Tracking the January 6 Commission - Page 2
The National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex, known colloquially as the January 6 commission, known colloquially as the January 6 commission, was a proposed commission that would have investigated the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
Travis GettysRight-wing extremists charged in the U.S. Capitol riot threatened to "gas" lawmakers in tunnels where Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) led a tour the previous day. The Georgia Republican led a group of 15 individuals later identified by police as constituents on a tour of the Capitol complex, where one participant took photos of hallways, staircases and tunnels, and that same man was shown on video from Jan. 6 shouting threats against individual Democratic lawmakers. “We’re coming to take you out and pull you out by your hairs," the man says, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). "When I get done with you, you’re going to need a shine on top of that bald head." Conspiracy charges filed shortly after the riot showed a group of three Oath Keepers were particularly interested in lawmakers' movements in the tunnels underneath the Capitol complex, and one of them, Thomas Edward Caldwell, allegedly received a Facebook message about them.
Christopher Wilson·Senior WriterThe committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said that former President Donald Trump’s campaign fundraised off of baseless allegations of election fraud but spent very little of the money on legal action. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said Monday morning that the House select committee would show “that the Trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts. But the Trump campaign didn’t use the money for that. The ‘big lie’ was also a big rip-off.” “We’ll present evidence that Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud were false, that he and his closest advisers knew those claims were false but they continued to peddle them anyway right up until the moments before a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol,” she said.
Matt ShuhamThe Jan. 6 Committee kicked off a string of hearings Thursday night with an intense focus on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two right-wing extremist groups that the committee appears prepared to tie to the official Trump effort to overturn the election. Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told CNN after the hearing that the body would call witnesses that can describe conversations between the groups and people in Trump’s orbit. “Obviously, you’ll have to go through the hearings, but we have a number of witnesses who have come forward that people have not talked to before, that will document a lot was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was occurring,” Thompson said. The committee made clear that it viewed the Trumpian conspiracy to overturn the election as a months-long plot, and it applied the same logic to Trump’s relationship to these right-wing extremist groups, featuring testimony from a member of the Proud Boys saying Trump’s presidential debate command to them to “stand back and stand by” — all the way back in September 2020 — boosted membership “exponentially.”
By Dana Bash, Jake Tapper and Jeremy Herb, CNN(CNN) Former President Donald Trump had a "sophisticated seven-point plan" to overturn the 2020 presidential election over the course of several months, January 6 committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney said, detailing how the panel plans to use its future hearings to tackle each part of the scheme. "On the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain president of the United States, despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his Constitutional obligation to relinquish power," Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, said in her opening statement at Thursday's prime-time hearing. Cheney did not detail the specific points of the plan in her opening statement. She said that the rioters who breached the Capitol and fought with police were motivated by Trump's actions falsely claiming that the election was stolen from him. "President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack," Cheney said, echoing the statement she made in 2021 when she voted to impeach Trump.
Fox News caught downplaying the Trump coup attempt and the sacking on our capitol.Jeremy Barr, Elahe Izadi, Sarah Ellison, Paul FarhiThere was a striking and somber uniformity across most major television channels Thursday night, as broadcast networks abandoned their usual sitcoms and dramas to stand alongside cable news channels to provide live coverage of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. With one key exception. ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and MSNBC were among the networks that carried two full hours of the hearing — an event they largely let unfurl on its own, with few interruptions or enhancements, waiting until the end for their anchors and guests to offer solemn commentary. “This was horrible,” said CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell, after a Capitol Police officer described slipping in an injured colleague’s blood and being knocked unconscious. “So many big bombshell scoops,” said CNN’s Jake Tapper. Fox News, though, stuck to its regular block of conservative opinion shows — frequently showing a live glimpse of the proceedings on Capitol Hill but pointedly omitting the accompanying audio, while its hosts and guests criticized the committee floridly. “The dullest, the most boring, there’s absolutely nothing new, multi-hour Democratic fundraiser masquerading as a Jan. 6 hearing,” Fox host Sean Hannity declared.
the Miami Herald Editorial Board, Miami HeraldOn the first night of prime -time hearings of a House Select Committee’s investigative findings into the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection last year, it became clear the despicable role Floridians played in the attack on the Capital. It was painful to hear witness connect the dots that culminated in the attack, down to the initial security breach. Evidence from the Committee shows that the far right-wing rioters and their leaders, Miami’s Enrique Tarrio, former Proud Boys national chairman, and Kelly Meggs, of Dunnellon, head of the Florida chapter of another extremist group, The Oath Keepers, were largely calling the shots in the hours before and in igniting the attack on the Capital. All to keep the loser, President Donald Trump, in power, despite the fact that Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election. ““He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!!,” Meggs wrote in a social-media post. And they did. Meggs was among the pack looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Heaven knows what would have happened if they had found her?
insider@insider.com (Cheryl Teh)The January 6 panel released a never-before-seen video from inside House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office during the January 6 Capitol riot. In the video, the dozens of frantic staffers are seen pouring into the hallways of Rep. McCarthy's office. The staffers appeared to be fleeing McCarthy's office as a radio transmission signaled that people would be moving through the tunnels of the Capitol building. The House committee played the video during the first of six televised January 6 hearings. It pinpoints 2:28 p.m. — as violent clashes between rioters and police officers take place outside the Capitol, McCarthy staffers can be seen running through the hallway of his chambers.
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona RepublicThere were so many surreal moments during the initial House Select Committee hearings investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection Thursday night that it’s hard to pick just one. But not impossible. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC covered the hearing live. As well they should — this is by any reasonable definition news. And what transpired made it even more important to cover.Fox News stuck with Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura IngrahamBut there’s more to it than that. Fox News didn’t just stick with its prime-time lineup of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Instead, it sought to actively undermine the hearings. “The whole thing is insulting,” Carlson said at the beginning of his show. “In fact, it’s deranged. And we’re not playing along. This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live. They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.” And just how devoted were they to undermining the validity of the hearings for its partisan audience? Fox News ran Carlson’s and Hannity's shows without commercials. That amounts to an investment in discrediting the hearings. The chyron running beneath his show read, “The January 6th ‘show trial’ is underway.”
By Bob Brigham | Raw StoryThe House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol played a video clip of former White House senior advisor Ivanka Trump in the first half an hour of Thursday prime-time televised hearings. The older daughter of former President Donald Trump said in her taped deposition that she agreed with Bill Barr that there was not widespread voter fraud. The committee had early played a clip of Barr's interview where he described the unfounded allegations of voter fraud as "bullsh*t." "I have been telling everyone who would listen all week long that we would hear from Ivanka early, but I didn’t think it would be this early!" said legal expert Norm Eisen from CNN's green room. "Committee is going right for the jugular. Good," he continued. "Any trial lawyer worse their salt will tell ya— grabs jury from minute 1 & don’t let go."
Amber PhillipsThe congressional Jan. 6 committee held its first prime-time hearing Thursday night about the attack on the Capitol and the events leading up to it. Here are six takeaways from the first of June’s hearing, after nearly a year of investigation.1. The committee holds Trump responsible for the attack“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.” That is the top Republican on the committee (and one of only two who agreed to participate with Democrats), Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) directly laying the blame for the violence on Trump. “[W]hen a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union or worse causes a constitutional crisis,” she said, “we’re at a moment of maximum danger for our republic.” Cheney said that over the next month, the committee will present evidence that Trump made not a single call to the Department of Defense or other national security agencies during the attack. The committee played testimony from Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that it was Vice President Mike Pence who made those calls.
By Matthew Chapman | Raw StoryOn Wednesday, The Daily Beast reported that even if President Donald Trump is never indicted or convicted over the revelations from the January 6 Committee, it could still provide fodder for civil liability that could be used to bankrupt the former president under a mountain of litigation. "While it’s doubtful the hearings will meet the sky-high expectations of those who believed the committee would expose open-and-shut wrongdoing from some of the nation’s top officials, the prime-time hearings will deliver one thing: evidence for many of the lawsuits seeking to make former President Donald Trump and other election denialists actually pay for the violence," reported Jose Pagliery. "'What the committee can't do is hold people accountable. But that’s where criminal prosecutions and civil litigation comes in,' said Edward G. Caspar, an attorney representing injured and traumatized Capitol Police officers who are suing Trump after the violence insurrection." As the report noted, the committee will be revealing a treasure trove of information for anyone who wants to pursue Trump civilly.
Erik Larson(Bloomberg) -- A lawyer who advised Donald Trump on his elaborate plan to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election was ordered to hand over 159 more documents to House investigators, including sensitive records tied to “potential crimes.” The ruling late Tuesday by a federal judge in California comes as the committee probing the January 2021 assault on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters prepares to hold its first public hearing on Thursday. John Eastman, the former dean of Chapman University’s law school, had sued the panel to challenge a subpoena, arguing his records were protected by attorney-client and work product privilege. Most of the 159 documents covered by the ruling have no such privilege, US District Judge David O. Carter ruled. One email that is covered by privilege must be turned over anyway because it relates to possible crimes, the judge said. In the email, dated Dec. 22, 2020, an unspecified attorney advises Trump’s legal team “to avoid the courts,” according to the ruling. The email concluded that suing to prevent Joe Biden’s victory from being certified could backfire if a judge were to rule that then-Vice President Mike Pence was required by law to do so, the judge said.
By Sarah D. WireStaff WriterWASHINGTON — Conservative lawyer John Eastman must give 159 more emails to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including one a judge says is evidence of a likely crime related to the effort to overturn the election. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who is based in Santa Ana, ordered Eastman late Tuesday to provide the emails to the committee by Wednesday, the day before it begins a series of hearings laying out the results of its more than 10-month investigation. Included is a Dec. 22, 2020, email that pertains to a potential crime and must be disclosed, Carter wrote in his order Tuesday. The committee has argued in court that attorney-client privilege between Eastman and Trump would not apply to evidence demonstrating crime or fraud.
By Travis Gettys | Raw StoryRep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has until next week to answer the House Select Committee's questions about his role in Donald Trump's effort to overturn his 2020 election loss. The Select Committee gave Jordan until June 11, two days after the first televised hearing is scheduled to air in prime time, to answer its questions, and the panel provided a timeline of the Ohio Republican's “meetings, calls and communications” with Trump administration officials about those efforts.Nov. 6, 2020: Jordan requested a call with then-attorney general William Barr the day before the election was called for Joe Biden and also communicated with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about efforts to "pressure" Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe to audit his state's presidential election results.Nov. 9, 2020: The lawmaker participated in a meeting with senior White House officials to develop a "blueprint" for the Trump campaign's strategy after the election was called for Biden, arguing the president's loss was tainted and announcing legal actions to challenge the results.More...
Mychael SchnellRep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Monday said the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has found evidence on former President Trump that supports "a lot more than incitement." The comment from Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 panel, referenced Trump's second impeachment in January 2021, when the House voted to impeach the then-president for incitement to insurrection. The Jan. 6 panel is set to hold its first public hearing on Thursday, where Raskin said the committee will lay out information regarding individuals who played a role in the attack - including Trump. "The select committee has found evidence about a lot more than incitement here, and we're gonna be laying out the evidence about all of the actors who were pivotal to what took place on Jan. 6," Raskin said during an interview with Washington Post Live. Trump was impeached in the House by a 197-22 vote, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in sanctioning the president. The following month, however, the Senate acquitted him in a 57-43 vote. Seven Senate Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus in voting to convict.
Jason LemonSome legal experts believe the evidence to support a potential criminal case against Donald Trump is mounting as new revelations about January 6, 2021, and the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results continue to drop. Hundreds of Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol early last year after the then-president urged them to walk to the federal legislative building and "fight like hell." The riot took place after Trump spent months claiming that the 2020 election was fraudulent, as he and some of his top administration officials attempted to overturn President Joe Biden's win. New York Times' journalist Maggie Haberman reported Friday that Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, warned the Secret Service that he feared that Trump would turn against his No. 2 administration official and there could be a security risk on January 6. Many of Trump's supporters later chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and threatened his life as they attacked the Capitol. Trump continued to tweet criticism of Pence even as the rioters breached the federal legislative building.
By David Edwards | Raw StoryRep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has called the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol a "well-organized" conspiracy. During an interview with Robert Costa on CBS Sunday Morning, Cheney was asked if she believed that the events of Jan. 6 amounted to a conspiracy. "I do," Cheney revealed. "It is extremely broad. It's extremely well-organized. It's really chilling." She added that she was troubled by "how broad this multi-pronged effort was."
By Sarah Fortinsky(CNN) Democratic Rep. David Cicilline said Saturday "disturbing" new evidence would be presented at the upcoming January 6 committee hearings, stressing the significance of this upcoming process. "This is our democracy. This was the greatest assault on American democracy in my lifetime. The world is watching to see how we respond to this," the Rhode Island Democrat told CNN. Cicilline, a former Trump impeachment manager, said the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection of the US Capitol has significantly more evidence than it did in 2021 during the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump. He said the committee has interviewed or deposed more than 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 135,000 documents. The select committee formally announced Thursday its first public hearing will take place on June 9 at 8 p.m. ET.
Zach SchonfeldFormer GOP congressman Denver Riggleman (Va.), an adviser to the House select committee investigating the Jan 6., 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, said the panel’s upcoming public hearings will be “exciting” for people to see. The panel announced last week it would hold the first of a series of public hearings during a prime-time slot at 8 p.m. on Thursday, the conclusion of the committee’s work after conducting hundreds of interviews in a year-long investigation. The committee has not said what witnesses will appear at the public hearings, but Riggleman told CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Jake Tapper that the hearings will be “very concise” and will bring all the components of the investigation together. “I think people are going to be absolutely surprised how much was known with multiple groups,” Riggleman said. “And I think that’s what’s going to be exciting to see the committee — there’s some very intelligent, very talented investigators behind the doors,” he continued. Riggleman indicated that the committee will hold six public hearings. The hearings are expected to include a combination of prime-time and day-time slots, although the complete schedule has yet to be announced.
By Bob Brigham | Raw StoryFormer White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson plays a similar role in the upcoming Jan. 6 hearings as White House counsel John Dean in the Watergate hearings. "Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, has sat for multiple depositions with investigators — more than 20 hours — and is expected to play a starring role in the hearings, according to people familiar with the matter. Hutchinson, people familiar with the committee said, has provided extensive information about Meadows’s activities in trying to overturn the election," The Washington Post reported Saturday. "The Washington Post reported late last month that Hutchinson had told the committee that Meadows remarked to others that Trump indicated support for hanging his vice president after rioters who stormed the Capitol on that day started chanting, 'Hang Mike Pence!'"
Ryan KingLeaders of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot are reportedly irate over an interview a former adviser conducted with CNN in which he disclosed details about the inquiry. David Buckley, the staff director of the panel, ripped into a CNN appearance by former Virginia GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman, the ex-adviser, and warned the committee members to adhere to their employment agreement, which stipulates that they must receive approval from Buckley before discussing the inquiry outside of work. “I want you to know that I am deeply disappointed in his decision to discuss the Select Committee’s work on television,” Buckley told staffers in a Wednesday email obtained by Politico. “His specific discussion about the content of subpoenaed records, our contracts, contractors and methodologies, and your hard work is unnerving." “That includes any conversation with Denver,” he continued. “Your commitment extends beyond your employment by the House as outlined in our handbook.”
By Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart, CNNWashington (CNN) Within minutes of the US Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, messages began pouring into the cell phone of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among those texting were Republican members of Congress, former members of the Trump administration, GOP activists, Fox personalities -- even the President's son. Their texts all carried the same urgent plea: President Donald Trump needed to immediately denounce the violence and tell the mob to go home. "He's got to condem (sic) this shit. Asap," Donald Trump Jr. texted at 2:53 p.m. "POTUS needs to calm this shit down," GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina wrote at 3:04 p.m. "TELL THEM TO GO HOME !!!" former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus messaged at 3:09 p.m. "POTUS should go on air and defuse this. Extremely important," Tom Price, former Trump health and human services secretary and a former GOP representative from Georgia, texted at 3:13 p.m. "Fix this now," wrote GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas at 3:15 p.m.
By Matthew Chapman | Raw StoryOn CNN Thursday, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman analyzed the claims made by former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), an adviser to the January 6 committee, in an exclusive CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, about former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows's messages about the plot to over turn the 2020 presidential election. "Denver Riggleman there saying that basically the text messages made him sick, they are a roadmap, a roadmap to what?" asked anchor John Berman. "Look, they clearly are a roadmap," said Haberman. "I actually have had this conversation with people both working on the investigation and my own colleagues that if this committee did not have Meadows' texts, I'm not sure what they would have. They paint a very clear portrait of what was being discussed, who he was talking to.
Caitlin DicksonThe House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has kept a tight lid on its plans for televised hearings slated to take place this month, but that hasn’t stopped speculation about who might be called to testify. Among the names that have been floated as a potential witness in the highly anticipated hearings is that of Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has already been cited as the source of multiple revelations uncovered by the select committee’s probe. Hutchinson, who served as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, was subpoenaed in November 2021, along with several other former Trump administration officials who, the panel believed, had relevant information regarding the former president’s activities on Jan. 6 and the role he and his aides played in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. According to her subpoena, Hutchinson was not only at the White House on Jan. 6 but she’d been with Trump during his speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” before promising to march with them to the Capitol. She also emailed Georgia officials directly following Meadows’s trip to attend that state’s election audit, according to the subpoena, and was present for other key meetings and conversations at the White House leading up to Jan. 6.
He claims they have asked for records of “any communications” with the former president.By Kyle Cheney and Nicholas WuPeter Navarro, a former White House aide to Donald Trump, says he’s been served a grand jury subpoena by federal prosecutors probing the Jan. 6 insurrection — and claims they have asked for records of “any communications” with the former president. In a draft lawsuit that Navarro began circulating Monday, the former Trump trade adviser said “two FBI special agents banged loudly on my door in the early morning hours” on May 26 and served him a subpoena signed by Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Navarro declined to provide a copy of the subpoena and claimed in the draft lawsuit that it was connected to his refusal to testify to the Jan. 6 select committee, which issued a congressional subpoena for his testimony in February. The House in April recommended that the Justice Department charge Navarro with contempt of Congress. But it would be unusual if a grand jury subpoena were related to his potential contempt case, since he would likely be the target of such a probe and less likely to be asked for testimony. Another select committee witness, Steve Bannon, was charged with contempt last year for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. He did not receive a grand jury subpoena before his charges were filed.
Jacqueline AlemanyHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) issued a statement Friday indicating that he is unlikely to comply with a subpoena issued this month requesting that he testify before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. An 11-page response to the committee from McCarthy’s counsel questioned the committee’s authority and claimed that lawmakers on the panel are “not exercising a valid or lawful use of Congress’ subpoena power,” according to a letter from Elliot S. Berke, McCarthy’s lawyer. Berke goes on to request information from the committee, including a more specific list of the subjects and topics the committee intends to discuss with McCarthy, along with the legal rationale justifying the subpoena request. McCarthy’s counsel also asks whether the committee is adhering to the confines of the resolution that authorized the panel.
Steve BenenWhen taking stock of the Trump White House’s worst qualities, it’s easy to point to the former president and his team’s corruption, incompetence, mismanagement, bigotry, hostility toward the rule of law, wholesale indifference toward reason and evidence, and general disdain for democracy and the United States’ system of government. And then there’s the issue of document retention. Sure, it may not compete with Donald Trump’s efforts to prioritize his interests over the health and stability of the republic, but we’re occasionally reminded that these guys had a serious problem with the Presidential Records Act, which creates a legal requirement about the preservation and maintenance of presidential materials. It’s against this backdrop that The New York Times reported on the Jan. 6 committee obtaining evidence about Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, putting his West Wing fireplace to use. This reporting has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, though The Washington Post also reported that some of the witnesses who’ve spoken to the bipartisan select panel “said Meadows used his fireplace to burn documents.”
New York Times reports witnesses told Capitol attack committee about ex-president’s comment, made on day of January 6 riotMartin PengellyDonald Trump reportedly reacted to chants about hanging his vice-president, Mike Pence, during the US Capitol attack by saying maybe the mob was right. The New York Times reported the bombshell White House comment on Tuesday. Two witnesses, the paper said, have confirmed to the House committee investigating the events of 6 January 2021 that Mark Meadows, then Trump’s chief of staff, described Trump “saying something to the effect of, maybe Mr Pence should be hung”. The Times said it was not clear if Trump was serious. Pence was at the Capitol to preside over certification of Joe Biden’s victory, the process the mob tried to stop after being told to “fight like hell” by Trump.
Colby HallFormer President Donald Trump reportedly suggested that, after learning chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” during the January 6th attack on the Capitol, former Vice President Pence should be hung and complained about Pence’s safe exit from the Capitol building. This is according to a just-published New York Times report based on colleagues’ accounts of conversations with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, as was relayed to the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6th. Shortly after hundreds of rioters at the Capitol started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, left the dining room off the Oval Office, walked into his own office and told colleagues that President Donald J. Trump was complaining that the vice president was being whisked to safety.
Hugo Lowell in WashingtonDonald Trump’s onetime attorney Rudy Giuliani testified to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack at length on Friday but declined to discuss the involvement of congressional Republicans in efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to sources familiar with the matter. The move by Giuliani to refuse to give insight into Republican involvement could mean his appearance only marginally advanced the inquiry into his ploy to have then-vice president Mike Pence unlawfully keep Trump in office after he lost to Joe Biden. However, he did potentially pique the committee’s interest by discussing two notable meetings at the White House involving Trump that took place just weeks before the Capitol insurrection. Giuliani asserted privilege and the work-product doctrine to decline to respond when asked to detail the roles played by House and Senate Republicans in the scheme to stop Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory on 6 January 2021, the sources said. The panel was not expecting Giuliani to divulge damning information against Trump, since committee counsel had agreed with Giuliani in advance that he should not have to violate legitimate claims of privilege he might have as the former president’s attorney.
Caleb HoweFormer Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani testified remotely before the January 6 committee for nine hours on Friday, reported NBC News and multiple other press outlets. So far, his own attorneys have not responded to requests for comment from any outlets. “The one thing that surprises me most about Rudy Giuliani having testified is that he did it at all,” said Glenn Kirschner on MSNBC’s Cross Connection on Saturday. “Because I fully expected he would continue to offer privileges, whether legitimate or otherwise,” said Kirschner. “There is one privilege claim that he absolutely has, it’s a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because we know he is still under criminal investigation by the Southern District of New York after a federal judge issued a warrant concluding there was probable cause to believe there was evidence of a crime in Rudy’s electronic devices.” Giuliani backed out of his previously scheduled appearance before the committee earlier this month when the panel would not agree to allow him to record the questioning. Tim Mulvey, a spokesman for the committee, said at the time that they might consider taking action to enforce Giuliani’s compliance with the subpoena to appear.
Jim AcostaAformer aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows “covered new ground” this week in her deposition before the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, a source familiar with the meeting said. Cassidy Hutchinson was subpoenaed to appear in front of the committee on Tuesday. It was her third session answering the panel’s questions. The source familiar with Hutchinson’s deposition declined to offer many details about the meeting to avoid getting ahead of the committee’s findings from its investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. But the source said Hutchinson spent time going over “new ground” during the session.
Jonathan D. Salant, nj.comThe leaders of the Jan. 6 committee suggested Thursday there may be evidence to support New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s allegation that GOP lawmakers gave “reconnaissance” tours of the Capitol a day before the insurrection. The Republican congressman who filed ethics charges against Sherrill for making her allegation, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., may have actually conducted a tour and has been asked to answer questions about a possible visit, according to committee chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. They asked Loudermilk to provide information “regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021.” “Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, in advance of Jan. 6, 2021,” Thompson and Cheney wrote. Sherrill’s response: “Sadly, nothing in the Jan. 6 committee’s letter surprises me.” Loudermilk and the House Administration Committee’s ranking Republican, Rodney Davis of Illinois, said in response that the only meeting was with a family with young children and they were in the House office buildings, not the Capitol. They said such a family was “not a suspicious group or ‘reconnaissance tour.’”
David CovucciThe Daily Dot has obtained a radio interview from Jan. 6, 2021, from WBHF in Cartersville, Georgia, in which Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) says, “about a dozen” people were present in his congressional office in Washington, D.C. the day before the Capitol riot. Yesterday, Loudermilk said in a statement that “a constituent family” visited him the day before the Capitol riot. That is an updated version of a previous statement by Republicans on the Committee On House Administration—which Loudermilk is a member of—that originally stated “there were no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on" given by him or other Republicans in advance of the Capitol riot. But in the interview—given as the riot was winding down—Loudermilk made it clear that he met with people who were planning to protest on Jan. 6, and that he discussed how they wanted to be in the crowd that day to protest the results of the 2020 election. Yesterday, the January 6th Select Committee sent a letter to Loudermilk, requesting his testimony. In the letter, they noted that “Republicans on the Committee on House Administration ... claimed to have reviewed security footage from the days preceding January 6th and determined that '[t]here were no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.' However, the Select Committee’s review of evidence directly contradicts that denial.” Loudermilk, as has become the norm for the GOP, has repeatedly downplayed his party’s involvement in the day.
Ginni Thomas pressed Arizona state lawmakers to upend Biden's win by choosing Trump electors insteadBy Zachary Cohen and Tierney Sneed, CNN(CNN) Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed two Arizona state lawmakers after the 2020 presidential election to upend Joe Biden's popular vote win in that state by ensuring "a clean slate of electors" was chosen, according to emails released Friday. The emails -- which started with what appear to be pre-generated form letters from conservative activist Ginni Thomas to Arizona state representatives Russell Bowers and Shawnna Bolick -- show that she encouraged both lawmakers to "fight back against fraud" and exercise what she characterized as their constitutional authority to unilaterally choose the electors rather than accepting those based on popular vote results. "This responsibility is yours and yours alone," an email from Ginni Thomas to Bowers on November 9, 2020, reads. Bolick received a nearly identical email from Ginni Thomas the same day, suggesting she used a form letter template.
by John KruzelVirginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, urged Arizona lawmakers to intervene after former President Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat in the state, pressing them to set aside Joe Biden’s slate of electors and put forth “a clean slate of Electors,” according to The Washington Post. The newly revealed communications came in emails Ginni Thomas sent on Nov. 9, 2020 — six days after the election — to a pair of lawmakers, pressing them to work on Trump’s behalf and “fight back against fraud,” according to the Post. The explosive revelation adds a new layer of detail to previous reporting on Thomas’s efforts in the weeks after the 2020 election. The Post previously reported that she strategized with Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows over how to bypass the will of American voters to install Trump for a second White House term despite his loss to Biden, an outcome she described as an “obvious fraud” and “the greatest heist of our history.”
Zachary Snowdon Smith, Forbes StaffThe House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot Thursday said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) gave a tour of the building the day before the riot, strengthening accusations that legislators took groups on “reconnaissance” tours in preparation for the riot.Key FactsThe committee has evidence that Loudermilk led a tour through areas of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021, according to a Thursday letter signed by committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Witness accounts suggest that some people attempted to collect information about the layout of the Capitol in advance of the riot, Thompson and Cheney wrote. Loudermilk strongly denied Democrats’ claims that legislators had led January 5, 2021 “reconnaissance tours,” calling the accusations unevidenced and “morally reprehensible.” May 12, Loudermilk announced he had filed an ethics complaint against 34 Democratic representatives who requested a police investigation into alleged “suspicious” Capitol tours. Thompson and Cheney requested Loudermilk meet with the committee “soon,” and suggested meeting Monday. Loudermilk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
By Bob Brigham | RawStoryGeorgia GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk is facing scrutiny from the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. "Based on our review of evidence in the Select Committee's possession, we believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021," Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) wrote in a letter to Loudermilk on Thursday. "The foregoing information raises questions to which the Select Committee must seek answers. Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, in advance of January 6, 2021," read the letter, which was also signed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). "In response to those allegations, Republicans on the Committee on House Administration—of which you are a Member—claimed to have reviewed security footage from the days preceding January 6th and determined that '[t]here were no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.' However, the Select Committee’s review of evidence directly contradicts that denial," the letter stated.
Dennis Aftergut, Norman L. Eisen, and Stuart GersonThis week multiple outlets reported that the Justice Department has asked the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack to provide transcriptions of the witness depositions and interviews that it has conducted. The specifics have yet to emerge, but the request surely includes testimony and documents from former President Donald Trump’s associates. Importantly, the Department’s letter explained that the transcripts “may contain information relevant to a criminal investigation we are conducting.” While the committee’s resistance to immediate cooperation dominated reporting, it will be worked out in time as these things almost always are. It should not overshadow the real story here: DOJ has signaled a new and significant stage in its investigation. That is our takeaway as a former counsel for the first impeachment and trial of then-President Donald Trump and two former federal prosecutors, one of whom was also an Acting Attorney General. There are three reasons we believe the DOJ revelation is such an important inflection point. First, the investigatory train of accountability for higher ups in the Trump administration appears to have left the station. Finding the truth about those at the top of national leadership who bear the ultimate responsibility for the attempt to overturn the 2020 election is the most important outcome of the Jan. 6 Committee, even as it pursues its parallel purpose of developing legislation that might forestall similar seditious events in the future.
By Bob Brigham | Raw StoryPhotographic evidence from inside the White House has been obtained by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. "Congressional investigators have obtained a batch of official White House photographs, including images taken on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two sources familiar with the evidence," Politico reported Thursday. "At least some of the photos were taken by official White House photographer Shealah Craighead, the sources indicated. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson confirmed that the panel had obtained some of Craighead’s photos, though he declined to describe their content." Trump reportedly sought a cut of Craighead's book on her time in the administration. "The panel has been amassing evidence of Trump’s movements and actions that day, attempting to reconstruct a minute-by-minute account of what the former president was doing while rioters smashed through police lines and disrupted the counting of electoral votes — the last step in finalizing Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory before his inauguration," Politico reported. "In addition to material from the Archives, committee investigators have interviewed nearly all attendees of Trump’s 11:10 a.m. Oval Office meeting including Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle."
The court filing describes the direct role of Trump himself in developing strategy, detailing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.”By Kyle CheneyJohn Eastman, the attorney who architected Donald Trump’s last-ditch legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, revealed Friday that he routinely communicated with Trump either directly or via “six conduits” during the chaotic weeks that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In a late-night court filing urging a federal judge to maintain the confidentiality of his work for Trump, Eastman provided the clearest insight yet into the blizzard of communications between Trump, his top aides, his campaign lawyers and the army of outside attorneys who were working to help reverse the outcome in a handful of states won by Joe Biden. The filing also describes the direct role of Trump himself in developing strategy, detailing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.” Those notes are among the documents Eastman is seeking to shield via attorney-client privilege. Eastman said he would also speak directly with Trump by phone throughout his legal challenges to the election. Eastman described these contacts and records as part of an effort to prevent the Jan. 6 select committee from accessing 600 emails that describe his efforts to build Trump’s legal gambit to reverse the 2020 election outcome — and, when that failed, urge state legislatures to simply overturn the results themselves. He argues that the documents are protected by attorney-client and attorney work product privileges that Congress has no business probing, even as the panel investigates the circumstances that led a mob of Trump supporters to attack the Capitol.
Opinion by Michael ConwayThe Justice Department sent a letter to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, requesting transcripts of closed-door witness interviews the committee has conducted be shared with the department. The letter, sent on April 20, was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times. The DOJ threw the Jan. 6 committee a lifeline heading into the midterms. It didn’t take it. Rather than readily agree with the Justice Department’s request, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., rejected it as “premature” following the news report. That’s a blunder of epic proportions. The only prudent answer is to promptly deliver to the Justice Department not only every transcript of the more than 1,000 interviews it has conducted but also all evidence in the committee’s possession. In a blatant turf-protecting response, Thompson said, “We told them that as a committee, the product was ours, and we’re not giving anyone access to the work product.” He also said department officials could view the documents in person. This reaction is a critical miscalculation. For two reasons, anything short of full cooperation could undermine the criminal prosecution of those who instigated the Capitol riot.
Daniel ChaitinJan. 6 congressional investigators found evidence "they simply cannot ignore," which explains a wave of subpoenas against GOP lawmakers this week, a reporter said Friday. Jackie Alemany, congressional investigations reporter for the Washington Post, said the "calculus" added up after the panel investigating the Capitol riot waited months to take the escalatory step against GOP colleagues, some of whom have panned the inquiry as a partisan exercise. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Mo Brooks of Alabama were the five members to be subpoenaed Thursday, and so far, no one has signaled that they plan to cooperate. "I’m not sure the select committee believes that any of these members are actually going to appear," Alemany said during an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe. "But what they communicated to reporters yesterday was after, really, months of deliberation, that they felt like they needed to give congressmen and House Minority Leader McCarthy — this full group — the opportunity to respond to evidence that they had found throughout the investigation. They had already issued voluntary requests for McCarthy, Scott Perry, [and] Jim Jordan months ago, actually at the end of last year, and had let those requests linger for quite some time."
By Tom Boggioni | Raw StoryAccording to a report from Axios, the chiefs of staff to lawmakers sitting on the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot were alerted in a conference call late Friday to expect some big news early next week. With public hearings expected to start in June, and following the bi-partisan committee issuing subpoenas for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), along with four other Republican House members on Thursday, Axios is now reporting that there is more information forthcoming that will likely make waves with other, as of yet, unnamed members of Congress. According to the report, "The Jan. 6 committee may seek testimony from additional lawmakers as soon as next week, ahead of blockbuster TV hearings that kick off next month." As Axios' Andrew Sollender and Alayna Treene wrote, staffers were warned to "brace for more bombshells."
By Annie Grayer, Ryan Nobles and Zachary Cohen, CNN(CNN) The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is taking the extraordinary step of sending subpoenas to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other Republican lawmakers who have rejected the panel's requests to voluntarily cooperate. In addition to McCarthy, the Democrat-led panel is subpoenaing Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Lawmakers on the panel have been weighing whether to subpoena their Republican colleagues for months, wrestling with whether they had the constitutional right to do so, and debating if they wanted to set such a precedent. And with hearings less than a month away, the panel is facing a ticking clock to get all the information it can.
Robert LegareWashington – An attorney with close ties to former President Donald Trump unsuccessfully urged the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to help overturn Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory by recalculating vote counts and appointing a new slate of "Trump electors," emails sent in the weeks following the election show. Trump lawyer John Eastman advised Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Russ Diamond to employ various mathematical tactics "to help provide some cover" in an apparent effort to reverse Biden's 80,000 vote surplus in the state, according to records obtained by CBS News. The emails allege that Diamond initially contacted Eastman on Dec. 4, 2020, to claim that Pennsylvania's presidential election had been unlawful and to ask for Eastman's assistance in writing a state resolution that would appoint alternative electors to certify a Trump victory in Pennsylvania in the Electoral College. Diamond wrote that he had concerns about the election and was working to create a legislative tool to subvert the Biden victory in Pennsylvania and had found Eastman's previous comments on the issue "compelling."
By Bob Brigham | Raw StoryThe efforts by Trump lawyer John Eastman to attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Pennsylvania, a former federal prosecutor explained on Wednesday. "Even by the standards of other ideas promoted by the conservative lawyer John Eastman to keep President Donald J. Trump in the White House after his election loss in 2020, a newly revealed strategy he proposed to take votes from Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Pennsylvania stands out as especially brazen," The New York Times reported Wednesday. "Mr. Eastman pressed a Pennsylvania state lawmaker in December 2020 to carry out a plan to strip Mr. Biden of his win in that state by applying a mathematical equation to accepting the validity of mail ballots, which were most heavily used by Democrats during the pandemic, according to emails from Mr. Eastman released under a public records request by the University of Colorado Boulder, which employed him at the time." The emails were sent to Republican state Rep. Russell Diamond. "The emails were the latest evidence of just how far Mr. Trump and his allies were willing to go in the weeks after Election Day to keep him in power — complete with anti-democratic plans to install fake pro-Trump electors and reject the votes of Biden supporters. Mr. Eastman would go on to champion the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally block congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory, an idea Mr. Pence rejected even as Mr. Trump was promoting the protests that turned into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol," the newspaper reported.
By Kyle CheneyAttorney John Eastman urged Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to retabulate the state’s popular vote — and throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots — in order to show Donald Trump with a lead, according to newly unearthed emails sent in December 2020, as Trump pressured GOP lawmakers to subvert his defeat. This recalculation, he posited in an exchange with one GOP state lawmaker, “would help provide some cover” for Republicans to replace Joe Biden’s electors from the state with a slate of pro-Trump electors, part of a last-ditch bid to overturn the election results. Per the exchange, Eastman suggested that GOP legislators could simply cite their concerns with Pennsylvania’s absentee ballot procedures and then use historical data to “discount each candidates' totals by a prorated amount based on the absentee percentage those candidates otherwise received.” “Having done that math, you'd be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote,” Eastman wrote in a Dec. 4, 2020 email to Pennsylvania Rep. Russ Diamond. “That would help provide some cover.” Biden ultimately won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes.
The Jan. 6 committee may release videotapes of witness testimony during public hearings slated to start in June, according to reporting by Politico. At least eight public hearings are set to take place. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is in the hot seat for refusing to testify before the panel.
By Alex HendersonThe events that followed the 2020 presidential election were unprecedented in U.S. history. Never before had an incumbent president in the United States lost the popular vote by more than 7 million and watched his opponent win 306 electoral votes only to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him and make an unsuccessful coup attempt. And never before had an insurrectionist mob violently attacked and invaded the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of stopping the peaceful transition of presidential power. But all of those things happened after now-President Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump in 2020, and one of Trump’s closest allies during his unsuccessful coup attempt was then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Journalist Michael Kranish, in an article published by the Washington Post on May 9, takes an in-depth look at the prominent role Meadows played in that coup attempt. “Instead of echoing the (Trump) Administration’s own Justice Department to tell Trump that his claims of a stolen election were wrong,” Kranish explains, “Meadows went to extraordinary lengths to push Trump’s false assertions — particularly during a crucial three-week period starting with his trip to Atlanta and culminating in the violent insurrection on January 6, 2021.”
High-level aides to the former president aren’t the only ones who can detail his network’s movements leading up to and during the Capitol attack.By Kyle Cheney and Nicholas WuDonald Trump’s top election-subversion wingmen have stonewalled the Jan. 6 select committee for months, but investigators have found a reliable workaround: their deputies and assistants. Time and again, the panel has managed to pierce the secrecy of Trump’s inner circle by turning to the aides entrusted with carrying out logistics for their bosses, according to interviews with lawmakers and newly public committee records. Some of the select panel’s most crucial information has come from Trumpworld staffers, who were often in the room or briefed on sensitive meetings, even if they weren’t central players themselves. It’s a classic investigative strategy that’s paid dividends for select committee investigators, many of whom are seasoned former federal prosecutors. “We are definitely taking advantage of the fact that most senior-level people in Washington depend on a lot of young associates and subordinates to get anything done,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the select committee. “A lot of these people still have their ethics intact and don’t want to squander the rest of their careers for other people’s mistakes and corruption.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — A spokesman for the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol says Rudy Giuliani, who led Donald Trump's court efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has withdrawn from an interview that was scheduled to take place Friday. Committee spokesman Tim Mulvey released a statement to multiple media outlets Thursday night saying: “Mr. Giuliani had agreed to participate in a transcribed interview with the Select Committee. Today, he informed committee investigators that he wouldn’t show up unless he was permitted to record the interview, which was never an agreed-upon condition." Mulvey continued: “Mr. Giuliani is an important witness to the conspiracy to overthrow the government and he remains under subpoena. If he refuses to comply the committee will consider all enforcement options.”
By Akriti Sharma(Reuters) -A U.S. federal judge dismissed a request by the Republican National Committee to block a subpoena asking its email vendor to release records to the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The RNC sued the House panel on March 9 after it issued a subpoena to Salesforce Inc, which organizes donor information for the committee. The House Select Committee, formed in July, said it wanted to understand the flow of emails from the RNC in the weeks before the attack on the Capitol that claims the 2020 election was stolen. In an order late on Sunday, U.S. District judge Timothy Kelly tossed out the RNC's claims that the subpoena to Salesforce was "overbroad" and "seeks sensitive and proprietary data," according to court records.
Obtaining the attorney's records has been a top priority for the committee probing the events of Jan. 6.By KYLE CHENEYAttorney John Eastman, a key architect of former President Donald Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election, is preparing to provide another 10,000 pages of records to the Jan. 6 select committee, his attorney revealed late Friday. It’s the latest breakthrough for congressional investigators in their ongoing fight to obtain details of Trump’s last-ditch plans to overturn his election loss. Eastman had claimed attorney-client privilege over 37,000 pages of post-election emails related to his work for Trump. But under pressure from U.S. District Court Judge David Carter — who ruled in March that Eastman and Trump likely entered into a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election — Eastman withdrew privilege claims for nearly a third of that total. In Friday’s court filing, Eastman’s lawyers indicated that the select committee now wants more time to consider how to handle the remaining 27,000 pages of records that remain in dispute. Carter has asked Eastman to produce a log of all the emails that remain contested, but Eastman is now asking Carter for a brief reprieve while the select committee reviews the new documents and determines how to proceed.
The Fox News host leaked what she'd ask the then-president to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to messages obtained by CNN.By Lee MoranFox News’ Maria Bartiromo shared with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the questions she planned to ask Donald Trump ahead of her on-air interview with the president on Nov. 29, 2020, CNN reported on Friday. Trump sycophant Bartiromo, in text messages obtained by the network, told Meadows she would request Trump, in his first post-election interview, to explain why the vote had been rigged against him. (For the record, it wasn’t.) Around an hour before her talk with Trump, she messaged Meadows: “Hi the public wants to know he will fight this. They want to hear a path to victory. & he’s in control. 1Q You’ve said MANY TIMES THIS ELECTION IS RIGGED… And the facts are on your side. Let’s start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here.” Bartiromo added:
By CNN(CNN) CNN has obtained 2,319 text messages that former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden's January 20, 2021, inauguration. Meadows selectively provided these messages to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Among the trove of texts are more than 80 from Fox's Sean Hannity, which are included below. The communications show Hannity's evolution from a staunch supporter of Trump's election lies to being "fed up" with the "lunatics" hurting Trump's cause in the days before January 6.
Ewan PalmerRudy Giuliani is expected to speak in the upcoming weeks with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack, although the scope of what he will discuss may be limited. Giuliani, who was among four members of Donald Trump's legal team subpoenaed by the panel on January 18, is said to have agreed to meet with the committee investigating the Capitol attack sometime in May, reported CNN. The agreement follows months of negotiations between both parties for Giuliani to come forward and provide testimony about the events leading up to January 6, including whether he should give an informal interview or a formal deposition. However, CNN previously reported that while Giuliani is willing to discuss the false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election with the committee, the lawyer for the former president would not waive executive or attorney-client privilege.
CNN's Maggie Haberman and Errol Louis discuss what stood out to them from the thousands of text messages that former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden's inauguration.
Now we know why Republicans did not want an investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol.The New York TimesWASHINGTON — It was less than two weeks before President Donald J. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress would have what they saw as their last chance to overturn the 2020 election, and Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, was growing anxious. “Time continues to count down,” he wrote in a text message to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, adding: “11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” It has been clear for more than a year that ultraconservative members of Congress were deeply involved in attempts to keep Mr. Trump in power: They joined baseless lawsuits, spread the lie of widespread election fraud and were among the 147 Republicans who voted on Jan. 6, 2021, against certifying President Biden’s victory in at least one state.But in a court filing and in text messages obtained by CNN, new pieces of evidence have emerged in recent days fleshing out the degree of their involvement with the Trump White House in strategy sessions, at least one of which included discussions about encouraging Mr. Trump’s supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, despite warnings of potential violence. Some continued to push to try to keep Mr. Trump in office even after a mob of his supporters attacked the complex.
Rebecca BeitschThe House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is scrutinizing one particular phrase from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) leaked calls with other top Republicans expressing concern that former President Trump would seek a pardon. The taped recording with McCarthy, published by The New York Times, not only relays McCarthy’s assertion that Trump bore responsibility for the attack, but could also indicate his concern that some actions the former president took leading up to that day may be criminal. “Now, this is one personal fear I have. I do not want to get into any conversation about [former Vice President Mike] Pence pardoning,” McCarthy says in the Jan. 10 recording as part of a broader conversation about Trump potentially resigning after the riot. Experts say the committee may want to zero in on that exchange, as the audio shows Republicans at the highest level may have been worried about the legality of Trump’s actions leading up to Jan. 6.
bmetzger@insider.com (Bryan Metzger,Jake Lahut)Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the possibility of invoking martial law after January 6, according to newly-released text messages between the two. CNN reported on Monday that on January 17, three days before the inauguration of President Joe Biden, she told Meadows that several of her Republican colleagues were interested in the idea as a means of keeping former President Donald Trump in power. "In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall (sic) law," she texted Meadows that day. "I don't know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him." Greene's text to Meadows was among the 2,319 messages obtained by CNN from Election Day 2020 to Biden's inauguration on January 20, 2021.
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