence that broke out at the capitol on Jan. 6, 2020, issued a subpoena to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Cipollone, who had voluntarily participated in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/06\/29\/politics\/pat-cipollone-january-6-committee-subpoena\/index.html\">closed-door<\/a> interview in April, \u201cdecline[d] to cooperate\u201d further with the committee, according to the letter subpoenaing him to testify before the committee on July 6.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear whether Cipollone will comply with the subpoena, but from the committee\u2019s perspective, it doesn\u2019t matter. The Democrat-stacked committee seeks to score political points, not secure the truth, and subpoenaing Trump\u2019s former White House counsel serves that objective: If Cipollone refuses to testify, his assertion of executive privilege provides the committee a fresh opportunity to condemn Donald Trump while the committee provides the public its own version of the events the former White House counsel supposedly observed.<\/p>\n<p>Scoring partisan points is not the only goal of the Jan. 6 Committee. Rather, the carefully massaged hearings seek, at minimum, three broader political objectives.<\/p>\n<h2>Propagandize Americans About Election Integrity<\/h2>\n<p>One subtle, but overarching objective of the Jan. 6 Committee is to convince Americans that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history. The hearings seek to achieve this by limiting their focus to select and disproven claims of election fraud, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/21\/hillary-clinton-doubts-election-results-while-claiming-doing-so-is-treason\/\">claims<\/a> \u201cthat enemies of the former president hacked Dominion voting machines, flooded battleground states with counterfeit ballots, and engaged in other Machiavellian machinations to steal the 2020 election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The committee completely <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/17\/jan-6-committee-ignores-clear-evidence-of-mass-illegal-voting-systematically-broken-election-laws\/\">ignores<\/a>, however, \u201cthe verifiable evidence of systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the constitutionally deficient execution of the November 2020 election.\u201d Even more deceptively, throughout the hearings, the committee uses the word \u201cfraud\u201d to describe every complaint or challenge to the outcome of the 2020 general election, including Trump\u2019s legal challenges premised solely on violations of the state election code.<\/p>\n<p>The committee\u2019s most blatant bait-and-switch in this regard came when the hearing framed a letter drafted by former Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark as discussing bogus election fraud claims. According to the committee, Clark wanted the Department of Justice to dispatch that letter to the Georgia legislature, even though he had no \u201cevidence of widespread election fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the proposed <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/trump-doj-georgia-clark-rosen-donaghue\">letter<\/a>, which Clark\u2019s bosses rejected, did not make any claims of election fraud. In fact, in one paragraph, Clark expressly referenced a pending lawsuit in Fulton County that focused on violations of the Georgia election code. It noted that as of late December, the trial court in that case had not even scheduled a hearing on the alleged election law violations. Yet the Jan, 6 Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/06\/23\/1106700800\/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript\">presented<\/a> Clark as seeking to push debunked fraud claims to the Georgia legislature.<\/p>\n<p>The committee\u2019s use of testimony by former Attorney General William Barr likewise served to frame every objection to the 2020 election as related to fraud. Barr\u2019s testimony that he \u201chad not seen any widespread election fraud that would question the outcome of the election,\u201d and that \u201cthe stuff\u201d Trump\u2019s people \u201cwere shoveling out to the public was bullsh-t,\u201d provided the perfect fodder for the committee\u2019s disinformation campaign.<\/p>\n<p>After all, if Trump\u2019s own attorney general found the claims of fraud \u201cbullsh-t,\u201d surely there was no legitimate basis to challenge the 2020 election or to doubt its outcome. That is precisely what the Jan 6. Committee wants Americans to think, but claims of election fraud \u201crepresented but a portion of Trump\u2019s challenges to the November 2020 results,\u201d and that the claims of election fraud Barr\u2019s team <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/20\/why-both-republicans-and-democrats-are-wrong-about-bill-barr\/\">investigated<\/a> were \u201cbullsh-t\u201d \u201csays nothing about whether there were systemic violations of election law and illegal voting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lack of election fraud also leaves unanswered the many other ways the 2020 election was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/22\/j6-committee-focuses-on-election-fraud-claims-while-ignoring-tactics-used-to-rig-the-2020-election\/\">rigged<\/a>, from the corrupt media\u2019s burying of the evidence of the Biden family\u2019s pay-to-play scandal discovered on Hunter\u2019s laptop, to the flooding of Democrat-heavy voting precincts with millions of get-out-the-vote ZuckBucks.<\/p>\n<h2>Silencing Complaints About Election Irregularities<\/h2>\n<p>A related goal of the Jan. 6 Committee is to silence conservative complaints about election irregularities. The committee\u2019s strategy to achieve this objective focuses first on convincing the country that the violence that day was caused by false claims of fraud and, therefore, those who alleged fraud bore responsibility for the attack on the capitol. As the committee had already framed all attempts to legally challenge the election as pushing disproven accusations of fraud and cast the riot at the capitol as an insurrection, under the committee\u2019s logic, any American criticizing the 2020 election is complicit in the supposed attack on our democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Even before the House formed the sham Jan. 6 Committee, Americans who merely attended the rally found themselves <a href=\"https:\/\/chicago.suntimes.com\/politics\/2021\/1\/7\/22219360\/trump-rally-capitol-tank-noodle-insight-studios-properties\">fired<\/a> from their jobs. Since then, the committee and the corrupt media have teamed to create a guilt-by-association mentality throughout the country, with both politicians and the John and Jane Q. Public protest attendees cast as co-conspirators in a violent insurrection.<\/p>\n<p>But the committee seeks to spread the blame for the supposed insurrection far beyond the speakers and protestors, presenting state representatives and officials investigating election irregularities, attorneys advising Trump, and lawyers litigating election violations as equally culpable for fomenting an insurrection. Now, with the committee apparently angling to concoct some sort of criminal conspiracy, the message to conservatives is clear: stay silent or risk your livelihood and your liberty.<\/p>\n<p>The zone of silence the committee and the complicit media push for is all-encompassing, from ordinary Americans to a U.S. Supreme Court justice. The show trial seeks to shame conservative voters from speaking out about election irregularities witnessed at the polls, commenting on social media about questionable election results, peacefully protesting, or even voting for candidates who challenge election results.<\/p>\n<p>In short, the committee has made clear that \u201canyone who complains about the disastrous American electoral system on display during the last presidential election [will be branded] a conspiracy theorist seeking the violent overthrow of the government.\u201d That promise provides a pretty good incentive for citizens to stay silent.<\/p>\n<p>Relatedly, the committee hopes to keep conservative candidates from challenging elections, either their own or those of other Republicans, and to scare attorneys away from such clients. The targeting of Justice Clarence Thomas serves as a warning to other judges and justices not to take conservative complaints seriously, or else a family member may find herself under investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Also targets of the Jan. 6 Committee\u2019s campaign of shame are state legislatures, which are charged with establishing rules and regulations for elections. By framing all complaints about the November 2020 election as concerning non-existent voter fraud, the committee seeks to paint the state legislative bodies\u2019 election integrity measures as racist. After all, since there was no fraud, as the committee\u2019s theme goes, the state lawmakers must be seeking to disenfranchise minority voters.<\/p>\n<p>Make no mistake about it: the shame and silencing will only go one way\u2014to squelch conservatives. That Hillary Clinton could <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/21\/hillary-clinton-doubts-election-results-while-claiming-doing-so-is-treason\/\">simultaneously<\/a> brand \u201cDonald Trump, his allies, and supporters\u201d \u201ca clear and present danger to American democracy\u201d and question the legitimacy of Trump\u2019s 2016 victory establishes that Democrats will retain the right to question elections, while a Republican challenge to an election represents treason.<\/p>\n<p>The vitriol leveled at the originalist Supreme Court justices following the leak of the <em>Dobbs <\/em>opinion, when coupled with the protests outside of Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s home and the later arrest of a man who plotted to kill him, confirms the double-standard in play. Rhetoric on the right holds responsibility for prompting an armed revolt, but the equally charged condemnation of Supreme Court justices merely represents the expression of strongly held views, even when a member of the public <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/06\/15\/the-hypocrisy-and-disconnect-of-the-partisan-jan-6-probe\/\">responds<\/a> by plotting the assassination of one of the justices.<\/p>\n<p>While such <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/06\/15\/the-hypocrisy-and-disconnect-of-the-partisan-jan-6-probe\/\">hypocrisy<\/a> proves the Jan. 6 Committee\u2019s true concern is not political violence, conservatives without the wherewithal to withstand guilt by association will bow out of the debate over election integrity, leaving Democrats and their friendly media players to bury any legitimate concerns.<\/p>\n<h2>Safeguard the Swamp<\/h2>\n<p>A third global goal of the Jan. 6 Committee is to protect the establishment by clearly conveying to outsiders that they will be destroyed if they attempt to clean out the swamp and that anyone who assists in those efforts will be likewise ruined.<\/p>\n<p>Early on, Trump learned that the deep state and members of both political parties had him in their sights. Spygate and the first impeachment demonstrated the strength of the establishment and the media\u2019s willingness to assist in efforts to take down the outsider.<\/p>\n<p>But even Trump losing in 2020 was not enough for the D.C. crowd: The establishment needed Trump destroyed, not just to prevent a rematch in 2024 but as a warning to any other Mr. Smith who might want to go to Washington that they are in charge and any attempt to change the power structure will end in disgrace and potentially even prison.<\/p>\n<p>The Jan. 6 show trial drives home that point. Not only is the committee seeking to destroy Trump and his legacy, but it wants the former president indicted and put in prison. But even that is not enough. The committee also wants those who stood by Trump, whether politically or personally, to face shame, disbarment, personal and professional harm, and potentially prison.<\/p>\n<p>The lesson here to the D.C. types is also clear: Don\u2019t cross the establishment and don\u2019t help any outsiders who want to change the way Washington does business, or you too will be destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>The committee\u2019s efforts in this respect hurt conservatives in a secondary way as well, by stoking divisions in the Republican Party. Since Trump first entered the Republican primary in 2015, the party has been divided over his role in the party. Following his election, while some Republicans remained antagonistic to the president, most of the party moved forward, working with Trump to move the country forward on a conservative footing.<\/p>\n<p>The 2020 election fallout reopened the rift in the Republican Party, and now, nearly two years later, the committee hearings, among its other broad goals, serve to feed that infighting. Conservatives seem oblivious to this reality, however, allowing the show trial to stand in the way of a unified party going into the midterm elections.<\/p>\n<p>So, in advance of Cipollone\u2019s testimony, either live or if he asserts executive privilege, Republicans would be wise to remind themselves that Joe Biden and Democrats represent a much bigger threat to the future of our country than either Trump or those Republicans who disagree with his approach to fighting the 2020 election.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Jan. 6 Committee\u2019s Stalinist show trial serves many purposes, but truth is not one of them. On Wednesday, the House committee holding hearings on the violence that broke out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1534322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}