News and Gossipy Bits

Committee really emphasizing key part of lead up to 1/6: Stop the Steal was ultimately top down, not bottom up. President preemptively declared fraud and looked to followers to backfill what kind with conspiracies later. It was not an organic response to some specific allegation.

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 13, 2022

"I didn't mind being categorized as part of Team Normal," Stepien testified re the other team, which was Giuliani's.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 13, 2022

Never stops being quite a thing to hear that Trump told Barr that he must "hate Trump"

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 13, 2022

Bill Barr says he told his secretary that he thought he'd be fired for telling the Associated Press that there wasn't widespread fraud in the election.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) June 13, 2022

Again: "knowingly." Trump was not tolerating any contradiction of his claims of fraud.

“If he really believes this stuff, I thought he’d lost contact, or become detached from reality,” Bill Barr says of Trump and election conspiracy theories.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) June 13, 2022

Not the defense some arm-chair criminal defense attorneys would have it be.

The committee has been criticized as looking to target Trump politically. They are not at all shying away from the fact that not a single one of them thinks Trump should be back in office, and that's part of what they're demonstrating here.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 13, 2022

Fitness for office is not necessarily a political stance. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. (No slight on Ms. Haberman intended. I mean this is a good conversation for the national polis.)

"There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were" -- Barr on Trump's state of mind after the election pic.twitter.com/P0Xkb4koOY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 13, 2022

"Knew or should have known."

And in Peter Navarro Watch:

Alex Cannon, former Trump campaign lawyer, says when he told Navarro there was nothing to the Dominion claims, Navarro accused him of being part of the "Deep State" working with Chris Krebs against the president.

— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) June 13, 2022

I suspect at this point Navarro is the only lawyer who would have him as a client.