The Insurrection Hearings

Wow!!!!!! How could this possibly have happened??????? SOMEONE TELL ME HOW AN NYPD OFFICER COULD HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE A VIOLENT FASCIST!!!!!! Who could possibly have anticipated that????? pic.twitter.com/ZohDAijFG4

— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) July 27, 2021

The Snark is Strong in This One

Today, we saw something that we have not seen since the Watergate hearings in the 1970s,^* Republicans on a committee investigation of the wrongdoing of a President who, a modicum of good faith.

Of course, the fact that these folks have been excommunicated from the Congressional Republican party, Liz Cheney was removed from her number 3 position in the caucus, and both her and Adam Kinzinger are being threatened with removal from all of their committee positions.

They have nothing to lose.

Today was the first day of hearings, and first up was Capitol Police officers relating their harrowing experiences.

This, and there are videos as well, and it's abundantly clear that this was not a group of tourists on holiday:

One officer described how rioters attempted to gouge out his eye and called him a traitor as they sought to invade the Capitol.

Another told of being smashed in a doorway and nearly crushed amid a “medieval” battle with a pro-Trump mob as he heard guttural screams of pain from fellow officers.

A third said he was beaten unconscious and stunned repeatedly with a Taser as he pleaded with his assailants, “I have kids.”

A fourth relayed how he was called a racist slur over and over again by intruders wearing “Make America Great Again” garb.

“All of them — all of them were telling us, ‘Trump sent us,’” Aquilino A. Gonell, a U.S. Capitol Police sergeant, said on Tuesday as he tearfully recounted the horrors of defending Congress on Jan. 6, testifying at the first hearing of a House select committee to investigate the attack.

One hopes that the committee gets phone and email records, because it's pretty clear that there was a lot more involvement of senior Republicans than has been revealed.

Subpoena Kevin McCarthy, put him under oath, and make him sweat.

^*The Republicans were not great at the Watergate Hearings, but not all of them were aggressively sabotaging the proceedings.