Jonathon Turley lost just about all credibility as a neutral legal analyst long ago. The MAGA apologist often sounds just as “owned” as Alan Dershowitz in offering up legal arguments that don’t make any intuitive sense to educated adults, never mind convince the legal community. And now, even when he does recognize serious problems stemming from the Select Committee hearings it still leaves one wanting to scream. Yesterday, Turley warned the Fox audience that everyone should be disturbed by the “breathtaking” hearing while managing to hide the real damage.
Turley pointed to the December 18th meeting between the “crazies” (as described by White House staff) and White House lawyers Cipollone and Herschmann, with Turley saying that it had all this chest-pounding and almost came to fisticuffs. He said that should be deeply disturbing to everyone. Except it isn’t illegal to almost come to fisticuffs, and though it’s juvenile and telling regarding Trump’s presidency, it is far less relevant from a legal standpoint than the fact that Trump ignored the official government lawyers that adamantly fought the insanity offered up by Powell and Giuliani (among others) and Trump’s takeaway was to vaguely reference making Sydney Powell, someone who literally wandered into the mix out of nowhere, as suddenly a special counsel with the power to arrest people. Turley also left out the fact that Trump left that meeting and issued his call to arms tweet, asking his troops to descend upon Washington DC, “it’ll be wild.” Clearly, Trump determined that there was no “official path” to retaining the White House through “p*ssy lawyers” (as Giuliani called them) and needed to revert to a more aggressive plan, the illegal one.
Any lawyer would point to Trump’s behavior in the meeting as evidence of Trump’s intent going into January 6th as deeply disturbing evidence of illegal stuff, crimes!
Additionally, Turley appears to have left out the fact that we learned that eleven GOP Representatives (One, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who wasn’t even a member of Congress yet) met with Trump two days later on December 21st to “sign-on” to the “Eastman plan,” in which they would pressure Mike Pence to toss aside the Constitution and all precedent, and perhaps agree to go even further. This “breathtaking” evidence shows that the criminal conspiracy broke free from the executive branch and involved some in Congress – including Fox stars like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz. The Congressional element likely resulted in Loudermilk’s apparent reconnaissance tour, even though Loudermilk didn’t attend the meeting at issue.
Last, it is deeply disturbing that the ex-president is wantonly tampering with witnesses and the hearing ended with news that Trump himself called a witness that we’ve yet to hear from (So it is likely someone close to Trump). But the witness refused to take the call and referred it to his or her attorney, who alerted the Committee, which evaluated it and referred it to the Justice Department, essentially screaming that the Committee believes Trump committed felony witness tampering. Turley focused on fisticuffs and chest-beating, something almost assumed in the Trump White House.
In a sense, Turley is still covering for MAGA and Trump. Turley is pointing to deeply disturbing juvenile behavior by a spiraling out-of-control White House instead of pointing out the devastating evidence of intent to commit a vicious crime on January 6th, proof of Trump’s state of mind. He should be readying the Fox audience for possible legitimate criminal charges. Turley certainly helped Trump by failing to note that witness tampering in and of itself is a felony and the matter was at least referred to DOJ.
MAGAs are quite comfortable with deeply disturbing Trump behavior and accept it as the trade-off for his greatness. But Fox viewers seldom hear that evidence of some of the most serious crimes is sitting right in front of their eyes. Turley being Turley.
Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley called today’s Jan. 6 hearings “breathtaking.”
“You’re in the Oval Office and people seem to be actually chest pounding. So this is very disturbing. All of these details should disturb everyone.” pic.twitter.com/EqvTKPWSdu
— David Edwards (@DavidEdwards) July 12, 2022
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.