Thursday Reads: Send Out The U.S. Marshalls!

Good Morning!!

There is outstanding news this morning from the January 6 Select Committee!

From Raw Story:

A member of the U.S. House select committee explained how Donald Trump’s allies might be rounded up and arrested if they continued to defy congressional subpoenas in the Jan. 6 investigation.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where she called for fines or jail time for former Trump advisers who flout orders for their testimony and documents related to the insurrection, and she revealed what questions the committee had for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and others served with the subpoenas.

“I want to know how much planning was involved, who was involved in the planning, who funded it, how they — what their intent was when they came into that day, and then what they knew as that day unfolded and the safety and security of people like the vice president and members of Congress were at risk, [and] what they did, either to respond or not respond on that occasion,” Murphy said.

If those individuals don’t show up for their scheduled testimony, Murphy said they could be taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.

“We have engaged with a wide variety of law enforcement offices, including the U.S. Marshals, in order to issue the subpoenas,” Murphy said. “We will use everything, as you said, with all due respect, we will use all of the agencies and all of the tools at our disposal to issue the subpoenas and enforce them.”

Despite all the complaints on social media, today is the day the people who were subpoenaed by the committee were required too appear and produce documents; nothing can be done to enforce the subpoenas unless they don’t show up.

Yesterday the Committee subpoenaed Jeffrey Clark, the Justice Department official who worked with Trump to overturn the 2020 election and whom Trump wanted to appoint as Attorney General.

From the WaPo story:

Pierce writes:

In the plague-spotted orchard of Trumpian malfeasance, which the House of Representatives is trying to defoliate before it poisons everything in the garden, Steve Bannon, the last heir to House Harkonnen, is the low-hanging fruit. There is no reason on god’s despoiled earth why he shouldn’t be made to testify under oath about everything that happened on January 6. He wasn’t working for the president* at the time, so there’s no question of executive privilege. He was a private citizen when he allegedly played a role in orchestrating an insurrection meant to overturn a national election. Steve Bannon is the easy one.

He has until October 14 to turn over everything the special investigative committee’s subpoena demanded. Assuming he ignores the deadline, at 12:01 a.m. on October 15, he should be in cuffs and in the back of a car with two U.S. marshals, on his way to the pokey….

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they’re Mixmasters compared to watching Congress and the Department of Justice move on this matter. I have been staunchly in the camp of take the time you need. I have believed from the jump that there’s more going on underground at the DOJ than we know about. But even my patience gauge is blinking red. It’s not enough to be doing something. The country needs to see you doing something. It needs to see that to build its confidence that justice is coming. It also needs to see it as a kind of vicarious triumph over all the worst cynicism and corruption that attended the last administration*. A Steve Bannon perp walk would do nicely.

CNN: January 6 panel prepares to immediately pursue criminal charges as Bannon faces subpoena deadline.

CNN: White House formally rejects Trump’s request to protect specific documents from being given to January 6 investigators.

How close did Trump come to actually overturning the election? Very close. And it’s not over yet. I’ll end with this Substack post by Jared Yates Sexton: How An Attempted Coup Becomes A Successful Coup. The piece is a response to Trump’s video on Ashli Babbitt’s birthday.

Like all things Trump, the former president’s video was equal parts absurd and disturbing. On what should have been veteran Ashli Babbitt’s thirty-sixth birthday, her family played a taped message from Donald Trump that lauded her as “a truly incredible person” and assured them “her memory will live on in our hearts for all time.”

Of course, Trump was eulogizing a woman who participated in the storming of the United States Capitol on his behalf. That Babbitt and her compatriots were attempting to overthrow the will of the electorate and re-install Trump as president, thus carrying out a violent coup, went unsaid. That Babbitt would have still been alive had Trump and his cronies not organized the even and attempted a violent coup also went unnoted. What was important, what really needed emphasized, was Babbitt’s newly minted role as rallying point and martyr.

With every passing day new and more damning information emerges that underscores the real and present danger of January 6th. There were legal strategies in place, under-the-table dealings, plans to both slaughter lawmakers and utilize terror to retain power. And yet, many in the political and pundit class still consider any concern over those facts hysterical, overblown, or at least look at the events as the culmination and final endpoint of the crisis. Meanwhile, the January 6th Commission has subpoenaed Trump confidants and conspirators Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, and others, only to be stonewalled at every turn.

What we are watching is something we have seen time and again throughout history. A failed coup that, through continued momentum, sanctification as faith and movement, and the failure by those who should know better to head the threat off before it grows out of their control, is predictably and miserably heading toward completing its purpose of seizing power.

On that note, here’s hoping the January 6 Committee sends out the U.S. Marshalls for Steve Bannon and any other Trumpist who defies their subpoenas! U.S. democracy is in serious jeopardy.

What do you think? As always, this is an open thread.