This week, Our Body Politic presents a special episode where Farai exclusively speaks to former Watergate prosecutor, legal expert and MSNBC analyst Jill Wine-Banks about the House Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Wine-Banks offers insight into the shocking evidence that is coming out of the ongoing public hearings, the real life harm election officials are facing across the country due to disinformation, and answers OBP listeners questions surrounding the proceedings and what the outcome could mean for the future of U.S. democracy.
Farai Chideya:
Hi, folks. We are so glad that you're listening to Our Body Politic. If you have time, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcast. It helps other listeners find us, and we read them for your feedback. We are here for you, with you and because of you. Thank you. This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya.
Farai Chideya:
This month has been a big one for democracy. The Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attacks on the United States Capitol began airing its investigations in primetime. What's at stake is nothing less than understanding how a group of lawmakers, white nationalists and political funders work together to bring the United States to the brink of rejecting the lawful vote of the people and achieving what is sometimes called a self coup when a leader, in this case, Donald Trump, tries to stay in power after being voted out. More and more evidence shows that many proponents of the false assertion that Trump won in 2020 knew that they had no evidence even as they push the idea. Some began planting the seeds for the dispute before the election was tallied.
Farai Chideya:
The investigating committee is chaired by Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and includes six other Democrats and two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, but most Republican lawmakers on the Hill have kept their distance from the committee hearings, in some cases refusing to testify. A wide variety of public figures and state officials did testify, including Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the House for the State of Arizona. Bowers spoke about his conversation with Trump advisor and former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
Rusty Bowers:
He said that they did have proof, and I asked him, "Do you have names?" For example, we have 200,000 illegal immigrants, some large number of five or 6,000 dead people, et cetera, and I said, "Do you have their names?" Yes. "Will you give them to me?" Yes. The president interrupted and said, "give the man what he needs, Rudy," He said, "I will," and that happened on at least two occasions, that interchange in the conversation.
Farai Chideya:
Bowers also added...
Rusty Bowers:
"My recollection," he said, "we've got lots of theories. We just don't have the evidence." I don't know if that was a gaff or maybe he didn't think through what he said, but both myself and others in my group, the three in my group and my counsel, both remembered that specifically and, afterwards, we laughed about it.
Farai Chideya:
Despite saying that Trump's team had no basis for their claim of election fraud, Bowers also said that, if Trump ran for president again, he would vote for him. That level of loyalty to an administration which pursued false claims of election fraud is key to understanding the two-party system today and the insurrection.
Farai Chideya:
By the way, our recording this week might sound a little less refined than usual. I was exposed to someone who has COVID, so I'm recording from home instead of our studio and, back on topic, to help us understand the hearings and the stakes for democracy, this week, we're devoting an entire episode to my conversation with Jill Wine-Banks, who was the only female prosecutor on the Watergate team. She has gone on to hold many key roles, including becoming the first female US General Counsel of the Army. She's now an analyst on MSNBC and co-hosts two podcasts, iGen Politics The #SistersInLaw Podcast.
Farai Chideya:
It's also just been the 50th anniversary of the Watergate hearings, so welcome, Jill.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Thank you so much for letting me be here.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. I mean, we got a lot of listener questions, and we're going to be able to share just a few of them with you. We're really grateful you can speak to that, but let's start with the big picture. What is the ultimate purpose of the House Select Committee hearings investigating January 6th?
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think there are a number of purposes. One is to define for the American people what happened and to let voters be informed before they vote in the next elections. There is also the purpose of passing new legislation to correct the gaps in our laws that allowed the terrible things that have happened recently to happen. I think those are the two principal purposes. The third purpose supposedly is to inform the Department of Justice about exactly what evidence they have uncovered in the committee hearings and in their thousand interviews.
Farai Chideya:
Any direct sanctions would come through the DOJ, not from the House Select Committee.
Jill Wine-Banks:
The only thing the House committee can do is to pass legislation that, hopefully, the Senate would then approve to correct any issues that it finds may have caused the conduct that's at issue here.
Farai Chideya:
We're recording on a Wednesday morning, June 22nd. It's after the fourth public hearing, but there is another one that's going to happen tomorrow. This will keep evolving. What is your assessment of the case that the committee has laid out so far?
Jill Wine-Banks:
So far, the committee has done a brilliant job. They have shown a number of plots that are part of an overall conspiracy to overturn the election and undo very basic principles of our democracy, which is that people vote and it counts, and that the people they vote for go to office. It's not that a Republican legislature can say I don't like how the vote came out and I'm going to overturn it.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think the overall plot is what they are heading to prove, and that's important. It's not just about the violence on January 6th. It is about January 6th being the date on which the electors are confirmed and the vote is finalized and that the announcement is made about who won, but based on who the people voted for. It's much more than just January 6th as an event day or January 6th the violence that was fomented and that led to death and mayhem. It is about everything that led up to that, the big lie and also what was done to pressure Mike Pence, the vice president. On Thursday, we'll look at what was done at the Department of Justice.
Jill Wine-Banks:
It's a whole range of things, the fake electors. All of that is part of what is being presented, and it shows a really terrible threat to democracy which was saved by the actions of a few people. It barely survived, and that's not good enough. We need a much stronger system.
Farai Chideya:
Can you go a little deeper into fake electors? I've been tracking this, but for people who might be dipping in, what does that mean?
Jill Wine-Banks:
Frankly, we ought to get rid of the Electoral College entirely because, in today's world of modern communications, I don't need to vote for someone to cast my vote. I need to vote directly for the president, and there's no reason for the Electoral College at all. It should be a direct vote. Under our current system, I actually don't vote for the president. I vote for an elector who will vote for the president that I chose on my ballot and, once the votes are confirmed, the State announces that the winner is whichever the winner is in this case, Joe Biden, in most states and certainly in my state of Illinois, and the electors who were on the ballot for that candidate then are elected. They have to cast the ballot in accordance with how I voted for them, but Republicans resorted to trying to create a fake slate of electors and to send that to the National Archives and to Congress.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Under the Constitution, the vice president at a joint session of Congress opens the certified ballots that are sent from each state and announces what the vote is. That's all he does. He opens them, period, and then the votes are counted. That's all that is called for, but if there is a second slate, they thought, this is the Republican plotters, then there would be confusion, and that might delay the counting. They wanted to just delay it long enough so that they could cause maybe some change at a state level by having a state legislator say, "Oh, we didn't mean to confirm that. We meant to confirm a different slate," even though there was no different slate and even though the people had voted for the slate that was already certified.
Jill Wine-Banks:
That's really what happened was they tried to create this totally fake list of people, some of whom weren't even on the ballot for Donald Trump, because people who were on the ballot said, "I'm not going along with this. I wasn't elected. I'm not cheating," but that was how devious this plan was, and it failed. They did get some sent in. I think there could be a crime involved in submitting a false document to the government. They sent it to NARA and they sent it to Congress. Of course, the only one opened by the vice president were the ones that were legally certified by the state that sent in the slate.
Farai Chideya:
That is why Vice President Mike Pence was in danger from the crowd on January 6th, because he held this power which is, by many regards, meant to be more ceremonial than anything, but it was put into fierce play, and he was 40 feet away from insurrectionists who didn't mean well. They meant to harm him.
Jill Wine-Banks:
They meant to harm him. They yelled, "Hang him." I would like to dispute one word you used, which you said, "He had the power." He did not. His power was to open certified ballots, and that was all. He could not do anything with this fake slate of electors, but, yes, the president, as part of his big lie, said he did have the power, and people were angry at him for not using that power that he didn't have. He knew both from advice from his own staff, advice from outside, from his own counsel. He got advice from a very conservative former judge, Judge Luttig, who testified at the hearings earlier, and they all said, "You do not have the power. All you can do is open the certified ballots." He said, "I have to do my constitutional duty, which is to open the certified ballots, and then they will be counted," so it wouldn't work. The crowd was angry. They were going after him and, as you pointed out, they were very, very close to him. Luckily, he escaped.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think one of the most dramatic things we heard during the hearings was the testimony of Greg Jacob, who was his counsel, talking about them being in the secure location finally. The Secret Service said, "Get in the car. We're getting out of here." Greg got in the car as did other staff, but the vice president didn't. He wasn't sure who he could trust, and he was afraid, if he left the building, they would never bring him back to do his duty because the Secret Service is under the control of the president, and the president didn't want him to be there to do his constitutional duty.
Farai Chideya:
That's Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor, author of The Watergate Girl, MSNBC analyst and co-host of The #SistersInLaw Podcast and iGen Politics Podcast. Coming up next, more on the January 6th hearings with Jill Wine-Banks, including her answers to your audience-submitted questions and concerns. That's on Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Welcome back to Our Body Politic. If you're just tuning in, we've been discussing the January 6th hearings here with Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor, legal analyst and the author of the book, Watergate Girl.
Farai Chideya:
The big picture at the start of the hearings was focused on what and who triggered the insurrection at the US Capitol nearly a year and a half ago, but at this stage, there have been many layers of fallout from the events of January 6th. People who are used to doing critical, but not traditionally high profile jobs around administering elections have found themselves in the spotlight and not in a safe or comfortable way.
Farai Chideya:
This week, the House committee heard testimony from Shaye Moss, a Georgia election worker who testified about what she and her family faced as Trump supporters turned on people who were instrumental to election security. Here is Shaye Moss of Georgia.
Shaye Moss:
I've always been told by my grandmother how important it is to vote and how people before me, a lot of people, older people in my family did not have that right. What I loved most about my job were the older voters. The older voters like to call. They like to talk to you. They like to get my card. They like to know that every election I'm here.
Farai Chideya:
Following Election Day 2020, a lawyer for President Trump claims that footage of Shaye counting votes was actually her feeding fraudulent ballots through the voting machines. Now, Georgia election officials immediately refuted this, but right wing media outlets and Rudy Giuliani had already jumped on the allegations. They were calling Shaye and her mother, who also was ballot counting, "crooked" Democrats. Here's another clip of Shaye on the implications of what happened in that train of allegations.
Shaye Moss:
I received a call from my grandmother. This woman is my everything. I have never even heard her or seen her cry. She called me, screaming at the top of her lungs, saying that there were people at her home. They knocked on the door and, of course, she opened it, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming that they were coming in to make a citizen's arrest.
Farai Chideya:
This seems like clear and heartbreaking evidence of the real-world damage that President Trump and his supporters did by promoting lies about the election. Many of the people who promoted the stolen election theory knew that they were lying before they started doing it and started pushing it even before the election. That's stuff we know now, but what's your reaction to Shaye's testimony, and what does it say about democracy?
Jill Wine-Banks:
First, let me say I thought it was one of the highlights of all the hearings, as did almost everyone on Twitter and all my friends. It moved me to tears to think what she went through. Some of it was racist by Rudy Giuliani. I mean, he said she was passing back and forth with her mother a USB stick that was like a vial of cocaine, and what it really was-
Farai Chideya:
Very clear, loaded language.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely
Farai Chideya:
Not even dog whistle.
Jill Wine-Banks:
What it was was a ginger mint. I thought it was very powerful, and it did show the role of election workers. She has now been forced to quit her job, and every other person who worked for the Department of Elections with her has also quit because of the pressure. If we don't have civil servants like her working, we can't have free and fair elections and, heaven forbid, they'd be replaced by the Republicans who want to take down our election system who will to deprive people of the right to vote.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think, also, her reference to older people who didn't have the right to vote, I'm old enough that I was part of the Civil Rights Movement when people were being denied the right to vote, so I really felt strongly how important her testimony was and how important the right to vote is. I encourage everyone who's listening to make sure you vote in your Primary, that you vote all the way down the ballot. This is not just for the top offices. The Secretary of State matters. Your school board matters. If you don't want to have books banned, make sure you know who you're voting for and what their views are.
Farai Chideya:
Let me just go a little bit further into party affiliation and white supremacy. One of the things that we've done on this show is that I've reported on extremism for 25-plus years. I saw this bus pulling up to the station of history because white supremacists, white nationalists are political organizers, and they fit into the greater spectrum of American politics, at least as far as I see, because they know how to mobilize people and, frankly, do it unabashedly through fear. At the same time, there are many Republicans who do not co-sign with this and many who also feel like they don't have a party anymore. As the capture of the GOP by Trumpism has continued, they don't feel like they have a home.
Farai Chideya:
Where do you see things going with this flash point? Do you see space for us to be able to have conversations about these issues, or are we just all going to go back to our bunkers?
Jill Wine-Banks:
Well, let me answer that by going back to Watergate. During Watergate, there were only three networks, and they all had the same facts. Democrats and Republicans talked to each other. They debated the policy implication of agreed-upon facts, and that makes a big difference.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Today, we live in silos of information. You can choose what you want to hear that reflects your own biases as opposed to being exposed to only the truth, and there is no alternative fact. There's only one fact.
Farai Chideya:
Oh, absolutely. Actually, my job in 1996 during that election season was an on-air pundit with Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, now, KellyAnne Conway, and when she started-
Jill Wine-Banks:
Oh, no.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah, and when she started talking about alternative facts, I was so upset because I knew where this was headed.
Jill Wine-Banks:
They are lies. I have a hashtag on Twitter called #SayThisNotThat, and one of them is, "Let's call a lie a lie." Let's stop saying disinformation. They're lying. They're trying to mislead you.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Recently, I have tried to have a conversation with some Trumpers. A friend of mine from college is now a Trumper. She is a smart woman. She has two master's degrees. She was asked in front of me, "Well, you don't really believe that Donald Trump won the election," and she said, "Yes, I do," and I said, "I seldom get a chance to ask someone who has that belief, but on what facts are you basing that?" She said, "Well, because the Democrats cheated. They manipulated the vote. They had machines that flipped the vote" and I said, "You know there were 60 lawsuits brought and they were all thrown out because there was no evidence of that."
Jill Wine-Banks:
Of course, we've heard during these hearings that Rudy Giuliani was asked by the Arizona Speaker of the House to provide the evidence, and he never did. He said, "Oh, I will," but he never did because there is no such evidence. Once someone says that and they say, "Well, I don't believe what you're saying," I believe that it was. You can't have a discussion with them because there's no factual basis to debate on.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think one of the most important questions for our society now is how do we start talking to each other? How do we get people to see the facts? Part of it has to go back to education and to critical thinking skills. When I read a newspaper, I don't accept everything I read. When I read online especially and it says so and so was indicted and here's what the indictment says, I don't accept that. I click on the indictment and I read the indictment because, if I'm going to do commentary, I have to know for sure what it's all about.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think, if more people would go to the underlying source materials, if my friend is listening to this show, if my friend listens to the hearings, I wonder what she thought when she heard the Republicans all saying this was a lie. I asked for evidence, and they couldn't produce any. That's because there is none. They can't produce it. I wonder if that will make her go, well, maybe I have been misled, and maybe I need to pay more attention to facts. I don't think so. I'm worried about that. I hope for our country's sake that she will listen to that and she will be persuaded.
Farai Chideya:
You're listening to Our Body Politic, and we are talking with Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor, legal analyst and author of the book The Watergate Girl, about the January 6th insurrection and the Select Committee investigation into those events.
Farai Chideya:
I'm pretty obsessed with the truth and how it is constructed because I do believe, personally, that there is an absolute truth, but that it's very hard for humans to perceive right away necessarily. Sometimes, you need time, inquiry, investigation, new things turning up, et cetera. Truth is hard. Some truths are very easy. Some truths are harder to find, and many truths end up being concealed deliberately, but there is a phrase called blue bies that some sociologists use to describe lying for your team.
Farai Chideya:
Right after the 2016 election, I gave a speech at a big conference in Australia and talked about blue lies and how we can understand American politics through this lens that Americans were becoming increasingly willing to lie for their team and lie for political game.
Farai Chideya:
Do you see that as resonating?
Jill Wine-Banks:
I do, but I also am even more afraid of the fact that, now, many Republicans think that violence is a legitimate way to achieve their ends and that what happened on January 6th is okay. Lying is bad, but violence is even worse. I think we're in a very bad state where we can't talk to each other, where we think violence is the answer, where we think... If we go back to Donald Trump and his big lie, even if his lie were true, which it has no foundation, in fact, but even if it were true, the tactics he used to bring that out are not appropriate.
Jill Wine-Banks:
The way to challenge, if he had actually felt that there was fraud in the election and if he had any evidence of it, the right way was to go to court. It was not to unleash a mob on the Capitol to stop the counting of the confirmed votes. That can never be allowed.
Jill Wine-Banks:
The example is, if I think that I won the golf trophy that my neighbor was awarded, that he cheated or something and doesn't deserve it, that doesn't justify my breaking and entering his home and, at gunpoint, taking back the trophy. No. I have to go to court. I have to win in court. I have to convince them that I really was the winner. Even if everything he said was true, his tactics aren't justified. You cannot create a fake slate of electors. You cannot threaten your vice president and say to him, "You have the power to throw out these votes." That isn't how our system works.
Farai Chideya:
Let's continue to hone in on former President Trump. Is there a doubt at this point that he was actively participating in a criminal conspiracy and, if it is shown that he was participating, do you expect him to be sanctioned or charged? Two different things.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Two different things. One, the answer is, yes, I think there is no question that the evidence that is public supports proof of all the elements of a number of crimes sufficient to obtain a conviction and sustain it on appeal. The next question is should the former president be indicted? My answer to that is yes and that there is nothing worse than not doing that. If he is not held accountable, then he will, he or another equally motivated wrongdoer will repeat the same conduct. They've learned from their experience and, this time, they might succeed in undoing our democracy, so I think, yes.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Again, I go back to Watergate. As you know, I was a trial lawyer in the case against the top aides to Richard Nixon in which he was named an unindicted co-conspirator. That was a compromise with the special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who allowed us to ask the court whether we could give the information we had accumulated to the House Impeachment Committee, the Judiciary Committee which was sitting as an impeachment committee at the time. It was a legitimate impeachment with a legitimate chance of being voted on at trial in a fair way, not as a political matter, but based on the facts which everyone accepted, and he felt impeachment was the right procedure against a sitting president and that it would interfere with his sitting as president and doing his job to indict him, but that impeachment was okay because that was a political process.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I did not agree with him. I felt that, if you commit a crime, you suffer the consequences and you have to go ahead with a trial and let the jury decide whether or not. I certainly think that a former president, whose job is not to be anything other than an American citizen, could be indicted. When the evidence is sufficient, and this isn't phony, baloney evidence, it's not the kind of stuff that the Republicans have used against Hillary Clinton, for example. This is absolute evidence that any prosecutor, if his name was John Smith and he was anybody else, this is conduct for which he would be indicted and which a jury would convict him on.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think that he can be because the evidence is there and that he should be because it is the only way to send a message. Had we indicted Richard Nixon, it would've been a precedent for this and it would've been a message that might have deterred him from doing the things he did because he might have known there were absolute consequences of going to jail.
Farai Chideya:
You wrote a memoir, The Watergate Girl, about being the only female prosecutor on the team. As you draw these inferences between what happened during the Watergate era and now, do you think that we as a nation learned the right lessons about democracy and the threats to it from Watergate?
Jill Wine-Banks:
I guess the answer is apparently not in the same way that Donald Trump didn't learn, as Susan Collins said, from his near conviction... well, not near conviction, but from his impeachment, either of his impeachments. He hasn't learned because, if had, he wouldn't be doing the things he's doing.
Jill Wine-Banks:
The lessons we learned back then were that accountability matters, that facts matter, that bipartisanship matters, that justice prevailed, our democracy succeeded. I think that bipartisanship has been lost dramatically. The Gun Bill that has now been agreed upon is so minor in what it does. It's a step. I applaud it. I'm not against it, but don't be mistaken into thinking that this will solve any problems of gun violence. It won't. We need much, much more serious conduct.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Bipartisanship is a thing of the past. In the old days, the Democrats and Republicans dined together, and they conversed and they agreed and they compromised. Compromise is not a bad word. One of the reasons that I supported Joe Biden and ran as a Biden delegate was because I believed that he would compromise, that he would get some things done. If you're at the extreme ends, nothing gets done. You both want wonderful things in your view, but you get none of it. Getting half a loaf is better than none, so that's my feeling.
Farai Chideya:
That was Jill Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor and co-host of The #SistersInLaw Podcast. She's the author of the memoir The Watergate Girl. Coming up, we'll be back with more of Jill's analysis about the hearings on the January 6th insurrection and the stakes for democracy. You're listening to Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Welcome back to Our Body Politic. We are wrapping up a special episode about the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. This month, the committee brought us days and nights of highly produced hearings featuring election workers, officers who defended the Capitol lawmakers and strategists. We devoted this episode to a conversation with legal expert Jill Wine-Banks, who was the only female prosecutor on the Watergate team.
Farai Chideya:
Do you have hope? You have seen quite an arc of history from a very elite vantage point, and do you have hope for bolstering trust in American institutions for getting to a state where we call alternative facts lies and ask questions about what the truth is and how we have an American dream?
Jill Wine-Banks:
I do, and I am reminded of a law professor of mine who I worked with, Maurice Rosenberg. I took a year off law school after my first year. I took a leave of absence and, when I returned, things had changed dramatically from my first year of law school. My class was 5% female and 5% Black, and that was the quota for both. I was friends with many of my Black fellow students, but when I returned, the Black is Beautiful Movement had started, and the Black students had sequestered themselves, and so I no longer had lunch with Paula Jewell. By the way, James Meredith was in my class when I returned.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I was very upset about this because I had been raised in a household where color was not an indicia of who my friends were. I felt rejected and bad, and my professor said, "In our world, things swing too far one way or the other, but they eventually come back to center. This will pass." I think that that is my hope for this issue, too, is that this extreme siloing and rejection of fact will pass and that we will come back to be able to have conversations with each other based on information.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I'm interested in people's views of Republican policies. I'm interested in debating it based on facts. If you want to talk about trickle-down economy, show me a fact that says that that works. Show me how my life is better under Republican policies. When you don't have facts, when you just simply say, "I don't believe what you're saying," that isn't going to lead to any kind of solution, but I am hopeful. I am an optimist by heart, and I am totally hopeful that we can get back to facts mattering because, otherwise, we will be a dictatorship.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I mean, I hate to draw a comparison to how Hitler took power, but it was through propaganda and deception in a time when the population felt that it had lost the war and that things were bad for them, and he played on their fears. I fear that that's where we're at and that someone with evil intent can take over, and the Supreme Court is not helping any. Their recent decision saying that Maine must provide money to religious schools is really terrible. I mean, the First Amendment says we can't establish a religion, and they're establishing it. I think they've ignored what the establishment clause means in the same way they've ignored what a well-regulated militia means in terms of interpreting the Second Amendment. There are a lot of things that are going on that need changing, but the only way we can change it is by talking to each other on the basis of fact.
Farai Chideya:
I do have to probe a little bit on the law school example, which I definitely see, but I think a lot of times there are groups that have been historically marginalized who go into a space like, okay, the power structure as we see it isn't going to take care of our issues, so we have to plan and take care of it ourselves. Whereas what I see happening here is that I don't think anyone would call Donald Trump underprivileged or marginalized. He was born wealthy, given quite a bit of money from his father, hundreds of thousands by the time he was two or five, I think. There were payments made to him from the time he was a small child and had multiple bankruptcies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but he's always had access to wealth and privilege.
Farai Chideya:
What I see in the retreat of the Trumpist Republicans from the truth is an attempt to forge a functional minority rule where people who do not represent the majority of American sentiment are determined to be able to govern and, in some cases, don't even represent the majority of Republican sentiment. Does that sit with you?
Jill Wine-Banks:
Yes, it does. I think we are already in a situation of minority rule. Think about the fact that every state has two senators and, if you compare the senators from the states with very small population, they have the same power as California, Illinois, New York, Florida, Texas, that's already putting a minority in charge.
Jill Wine-Banks:
The way the last Supreme Court nominations were prohibited, Merrick Garland wasn't even given a hearing because of minority rule. I think that the filibuster is another example of how the minority can rule, and so I'm for getting rid of the filibuster because I think majority rule means that the majority rules. 51% is the majority. We don't need 60%. Yes, it's wonderful to have things where we could get bipartisan agreement, and there should be an effort to that, but when it stops things from happening and lets the minority control, I think that's wrong. I don't want my rights to be determined by minority rule.
Farai Chideya:
You're listening to Our Body Politic. We are talking with Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor and author of the memoir The Watergate Girl. She is the co-host of The #SistersInLaw and iGen Politics podcasts, and we are discussing the Select Committee's investigation into the January 6th insurrection.
Farai Chideya:
Let's turn to listener questions. This has been such a fascinating and robust conversation, but we've had a number of listeners submit questions, and I'd like to go through just three of them with you. We have a way of people submitting their questions, so I'm reading them from different people. First up, do you feel that the way that the House Select Committee is conducting the hearings is the most effective way to hold those involved accountable?
Jill Wine-Banks:
No. It is a way to bring public attention to it in the same way that, during Watergate, the Watergate hearings brought the public along with what the facts were. Now, that was when people were listening to one set of facts and were paying attention as was the Washington Post reporting. It let the people know what was going on, but accountability requires that they be held either criminally or civilly liable for their conduct.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I wouldn't say that accountability is achieved through the committee. I think legislation can be achieved through the committee that would make clearer things that should not happen in the future, and that is worthwhile. I think the point of letting the people know so that they can vote in accordance with what they are learning, those are very good benefits of the hearings, but, to me, the word accountability means are you responsible in a legal way for what you've done?
Farai Chideya:
Second question, there isn't the usual procedural tug of war between committee members. How and why did they decide to do that?
Jill Wine-Banks:
Well, that really was the decision of leader McCarthy. He had the opportunity to have passed a commission which would have been totally bipartisan and would've included Republicans of the Republicans' choosing, but they decided that they did not want to participate unless they could have the most extreme Trump supporters on it. There were two in particular who he named to be part of that commission, and Nancy Pelosi, who had the right to reject them, said, "We're not taking those two because they will make this into a clown show. They will divert attention from the facts and will waste a lot of time."
Jill Wine-Banks:
Just think of every hearing you've seen recently and Jim Jordan, for example, and you know exactly what I mean, so he chose to say that I'm not appointing anyone, but there are many Republicans who could have served on that, including Cheney and Kin zinger who were selected to serve on it. It is a bipartisan committee and it is doing a very good job of putting facts before the American people and putting it in the voice of Republicans. The witnesses have overwhelmingly been conservative Republicans who voted for and wanted Donald Trump to win, but, as Rusty Bowers, the Speaker of the House of Arizona said, "I didn't want to do it by cheating," and they refused to cheat.
Farai Chideya:
All right. Last one is a little bit longer, more of a comment than a question, but with a question. Our listener says, "I have little to no faith in this government and do not believe in reforming anything. These hearings feel like yet another ludicrous charade to have to beg to convince people in power in our government about how horrifying and baffling the insurrection of January 6th, 2021 was. I am curious about what thoughts you have for people like me who struggle to take in any proceeding seriously in the House or Senate?"
Jill Wine-Banks:
I'm sorry for the person who wrote that that they feel that way. I have great faith in, ultimately, our government. I am afraid right now about the loss of our rights and the loss of democracy, and the Supreme Court falls into that category as much as congressional inaction, and the only advice I can have is really listen to what the hearings are saying. Listen to who's testifying. Judge their credibility.
Jill Wine-Banks:
If you were on a jury and you were listening to this, I think you would conclude that you had to convict if you were presented with a criminal indictment, that you would have to convict the people that are named, which include Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis as much as Donald Trump. John Eastman has been named, many others. I don't want to get into listing everybody, but I think that the facts that are being presented are pretty persuasive, and so just listen with an open mind and an open heart, and you will be able to hear that this is a fair presentation and there is no other side to this. If there was, you would be hearing it, but you have heard nothing from the Republicans because there is no answer to this.
Jill Wine-Banks:
These are things that really happened. Listen to Shaye Moss and what happened to her and Lady Ruby, her mother. Those are ordinary people like you and me and everybody else. What happened is really a shame. I hope someday that Shaye will be able to return to her job with pride and help people vote again.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. You mentioned the court, and a lot of questions are swirling around Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni, and her role in trying to overturn the election results. She said that she wants to clear up any "misunderstandings". Do you think she will voluntarily speak to the committee, and what are the implications for the health of the court from this?
Jill Wine-Banks:
One, she said she wanted to talk, so come on in. Nothing's stopping you from doing that under oath. I think that, if she doesn't come in voluntarily, she should be subpoenaed. There is no special privilege that she gets as the spouse of a member of the Supreme Court. There's no any privilege for her, and she should be called to testify. There's evidence that she had some role in the January 6th insurrection, and by that I'm talking about the actual violence of January 6th, but, more importantly, that she had a role in the overall conspiracy, that she was part of trying to influence legislators to do something, that she was in communication with John Eastman who, interestingly enough, was also a clerk for her husband. There's a double relationship there which makes it even more improper.
Jill Wine-Banks:
In terms of the court, I mean, there are, aside from how it got constituted in the way that it is, his decisions on anything to do with January 6th, given her role, means to me there is a clear and obvious conflict of interest and there needs to be some rule of ethics that requires that he recuse himself from any decisions. He is the lone dissenter in one of the decisions about January 6th which has to do with turning over documents from Eastman in which we now know she was corresponding, talk about a personal interest in the outcome of a case. Judges cannot determine cases in which they have a personal interest. I think that the court loses all credibility if they don't do something to require him to recuse.
Farai Chideya:
As we exit this conversation, which has been absolutely fascinating, and I'm so grateful to you, what will you be looking for as these hearings continue, and what are you looking for for America as we move ahead?
Jill Wine-Banks:
I'm looking forward to more revelations. There have been things we've learned in the hearings that we didn't know. I didn't know about the big ripoff as a result of the big lie. Donald Trump raised $250 million that he said was going to be used to defend against fraud, which actually the foundation that he said it was going to doesn't exist. He used it for pro-Trump packs and for his hotels. He gave money to his own hotel chain, I mean talk about ridiculous.
Jill Wine-Banks:
There are a lot of things we have learned that were unexpected. I expect there will be more. I hope that Pat Cipollone will testify. That seems to be like maybe something that will happen. I'd like to see Jenny Thomas testify, but I think they've done a very good job of laying out the very elements of a conspiracy to undo our democracy that have persuaded me that we need to do something to change our laws. We need to get rid of the Electoral College Act completely. We can vote directly.
Jill Wine-Banks:
I think that there will be a good outcome from this. I hope that it will convince some moderate Republicans that Donald Trump continues to be a clear and present danger. As Judge Luttig said, Donald Trump was a danger to democracy, and he continues to be a clear and present danger. I hope that will influence how people vote.
Farai Chideya:
Well, Jill, I'm very grateful for the amount of time you've been able to give us today to understand this threat to democracy and what's happening during these hearings. Thank you so much.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Thank you. It was fascinating. I enjoyed talking with you enormously.
Farai Chideya:
Likewise. That's Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor, author of The Watergate Girl, MSNBC analyst and co-host of the #SistersInLaw podcast and the iGen Politics podcast.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening to Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week -- and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Farai Chideya:
Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms. I'm the executive producer and host, Farai Chideya. Our Co-executive producer is Jonathan Blakely. Bianca Martin is our senior producer. Bridget McAllister and Traci Caldwell are our bookers and producers. Emily J. Daly and Steve Lack are our producers. Natyna Bean and Emily Ho are our associate producers.
Farai Chideya:
Production and editing services are by Clean Cuts at Three Seas. Today's episode was produced with the help of Lauren Schild.
Farai Chideya:
This program is produced with support from the Ford Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, The Harnisch Foundation, Compton Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the BMe Community, Katie McGrath & JJ Abrams Family Foundation, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.