June 30, 2022

Rolling Stone reports that Trumpworld is very much on edge about their culpability for the Jan. 6th insurrection:

Tuesday’s hearing of the Jan. 6 committee turbocharged Trumpworld’s anxieties, as former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified about a string of damaging — and potentially criminal — activities Trump and his team engaged in in the run up to the Capitol attack.

“In the time since Cassidy testified, there has definitely been an uptick in chatter in [Trumpworld] about who is and who isn’t criminally exposed,” said a former senior Trump aide. “There are some people who don’t take these hearings or the DOJ probe seriously, and think of it as ‘Mueller Part 2’ or yet another example of the media getting over its skis. There are others who think that, whatever you think of the committee, criminal charges could easily come after all these testimonies and subpoenas. I count myself among the latter group, and Tuesday made me feel even more confident in the idea that we should all be preparing for the Biden Justice Department to really go after Trump people. This isn’t a joke, and should not be treated like one.”

Hutchinson, a former aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows, laid waste to the Trump team’s effort to shield themselves from any culpability in the Capitol Attack. Trump’s associates have sought to portray the attack as unforeseeable and totally disconnected from any official activities, claiming Trump disapproved of the violence and sought to quell it. Over the span of three hours, Hutchinson revealed that entire narrative to be a lie.

I don't know why former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney felt his hands were clean enough to comment on Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, but he was all over the online space, declaring it “explosive” and saying, "I don’t think she is lying.”

The Jan. 6 committee does not have the power to charge officials with crimes, but the Justice Department does, and MAGAland officials are watching the DOJ anxiously. The investigative team is pulling in prosecutors with lengthy résumés in counterterrorism and national security, Rolling Stone has learned. And for weeks, whispers of the inclusion of these nat-sec prosecutors have ricocheted around Trump’s professional circles, including in the halls of Donald Trump’s Florida and New Jersey clubs, three people familiar with the matter say.

“Why are they sending counterterrorism [professionals] after us?” asked the close Trump adviser connected to his 2020 and 2021 efforts. “Does that mean [the Biden DOJ thinks] we’re terrorists?”

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