Most reports will tell you that Special Counsel Jack Smith testified for five hours today.
Yes, the TV show disguised as a congressional committee meeting ran that long, but for just how many of those 300 minutes did Smith speak?
Very few, as the Republican members kept immediately interrupting his attempts to answer to recite their talking-point lines with performative anger and indignation for Fox Noise and for their own campaign videos to air this fall.
Democrats also unleashed a few speeches, but they let Smith give detailed answers to their questions–some of which were the very same asked by a Republican only to stop Smith before he could answer.
The trick is older than Machiavelli. Cast a complex question as if the answer is yes or no, and when the answer begins with anything but yes or no, pounce on it and interpret it as the answer you want–in this case, to imply wrong-doing–and repeat the premise of your question. Today, Republicans were repeating their own questions so they could repeat the whole process. All of it loud and bellicose.
This is why they had so many questions about Cassidy Hutchinson, the White House staffer who testified before the Jan. 6 investigative committee. She admitted that a single statement in her exhaustive testimony was second-hand. Forget all the first-hand testimony she gave, that was all they needed to label her a “liar.” Because Smith interviewed her, it was guilt by association. And who would change that verdict when, later, answering a Democrat who allowed for a thoughtful, thorough answer, Smith would reveal that Hutchinson’s testimony was not used in his charges?
Repetition may have been the biggest trick. As a trick constantly played by Trump every time he speaks or tweets, it is logical that his cult employs it. How many times did they decry the Jan. 6 Committee as “being appointed entirely by Nancy Pelosi” or for having no loyal Republicans on it? I don’t recall one Democrat objecting that Republicans themselves refused to participate. Do Democrats think that the American public remembers that? Or ever knew it?
More than one Republican also cited a timeline to accuse Smith of “a rush to judgment” to “interfere with the election.” Not once did a Democrat mention that Biden’s Justice Dept., thanks to the selection of a cadaver as Attorney General, dragged its feet for two years for fear of being charged with “politicizing the department.” Even in the face of death threats to local poll workers. Silence here may be more understandable, as Democrats would be faulting the administration of one of their own. But their fear of being charged with politicizing” has led directly to their being charged with, yes, “politicizing.”
At one point, Smith answered the charge with this gem: “It’s not incumbent on a prosecutor to wait until someone gets killed.”
Other than these lapses, Democrats did quite well. Raskin was inspiring as always, Swalwell the most damning by pointing out that Republicans, “including members of this panel,” trash Trump in private but do his bidding in public. (Speaking of charges that went unanswered!) Moscowitz of Florida deserves an Oscar for comic relief, most hilariously his exchange with Raskin ending with an incisive if sarcastic, “You mean, like Gore in 2000?”
Perversely, Republican Nehls of Texas could be considered hilarious with his bonkers claim that the Capitol Police leadership was to blame for the riot–but that’s unwitting, befitting a witless cult. He announced that he would be the chair of a committee that would prove it, which is also a sick joke. Nor was there anything funny about such a remark being directed at four Capitol police officers, who had been slurred and/or beaten on Jan. 6., sitting right behind Smith in the front row. Apparently, yet another part of Trump’s rewrite (i.e. cover up) of the event will be to make the higher ups of the police force responsible for their “lack of preparedness” that day.
When the show was over, cameras caught those four officers standing at the door to shake hands with Smith. Nothing funny about what all five of those men endured for those five hours, but the sight recalled Moscowitz’s gleeful mention that he would be on Nehls’ committee when he introduced himself to Smith.
Smith never laughed. He never smiled. He never raised his voice. And over five hours, I doubt he spoke fifty minutes.
-763-
Mouth of the River 