Well, what actually happened today is that they sent a letter to his daughter Ivanka, which is the next best thing to going on Hannity and looking directly into the camera and addressing the former president himself and speaking as slowly as possible. If you’ve got the time, I suggest you take a look at it yourself. A link to it can be found here:
“I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.”
from the Lion in Winter; Geoffrey Plantagenet speaking to his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after their insurrection plot is discovered by Henry.
The committee is bearing down on Trump through the one person in the entire world who matters to him-Ivanka. He will get the message, because they're smart that way.
If nothing else it will make her run screaming to Trump: "Daddy, the mean men are threatening me, help! I don't know what to wear!"
And I'd be putting on a life jacket myself. They've got him in a corner. The Titanic is sinking..
How I love The Lion in Winter. Thanks for the memorable (and pertinent) quotes. Here’s another one that describes Trump in a nutshell: “You love nothing. You are incomplete. The human parts of you are missing. You're as dead as you are deadly.”
Now the question that comes to my mind is this: Who throws whom under the bus? Who is going to drive that bus? Where is it going to go? Or to use Lucian's analogy, substitute "ship" for "bus."
So in reading the letter, I see something I used to do as an investigative reporter at The Washington Post. Whenever you were about to publish, you had to look at the evidence you'd gathered, and make a hard-nosed, impartial assessment of who could know something about the evidence, but you hadn't asked, because, well, it was "obvious" they would never speak to a Washington Post reporter. Then you put all your evidence in writing, and made sure this person or persons received the written questions. Nine times out of ten, they would not respond. But if you didn't ask, your story was imperiled from a libel standpoint, and a moral one. The committee has to ask her. Doesn't mean they expect an answer. Doesn't mean they are "sending a message" to her father, imho
I'm thinking of the trial lawyer's maxim that it's generally a bad idea to ask questions when you aren't pretty sure of the answer. Lorraine's explanation makes perfect sense, but I also agree with Lucian that "the target of the letter isn’t really Ivanka, it’s her father." And not just her father: it's sending a message to everyone involved who either refuses to testify or is thinking of lying when they do. (Do any of us believe for an instant that Trump would read anything this long, or that he gets the concept of footnotes?)
I seem to recall seeing the movie A Lion in Winter back in my law school years, I recollect that it was a charming mosaic of intrafamily malice and intrigue, with some very enjoyable repartee. I would suppose that the Trump family was very much like that, except that there was no Katherine Hepburn to play the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine, King Henry Plantagenet's estranged wife who's been shut up in a castle for the previous ten years, because neither of them could stand one another; and intellectually, she was head and shoulders over him. This woman was as formidable as they come. Ivanka, not so much; you just need to make sure that she doesn't steal the family silverware on her way out the door.
Ivanka Trump has nothing on Eleanor; both were schemers, but Ivanka is the one who lets the hired hands do the dirty work. Now she's being brought up close and personal with the House Insurrection Investigative Committee lawyers; and she doesn't know quite what to do. Being her father's Girl Friday, she knows a thing or two about skullduggery, but getting her fingernails all dirty is not her forte. She's going to be asked a lot about things that she saw going on in the Oval Office, stuff that she was not party to but knows about, so it's going to be tough making the case that she has an arguable claim for privilege under the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination; that being said, if she tries any monkey business the committee might just decide to give her testimonial use immunity for anything that she might say during the course of an interview. It is also conceivable that, since she's a whole lot smarter than Donald (which isn't saying much), she knows that if she lies about what she saw, the Justice Department would be more than happy to indict her for perjury, and that could open the door to a lot of other crimes in which she did have a pivotal role, along with her doofus husband Jared. If he gets roped in, then the ball really gets rolling. The last thing Ivanka needs is to have Jared as a codefendant on a government substantive government fraud charge.
I can easily see someone like Adam Schiff telling Ivanka that the committee really has no official interest in finding out what she did during the four years her father was President, and that the best way for her to help herself would be to simply answer the committee's questions fully and truthfully, and then leave quietly through the rear entrance to the building. That would probably be good advice, given the collateral nature of her entanglements with the Trump administration's end game; but if she makes a big stink, things could go south very quickly. I'm thinking that Ivanka will basically give the committee what they want, especially if they make it seem that her live testimony at a committee public hearing might not be required. Ivanka will probably be able to corroborate information about Team Trump obtained from other sources. What would not be helpful would be to have Ivanka called to testify at a public hearing and have her show up looking like Madonna. We want the media reporters to keep their pants on, and their minds focused on what the witnesses say, not what they might be wearing.
You might want to revisit _Lion in Winter_. ;-) I've seen it several times over the years, and also worked on a local production: the principals didn't make you forget O'Toole and Hepburn, but they held their own. IMO the only thing the Trumps have in common with the Plantagenets is that they're a family. It's also worth remembering that Henry didn't have Eleanor locked up because they couldn't stand each other but because she was a threat to his throne. That's a main theme in the movie: she *is* a threat to the throne, and so are their sons, but who's conspiring with whom? If anything like that was going in in the Family Trump, I'd like to hear about it -- but I don't think any of them are clever enough to pull off a good plot.
Agreed that the Trumps have the intelligence of fleas, but being feral has certain survival advantages. Watching them plot a coup would be like reimagining them as Jackie Gleason and Art Carney in an updated Honeymooners sketch. Not something to play for laughs, but certainly as clueless.
As much as I would like to see Ivanka testify truthfully to what she saw , knew and participated in before the insurrection I believe the chances of her actually appearing are slim and none and if she does a sit down all the Committee is going to hear is a lot of the "On advice of Counsel........."
What we are going to be faced with, IMHO, is in January 2023 a Republican House will dispense with this committee and whatever work it has done will be consigned to the dust bin of history unless, of course, DOJ has begun criminal charges against those parties like Ms. Trump who refused to cooperate voluntarily. That would give Justice two more years to work on getting whatever she knows on the record. Absent that she and the likes of Bannon , Meadows and Rudy are simply going to stonewall and hope they can run out the clock.
The letter to Ivanka is surprisingly detailed. And for the Trumps, ominous. Ivanka will not likely answer the questions even if she has to take the Fifth. But what Ivanka does or does not do is unimportant. The letter is a chess move by the Select Committee and I am so relieved by it. You never know with Washington when something is being left to rot in silence while the twenty four hour news cycle moves on to the next new shiny thing. So this letter says to me that the Committee is actively gathering evidence that will support to exposing and perhaps indicting some of the Trump White House malefactors.
The point of the Jan 6th Committee is to put into the Congressional Record facts and information that future generations can read and understand. The Trump family and supporters will be forever stained as corrupt and a gang of Grifters. They are their worse enemy, they will defeat themselves.
Prosecution of Trump might come from Georgia. The fact the Fulton County D.A. is going forward is notable. Big money in Georgia is clearly unhappy with Trump.
t-RUMP does make me sorry that I don't believe in the physical existence of hell. It would be wonderful to believe that he'd be subjected to infernal tortures in eternity!
Few would be more worthy! (And I agree that it's immaterial if there's a physical Hell or not. Hell is a mansion of many rooms, to paraphrase another philosopher.)
If you are totally disdainful of the constitution, are you allowed to continually hide under its privilege? The Jan 6 committee sees all, knows all and hopefully will just scare the bloody crap out of them. Then DOJ can take over.
“JANUARY SIXTH 2021” an MGM production with a criminal cast of 1000s.
One more chance for liberals (like me) to think we have "gotcha" on drump. It never happens. I'm counting on the NY and GA state officials to actually get some traction, and that will not be limited by the fake DOJ guidance on indictment of a president.
What that would suggest to me is that none of the testimony about the pre–Jan. 6 planning has put Ivanka in the loop, or the room. They're mainly asking questions they know the answers to. That's why "shot across the bow" is a pretty good description.
What makes anyone think she will comply? And if by some chance she does, she will evade, deflect, deny and lie, lie and then lie some more, or else plead the Fifth. They will get NOTHING out of her. She's Daddy's Girl forever.
I thought the column made it pretty obvious that they don't need her testimony. Every question they asked her was about something they had already taken testimony about or received documents on. As I said, it wasn't really a request to Ivanka. It was a warning to Trump.
The letter seemed unusually informative, beyond just asking for ivanka's attendance. It almost shouts out to her that she would be in dire risk of perjury if she says anything because the committee already knows what her true answer should be. As an offshoot this dire risk will also be seen by others whom the committee is/will be interviewing.
The letter goes into good detail on different angles of the committee's investigation, even stating they have a subcommittee just examining the timeline of the calls (or absence of) to obtain help from the national guard.
I see the items in the letter as pieces set out as in the classic game of Go where each one is strategically placed to encircle the target.
It is certain that ivanka will rush to her daddy and talk about every thing in the letter and more. That is indeed the purpose if the letter.
It will be interesting to see what reactions will be made by the various bit players and of course by the main player himself. Like the game of Go there are all sorts of paths of attack to play out here, to harrass the opponent, to encircle one by one parts of the opponent.
She runs the risk of a Contempt of Congress charge and referral to the DOJ for obstruction and/or perjury. And she knows orange is NOT the new black...
I do not believe that she, or any of the t-Rump family, feel the slightest obligation to even show up, much less to tell the truth under oath. Didn’t Eric plead the Fifth something like 500 times recently? This family believes it is above any law, and so far, they’ve been correct about that.
I translated it as the following:
“I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.”
from the Lion in Winter; Geoffrey Plantagenet speaking to his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after their insurrection plot is discovered by Henry.
The committee is bearing down on Trump through the one person in the entire world who matters to him-Ivanka. He will get the message, because they're smart that way.
If nothing else it will make her run screaming to Trump: "Daddy, the mean men are threatening me, help! I don't know what to wear!"
And I'd be putting on a life jacket myself. They've got him in a corner. The Titanic is sinking..
As Eleanor said, every family has it's ups and downs.
How I love The Lion in Winter. Thanks for the memorable (and pertinent) quotes. Here’s another one that describes Trump in a nutshell: “You love nothing. You are incomplete. The human parts of you are missing. You're as dead as you are deadly.”
Now that you mention it, the Trump boys remind me of John.
Or, try this famous insult:
An empty car pulled up to the curb, the Trump boys got out.
OMG! “I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.”
You made my day…my weekend…and quite possibly my entire next week!
"...I don't know what to wear!". THAT is a wicked line. Thanks for the laugh - as gruesome as it is!
And now I know one movie I have to see again!
I totally identified with Geoffrey, even though I'm not a middle child.
Anthony Hopkins as a precocious son!
Now the question that comes to my mind is this: Who throws whom under the bus? Who is going to drive that bus? Where is it going to go? Or to use Lucian's analogy, substitute "ship" for "bus."
So in reading the letter, I see something I used to do as an investigative reporter at The Washington Post. Whenever you were about to publish, you had to look at the evidence you'd gathered, and make a hard-nosed, impartial assessment of who could know something about the evidence, but you hadn't asked, because, well, it was "obvious" they would never speak to a Washington Post reporter. Then you put all your evidence in writing, and made sure this person or persons received the written questions. Nine times out of ten, they would not respond. But if you didn't ask, your story was imperiled from a libel standpoint, and a moral one. The committee has to ask her. Doesn't mean they expect an answer. Doesn't mean they are "sending a message" to her father, imho
I'm thinking of the trial lawyer's maxim that it's generally a bad idea to ask questions when you aren't pretty sure of the answer. Lorraine's explanation makes perfect sense, but I also agree with Lucian that "the target of the letter isn’t really Ivanka, it’s her father." And not just her father: it's sending a message to everyone involved who either refuses to testify or is thinking of lying when they do. (Do any of us believe for an instant that Trump would read anything this long, or that he gets the concept of footnotes?)
Yes, the question gets published, the non-answer speaks for itself.
Voila!!!
Gee…her lawyers will have to explain that she can’t claim privileges as The Wife!
The question is: Do they have enough to convince her that Daddy Dearest will throw her under the bus if he needs to?
I seem to recall seeing the movie A Lion in Winter back in my law school years, I recollect that it was a charming mosaic of intrafamily malice and intrigue, with some very enjoyable repartee. I would suppose that the Trump family was very much like that, except that there was no Katherine Hepburn to play the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine, King Henry Plantagenet's estranged wife who's been shut up in a castle for the previous ten years, because neither of them could stand one another; and intellectually, she was head and shoulders over him. This woman was as formidable as they come. Ivanka, not so much; you just need to make sure that she doesn't steal the family silverware on her way out the door.
Ivanka Trump has nothing on Eleanor; both were schemers, but Ivanka is the one who lets the hired hands do the dirty work. Now she's being brought up close and personal with the House Insurrection Investigative Committee lawyers; and she doesn't know quite what to do. Being her father's Girl Friday, she knows a thing or two about skullduggery, but getting her fingernails all dirty is not her forte. She's going to be asked a lot about things that she saw going on in the Oval Office, stuff that she was not party to but knows about, so it's going to be tough making the case that she has an arguable claim for privilege under the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination; that being said, if she tries any monkey business the committee might just decide to give her testimonial use immunity for anything that she might say during the course of an interview. It is also conceivable that, since she's a whole lot smarter than Donald (which isn't saying much), she knows that if she lies about what she saw, the Justice Department would be more than happy to indict her for perjury, and that could open the door to a lot of other crimes in which she did have a pivotal role, along with her doofus husband Jared. If he gets roped in, then the ball really gets rolling. The last thing Ivanka needs is to have Jared as a codefendant on a government substantive government fraud charge.
I can easily see someone like Adam Schiff telling Ivanka that the committee really has no official interest in finding out what she did during the four years her father was President, and that the best way for her to help herself would be to simply answer the committee's questions fully and truthfully, and then leave quietly through the rear entrance to the building. That would probably be good advice, given the collateral nature of her entanglements with the Trump administration's end game; but if she makes a big stink, things could go south very quickly. I'm thinking that Ivanka will basically give the committee what they want, especially if they make it seem that her live testimony at a committee public hearing might not be required. Ivanka will probably be able to corroborate information about Team Trump obtained from other sources. What would not be helpful would be to have Ivanka called to testify at a public hearing and have her show up looking like Madonna. We want the media reporters to keep their pants on, and their minds focused on what the witnesses say, not what they might be wearing.
You might want to revisit _Lion in Winter_. ;-) I've seen it several times over the years, and also worked on a local production: the principals didn't make you forget O'Toole and Hepburn, but they held their own. IMO the only thing the Trumps have in common with the Plantagenets is that they're a family. It's also worth remembering that Henry didn't have Eleanor locked up because they couldn't stand each other but because she was a threat to his throne. That's a main theme in the movie: she *is* a threat to the throne, and so are their sons, but who's conspiring with whom? If anything like that was going in in the Family Trump, I'd like to hear about it -- but I don't think any of them are clever enough to pull off a good plot.
Agreed that the Trumps have the intelligence of fleas, but being feral has certain survival advantages. Watching them plot a coup would be like reimagining them as Jackie Gleason and Art Carney in an updated Honeymooners sketch. Not something to play for laughs, but certainly as clueless.
As much as I would like to see Ivanka testify truthfully to what she saw , knew and participated in before the insurrection I believe the chances of her actually appearing are slim and none and if she does a sit down all the Committee is going to hear is a lot of the "On advice of Counsel........."
What we are going to be faced with, IMHO, is in January 2023 a Republican House will dispense with this committee and whatever work it has done will be consigned to the dust bin of history unless, of course, DOJ has begun criminal charges against those parties like Ms. Trump who refused to cooperate voluntarily. That would give Justice two more years to work on getting whatever she knows on the record. Absent that she and the likes of Bannon , Meadows and Rudy are simply going to stonewall and hope they can run out the clock.
The letter to Ivanka is surprisingly detailed. And for the Trumps, ominous. Ivanka will not likely answer the questions even if she has to take the Fifth. But what Ivanka does or does not do is unimportant. The letter is a chess move by the Select Committee and I am so relieved by it. You never know with Washington when something is being left to rot in silence while the twenty four hour news cycle moves on to the next new shiny thing. So this letter says to me that the Committee is actively gathering evidence that will support to exposing and perhaps indicting some of the Trump White House malefactors.
The point of the Jan 6th Committee is to put into the Congressional Record facts and information that future generations can read and understand. The Trump family and supporters will be forever stained as corrupt and a gang of Grifters. They are their worse enemy, they will defeat themselves.
Prosecution of Trump might come from Georgia. The fact the Fulton County D.A. is going forward is notable. Big money in Georgia is clearly unhappy with Trump.
And the long time Georgians say:
Herschel a Republican???
This gives me hope we're not eventually penning lyrics to "The Unsinkable Donny Trump."
When the ship goes down, I will be humming "Nearer, my God, to thee..."
I'll be singing along with the Hallelujah Chorus!
Trump will be needing to sing his song to Satan.
t-RUMP does make me sorry that I don't believe in the physical existence of hell. It would be wonderful to believe that he'd be subjected to infernal tortures in eternity!
Few would be more worthy! (And I agree that it's immaterial if there's a physical Hell or not. Hell is a mansion of many rooms, to paraphrase another philosopher.)
True…but who measures the number and size of those rooms? See: SDNY current dossier on the Trump Family Singers’ enterprise.
He lives in DeSantistan, don't forget!
Perhaps she’ll fill Twitter with bathing suits of her. Wearing high heels from her new shoe brand Daddy’s Face…..
🤣
If this is a shot over the bow, let us hope the torpedo is following close behind.
Mixed media! <g>
If you are totally disdainful of the constitution, are you allowed to continually hide under its privilege? The Jan 6 committee sees all, knows all and hopefully will just scare the bloody crap out of them. Then DOJ can take over.
“JANUARY SIXTH 2021” an MGM production with a criminal cast of 1000s.
One more chance for liberals (like me) to think we have "gotcha" on drump. It never happens. I'm counting on the NY and GA state officials to actually get some traction, and that will not be limited by the fake DOJ guidance on indictment of a president.
After reading this https://thegailygrind.com/2020/11/27/former-apprentice-staffer-claims-trump-soiled-himself-on-set-required-diapers/ I have to wonder who was the White House Wet Wipe person. I doubt it was Ivanka but Jared is a possibility.
Well...THAT was a nauseating read! No doubt his worshipers would line up to wipe his sacred ass.
Can we blame Mark Burnette? He told all in The New Yorker a few years ago, what a read!
And they asked her nothing about her knowledge of what she heard about plans for January 6 before January 6?
What that would suggest to me is that none of the testimony about the pre–Jan. 6 planning has put Ivanka in the loop, or the room. They're mainly asking questions they know the answers to. That's why "shot across the bow" is a pretty good description.
Good point!
What makes anyone think she will comply? And if by some chance she does, she will evade, deflect, deny and lie, lie and then lie some more, or else plead the Fifth. They will get NOTHING out of her. She's Daddy's Girl forever.
I thought the column made it pretty obvious that they don't need her testimony. Every question they asked her was about something they had already taken testimony about or received documents on. As I said, it wasn't really a request to Ivanka. It was a warning to Trump.
yes.
The letter seemed unusually informative, beyond just asking for ivanka's attendance. It almost shouts out to her that she would be in dire risk of perjury if she says anything because the committee already knows what her true answer should be. As an offshoot this dire risk will also be seen by others whom the committee is/will be interviewing.
The letter goes into good detail on different angles of the committee's investigation, even stating they have a subcommittee just examining the timeline of the calls (or absence of) to obtain help from the national guard.
I see the items in the letter as pieces set out as in the classic game of Go where each one is strategically placed to encircle the target.
It is certain that ivanka will rush to her daddy and talk about every thing in the letter and more. That is indeed the purpose if the letter.
It will be interesting to see what reactions will be made by the various bit players and of course by the main player himself. Like the game of Go there are all sorts of paths of attack to play out here, to harrass the opponent, to encircle one by one parts of the opponent.
Yes, that was clear. I was simply predicting Ivanka's behavior IF she's ever called on to testify under oath.
She runs the risk of a Contempt of Congress charge and referral to the DOJ for obstruction and/or perjury. And she knows orange is NOT the new black...
I do not believe that she, or any of the t-Rump family, feel the slightest obligation to even show up, much less to tell the truth under oath. Didn’t Eric plead the Fifth something like 500 times recently? This family believes it is above any law, and so far, they’ve been correct about that.
We shall see. Lucian's column makes it clear that the J6 committee has the goods. Al Capone thought he was above the law, too.