Cassidy Hutchinson Is a Superb Witness — to Get Other Witnesses against Trump
According to a CNN report of Pat Cipollone’s testimony, the January 6 Committee did not ask him whether he told Cassidy Hutchinson that (as she testified), if “we” didn’t prevent Trump from going to the Capitol on January 6, “we” would get charged with every charge imaginable.
Two people familiar with former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s testimony Friday told CNN that the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, did not ask him if he told then-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson the day of the attack that they would “get charged with every crime imaginable” if they went to the US Capitol.
If asked, he would not have confirmed that particular statement, the sources said.
A separate source familiar with the committee told CNN, “The select committee sought information about Cipollone’s views on Trump going to the Capitol on January 6,” implying that the committee’s questions were focused on Cipollone’s perspective as opposed to his take on other witness’ testimony.
[snip]
Cipollone told the committee on Friday that he wasn’t giving legal advice to staff regarding movements on January 6. This came up during his testimony as part of a question not relating to the specific anecdote from Hutchinson.
It doesn’t mean that he didn’t say such a thing. Indeed, other outlets have said that he didn’t contradict anything she said. It means that, thus far at least, one of the six to ten witnesses who would be important witnesses to charge Trump for crimes beyond the obstruction and conspiracy charges framework DOJ has been explicitly pursuing since August is thus far unwilling to recall some of the more damning details of Hutchinson’s testimony. He may have reason to avoid it! After all, the pardons he was a party to before the insurrection — most importantly of Mike Flynn and Roger Stone — may implicate him in the later events, no matter how hard he tried on January 6 to prevent more bloodshed.
That’s an important detail to keep in mind as you read this NYT story, which has led the usual suspects to claim that DOJ has done nothing to pursue a Trump investigation.
The electrifying public testimony delivered last month to the House Jan. 6 panel by Ms. Hutchinson, a former White House aide who was witness to many key moments, jolted top Justice Department officials into discussing the topic of Mr. Trump more directly, at times in the presence of Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco.
In conversations at the department the day after Ms. Hutchinson’s appearance, some of which included Ms. Monaco, officials talked about the pressure that the testimony created to scrutinize Mr. Trump’s potential criminal culpability and whether he intended to break the law.
Ms. Hutchinson’s disclosures seemed to have opened a path to broaching the most sensitive topic of all: Mr. Trump’s own actions ahead of the attack.
Department officials have said Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony did not alter their investigative strategy to methodically work their way from lower-level actors up to higher rungs of power. “The only pressure I feel, and the only pressure that our line prosecutors feel, is to do the right thing,” Mr. Garland said this spring.
But some of her explosive assertions — that Mr. Trump knew some of his supporters at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, were armed, that he desperately wanted to join them as they marched to the Capitol and that the White House’s top lawyer feared Mr. Trump’s conduct could lead to criminal charges — were largely new to them and grabbed their attention.
Even while many took from this that DOJ is not investigating, the article — written by Katie Benner, probably the journalist with the best sources at the top of DOJ across administrations, and Glenn Thrush, whose background is as a political reporter and who exhibits little understanding of DOJ matters (but who is bylined on most of the stories about AUSA Thomas Windom) — also reported that Windom was asked to lead the fake electors investigation last fall, at least a month before Lisa Monaco confirmed it and possibly much earlier than that. It also describes that Merrick Garland was briefed on an “influencer” strand of the investigation in March 2021, which is consistent with when we know DOJ obtained Brandon Straka’s phone providing information on the Stop the Steal listserv, the VIP treatment, and possibly even events at the Willard.
Mr. Sherwin presented Mr. Garland with a strategy that included four teams of prosecutors, labeled A through D: “Team B,” already staffed by 15 lawyers, had begun looking into “public influencers and officials” linked to the attack, according to a copy of a memo shared with The New York Times.
There are strands of the investigation not mentioned in this — such as the Sidney Powell investigation, which started no later than September 2021, the way DOJ got a privilege review for Rudy Giuliani’s phones that would go through the insurrection, or the way Roger Stone has been a key focus of the Oath Keeper investigation since March 2021. And the piece doesn’t describe Monaco’s own public statement the day after Hutchinson’s testimony, which claimed, at least, that DOJ is “deep” into its January 6 probe.
All that said, I don’t doubt that Hutchinson did make DOJ consider previously unconsidered investigative next steps and I have even less doubt that former Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt, the lawyer who shepherded Hutchinson through her more expansive testimony to the Committee in late June, has been in touch with DOJ.
But back to the Cipollone point with which I started: As I noted in my review of Hutchinson’s testimony, she gave absolutely crucial firsthand testimony about Cipollone, Mark Meadows, and Tony Ornato, as well as damning comments about Rudy Giuliani and Scott Perry, but with a few exceptions, those men were and are still the ones who would have the firsthand testimony about what Trump said and did. I noted, too, that on the topic about which Hutchinson had the most important firsthand knowledge of Trump’s mindset — his demand that the Secret Service take down metal detectors so his armed supporters could enter the official venue for his speech — she acknowledged his motivation stemmed in significant part from his narcissism.
Hutchinson’s testimony on a really critical point includes some ambiguity. In conversations at the White House and then later at the rally, Trump saw the crowd on January 6 and was furious more of his supporters weren’t inside the arena. He was aware many supporters were staying outside the arena because they didn’t want to go through the magnetometers because they had weapons. He asked to ditch the magnetometers because “they weren’t there to hurt him.” This detail is most important because it reflect[s] knowledge on Trump’s part they were armed, before he riled them up and sent them to the Capitol. But in a trial, he would excuse letting them into the rally itself by pointing to his long-standing crowd narcissism, exhibited most famously at his inauguration.
Read that post! It holds up! Including my point that her testimony will be most valuable for getting the testimony of others like Cipollone and Ornato, and it’ll make whatever charges DOJ uses to coerce Meadows’ cooperation more onerous and therefore more likely to be effective.
I also noted that Hutchinson’s testimony would not have been available in its current form without the process she has been through since February, which has since been laid out in detail in this piece. That process not only involved replacing the lawyer Trump provided her with, Stefan Passantino, with Hunt, but also depended on growing trust with Liz Cheney.
Now unemployed and sequestered with family and a security detail, Ms. Hutchinson, 26, has developed an unlikely bond with Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and onetime aide to former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during the George W. Bush administration — a crisis environment of another era when she learned to work among competing male egos. More recently, as someone ostracized by her party and stripped of her leadership post for her denunciations of Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney admires the younger woman’s willingness to risk her alliances and professional standing by recounting what she saw in the final days of the Trump White House, friends say.
[snip]
Over the next months, Ms. Hutchinson warmed to the idea of helping the committee’s investigation, according to a friend, but she did not detect the same willingness in Mr. Passantino.
“She realized she couldn’t call her attorney to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got more information,’” said the friend, who requested anonymity. “He was there to insulate the big guy.”
Mr. Passantino declined to comment.
At that point Ms. Hutchinson got in touch with Ms. Griffin, who had been cooperating with the committee herself. Ms. Griffin passed on Ms. Hutchinson’s concerns to Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman and outspoken critic of Mr. Trump. In an interview, Ms. Comstock said that she could have predicted Ms. Hutchinson’s predicament, recalling how she had once talked a young man out of joining the Trump administration. “I said, ‘You’re going to end up paying legal bills,’” Ms. Comstock recalled.
Ms. Comstock offered to start a legal-defense fund so that Ms. Hutchinson would not have to rely on a lawyer paid for by Trump affiliates. But this proved unnecessary. Jody Hunt, the former head of the Justice Department’s civil division under Jeff Sessions — Mr. Trump’s former attorney general and another pariah in Mr. Trump’s world — offered to represent her pro bono. Mr. Hunt accompanied Ms. Hutchinson to her fourth deposition in late June, when she felt more comfortable talking about Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6. Everyone agreed it was time to speed up her public testimony.
Two realities have now taken hold for Ms. Hutchinson. One is that she will continue to offer information to the Jan. 6 committee, with Mr. Hunt as her counsel and Ms. Cheney as the committee’s designated interlocutor to her.
For better and worse, we’re all better off that Hunt will be sitting in on her DOJ interviews than Passantino, but we might not have gotten to this place without the involvement of Liz Cheney and other people, like Barbara Comstock, with whom this site has a very long contentious relationship.
So Hutchinson represents real progress — which is what the NYT story says! But the NYT story also makes clear that DOJ will continue to investigate known crimes, not people.
Days after Hutchinson’s testimony, I started but never finished a post attempting to revisit this framework for how DOJ seems to be approaching the investigation, included below in italicized type. They key point is that for each “nice to have” there’s the cooperation — coerced or voluntary — of a key witness who worked directly with Trump. Cassidy Hutchinson is not that witness. But she offers a way to get to those witnesses with a greater likelihood of success.
The other day, I noted that, while Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony was courageous and powerful, many of the details she provided would need additional corroboration (from people like Pat Cipollone, who has since been subpoenaed) before being used to prosecute Donald Trump. Nevertheless, her testimony has led people who haven’t followed the investigation to again engage in speculation that Merrick Garland is sitting in an office somewhere pondering whether to push the “indict Trump” button or not. That misunderstands how such a decision would work.
That’s true, first of all, because it would not be Garland’s button to push. It would be a team of AUSAs working for DC US Attorney Matthew Graves, who would first get Graves’, then Lisa Monaco’s, and only then Garland’s approval. If and when Trump is charged, DOJ will be able to point to some career AUSAs (including Thomas Windom, whom NYT described the other day as someone who clerked for a conservative judge) who made the initial prosecutorial decision.
At this point, too, I think the question is not whether Garland (or, rather, the AUSAs) are sure they can convict Trump et al.
Every single thing in the public record shows they’re still taking steps to pursue that investigation, in part by seizing more records and in part by obtaining the witness testimony they would need. A prosecution becomes far easier if Pat Cipollone cooperates, not least because — Hutchinson’s testimony revealed — he warned ahead of time that Trump was exposed with the very same crimes that DOJ has been pursuing against everyone since last summer. Cipollone could be compelled by DOJ to testify, but there’s no sign yet that he has been. I presume Cassidy Hutchinson’s lawyer, Jody Hunt (who was Assistant Attorney General under Trump and who saw how badly Trump treated his boss, Jeff Sessions) is already in discussions about arranging her cooperation with DOJ, and the kind of detail she provided about what Cipollone will get DOJ a step closer to where they would be ready to get Cipollone’s testimony.
Everything that’s public (and I’m sure there’s a lot that’s not) suggests DOJ is working towards five kinds of conduct that Trump would exposed on: 1) coordination — through Stone and, Tuesday’s testimony confirms something I’ve been virtually the only one reporting since early 2021, Rudy — with the militias 2) plans with Stop the Steal that significantly involve Alex Jones’ role in bringing bodies that the militias used to occupy the Capitol 3) the fake electors plot, which is the illegal manifestation of the larger Big Lie 4) pressure on Mike Pence, which includes both an illegal order and real threats of violence 5) the separate illegal request of Brad Raffensperger (which could be charged in GA as early as this week [note: This did not happen, and/but also she appears to have expanded her scope significantly]).
DOJ is making visible signs of progress with many of these prongs, but some of those visible signs suggest any charging decision would be six months away at least. The reason Garland has not pushed a button marked “indict” yet, or why AUSAs haven’t presented a package for approval up a bureaucratic chain of command, is because before DOJ indicts they need to have both the comms in hand, as well as the cooperating direct witnesses to Trump’s actions and intent.
thank you, Dr. Marcy Wheeler !!!
So what I don’t get here is that lawyers like Cippilone are supposed to be White House lawyers but doing a coup and overthrowing an election seems to be more of a Trump campaign issue. And it was, that’s why all these weirdos like Sidney, Flynn, Rudy, and the Overstock guy were there. When Cippilone was questioned do you think they asked him after every question how that related to White House and not Trump Campaign? I would not have been able to resist, and used it to rub in the fact that even participating in these campaign meetings about stealing the election including giving other people sitting in a campaign related meeting advice isn’t White House lawyers job, and was pro Bono work for the campaign basically.
Why not make it easier for Cippolone to cooperate further, and leave as much credibility intact as possible so if he does produce important testimony against Trump the jury believes him?
One other element of Hitchinson’s background isn’t getting a whole lot of attention. she knew and worked with Cheney in the past, well before the J6 committee got going.
Per wiki, she interned for Ted Cruz’s office in the summer of 2016, then Steve Scalise’s office in the summer of 2017 — when he was shot during a practice before the Congressional Baseball game — and then did an internship in the WH office legislative affairs in 2018 that led to a full time official position there. Meanwhile, 2018 is when Cheney became the House GOP Caucus chair (#3 leadership post behind #2 Scalise).
In her OLA post, Hutchinson clearly would have worked with both her old boss Scalice as well as Liz Cheney to push the WH agenda — or at least worked closely with their staff. Even if most of her work was with their staff, Hutchinson certainly got to know Cheney at that time, and that prior relationship is something that worked to the benefit of both Hutchinson and Cheney over the last few months.
One other thing about the chronology here that hadn’t hit me until now is the timing of her work in Scalice’s office and him being shot – it happened roughly a month into her internship. If she’s getting death threats since testifying — and I suspect she is — she has to be taking them seriously given what she dealt with on that internship. She knows there are crazies out there, and has seen what they are capable of doing.
Very much on point Peterr. But her familiarity also makes her a good J6 and DOJ witness since she knows how the protection game is played. Also, she is young, and from what little cursory info I’ve found (she grew up one town over from me), she doesn’t have much family.
That makes her a perfect witness for the prosecution/J6C, as there’s less to “threaten” other than her personal self. And that might be easier to overcome given any criminal liability she herself might have had and a sense of civic duty.
What a bleak thought, but you’re right. All the more so if her family isn’t invested in the GOP for their livelihoods.
I know re: bleakness.
I wish it weren’t so. But as you know as well, Dr. Wheeler, this isn’t just about politics any more. It’s taken me a few years to come to terms with it, but it is what it is. All the more reason to put horserace narratives to pasture.
And apparently her family were not upscale movers & shakers (despite the fact that the town where she grew up is upscale and it’s quite close to Princeton which is all about that)–so, there’s no subtle threats to anybody’s career path that can be made.
All the Ivy League schools are all about upscale movers and shakers even though Ted Cruz looked down on the “minor Ivies” when forming a study group at Harvard Law (thanks, Harvard and Princeton).
Drew, as I recall, Princeton was all about *looking like* “that,” but in fact had to accommodate housing for the numerous working-class people who staffed the university’s less-visible jobs. I knew many of them because I worked in the dining hall while there (many, many hours–had to pay my own way) and visited them off-campus in their decidedly not-fancy digs.
Pennington, where Hutchinson comes from, seems more homogeneous in terms of wealth (e.g., very low poverty rate, Jim Himes’ memories notwithstanding) but oddly silty when it comes to academic ambition. I’ve been trying to ferret out how Hutchinson was the first to go to college from her family (if that is true). It puzzles me still.
“This detail is most important because it reflect knowledge on Trump’s part …”
sb ‘reflects’ ?
is both in source and here ?
Do not expect an Indictment in Georgia “this week” (#5 listed above).
Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, asked for and got a special Grand Jury to investigate the Georgia vote interference by trump, your #5 above. But she cannot indict trump using this Grand Jury She needs a regular Grand Jury to issue an indictment. Willis has also subpoenaed some well-known figures (like Lindsay Graham) to testify to that special GJ. Graham and others will not cooperate without a fight.
Went back and added a note to that effect. Plus she has expanded her scope. I’ve heard September at the earliest now.
Great story! Thanks! The J6 cmte must have some effect on the DOJ investigations. But isn’t it obvious that the cmte’s impact on the _pace_ of DOJ investigations is to slow them down? Prosecutors hate to commit while evidence is still being collected because of all the bad things that can occur at trial — new evidence can impeach witnesses or make specific fact allegations in the indictment itself look dicey, etc., etc. In a complex case where there are multiple alternative ways to prove the main elements of any given charge and multiple alternative charges to bring, all the more reason to wait until the evidence is all known, or failing that, to wait as long as possible. Meanwhile, the cmte has different powers and rules than prosecutors, making it a new-evidence producing machine, and one that can’t be predicted using only prosecutors’ knowledge. Any wise prosecutor would let that process go forward as long as possible (statute of limitations, possibility of being shut down by a new government, etc.)
Yes, Lisa Monaco has made that crystal clear.
I think it has slowed the Proud Boys, but hastened other aspects.
6 months put DoJ past the midterms.
Those Republican men must lead lives of such constant fear and anxiety–afraid of Trump, afraid of the MAGA mob, afraid of Liz Cheney, and now afraid of young Ms. Hutchinson and anyone else she may inspire to step forward and demonstrate that the truth shall make you free.
The Atlantic has a great piece by Mark Leibovich on the motivations of Rep McCarthy, Sen Graham and others re: continuing to follow Trump. Not only the fear of those you cite, but also the fear of losing relevance.
Thanks! I’ll check out the article.
In the Pudding
Patsy Baloney fled from town
on a path so stony,
Stuck a cellphone in his cap
then returned with testimony.
CHORUS:
Patsy Baloney, keep it up,
Modus operandi:
Tumble from a jumbo cup
the juice that you have handy.
There he was in Washington,
A million eyes upon him,
Patsy Baloney’s washing hung,
as scoundrels’ prospects grew grim.
CHORUS
I guess he found his best off ramp,
We reckon that’s a good thing,
But lots of MAGA guys and gals
missed out on their plum pudding.
https://youtu.be/BQcKuHrWS10
“Yankee Doodle | The Joy of Second Year Piano”
Thank you, Savage L, for resisting what I fear will be the temptation to jump on the Cipillone The Savior bandwagon–not among us here so much, but among my TV friends, who rushed to praise Rusty Bowers before they found out he’d still vote for Trump.
Unless you came not to bury Patsy but to praise him?
The proof is in the pudding. I come not to bury Caesar, but to seize your berries. Patsy has a long way to go before I think well of him. But it is good that he showed up for his civic duty. And it seems to be having an impact, like a poison berry that might act as an irritant.
The number one question I want to see Tario answer,
Q. Who told you to have the Proud Boys dress in black on J6?
That was an integral part of the “coup plan” which he may or may not have know about. Plus, he’s just not smart enough.
The answer to that question leads closer to Trump, IMO.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username each time you comment so that community members get to know you. This is your second user name; you commented last as “Fossil Hunter.” Thanks. /~Rayne]
This is the operative question. My belief has always been that the PB were supposed to be the false-flag “Antifa” force. If the bombs had gone off, as I think was the plan, in the ensuing chaos the PBs were going to pretend to be Antifa rioting at the Capitol, and the mob plus the OKs were to be the heroes to save the day.
This is why they had to be in place prior to Trump’s instructions to the mob.
But for reasons not yet explained (cough cough DHS I&A investigations), the bomb plot was foiled. I think this might explain Trump’s delay that day as well as the PBs just standing around and conferring before it was decided to storm the Capitol.
J6, was IMHO, a failed Reichstag. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen again as people have pointed out wrt the Beer Hall Putsch.
Andrew Weissmann, who is rather well acquainted with DOJ and investigating Trump, expressed considerable doubt DOJ is carrying on the fulsome investigation into Trump’s likely criminality that you suggest it is.
Merrick Garland Should Investigate Trump’s 2020 Election Schemes as a ‘Hub and Spoke’ Conspiracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/opinion/january-6-trump-merrick-garland.html
Marcy fact-checked his article yesterday in her twitter feed – too much to copy and paste, but boils down to:
“Add Andrew Weissmann to the list of people commenting on DOJ’s Jan6 investigation w/o looking at the public record.”
Yup. Thanks for posting something I decided really wasn’t worth the time to debunk in the post. He complains there aren’t investigations into Flynn, Stone, Rudy, Eastman, and Clark. Those men are all being investigated.
He says DOJ should use grand juries. DOJ has used 6.
He misrepresents why DOJ is anxious to get transcripts: It’s to TEST their existing witnesses against what they said in other venues and to ensure they can meet discovery obligations.
So basically, he’s complaining that DOJ isn’t investigating this the way he would, when in fact they are.
Can’t tell you how much I hope you are right and Weissman is wrong. However, given DOJ’s manifest intent to not prosecute the several obstruction offenses Mueller detailed, and my finding wholly unpersuasive the theory that Barr rendered those cases unviable, I remain concerned.
Nobody in their right mind would prosecute off the Mueller report. That would be legally suicidal.
EmptyWheel Blog,
This is OT. It’s a response to EW’s tweet of earlier this day where she points out that the OK, and the PBs have members that are Black, Afro-Cuban, and Hispanic, and then says “calling them ‘white supremacist’ militias isn’t going to get you very far.” EW, you are wrong. (Whew, never imagined I’d hear myself say that!) You can be Black, Afro-Cuban, Hispanic, or other, and also be a white supremacist. I’m sure if you cast your memory back over the faces you’ve seen on TV this week you’ll find yourself going “hum.” If you are a member of a despised minority one of the handiest ways to make bank is to hire yourself out to the white supremacists, and repeat their talking points. Nothing a white supremacist loves more than saying, “It’s so sad… see, a member in good standing of group X thinks just like we do…”
Recall that the Irish and the Italians where not white when they first came to America, but became white. Saying to the white supremacist, “yah, we hate those (other) people just like you do.” is a handy way to strengthen your own position with the white supremacists. Or think of the Hispanics in the Rio Grande valley who are now voting Republican. (Many of their families have been on that ground for centuries.) Their concern is the border! They don’t want those dirty smelly Immigrants coming to their towns.
Race discrimination is a faceless machine. If you have the stomach for it you can grab the handles and divert part of its stream of money into your own pockets. The slum lords of Chicago used that machine to enrich themselves. (Family Properties, Beryl Satter, Picador, 2009) Almost all of them were white. Almost all, but not all. There were Black men who used that same machine to enrich themselves. (The machine doesn’t care) The stream of money they diverted to their pockets was the same stream of money, from the same source, the white slum lords got rich from.
DAT
I agree one can be Black and adhere to white supremacy.
I think these groups are more complex than that. Many of the Proud Boys are racist, all are misogynist, but most are fascists. They do recruit well among Latinos.
The Oath Keepers are, IMO, more racist. The Black defendants are sort of tangential. But conspiracy thinking is a big part of it too.
That said, there are a slew of outright racist groups represented there, including NeoNazis and neoConfederates. There were even people who got their head together when they realized they were aligning with Nazis.
That the dirty little secret about cops too, black and browns ones can be and are just as bad as the white ones. It is the authoritarian blue that counts.
Yes! The “thin blue line” is thick, and multi-colored. Our local Captain told a prosecutor on 7 Jan that 6 Jan was only the beginning.
In a white supremacist society where all the laws are made of, by, for whites, where does a BIPOC person have power to avoid being subjugated by those laws?
Hello, law enforcement.
It’s like the convert who is more Catholic than the pope: he has to constantly demonstrate that he belongs and leads to extremism.
EOH:
for instance, Bill Barr’s family?
Authoritarian followers are highly submissive to “legitimate” authority, a cowardly aggressiveness towards outsiders (as defined by their leader(s)), and a strong adherence to social conventions, again as defined by their leader(s). They tend to have much more difficulty than others when it comes to evaluating evidence and reaching logical conclusions. They are simultaneously dogmatic and nearly impervious to cognitive dissonance. That is, they can easily be dogmatic about self-contradictory ideas.
These traits are partly genetic. The specific expressions of those traits (racism, religious fundamentalism, anti-LGBTQ, misogyny, etc.) are manipulated in a very instrumental fashion by the authoritarian leaders. Effective authoritarian leaders meld disparate groups into a single violent force. That’s why Trump could get right-wing Christians and neopagans together; conservative women’s groups with the Proud Boys, etc. For authoritarian followers, submission to the leader is far more important than any particular ideology, bias, or religious belief.
These traits are partly genetic? Do you really want to go there, William?
Yes. Please understand that it’s the traits I described in the first paragraph, not the expressions of the traits that have a genetic component. Nobody’s born a racist, a religious fundamentalist, or a misogynist. People are taught those behaviors.
The claim that the traits are partly genetic is based the use of a standardized measurement for these traits that was originally developed by Bob Altemeyer. In twin studies, fraternal twins show the same amount of correlation as non-twin siblings while identical twins’ scores are much more highly correlated. That’s the classic way of determining whether there is a genetic component to personality traits.
Every attribute of, or act by, an animal has a genetic base – if that genetic base wasn’t there then that attribute or act couldn’t exist.
From that: Every trait must have a genetic basis.
Are you pointing above at different individual genetics changing the likelihoods of individuals being authoritarian ?
(I’ll state here that genes are utterly dependent on their environment for their expression.)
See my response to Ginevra diBenci above.
We’re going to have to talk more about the nature of internalized oppression and how that works on BIPOC/non-white Hispanic/Latinx to influence their participation in white nationalist groups.
Of course it also works on white women across the political spectrum, which is why some white liberal women are anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans, and why some moderate GOP women are misogynist/anti-abortion.
I think the overarching trait that ties all these groups together that you are looking for is “privilege culture.”
I define privilege culture as: believing that society should revolve around you & your needs; believing that you should be able to do or say whatever you want without regard for the well-being of others; believing that you should be free from the consequences of your speech or actions.
Historically in our society white males have commanded this privilege, but with society becoming more ethnically diverse, privileged patriarchal whites need to shore up their numbers by accepting anyone to their ranks who will kiss the ring of asshole culture.
Ms. Hutchinson is a heroine to me. And stands in stark contrast to the men she observed. Cippolone is trying to carve the pumpkin and keep the seeds in.
OT bmaz & others interested, did you see this this am:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/12/adam-schefter-espn-nfl-/
I read things like this for sports-media-as-microcosm of other MSM ills: the stakes are simplified, rendering everything quite clear while the self-same ethical blackholes (and societal reverbs) go on for days. Then there’s the anticipated-to-be relatively meager suspension for Watson vs. the year for Ridley — meanwhile Schefter & Kraft … and the league/ networks themselves _formally_ invest in or earn from gambling operations (besides the unseen lurking operands). Gotta keep the vices pure.
Chaser:
https://www.sbnation.com/2022/7/11/23203708/indian-scammers-faked-cricket-season-russian-gamblers
All of you need to realize that pro sports, and especially the NFL getting in bed with online betting networks, is basically allowing massive flows of mob money laundering to occur at scale. The online influencers cluing in the vox populi to things that are about to happen provides cover for the whales betting for the purposes of money laundering.
Thank you Marcy Wheeler! This is a fantastic piece of Investigative Journalism! Bravo.
Marcy, i’m a bit late getting here but want to point out that, while TFG’s defense might play it that way it’s entirely beside the point. Which is that, a) he knew that many of them were armed; and, b) he encouraged them to go to the Capitol. Full stop. The circumstances surrounding how he learned that many were armed are superfluous.
Indeed, one could say that his vanity, once again, tripped him up.
Lol. That is not at all accurate. Nothing is a “full stop”. Saying that is ludicrous.
No surprise that my comment would receive yet another insubstantial hit & run from bmaz. I wasn’t talking to you.
Lol, I did not hit and run you in the least. No running. I’ll be right here, where I have always been. What a craptastic response you have made. You said something stupid, and which you appear to know little to nothing about, as to DOJ and/or criminal process. THAT is what was “insubstantial”.