This Week in Misinformation: Happy Birthday to the 'Letter! January 6th Hearings! Double Grab Bag!
16 June 2022
This Prism newsletter strives to be the paper of record for all that’s happening in misinformation in the United States. For any citizen whose life is impacted by misinformation, it helps you see how storylines evolve from multiple, sourced angles on important stories in one place. For amateur and professional misinformation watchers, it is your go-to resource for updates on peers, platforms, propagandists, and politicians. Learn more about Prism and our other products on our Substack page, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook!
________________________________
Everyone, let’s just take a moment and appreciate that this is TWIM No. 52, which means we’re counting it as the official One Year Anniversary Edition! Thank you for being with me. Ideally, society would heal and I could get my evenings back. But until that happens, we’ll keep doing what we do.
This week covers headlines going back two weeks because we skipped last Thursday.
Sharing is easy and fun! And here’s the signup:
Reliability scores for media outlets cited in the summary are in parentheses for each, courtesy of the terrific folks at Ad Fontes Media.
We did a fun thing this week, hosting expert fact-checkers in an audio chat on Twitter to talk about a range of issues in the business of debunking! Check it out.
Now, on to our top stories.
In three televised hearings so far, the House January 6th Select Committee has shown the big picture of Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss and addressed the particulars of the election misinformation at their core.
The first hearing was in prime time on a Thursday night (Variety, 41.74), which is why this newsletter didn’t go out last week. Follow-on sessions were held during the mid morning and early afternoon (Wall Street Journal, 45.34), and one that was supposed to happen didn’t (New York Times, 43.64). Of course, where there is programming, there is counterprogramming (Axios, 44.40), for example when the prime-time hearing aired Fox News put Tucker Carlson on for a full hour, commercial-free, to interview guests saying January 6th was a false flag and other nonsense. (@pbump via Twitter). The pro-insurrectionists also tried just saying that people don’t care about the hearings (Newsweek, 38.38).
But the ratings say otherwise, with nearly 19 million watching the first hearing (Washington Post, 40.98) and related headlines splashing across front pages around the country (@PoliticsReid via Twitter). Steve Bannon tried to spin the ratings themselves as a hoax (@RonFilipkowski via Twitter), but the pro-Trump Web (Washington Post, 40.98) and conspiracy Telegram (@coolfacejane via Twitter) were forced to say something about the obviously real hearings. On Truth Social, by contrast, mention of the January 6th Committee was censored so users could pretend they weren’t happening (Insider, 43.15).
Readers of this newsletter will not have been surprised at the messages of these hearings, for example that ‘Trump was at the center’ of the bad things that happened on January 6th (New York Times, 43.64), there was a 'seven-part plan' to overturn the election (CNN, 42.40), or that the conspiracy behind the attack and attempted coup was "extremely broad” and “well-organized" (CBS News, 46.07). There were some new things too, like clips of testimony given to the Committee including from Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner (Washington Post, 40.98) and other firsthand witnesses to Trump’s actions and their consequences (NBC News, 45.65).
We learned in some detail how Trump knew the election wasn’t rigged but schemed to have Pence steal the Electoral College on January 6th anyway.
Lots of people in his orbit told Trump his election claims were false (Washington Post, 40.98). Everyone knew pretty much on Election Night, for that matter, when Fox called Arizona for Biden (New York Times, 43.64) that there would be no way Trump could make up the electoral votes needed to come out on top.
The second hearing delved into many specific false claims, playing extended clips of former Attorney General Bill Barr describing them, debunking them, and telling about how he told the President they were wrong (CNN, 42.40). Fun bonus: Barr laughs long and loud at Dinesh D’Souza’s “2,000 Mules” film (Insider, 43.15). That made my day.
The Committee also exposed a different kind of misinformation, in the form of a political fundraising scam (New York Times, 43.64). Though there’s little chance he will be charged with wire fraud or other crimes for it, the country now knows that Trump sent up to 20 emails a day soliciting contributions to an "Election Defense Fund" that didn’t exist (Roll Call, 46.31). He used the money for other things, like the Ellipse rally on January 6th!
In the third hearing, evidence was presented about how Trump wanted Pence to block the Electoral College Count, Pence objected (New York Times, 43.64), and Pence's team was concerned for his safety the day before (CBS News, 46.07). Also related to the Secret Service, Trump’s unfulfilled promise to ‘walk down to the Capitol’ with his rallygoers nevertheless prompted a security scramble (Washington Post, 40.98).
Our third story slot was edged just today (sorry, Ron Watkins!) by new Ginni Thomas drama.
So, what was it this time? Justice Thomas’s conservative activist wife didn’t just speak to a couple state legislators about helping with the plot to overthrow the election for Trump, it turns out she contacted no fewer than 29 lawmakers in Arizona alone (Washington Post, 40.98).
Further, it was learned that the January 6th Committee had obtained emails sent by Ginni Thomas to John Eastman (New York Times, 43.64), architect of the bogus VP-can-decide theory, coordinator of the alternate electors scheme, and failed presidential pardon petitioner (Axios, 44.40). When the news broke, the Committee quickly moved to call Mrs. Thomas as a witness (Politico, 42.70).
Among the topics the Committee will probably want to hear about is news The New York Times (43.64) broke this week, that Eastman claimed to have knowledge about debates at the Supreme Court over whether to consider Trump’s fraud case. Did he know this through his correspondence with Ginni?
That feeling when you have so many good stories, and you want to grab bag them all: Elon Musk is proud to have voted for a QAnon candidate, then talked about aliens in a call with Twitter employees; the company decides to give Musk all the data; there was fraud in Yuma, but it didn't have anything to do with mules; an NFL guy called January 6th a "dust-up"; the J6 Committee released closed circuit footage of the January 5th reconnaissance tour Barry Loudermilk has been claiming not to have led; the Committee will subpoena Ron Watkins, who says they can “pound sand” and also wants Wendy Rogers to be investigated; the Justice Department wants all of the Committee's transcripts for use in prosecutions and indicts Navarro but not Meadows or Scavino; some small-town Republicans try to refuse to certify a Democrat's win in New Mexico; conspiracy theorists say the Patriot Front U-Haul guys were Feds; CNN puts out a series on how Alex Jones made conspiracy theories an everyday thing for the GOP; Trump shares QAnon-themed flattery of himself on Truth Social; a county attorney in Utah calls for his friendly neighborhood QAnon sheriff to resign; conspiracy theorists react to Google’s "sentient woke AI"; tech giants have to do more about deepfakes in Europe; USA Today busts a reporter for fabricating sources; Republicans in the Senate have introduced a bill to stop Gmail from sending their campaign messages to spam; and the U.S. is funding companies that build technology to evade Russian censorship of Ukraine news.
That, and much, much more (double week!), below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin