Are you a liberal? Are you tired of Trump = Hitler analogies? Looking for a fresher historical comparison? Not to worry: MSNBC has got you covered!
On Nicolle Wallace's MSNBC show Wednesday afternoon, Tim Heaphy, the chief investigative counsel for the Nancy Pelosi-organized House January 6 committee, analogized Trump to . . . Osama Bin Laden!
Heaphy told substitute host Alicia Menendez the J-6 committee tried to model itself after the 9/11 Commission, to do "a credible nonpartisan account of what occurred." MSNBC doesn't tell you Heaphy was a staffer for Sen. Joe Biden and later, an Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney.
Heaphy huffed out his bizarre analogy, implying that just as Osama conspired to murder almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11, Trump was somehow the mastermind of the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6, where four people died, but only one died violently -- shot by a Capitol Police officer. (Policeman Brian Sicknick died of a stroke the next day.) Both days were terrible. One was much, much worse.
HEAPHY: In respect, with respect to 9/11, the commission found that there were failures of U.S. intelligence that perhaps should have been more acutely aware of the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. But that did not absolve Osama bin Laden and his conspirators from flying planes into the World Trade Center.
Very similarly, here we found that, sure, there were failings of law enforcement to share information, to operationalize the intelligence they had about the prospect of violence.
None of that absolves the proximate cause of the attack on the Capitol, which was President Trump and his co-conspirators.
Heaphy branded Trump the "proximate cause" of January 6th, along with his "co-conspirators." Heaphy failed to describe any specific statement or act by Trump that constituted that alleged proximate cause. Was it Trump telling the crowd at the rally that preceded the riot to march "peacefully" to the Capitol? Trump could have conceded that Biden won, but Trump's official and unofficial prosecutors never want to consider the defense lawyer's case. Any fact that benefits Trump's case is to be tossed into a trash bin called "Misinformation."
And whereas Merrick Garland-appointed special counsel Jack Smith, in his filing, analogized Trump to a bank robber who blames the security guard for failing to stop him, Heaphy upped the ante exponentially by analogizing Trump to the most infamous, mass-murdering terrorist in American history. Yup: it don't get no more non-partisan than that!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Deadline White House
12/27/23
4:02 am ETALICIA MENENDEZ: Tim, let's start with you. Jack Smith takes issue with what he calls Trump's habit of blaming other people for what happened on January 6th. I want to read just a little bit more for you from the filing.
Quote: "The defendant has signalled his intention to blame the events of January 6th on the Capitol Police, National Guard, and the district's mayor. Courts in this district have overwhelmingly rejected attempts by other January 6th defendants to shift the blame to law enforcement. As a legal matter, the alleged shortcomings of law enforcement do not sanction the defendant's criminal conduct. A bank robber cannot defend himself by blaming the bank security guard for failing to stop him. A fraud defendant cannot claim to the jury that his should have known better than to fall for his scheme. And the defendant cannot argue that law enforcement should have prevented the violence he calls an obstruction he intended."
Whooh! Tim, Trump trying to shift blame for January 6th, something the January 6th committee itself grappled with. Your reaction to this filing.
TIMOTHY HEAPHY: Yeah, Alicia, again, when we first started working on the select committee, we kind of looked at the 9/11 Commission as the gold standard, kind of sort of an example of what we were trying to do. Credible, non-partisan accounting of what occurred.
In respect, with respect to 9/11, the commission found that there were failures of U.S. intelligence that perhaps should have been more acutely aware of the threat posed by Al-Quaeda and Osama bin Laden. But that did not absolve Osama bin Laden and his conspirators from flying planes into the World Trade Center.
Very similarly, here we found that, sure, there were failings of law enforcement to share information, to operationalize the intelligence they had about the prospect of violence.
None of that absolves the proximate cause of the attack on the Capitol, which was President Trump and his co-conspirators. So we have heard this attempt to shift blame. Our committee found that it did not succeed. That the only reason that we had a riot at the Capitol was because of the, that was the final prong of a multi-step intentional plan to disrupt the session and prevent the power. The context of what law enforcement did or did not do in no way absolves the proximate cause.
