 Well, welcome to Think Tech, Hawaii. More candid, lively discussions of law and social justice issues. And we have with us today, Professor Emeritus Bernadette Randall from the University of Dayton School of Law. And now residing in Florida, we have visiting professor and professor emeritus from University of Toledo School of Law, now visiting at Washington and Lee School of Law, Ben Davis in Charlottesville, Virginia, and former Hawaii Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Doug Chin here in downtown Honolulu. So welcome aboard folks. Today is the start date for the house hearings on the January 6th insurrection and whatever they may cover. Let's, well, ladies first, Professor Randall, who, what can we look for from this, if anything? I don't think, I think not a whole lot of substance. I think that it'll be designed so everybody gets to say something on the camera, some talking point on the camera. There may be some kind of report or something. I doubt there's gonna be a report, but I don't see this as the, they tend, in my opinion, not to be designed. House committee meetings don't aren't really designed to hold people to the fire and really educate the public. It's designed more to give the politicians an opportunity to say something on an issue that is important to Americans and constituents. So I have no hope that it's gonna be anything but a show. Hey, Ben. Well, I'd like to use the line from one of Kevin Hart's videos, which is that it's about to go down, okay? That meaning that whatever it's gonna be is gonna start to happen live in prime time. And I think that there are a couple things that should be kept in mind. First is the optics of the January 6th committee. When you look at the committee, which is both Democrats and Republicans, and it's a wealth of diverse American on that panel. And to anybody who's used to watching the Watergate hearings many years ago, one of the things that would strike you about the Watergate hearings was, guess what, all white guy. And so in this sense, it's a really different look than something that even as old farts like me can remember. And I think that that's a very powerful message in itself. Secondly, that it's Democrats and Republicans, and then particularly Liz Cheney, who is kind of coming from Republican royalty that is there is also another aspect of it. Now, what they do and what they say, they're obviously gonna be working very hard to make it compelling for all of us. And of course, on the other side of the people who are standing with Donald Trump are gonna be trying to do counter programming. They're not gonna show it on Fox, all that kind of stuff to keep people in the dark. So this is the old American game, right? Which is to basically keep people in the dark like mushrooms and throw manure on them on one side. And then on the other side, and endeavor to try to bring truth forward and bring life. Will that work? I don't know. Is this political? Absolutely, and any of those people who are there are politicians, they wanna get reelected if they're up for election and all the rest of that. So that's all there. But even within all those different sort of things that we think about, I think it's important to understand that this is going to be something that is going to be very, very deep to watch, to watch what they put out there. What I'm waiting to see is whether they're gonna point the finger at Donald Trump is part of what they do. Not just the people around him, they're gonna actually point the finger at Donald Trump being in the middle, at the center of this whole thing. Basically, or whether they're gonna, once again, shy away because of this weird fear of somehow backlash or a weird fear of sort of impugning the presidency and not go after the actual person. The presidency is one thing, the person and what they did is another thing. And from what we're seeing from the judges is that there's a lot that was going on that does not fit with in either the presidential powers that are there or even within the attorney client privilege with broad exception types of being recognized for a number of the exchanges between John Eastman and probably President Trump. So, we're right there and let's see what happens. So Doug, you've been a prosecutor from your perspective as a prosecutor how would you present this to try and be as effective, persuasive, incredible as possible? First of all, I wanted to say that there's just been a few times in my life when I felt like I was watching the TV, seeing what was happening in real time and just not believing that I was even seeing what I was seeing. So what really jumps out to me of course is when I was a lot younger than when the assassination attempt on President Reagan I remember when that all unfolded how shocking that was to see everything happening then, 9-11, no question. You know what I mean? That was very shocking. But I think January 6th of last year that ranks right up there with me as well. Just the shock of seeing people entering into the Capitol, just the crowds of people that were running through the hallways, the chance to hang the Vice President. Yeah, I think that was all very, very significant at the same time as Congress was all next door huddled and I think the whole thing was very, very shocking. So as a prosecutor, I think the goal for today's hearing and the series of hearings that are gonna happen is to really try to bring something new to the public that will connect the dots between sort of the crowd and the mayhem that occurred there in the Capitol and the people at the highest levels. That would be a success. I think if it's just kind of a rehash of what happened without being able to really connect sort of the crowd to people at the top giving direction or approving of this or saying that this should happen. I think you need that otherwise it's just too easy to be able to dismiss as this was just something that took place that was unfortunate but involved other people instead of the people that really mattered. So Mark Meadows, President Trump, people who were with the Trump family or a certain key congressman, I think that's probably what I would be looking for as a prosecutor. And that's a good insight. Is there really any question in your mind that there was a group of people including people in very high positions of political leadership that actively concerted and worked to try to reverse the election results for the presidency and keep Trump in office? Is that really in question? I'll say big first. It's not a question for me at all but I think because of the polarization of where people are at, I think what is gonna be really important is a smoking gun. Something that's very tangible that is very obvious that there's even something that people hadn't seen already. I think that would be the most hopeful sign of being able to change anything. I totally get what we're talking about when we're saying that in many ways this could just be a show that really will not change people's minds. I'm talking about what it would take to possibly move the needle and I think it would take something like that. Otherwise we are in a place where people are just gonna remain within their opinions that they have now. If it's just circumstantial evidence, words that could be open up to interpretation, there's no doubt in my mind that starting at Trump and going all the way down through his administration, some of his people engaged in helping him to try to stay over through the results of the election. The problem is that everything they've talked about so far in terms of what's been put out there has been things that you could open up for interpretation in terms of saying, well, yeah, he said, maybe Mike Pence off to be hanged, hey, but he was joking. And without something in writing, without something that actually where you could hear the tone of his tone of voice, hear how he is saying that people wanna hear what they wanna hear and see what they wanna see. And that means that I don't know what, I think they need some concrete kind of evidence that could change, move the needle, but I don't know that they will get that because I think they would have gotten it had they by this time. And maybe they haven't. I mean, maybe this is what tonight's gonna be about. Yeah. Is telling people what they got. Well, you know, I heard at one point somebody talk about this to be looked at as a spoken wheel conspiracy with at the center of it being President Trump and then you have sort of the people around him and then they're working with other people. The thing that I think I hope gets emphasized is that it's not just a focus on what happened on the day, January 6th, but of all the machinations that were put forward in what was essentially a coup plot or self coup, so to speak. At least that's the way it looks to me. What I mean by that is that if they can trace out the links with people in the executive, the legislative and I will go so far with the Ginny Justice Thomas tandem in the judiciary, the federal level and at the state level in terms of the efforts of people at the state levels to bring in the quote unquote alternative fraudulent electors and people willing to sign off on those as just one piece of that and can tie it up with some of the voting rights efforts to suppress the voting rights as part of the big live. See this whole package. If they can bring that whole package together in a way that is clear and then point the finger at the heart of it, which is, this is the coup that is ongoing inside the United States right now and that all Americans who believe in our democracy would have to be confronted with. Personally, I think that that would be already something even though there will be counter programming. Even though there will be the spin masters on various sides that will try to play with it. The point to me is that the words are said, the words are there for history that they are shown, they are explained as best as can be at this point in time. And we can have the spin masters and the others who try to play games with it and all that. But I want people to hear so that they can kind of look at what the spin masters say and look at what's said in it and have that sense, I think, inside of us of, am I hearing truth? Am I hearing proofiness to take the old Stephen Colbert thing or am I hearing some kind of spinning, right? And that's the worry I have is that there's such an orientation to do spin in these kinds of events by the commentators who gather around to look at what happened that the essence of the incredibly dangerous thing that was tried to be done by Trump and his acolytes and that is still ongoing right now is something that Americans should be made aware of even in all the hard life that people are dealing with all the things like high gas prices and all that, that people will get it. Now, one of the things that I hope they can do is come up with a 25 words or less summary, right? Like the theory of the case, right? That they give it the beginning that is just very straightforward words of one syllable that make people understand that all the evidence, all the spin mastering, all that stuff can be boiled down into. This was a coup and President Trump led it. Something as simple as that and then just bring the pieces together to make the argument afterwards. That would be quite something. Chuck, if it's okay, I wanted to also make a comment about how just like how to bring it back into our state and why it's important for us watching from Hawaii in terms of what really happened. I think so one thing I think that's really important what Professor Davis was just talking about is just putting out a record. Like in other words, this show is called the rule of law. So in terms of just being able to establish a record that will go into the books, whatever happens for good or bad in our future, there is a record of what's happened. And I think that's something that we should try to find some hope in. But I think the other thing that I think about for Hawaii is that we're essentially, this is about election integrity, right? It's about the states casting their votes for president. Hawaii, it's traditionally a one-party state. It reliably casts its small number of electoral votes for one party and that's just how it always works out. And we always do it at the very, very end because we're the last ones to finish voting. So we are just reliably set in a certain direction. And what I think is so interesting to hear from the other commentators that you have on the show is that they're from Ohio and Florida and Virginia, which are total swing states, like places where the votes, I don't wanna say they matter more, but they certainly are very relevant in terms of what the underlying talk about election integrity is all about. And so I gotta be honest, sometimes I feel a little helpless just because I feel like we're voting a certain way, but then in the meantime, you have all these states that are setting up structures that could be very dangerous to integrity. And so if anything, I think for those of us in Hawaii who are watching this, we wanna be able to know that the record is being protected. But I think the other thing is that we also want this to go into our memories because to whatever extent that we have a voice just as much as everybody else does in the other 49 states, that then we wanna be able to speak up and really call for election integrity and to call for democracy. So I think that's why it's important for people in Hawaii. But one of the things that I think, okay, I absolutely agree with you about attorney, attorney Jen. 10, everything you said, well, I guess what depresses me is I am in Florida. Right. Florida is a crazy state. It ain't a swing state. It is a solidly Republican swing state that is passing all, it's got a Republican legislature. Now we might be swinging terms of presidency, but I'm not even sure I would say that. And it's hard to know. I mean, the record is important. I absolutely agree. Record is important. 25 years from now, a clear record of what happened is going to be important. But we're not taking some steps to kind of really deal with the current situation outside of the insurrection. We haven't really done anything about the voting, all the different voting laws that are being passed. We haven't really done anything about the census and how it has undercounted every group except white. It's undercounted black and brown and Asian and Native American Indian groups. And it seems to me that one thing that the administration could do is say since the census is so important to the election, to funding and since it's so undercounted, we are going to say that it's gotta be redone, even if it's redone after this voting year. But we're sort of accepting the census with the undercounting. So that means 10 years of under-representation for all these groups because it'll be 10 years before it's done and it's good. I think the insurrection, dealing with the insurrection is important and putting it on the record is important. But I don't think it's the most important thing on my list because I think that there's all these other things that are happening behind the scenes that are weakening the federal government and all of these, if you're in a conservative state, they really are going hog while and no pression of rights. Yeah, and so I live in Virginia now and I lived in Ohio before. So, and I lived in Ohio for a long time and Ohio was a swing state, it used to be called, and Toledo where I was was the swinging as part of the swing state in the sense that the way Toledo balanced out between the suburbs and the city would probably dictate how it was, Ohio was going to go, which would be with the results of the Democrats or Republicans could win. And as everyone knows, the Republicans typically can never win without Ohio. So that's how intense a place it is. And Rene, Professor Randall is exactly right about the machinations with regards to voting going on. There are gerrymandering of a level that probably has never been seen before. I know it's particularly brutal in Florida, but I know in Ohio, the representative that I've had as either a Congressperson or has varied somewhat by gerrymandering efforts to basically split the Democratic core from into pieces so that a Republican would have a greater chance of winning. Right now you have a Congresswoman, Marcy Captor, who's a very distinguished senior member of the House who is in a district that's been basically carved in a way, she's running against one of these ultra-magic guys named Majewski, you know, with this big trump sign painted into his ground. Right? Now, I think that that is really bizarre that somebody would try to run in a district but they're figuring that they could make it because of the way it's been gerrymandered against her. That being said, I would just like to make a shout out to Congresswoman Captor. She takes no prisoner, okay? When you run against her. And I think that one of the things that needs to be done by those who are taking actions with regards to the elections coming up is that the attitude has to be to take no prisoners. Meaning you have to hang on the necks of these people who are these crazies. And I call them that, they're just crazies. They're Americans like me and all, but they're still crazy because they're not in touch with reality. Gotta hang on their neck. All of the darkness that we're gonna hear about tonight has to hang on the necks of all those politicians who are playing along for whatever reason they want. Wherever that, you know, as part of their acquiescing because their donors are telling them that's the way they got to dance. Okay, whatever they're doing. Hang it on Gohmert's neck. Hang it on Gosar's neck. Hang it on Gates's neck. Hang it on the Santas' neck. That'd be how long on them about this kind of effort to put afford a coup in the United States that we will not tolerate. And we're gonna do things, obviously, part of this has got to be a deal with everybody's problems to try to work with it. But you've got to hang the evil on the neck of the evil door is what I'm saying. And if you're not willing to do that, at least to me personally, then you know, you're kind of acquiescing to it. And it's a dangerous game to acquiesce to these real kind of scary evil people. They will bully you into the ground as we've seen in many times in this history. But what do I know? So Doug, if you could make this case, these hearings about election integrity, how would you connect that to election choices and the importance of that connection? Well, I think that's actually a great point is that on one hand, you're just talking about a narrative of an insurrection. That I mean, there was mayhem and chaos, that was terrible. But I think artfully, if the people who are running the committee can be able to make this a discussion about election integrity, that's actually something to really watch for. Because if that becomes the topic, rather than who is directing someone to storm the Capitol and who allowed all this to happen, I think that'll actually make a big difference and be helpful in the long run. Because I think that's what we're all concerned about, even in Hawaii, with our electoral votes that we have that get cast to the very, very end. We care about democracy and our votes counting and everybody's votes counting. I would like to say that watching people vote because I've been a poll watcher several times when I was in Ohio, is one of the most moving experiences as a poll watcher is people go and stand there and put their ballots together and put it all kinds of people. And it's very moving. And I have a lot of respect for the poll workers who sit there and volunteer to run those and try to be fair and neutral. They'll be Democrats and Republicans together. If we're gonna have in here people who are gonna try to sneak into those poll worker roles or essentially radicals trying to upset people in their voting, that is a thing that we have to make sure does not, that is nipped in the bud by each poll place, literally having maybe some poll place workers having to be kicked out if they're not gonna act in the neutral way that makes it meaningful for those votes to be counted and all that. And we can talk also about the laws being put in place to mess up the way that people can vote and like you have to put the date in and the things under the flap and all these kinds of games to try to reduce votes. That's a whole nother level, but on the day of in-person voting that people will be treated with the dignity and respect that they are entitled to for doing one of the things that I personally found one of the most moving things to watch three or four times that was a poll watcher. And in our last minute here, how would you do that? How would you connect the election integrity issues that the insurrection raises to the motivation to get out there and defend those? I think the Ginny Thomas texts are quite incriminating. Yeah. And by that, I mean the wife of one of our US Supreme Court justices. Yes. It's not to put it to find a point on that. No, I think that's right. And we don't, it's kind of gone and passed by as if it never happened and it really needs to be brought up and maybe, are they planning to call her before the committee? Probably not. I don't know, but I would go farther and say that one dissent in that eight one case that was about the election stuff that Justice Thomas was a soul dissenting member of the Supreme Court. Now that we know afterwards that was going on with his wife, that I find really troubling. I think that's a real problem in terms of recusal, a basic element of recusal, you know? Well, I know this is not going to happen but Congress, because at every opportunity that they have an opportunity to pass ethic laws, they have exempted the Supreme Court, which has been a mistake. The Supreme Court and, well, that's a whole nother. Congress tends to exempt themself as well. But they could go in and make the Supreme Court subject to the same ethic rules that every other justice in the federal government is under. And so that when people want them to recuse themselves as an ethical basis for them having to explain why their behavior is not against rule number one, two, five, eight, but right now all we have to say is we believe you ought to recuse yourself. And they say, well, I believe I don't. And that's in the discussion because there's no rules that really cover their behavior. But as into the election thing, I really feel like that. I don't, you know, with the conservative Democrats in the Senate, I don't see us being able to get rid of filibuster, which is what would be needed in order to pass the kind of election protection, voting protect, not just voting rights, but like you said, election protection. And they're passing the opposite kind of bills down here in Florida. They are passing bills authorizing people to police stations over and beyond the election worker so that they can go in and challenge someone's vote even though they're not the authorized election workers. So yeah. Well, if I can just add one thing, just let you add one thing, which is that the unintended consequence of that will be that there will be people who will go in there and will challenge the challenger. Because I've seen challengers be kicked out for acting badly in election. So you gotta have a team on both sides that's willing to go in and take no prisoners when somebody's gonna act irresponsibly if not respecting the dignity of the ordinary citizen voter when they are trying to vote. I'm just gonna, sorry to jump in, I'm sorry. Oh, and we're out of time for today. Thank you all so much. Thank you. And focusing on election integrity, election choices and ethics and values is a great way to wrap this one up. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. 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