Seth Abramson

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

76/ Luttig is giving Eastman *more* credit than he deserves by saying Eastman got "wrapped around the axle" by focusing on "historical precedent" rather than legal precedent. Luttig *needs* to make clear that *no attorney* would’ve read the "historical precedent" as Eastman did. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

75/ Rep. Aguilar tried to ask Luttig a yes or no question—and it *was* a yes or no question—but Luttig has treated it as an opportunity to go on the longest, *slowest* legal rant ever. I cannot believe any federal witness is *this tone-deaf* to his own deficiencies as a witness. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

74/ The fourth *big breaking news*: a document has been revealed showing Eastman *knew* his legal advice was wrong. He knew it before January 6. He knew his words would cause violence. He told Trump his recommendations would constitute a violation of law. Trump went ahead anyway. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

73/ The third *big breaking news*: on Insurrection Eve Jacob pressed Eastman about how he was wrong and told him Trump would lose 9-0 in SCOTUS. At first Eastman said he thought it would be 7-2—suggesting he knew how Thomas would vote—but then he *conceded* Trump would lose 9-0. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

72/ The second *big breaking news*: Rudy Giuliani admitted to Trump lawyer Hershmann on the morning of January 6 that Eastman was probably wrong in his analysis, and despite Eastman knowing him being wrong would cause violence *both men maintained their position* before the mob. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

71/ Aguilar reveals that Hershmann spoke to Guiliani on January 6; Hershmann says Giuliani *conceded* to him on the morning of January 6 that Eastman’s theory (which Eastman had been told would cause violence) was wrong and that Eastman’s critics were "probably right." — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

70/ To me, Eastman’s reply to Hershmann is the *big breaking news* of this hearing so far. That Eastman quote—accepting and *embracing* the possibility of violence—is something we haven’t heard before and is absolutely stunning. A game-changer. This was Trump’s top legal counsel. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

69/ Apparently Hershmann called Eastman "crazy" to his face and asked him, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Hershmann even told Eastman before January 6 that his words "would cause riots in the streets." To which Eastman replied, "there's been violence before in this country." — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

68/ Jason Miller (via depo), Short (depo), and Hershmann (depo) say that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone never agreed with Eastman and told him so. This is establishing that *not a single person in Trump’s orbit* thought Eastman was right. Miller says people thought it "crazy." — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

67/ Marc Short (via depo) testifies that even Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows agreed that Pence did not have the power Eastman and Trump claimed. But Short *also* allows that Meadows may have spoken out of both sides of his mouth and chosen to tell Trump something different. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

66/ Merely in *uttering* the notion that we’re actually an autocracy in which a sitting VP can choose the next President of the United States, Eastman and Trump were marking themselves as domestic enemies of the U.S. and un-American *villains* contesting against our democracy. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

65/ I want to expand on what Jacob is saying about the Trump/Eastman *lie* that the Constitution allowed one man to choose a President. You have to *hate* America—more than misunderstand it, but *hate* our democracy itself—to think the Founders would *ever* have supported this. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

64/ Jacob is now, much more fluidly, talking through the 12th Amendment and whether it allows a VP to reject electors. Easy summary: no, absolutely not, it never did and no one serious ever thought it did. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

63/ Mssrs. Wood and Aguilar must urgently pivot due to Luttig’s horrific manner of testimony: ONLY ASK HIM YES OR NO QUESTIONS. I do not mean cross-examine him, I mean *lead* him so he cannot and need not say more than one or two words at a time (and pray Luttig will play along). — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

62/ While many say the Electoral Count Act of 1887 is flawed (and it is), and while Trumpists claim that it contains vagaries that allowed Eastman to deliberately misinterpret it, none of those issues actually warranted anything Eastman *ever* said about it. Period. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

61/ I’ll summarize what Luttig is trying to say: the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—including as clarified by the Electoral Count Act of 1887—never gave or purported to give the Vice President of the United States *anything* beyond ceremonial duties during certification. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: 2/ This live thread is of course free. If, as you follow along between now and 3:30PM today, you feel moved to use the ti… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: 1/ At times I may make reference in this thread to evidence previously published in the nearly 200 reports on January 6 t… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🧵) LIVE THREAD: I’m live-tweeting today’s (Thursday’s) 1PM ET House January 6 Committee hearing. I’m a lawyer, journalis… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

60/ The Constitution and historical precedent never offered *any* basis, cover, or support for anything Eastman ever said about January 6. There. I said it. That is how long it takes to say it. We do not need live witnesses for *this*; this can be said by any attorney in seconds. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

59/ Candidly, Luttig is a terrible witness. He speaks slowly; is saying he needs notes he didn’t bring with him; is making simple legal judgments sound complex. This is what I’d feared (above): that we’d get bogged down in Trump and Eastman’s universally acknowledged *nonsense*. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

58/ Wood is a former law clerk of the very conservative Judge Luttig. Luttig is now explaining why Eastman’s legal judgments—Eastman is also a former Luttig clerk—were “incorrect at every turn.” To me, this should have been summarized rather than being the subject of testimony. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

57/ Staff Counsel John Wood and Rep. Aguilar (D-CA) will be conducting questioning of the witnesses now. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

56/ Luttig is taking a *very* long time to simply say—I will summarize—that everything Eastman said to Chesebro and then to Trump and later to Pence was a pile of s*** both legally and historically. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

55/ It appears that Eastman knew there were no real alternate electors. Cheney questions Luttig on this and Luttig confirms there was *never* any basis for *anyone* to acknowledge non-certified so-called alternate electors for Trump from any of the seven key battleground states. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

54/ Chesebro and Eastman falsely claimed there were 7 slates of alternate Trump electors; Jacob says there were no legally valid alternate slates of electors. Chesebro and Eastman’s emails—which Cheney *chose* to bring up—lead us to Eastman’s knowledge of non-public SCOTUS info. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

53/ Cheney discusses a Team Trump adjunct attorney, Kenneth Chesebro, who early on said Trump’s fake-elector scheme could have led (if Pence had gone along with Eastman and Trump) to slates of electors being rejected on January 6. Chesebro is also part of the Ginni Thomas news. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

52/ Luttig says Trump was about to plunge the United States into the first constitutional crisis in its history. To repeat: Luttig says this would have been the *first such crisis* in the *entire history* of our Republic. He is including (incredibly) the American Civil War. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

51/ Judge Luttig is the slowest speaker who has ever appeared before Congress in its history, I suspect. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

50/ Cheney asks Luttig to elaborate on his legal judgment that the course of action Trump proposed would launch the entire United States into chaos and revolution. This judgment was summarized in Luttig’s opening statement, which is in the record but won’t be read in full live. — PolitiTweet.org