The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol turns its focus this week to former President Trump’s campaign to rally protesters to Washington, pointing to one tweet in particular as a pivotal moment in the violent effort to overturn his election defeat.
DOJ alerted after Trump called unseen Jan. 6 witness, says Cheney
Former President Trump tried to call a witness expected to appear at a future hearing for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday, raising further questions about potential witness tampering.
“After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings,” Cheney said at the conclusion of Tuesday’s hearing. “That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call, and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us, and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.”
“We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney added.
At a hearing late last month with former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Cheney displayed a text message sent to one undisclosed witness that read: “[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
Cheney also showed a statement at the previous hearing from a witness in which the person recalled being told that as long as they remained loyal to Trump and his team, “I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceeded through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”
One of the witnesses involved in the previous messages is reportedly Hutchinson.
But Cheney’s comments on Tuesday are the first public confirmation that Trump had personally reached out to those who are communicating with the committee.
The committee has kept the identity of witnesses at future hearings under wraps, partly due to increased security concerns.
— Brett Samuels
Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s (D-Fla.) closing remarks: “Members of the angry mob had been lied to by a president and other powerful people who tried to convince them, without evidence, that the election was stolen from them. … Our committee’s overriding objective is to fight fiction with facts… to make recommendations so it never happens again. To me, there’s nothing more patriotic than that.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-Md.) closing remarks: “This is not the problem of one party. It is the problem of the whole country now. American democracy, Mr. Chairman, is a precious inheritance. We need to defend both our democracy and our freedom with everything we have and declare that this American carnage ends here and now.”
Texts show Trump campaign manager blaming Trump rhetoric for Capitol attack
Former Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale blamed then-President Trump’s rhetoric in his Ellipse speech for inciting the Capitol riot, according to text messages presented at Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing.
Just after 7 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, Parscale texted former Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson, “This is about trump pushing for uncertainty in our country.”
“A sitting president asking for a civil war,” he wrote in a separate message. “This week I feel guilty for helping him win.”
Pierson responded, writing, “You did what you felt right at the time and therefore it was right.”
Parscale then reflected on the fact that a woman had died in the chaos — Ashli Babbitt was shot by a police officer in the Capitol amid the riot.
“Yeah. But a woman is dead,” Parscale wrote to Pierson, to which she responded, “You do realize this was going to happen.”
“Yeah. If I was trump and knew my rhetoric killed someone,” he wrote.
Pierson, however, objected to the idea that Trump’s rhetoric contributed to Babbitt’s death, writing, “It wasn’t the rhetoric.”
But Parscale disagreed.
“Katrina,” he wrote in a message, “Yes it was.”
Parscale stepped away from the Trump campaign in September 2020, citing an “overwhelming stress” that needed to be dealt with.
– Mychael Schnell
Remarks from Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesperson for the far-right militia group Oath Keepers:
“We need to quit mincing words and talk about truths. What it was going to be was an armed revolution. People died that day … there was a gallows set up. … This could have been the spark that started a new civil war.”
Remarks from Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesperson for the far-right militia group Oath Keepers:
“The Oath Keepers are a very dangerous military organization. … We saw a vision of what the Oath Keepers is on Jan. 6. It doesn’t necessarily include the rule of law. … It includes violence … trying to get their way through lies, deceit and intimidation.”
Bannon predicted ‘all hell is going to break loose tomorrow’ after Jan. 5 call with Trump
Former President Trump spoke on the phone with his former White House adviser and political strategist Steve Bannon at least twice on the day before the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, the select committee revealed on Tuesday.
After the first call on the morning of Jan. 5, which lasted 11 minutes, according to White House call logs, Bannon went on a right-wing talk show and predicted the next day would be eventful.
“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said in a clip of his appearance that was played during Tuesday’s hearing. “It’s all converging and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.”
“I’ll tell you this, it’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen,” he added. “It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in.”
Bannon had refused to comply with a select committee subpoena for testimony and documents. He is slated to go to trial on Monday on two misdemeanor counts of criminal contempt of Congress over his defiance.
– Harper Neidig
Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager, showed remorse for any role he may have indirectly played in the events of Jan. 6 via text messages to Katrina Pierson: “A sitting president asking for civil war …. This week I feel guilty for helping him win.”
Trump counsel told Jan. 6 panel Pence ‘didn’t have legal authority’ to overturn election
Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the Jan. 6 select committee that then-Vice President Pence “didn’t have legal authority” to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election during the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
“My view is that the vice president didn’t have the legal authority to do anything except what he did,” Cipollone testified to the committee behind closed doors, according to a clip presented at Tuesday’s hearing.
“I thought that the vice president did not have the authority to do what was being suggested under a proper reading of the law. I conveyed that,” he added at a different point in his testimony.
During his closed-door meeting with the panel last week Cipollone was asked about previous testimony from former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, who told the committee that he heard Cipollone characterize the theory that Pence could overturn the election results as “nutty.” Miller also said Cipollone confronted conservative lawyer John Eastman, who was pushing the theory, “with the same sentiment.”
The former White House counsel said he would not refute Miller’s characterization.
“I don’t have any reason to contradict what he said,” he said.
– Mychael Schnell
Recorded remark from a former Twitter employee: “I think when people are shooting themselves tomorrow, I will try to rest in the knowledge that we tried … if nothing was done about what I saw [I knew] people were going to die.”
— Rebecca Beitsch
Texts, draft Trump tweet indicate call to march on Capitol not spontaneous
Texts and a drafted presidential tweet displayed during Tuesday’s hearing indicated that calls for Trump supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were not spontaneous.
The committee obtained a draft tweet from the National Archives that former President Trump reviewed but never sent that read: “I will be making a Bid Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House).Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!”
The panel also displayed a text message sent from Kylie Kremer, one of the organizers of the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse near the White House, to Mike Lindell, a Trump supporter who has pushed false claims of election fraud.
“We are having a second stage at the supreme court again after the ellipse. Potus is going to have us march there/the capitol,” Kremer wrote. “It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and Sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”
The committee also showed a text from Ali Alexander, a far-right provocateur who was behind the “Stop the Steal” movement, dated Jan. 5, 2021, that read: “Tomorrow: Ellipse then US capitol. Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech but we will see.”
The evidence presented at Tuesday’s hearing indicates that Trump’s call for supporters to march to the Capitol during his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 was not spontaneous but instead was something organizers and supporters were expecting him to do.
That argument will be key as the committee builds its case that Trump was aware that attendees had weapons but encouraged them to head to the Capitol anyway, where throngs of rioters stormed the complex and clashed with police in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win.
— Brett Samuels
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone says former Vice President Pence should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:
“I think the VP did the right thing, I think he did the courageous thing. I have great deal of respect for VP Pence…I think he understood my opinion, and I think he did a great service to this country.”
—Rebecca Beitsch
New info from committee: Texts and a draft tweet show Trump planned to call for march to the Capitol — and that outside rally planners knew to keep those plans quiet. One organizer stressed need for it to seem unexpected.
—Rebecca Beitsch
The committee shared a Jan 4, 2021, text message to Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow. It read, in part, “POTUS is going to have us march there / the Capitol.” The panel cited the message as evidence that Trump’s calls to march on the Capitol during Trump’s speech were planned and not spontaneous.
Raskin links Flynn, Stone to extremist groups
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn “had connections to the Oath Keepers,” showing photos of Trump’s former national security adviser with Roberto Minuta, a member of the far-right extremist group who was among those indicted for seditious conspiracy in January, and Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the group who was also indicted.
Raskin also said Roger Stone, whom he described as a political consultant and longtime confidant of Trump, had ties to “this network of extremist groups.”
The Maryland Democrat said that between the election and Jan. 6, 2021, Stone “communicated with both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers regularly.”
The congressman also said the committee obtained encrypted content from a group chat titled “Friends of Stone,” or FOS for short, which included Stone, Rhodes, former Proud Boys national chair Enrique Tarrio and Ali Alexander of the “Stop the Steal” movement. Raskin said the chat was centered on Jan. 6, in addition to “various pro-Trump events in November and December of 2020.”
— Mychael Schnell
Former Trump campaign aide Katrina Pierson, who was involved in organizing the Jan. 6, 2021, rally near the White House, raised concerns to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows about some of the individuals who planned to attend.
Pierson texted Meadows on Jan. 2 to say “things have gotten crazy and I desperately need some direction.” Meadows called a few minutes later, according to phone records.
Pierson told the committee she relayed to Meadows why she was raising red flags, specifically citing the rhetoric of Alex Jones and Ali Alexander, two far-right personalities who had ginned up outrage among Trump supporters.
Pierson noted those two had already “caused trouble” at other protests at state capitols.
In a previous text with another Jan. 6 organizer, Pierson acknowledged Trump would not have an issue with the likes of Jones and Alexander being there because “he likes the crazies.”
Asked to elaborate on what she meant by that, Pierson told the committee: “He loved people who viciously defended him in public.”
— Brett Samuels
Committee shows this key message showing how Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and others decided to join forces on Jan 6 despite not previously being aligned.
Photographers swarm Jason Van Tatenhove and Stephen Ayers during a break prior to their testimony before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A former Twitter employee told the committee that Trump’s Dec. 19, 2020, tweet amounted to “staking a flag in D.C. on Jan. 6 for his supporters to come and rally.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) read off a number of social media posts and played videos from pro-Trump internet personalities in which they spoke about heading to the nation’s capital in response to Trump’s tweet saying there would be a rally and that it would be “wild.”
— Brett Samuels
Ex-White House lawyers, Trump allies recall heated meeting on election challenges
Former White House lawyers and Trump allies recalled a heated Dec. 18, 2020, meeting in which they fought over whether there was an avenue to proceed with election challenges.
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone recalled pressing Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani for evidence of their claims of election fraud, but getting none in response.
Eric Herschmann, another former White House lawyer at the time, told the committee, “What they were proposing, I thought was nuts.”
Herschmann expressed exasperation at Powell’s claim that dozens of lawsuits on behalf of Trump alleging fraud were dismissed because every single judge involved was “corrupt.”
Powell told the committee that she felt Trump should have fired Cipollone and Herschmann on the spot.
Giuliani, who was also advising Trump at the time, said he felt the White House lawyers were not fighting hard enough for the president.
“You guys are not tough enough,” Giuliani said of his message to the White House lawyers. “You’re a bunch of p——. Excuse the expression. But I’m almost certain that was the word that was used.”
Ultimately, no clear progress was made on next steps, according to those in attendance.
“We landed where we started the meeting … which was Sidney Powell was fighting, Mike Flynn was fighting, they were looking for avenues that would result in President Trump remaining President Trump for a second term,” said Derek Lyons, the former White House staff secretary.
— Brett Samuels
Cheney says Trump’s team has changed Jan. 6 strategy to blame the ‘crazies’
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Tuesday said individuals in former President Trump’s orbit have recently changed their strategy when dealing with the Jan. 6 select committee, opting to blame the “crazies” in Trump’s orbit for the actions of the then-president.
During her opening statement at Tuesday’s public hearing, Cheney said witnesses and lawyers connected to Trump have gone from denying arguments and delaying proceedings to blaming outside advisers for Trump’s conduct — a plan that she labeled “nonsense.”
“We have covered significant ground over the past several weeks, and we have also seen a change in how witnesses and lawyers in the Trump orbit approach this committee,” Cheney said.
“Initially, their strategy in some cases appeared to be to deny and delay,” Cheney said. “Today, there appears to be a general recognition that the committee has established key facts, including that virtually everyone close to President Trump — his justice department officials, his White House advisers, his White House counsel, his campaign — all told him the 2020 election was not stolen,” she added.
Cheney, who serves as the vice chair of the panel, said those close to Trump now seem to be arguing that the president “was manipulated by others outside the administration, that he was persuaded to ignore his closest advisers and that he was incapable of telling right from wrong.”
She specifically called out three individuals who witnesses have sought to blame for Trump’s conduct: conservative lawyer John Eastman, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).
“In this version, the president was quote ‘poorly served’ by these outside advisors. The strategy is to blame people his advisors called quote ‘the crazies’ for what Donald Trump did. This, of course, is nonsense,” Cheney said.
“President Trump is a 76-year-old man, he is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices. As our investigation has shown, Donald Trump had access to more detailed and specific information showing that the election was not actually stolen than almost any other American. And he was told this over and over again. No rational or sane man in his position could disregard that information and reach the opposite conclusion. And Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind,” she added.
— Mychael Schnell
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone did not mince words at a Dec 18, 2020, meeting to discuss seizing voting machines and appointing Trump attorney Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate alleged voter fraud.
Seizing voting machines “is a terrible idea … I don’t even know why I need to tell you why that’s a bad idea,” Cipollone said.
He also dismissed appointing Powell as special counsel for voting fraud: “I didn’t think she should have been appointed to anything.”
— Rebecca Beitsch
Trump officials say they saw Electoral College certification as end of election
Multiple former Trump White House officials told the committee that the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting of the Electoral College signaled to them that the election was over and Joe Biden had won.
Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee he believed former President Trump should have conceded at a certain point, and he told the committee former chief of staff Mark Meadows shared a similar sentiment with him.
“Dec. 14 was the day that the state’s certified their votes and sent them to congress and my view of that was the end of the matter,” former Attorney General William Barr said. “I thought this would lead inexorably to a new administration.”
Former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told the committee she began to plan for life after the administration at that point.
Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter and a former senior White House adviser, said she viewed the Electoral College meeting as an important day in the course of planning for life after the election.
And Judd Deere, a former deputy press secretary, testified to the committee that he told the elder Trump he believed the window to pursue litigation had closed once the Electoral College sent its votes to Congress.
Asked about Trump’s response, Deere said the former president “disagreed.”
— Brett Samuels
Former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia called then-President Trump in December 2020 to tell him he should concede the election.
Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, said he phoned Trump after the Electoral College had certified its votes establishing Biden’s victory.
“I told him that I did believe, yes, that once those legal processes were run, if fraud had not been established … I believed that what had to be done was concede the outcome.”
— Brett Samuels