About to watch Louis C.K.’s Fourth of July at the Beacon (B’way & 75th), and I’m feeling slightly burned by the shitty row X seat, which wasn’t cheap. Plus there’s no grade in the rear so if (I should say when) a large person sits in front of me, I’ll be in for a profoundly unpleasant experience. On top of which the show should’ve started 15 minutes ago.

Whipping post:

Out-of-the-blue proposition: Speaking as a sensible moderate center-lefty I’m not a huge fan of Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, but a voice is telling me that the smart play for sensible, non-crazy, Trump-averse righties is to get behind Youngkin for President in ’24, as he strikes some as slightly more palatable or appealing than scrappy, moon-faced Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Just a thought. The question, of course, is “does Youngkin have the balls to go up against The Beast?”

This morning former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin said on CNN’s “New Day” that a Team Trump goon lawyer (or lawyers) had been advising Cassidy Hutchinson to keep certain observations on the down low in her initial Jan. 6th Committee testimony, and that Tuesday’s bombshell testimony came about when Hutchinson decided she was feeling hamstrung by the goon lawyers, so she changed attorneys and conferred with Cheney and testified in the wide-open way we’re all now familiar with.

The “goon lawyer” revelation is the basis for Rep. Liz Cheney‘s assertion that Trump forces have been practicing a form of witness intimidation.

WOW. BIG revelation from @Alyssafarah this morning on @newday: when Cassidy Hutchinson first privately testified, she was represented by a lawyer *paid for* by folks in Trump world. Then, she decided she wanted to share way more, so she changed lawyers and testified publicly. pic.twitter.com/hbShTmpsxW

— Nora Neus (@noraneus) June 30, 2022

Louis C.K. and Joe List‘s Fourth of July screens tonight (7:30 pm) at Manhattan’s Beacon theatre. Followed by a q & a. HE will be sitting somewhere in the orchestra section. The word so far is “good but a bit meh.”

Best line: “Going home sober is always tough…the folks will push your buttons….hell, they installed them.”

Second best line: “You’re comin’ up on what…two and a half years? You show up late, I haven’t heard from you…you’re teetering. Either lean forward, take the next step or lean back, fall down a flight of stairs.”

Review by THR‘s Frank Scheck: “Fourth of July turns out to be something we would have never expected from its director/co-writer — bland. [Pic focuses on the kind] of dysfunctional family gathering is the stuff of endless autobiographical dramas, saddling Fourth of July with a familiar feeling further exacerbated by its lack of incisive dialogue and well-drawn characterizations.

“It doesn’t take long for the numerous scenes featuring the family members behaving boorishly to feel repetitive. The intended dramatic moments, such as Jeff’s seemingly emotionally closed-off father (Robert Walsh) suddenly revealing surprising depths, don’t really land. And a pizza parlor encounter in which Jeff miraculously overcomes his doubts about fatherhood with the help of a brief pep talk isn’t remotely convincing.

“The film feels like it must have been personally therapeutic for its star and co-writer, but List never manages to make us relate to his character’s perpetual navel-gazing. And while he’s necessarily hampered by playing someone suffering from depression, his monochromatic deadpan performance proves more tedious than involving.

“C.K. has populated the film with a number of his fellow comedians, who occasionally garner some mild laughs with their raucous asides, but genuine humor is in short supply. If this undeniably talented multi-hyphenate really wanted to make an impact with his first film since the unreleased I Love You Daddy, perhaps he should have delved into his own psyche instead.”

I tried to explain yesterday why the notion of Cassidy Hutchinson lying to the Jan. 6th committee about that alleged altercation between Donald Trump and Secret Service guy Bobby Engel was highly unlikely. It turns out, in fact, that there are compelling reasons to doubt the alleged partial denial of this altercation by top Secret Service guy Tony Ornato.

Washington Post journalist and “Zero Fail” author Carol Leonnig speaking to Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough and Mika Breszinski: “Tony Ornato‘s situation is not so great. This is a person who worked as President Trump’s security detail leader…the #1 guy protecting the boss. Trump White House staffers and Secret Service agents have told me repeatedly [that Ornato] is a Trump acolyte, and [that he] will defend Trump to the end, and remains in contact with Trump world.

“Ornato has indicated that this story that Cassidy Hutchinson told didn’t happen. Well, Ornato has said a lot of things didn’t happen. As an additional remark, the Secret Service often tries to deny things that are unflattering. And then when the rubber hits the road, there’s a little bit more to it.

“[Trump] liked [Ornato] so much he installed him in a political White House job. That broke every Secret Service tradition in the book. [Ornato] stayed a Secret Service employee, but Trump had him directing the Secret Service…making sure that all of his campaign events, all of his photo ops…everything that he wanted to do to get re-elected went off without a hitch. That included campaign rallies that caused Covid surges [and] the forcible clearing of peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square. Tony Ornato was the secret hand behind all of that, and that’s what Trump wanted.”