THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2022

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Alex Holder

In a spectacular case of being in the right place at the right time, British filmmaker Alex Holder was filming a documentary about former President Donald Trump and his inner circle around Jan. 6, and captured footage that has been central to the current hearings on the Capitol Riot and will be released later in the summer.

That footage has been turned over to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, as they subpoenaed Holder due to his “extensive access” to the Trump administration before and after the Capitol attack. 

CNN -- a sister network to Discovery+ -- has released a trailer and numerous clips from the documentary, which is reportedly giving the Trump family "some anxiety."

Thanks to Holder, the Jan. 6 committee, as well as the public, now have access to illuminating footage of Trump's inner circle as he attempted to overthrow the 2020 election. 

On Wednesday, CNN released a clip of Ivanka Trump saying, “My father, he is very honest, and he is who he is.”

The video then cuts to Donald Trump Jr., who says, “He believes everything that he’s doing is right.”

Released footage also includes former Vice President Mike Pence's real-time reaction to demands he invokes the 25th Amendment against Trump -- to which he merely said, "Yeah, excellent." 

CNN and CBS aired additional clips from Ivanka's interview on Thursday night, which seems to contradict her testimony to the Jan. 6 committee. 

Holder also sat down with Lemon for an interview released Friday, during which he confirmed his belief that the Jan. 6 committee was interested in his footage to focus on "possible inconsistencies" from Ivanka.

Thanks to the already stunning footage, Holder will certainly continue his run as a media star while the hearings continue into July, and once his full documentary is released later this summer. 

MEDIA LOSER:
Maria Bartiromo

The Jan. 6 committee hearings are serving as a painful reminder of the role Maria Bartiromo played in spreading former President Donald Trump's baseless election fraud claims.

Bartiromo remained a loyal supporter of Trump in the weeks after his loss, despite the fact that several Fox News anchors rejected his claims of fraud. 

As highlighted by the hearings, she even continued to grant ample air time to Trump's conspiracy theories after Republican lawmakers and Trump-appointed judges already rejected the claim.

On the second day of the congressional hearings, the committee aired an infamous 2020 interview between Bartiromo and Trump, in which the former president claimed “big massive dumps” of ballots were used to rig the election. 

Mediaite’s Joe DePaolo condemned Bartiromo’s interview at the time, declaring that the “farcical interview with Trump marks the end of her days as a journalist.”

Reacting to the interview, CNN's Oliver Darcy said, “history will not remember people like Maria Bartiromo very well.”

It was later revealed that Bartiromo sent Mark Meadows questions she “planned to ask Trump” an hour before the interview aired. 

During Thursday's hearing, the committee presented video evidence to demonstrate how Trump and his Republican supporters pushed the claim that the Justice Department refused to investigate voter fraud.

Bartiromo was also included in that evidence, as the committee aired an interview showing her asking Trump why the DoJ was ignoring the claims. “Missing in action,” Trump replied. 

Bartiromo's delusional support of Trump, which already sparked lawsuits from voting systems companies, is now being repeatedly featured throughout the committee hearings. 

The A-Block

SCOTUS overturns Roe v. Wade

The Supreme Court has overruled the landmark reproductive rights cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

The court's ruling came with a 5-4 decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, stating, "The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

This decision confirms a draft decision that was written by Justice Samuel Alito and leaked to Politico on May 2nd.

All three broadcast networks cut in on regular programming to report the news. 

MSNBC anchorJosé Díaz-Balart and legal analyst Joyce Vance lamented the decision, with Vance calling Friday “a very dark day in America.”

Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley called the ruling a “victory” for both pro-lifers and former President Donald Trump.

On NBC, anchor Lester Holt tossed to correspondent Maura Barrett for a live report from the Supreme Court building, where activists from both sides of the spectrum had gathered.

“Tension has been building here between protesters here both for and against abortion rights this morning,” Barrett said.

The right to an abortion has been a federal statute in this country for nearly fifty years, and this decision will allow each state to decide for itself whether or not to outlaw the procedure.

There are already nearly a dozen Republican-controlled state legislatures that have either enacted abortion restriction legislation which will ostensibly go into immediate effect following this ruling. 

Justice Clarence Thomas has also already suggested that cases granting rights like contraception and same-sex marriage should be reconsidered under the same legal theory.

Read the full ruling here.

 

In Other News...

Mo Brooks Produces Email Asking For Blanket Pardons For Republicans Who Voted Not to Certify 2020 Election

Senate Passes Gun Bill – Here Are the 15 Republicans Who Voted ‘Aye’

Israeli Soldiers Killed Palestinian-American Journalist, United Nations Concludes

Former Attorney General Identifies ‘Smoking Gun’ For Criminally Charging Trump

Ratings: CNN Averages 500,000 Total Viewers as Fox and MSNBC Post Strong Numbers

Must See Clip

Criminal act?

Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue testified that former President Donald Trump directed his Justice Department to simply declare the 2020 general election “corrupt.”

According to Donoghue's testimony to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, Trump further said he and Republicans in Congress would take care of the rest.

While reports of this have been out for some time, Donoghue confirmed under oath that it did happen, offering contemporaneous notes as evidence.

Donoghue is not some member of “resistance Twitter,” nor is he a Never Trumper. He was a senior member of the Trump DOJ, largely because he was loyal to the Trump administration and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Yet, under questioning by Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, he admitted to the public under penalty of perjury, that the former president tried to pressure the Justice Department into declaring a fair election fraudulent so that he could remain in power.

As Amanda Carpenter said on Morning Joe Friday morning: “That shows that Trump was leading these schemes, directing them from the Oval Office, and not only just pressuring Justice Department officials.”

The revelation comes after Trump’s most senior official at the Department of Justice, Bill Barr testified that he told the former president the claims of election fraud were “bullshit.”

We now know that, after Barr left office, Trump told Donoghue to simply claim that the election was corrupt, to rubber-stamp his baseless allegation regardless of the truth.

Watch Donoghue's eye-opening testimony here

Links We Like

Vox explains history of Roe -- from 1973 to today
-Jillian Weinberger, Vox - Charlie Skyes, Bulwark 
Bethea explores how RICO Act is being used to target Young Thug
- Charles Bethea, New Yorker
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