From MSN, (the posted image included the captioning):
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Okay, investigate the speech writing. However, between writing and the gloved man giving the speech, the last intervening step was preparing the teleprompter script.
The "who done it" aspect of that final step clearly is of interest to the Committee, and they have to be aware of that final intervening step, and presuming it was vetted by somebody. This could prove interesting. Trump's actual words might have diverged from the teleprompter's prompting, so is that script still in existence or has it been destroyed? If destroyed, would that be in the normal course of events, or by someone giving a special order, "Get rid of it."? How such questions shake out can be viewed as circumstantial evidence of a guilty (or innocent but overcautious) state of mind. Last, if Trump's words deviated from the scripting, where, and what does that mean in the larger picture of incitement?
___________UPDATE__________
Knowing some might claim a dubious contorted right to a degree of exoneration via a claim of cold feet and leaving Trump's stop-the-steal rally early, before Trump spoke; an online Politico item over a year old is helpful and worth attention:
Trump is on trial for inciting an insurrection. What about the 12 people who spoke before him?
Rioters heard from others besides Trump on Jan. 6. As the
former president confronts a Senate impeachment trial, 12 other notable
“Stop the Steal” speakers have faced few, if any, consequences.
A
dozen of the president’s allies and family members took the stage
before Trump, where they repeated the same false claims and egged on
attendees with similar enthusiasm. The speakers blasted the 2020
elections as rife with fraud, saber-rattled to Republican lawmakers
still on the fence about challenging the election results and heaped
praise on the thousands of attendees as the country’s true patriots.
So far, the other speakers haven’t
publicly apologized for their roles that day. Many of them defended
themselves by saying they were merely gassing up supporters to challenge
lawmakers at the ballot in 2022 and 2024. And few have faced sanctions
approaching the scale of the former president.
Here’s who else spoke at the rally and how things have played out for them since.
Mo Brooks
Representative, Alabama's 5th Congressional District
[video of speech in original omitted]
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) was one of two
members of Congress to take the stage, where he urged “American
patriots” to “start taking down names and kicking ass.” Donning a red
hat that said “Fire Pelosi,” he decried Democrats as “socialists” and
his fellow Republicans as “weak-kneed," warning that “we American
patriots are going to come right at them.”
[...] Brooks refused to apologize and fired back in a lengthy statement
in which he said he was being subject to Orwellian censorship. He
called himself a “square” who never smokes or drinks and has never had
any problems with the law.
Katrina Pierson
Former Trump campaign adviser
[video of speech in original omitted]
Katrina Pierson has a long history with
Trump’s base. She was his spokesperson during the 2016 campaign and has
deep roots in the tea party movement, and she invoked those ties when
she took the rally stage.
“The Republican politicians down there
have forgotten what the tea party movement did,” she said. “Americans
will stand up for themselves and protect their rights, and they will
demand that the politicians that we elect will uphold those rights, or
we will go after them.”
She clarified on stage that she meant
the base would go after Republicans at the ballot box. [...]
But her role in the rally wasn't limited to what she said. The New York Times reported that Pierson served as a liaison between the White House and rally organizers, potentially giving her insider knowledge [...]
Amy Kremer
Chair, Women for America First
[video of speech in original omitted]
Another tea party activist-turned-Trump
surrogate, Amy Kremer was one of the driving organizers for the rally.
She moderated the “Stop the Steal” Facebook group, created by the
pro-Trump group “Women for America First," which corralled members to
gather in Washington on Jan. 6. The group was shut down for
spreading misinformation — a move Kremer angrily denounced from the
rally stage.
She offered up conspiracy theories of a
stolen election and a corrupt media in cahoots to keep Trump out of
office. She also prodded Republican lawmakers to vote to challenge the
election result and “punch back from Donald Trump.”
Kremer later denounced the Capitol rioters, but shifted blame for the violence to the left.
“Unfortunately, for months the left and
the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an
acceptable political tool," she said in a statement after the rioters
attacked the Capitol. "They were wrong. It is not."
Vernon Jones
Former member, Georgia House of Representatives
[video of speech in original omitted]
Then-state Rep. Vernon Jones, a
Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives, switched parties on
the rally stage, saying he was “coming home to the Grand Old Party.”
"I’m ready to go home to the party of
Frederick Douglass. I’m ready to go home to the party of South Carolina
Sen. Tim Scott. Today, I’m coming home,” he said.
He warned Democrats not to fight
Trump’s election challenge, saying “they’ve awakened a sleeping giant”
among the president’s base. He thanked MyPillow CEO and ardent Trump
supporter Mike Lindell for guiding him away from “these demon
Democrats."
Jones was one of the rare Democrats to endorse Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 election — a decision that pushed him to nearly resign from the Georgia Legislature in April 2020. But he stood by his endorsement and tweeted at the time that “an uprising is near.”
Jones withdrew from the June 9
Democratic primaries in his district and left the state Legislature soon
after the "Stop the Steal" rally.
Ken Paxton
Texas Attorney General
[video of speech in original omitted]
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told
the rally audience that other states, particularly Georgia, had
“capitulated” by acknowledging Biden as the winner. He said he would
keep fighting the election results, even though his attempt to sue other
states over their elections had been rejected by the Supreme Court only weeks before.
After the Capitol riot, Paxton was the only state attorney general not to sign a statement condemning
the violence. He denounced the riot separately, but falsely claimed the
mob was filled with leftist agitators masquerading as Trump supporters.
Democrats in the Texas Legislature called for an investigation into
Paxton’s role in the riots.
Paxton is also tangled up in other potential legal woes amid allegations in October of corruption, with calls from his own staff to resign.
Lara and Eric Trump
Daughter-in-law and son of President Donald Trump
[video of speech in original omitted]
Eric and Lara Trump took to the stage
to vow the former president’s family would continue their “fight” long
after 2020. When Lara asked what her husband wanted for his 37th
birthday, Eric said he wanted Republicans in Congress to “have some
backbone” and support his father's election challenges.
“He has more fight in him than every
other one combined, and they need to stand up and we need to march on
the Capitol today. [...]
Kimberly Guilfoyle
Former Trump campaign adviser
[video of speech in original omitted]
Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News
host and Trump super fundraiser, promised she would “continue to hold
the line” for Trump and vowed not to “allow the liberals and the
Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections.”
The bombastic performance was an echo
of her memorable appearance at the Republican National Convention in
which Guilfoyle shouted that the “best is yet to come.” She repeated
that message from the stage as she claimed that Trump would “continue to
save America.”
Donald Trump Jr.
Son of President Donald Trump
[video of speech in original omitted]
The president’s eldest son, Donald Jr.,
prodded Republicans in Congress still on the fence about Trump’s
election challenges, saying the vote was an opportunity to be either a
“zero or a hero," a “friend or foe.” He cast their hesitancy as
cowardice and said, “I’m going to be in your backyard in a couple of
months” if they didn’t vote with Trump.
He also added some jabs at the summer’s
anti-racism protesters, telling the crowd that they’d gathered without
“ripping down churches” and “looting.” [...]
Madison Cawthorn
Representative, North Carolina's 11th Congressional District
[video of speech in original omitted]
[...] The right-wing wunderkind said many of his colleagues
“have no backbone” to face Trump, and he cheered on the audience as the
future of the Republican Party.
“The courage I see in this crowd is not
represented on that hill,” he said. “My friends, I will tell you right
now that there is a new Republican Party rising.”
After the insurrection, Cawthorn
changed tack and denounced the rioters as “despicable." But he still
didn’t regret his appearance at the rally, he said during an interview on "The Carlos Watson Show." Democratic leaders from his North Carolina district wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to expel him from Congress, but Cawthorn brushed off any responsibility for the violence at the Capitol.
Rudy Giuliani
Trump's personal attorney
[video of speech in original omitted]
[...] After
insisting the legality of everything he and his team were doing to
undermine the election results, Giuliani declared, “Let’s have trial by
combat.”
The bellicose language immediately raised alarms as a call to violence. But Giuliani later insisted in an interview
with The Hill that it was a reference to the HBO series “Game of
Thrones," which he called a “documentary” about medieval England. He
also denied Trump had any responsibility for the Capitol riot and
repeated the false claim that antifa or other leftists were behind the
attack.
John Eastman
Constitutional lawyer
[video of speech in original omitted]
Giuliani brought out John Eastman, a
law professor at Chapman University, [huh?] to explain in detail the various
conspiracy theories behind their challenges to the election results. He
was the last speaker before Donald Trump and put their cause in terms
beyond one president.
"This is bigger than President Trump.
It is the very essence of our Republican form of government and it has
to be done," Eastman said. "And anybody that is not willing to stand up
to do it does not deserve to be in the office. It is that simple."
[...]
"It" whatever he meant by that, he said "has to be done." He likely was referring to Trump and "it" might have been more than giving the keynote speech. Mike Lindell must have had a conflicting engagement, or was not invited to speak. Neither of the Thomas spouses spoke, nor did any judiciary member.
But all that, including Trump Jr. speaking of a march on the Capitol, happened before Trump, himself, worked the crowd. If leaving before Trump spoke, one still could have been in tune with and enthusiastic for the earlier proceedings. Sometimes a warmup act steals the show.
You showed up at that bullshit show because you were an ally and believer. How it was and how it is. Otherwise, why go there in the cold? Dress warmly and be sure to be there to hear The Man, himself. speak. It was his show. You did not go there for Eastman, Giuliani or Guilfoyle.
You went for Trump.
It was his election. All the others were saying so, and that it was stolen. You were there as a kindred soul.
To have left early simply makes no sense. To; say you left early puts credibility into question. At a minimum. Agenda also becomes questionable, more than otherwise.
