Edition · June 26, 2022

Trump’s June 26 Hangover

The January 6 committee’s latest testimony kept pulling Trump back into the same old ditch: pressure, denial, and a trail of witnesses saying he knew exactly what he was doing.

June 26, 2022 was not a good day for Trump-world. The January 6 committee kept building the case that Trump tried to weaponize the Justice Department, election officials, and even the machinery around his own presidency to reverse a loss he knew he had taken. The result was another day of fresh testimony, fresh embarrassment, and fresh reminders that this was not a “both sides” story — it was a deliberate pressure campaign that left a legal and political stain still widening.

Closing take

This edition is built around the biggest Trump-world screwups materially in view on June 26, 2022. The through-line is simple: the louder Trump and his allies shouted fraud, the more the record kept showing a desperate and failed effort to stay in power.

Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.

Story

Jan. 6 panel keeps widening Trump’s pressure problem

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

The committee’s June 23 hearing and the Sunday follow-up kept the focus on testimony that Trump pushed state officials, the Justice Department and his advisers toward overturning the 2020 result. The record being built is less a single allegation than a sequence of specific claims, witnesses and documents that keep pointing in the same direction.

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