You may not have heard of Right Side Broadcasting Network, and if that’s the case—congratulations! You live a rich, full life unadulterated by brain weevils. Obviously, you’re not part of the network’s target demographic, which appears to consist almost entirely of Scott Baio getting shambolically drunk on Boone’s Farm.
But what the network lacks in gravitas it more than makes up for in goofy-ass displays of meretricious nonsense. Enter the ever-benighted Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s modest contribution to our slow-rolling apocalypse.
In a recent interview with RSBN’s Brian Glenn, Greene was so gobsmackingly weird, for a moment I thought my Jewish space LASIK surgery was making me hallucinate.
Watch:
“I thought the Capitol was the most secure building in our country ... There are lots of cameras, but you can’t see the video footage. I don’t know why you can’t.” — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who apparently missed the January 6th committee’s first public hearing pic.twitter.com/OSzcEZhcow
GREENE: “My third day on the job, the Capitol gets breached and then they blame me and President Trump and many other Republican members of Congress for doing it. I was so shocked, and I’ll tell you what was so shocking, I thought the Capitol was the most secure building in our country at least.”
GLENN: “Right, with thousands of cameras.”
GREENE: “Well, there are lots of cameras, but you can’t see the video footage. I don’t know why you can’t ....”
For one thing, there is video footage of the attack—including lots of Capitol security footage—and it’s definitely viewable to anyone who cares to look at it. For instance, there’s this NBC News video from Trump’s second impeachment, helpfully titled “Impeachment Managers Show New Graphic Security Footage Of Capitol Riot”:
Meanwhile, Greene is also convinced that humans aren’t actually hurting the planet by burning fossil fuels—we’re enhancing it! Think of it as our new, improved operating system, Earth 2.0—only without all the usual bugs. No, really. There will be no bugs. They can’t possibly survive what’s coming. Earth 2.0 will be a fungus-and-lungfish paradise, which gives MTG a fighting chance, come to think of it.
Marge Greene presents her scientific argument why global warming is a good thing: “This earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us.” pic.twitter.com/fw5DMMeSJN
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 13, 2022
Transcript:
GREENE: “We’ve already warmed 1 degree Celsius, and do you know what’s happened since then? Here, let me tell you. We have had more food grown since then, which feeds people. We are able to, producing fossil fuels, keep people’s houses warm in the winter. That saves people’s lives. People die in the cold. This Earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us. It helps us to feed people, it helps keep people alive. … The Earth is more green than it was years and years ago, and that’s because of the Earth warming, that’s because of carbon.”
In January 2021—with a big assist from our worst-ever president—Georgia was kind enough to gift us two Democratic U.S. senators. They also gave us this moist, quavering mound of peach tree-dish detritus.
As many of us watched the first public congressional hearings from the Jan. 6 committee investigating the insurrection last Thursday, we saw the seven members carefully lay out how they intended to prove former President Donald Trump’s guilt in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential elections. And even though they will continue to reveal more evidence in the coming days, the question that looms is whether or not Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has the guts to actually prosecute Trump.
Garland gave a speech at Harvard University’s commencement ceremony last month, where mentioned he would “follow the facts whether they lead.” And as NBC News reports, Lisa Monaco, Garland’s deputy attorney general, told CNN, “Federal prosecutors are reviewing fake Electoral College certifications that declared former President Donald Trump the winner of states that he lost… We've received those referrals. Our prosecutors are looking at those, and I can't say anything more on ongoing investigations.”
But following leads and taking notes during the House select committee hearings is one thing—prosecuting a U.S. president is a whole other beast.
Barbara McQuade, an NBC legal analyst and former U.S. attorney warned that filing criminal charges against Trump in his attempt to subvert the elections “will very likely spark civil unrest, and maybe even civil war.” However, “not charging [Trump] is even worse because not charging means you failed to hold someone criminally accountable who tried to subvert our democracy,” she explained.
Indicting Trump would be a first in U.S. history. The only case even remotely close was that of former President Richard Nixon, who resigned from office in 1974 before his expected fate of impeachment for his role in Watergate. Former President Gerald Ford later pardoned Nixon prior to the possible filing of criminal charges.
The other issue Garland is likely facing is the ethics of whether or not prosecuting Trump is in the best interest of the nation—an issue that essentially pits the two parties against each other.
“I don’t think we want to be the kind of country where this happens often,” McQuade told NBC News.
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney and NBC News legal analyst said, “Prosecuting Trump destabilizes the country more than it puts it upright.”
Committee members have been clear from the start that all of the accusations against Trump will be backed up with evidence and testimony from the players involved—some who’ve come forward voluntarily and others who’ve been subpoenaed.
Rep. Adam Schiff has said that he’s expecting the DOJ to “investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump,” the Associated Press reports,
Schiff added:
“Once the evidence is accumulated by the Justice Department, it needs to make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s. … But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”
According to CNN, Rep. Jamie Raskin has said he will not “browbeat” Garland, but the committee has clearly highlighted the many crimes Trump has committed.
“I think that he knows, his staff knows, the U.S. attorneys know, what’s at stake here. … They know the importance of it, but I think they are rightfully paying close attention to precedent in history as well, as the facts of this case.
“So we have laid out in different legal pleadings the criminal statutes that we think have been violated. And Judge Carter in California said he thought it was likely that President Trump committed federal offenses.”
In case you missed Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s powerful opening remarks as prepared for the Jan. 6 select committee’s initial public hearing Thursday evening, we’ve provided her full statement below, courtesy of Politico.
The Wyoming congresswoman is the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney; as one of only two Republicans on the committee, she serves as vice-chair.
Almost every Republican has chosen to side with former President Trump’s version of events on that fateful day. Cheney is not one of them, and she is paying the price in her pursuit of the truth of what happened and who was behind the events of Jan. 6.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Dana Milbank writes that “Republican members of Congress forced Cheney out of her party leadership position and are trying to oust her in a primary.”
It’s worth noting that while we appreciate Cheney's presentation and performance last night, she remains diametrically opposed to a lot of progressive ideology and has actively worked (and voted) against racial and economic justice.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me echo those words about the importance of bipartisanship, and what a tremendous honor it is to work on this committee.
Mr. Chairman, at 6:01pm on January 6th, after he spent hours watching a violent mob besiege, attack and invade our Capitol, Donald Trump tweeted. But he did not condemn the attack. Instead he justified it:
“These are the things and events that happen,” he said, “when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”
As you will see in the hearings to come, President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol, and I quote, “were doing what they should be doing.” This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave. Over a series of hearings in the coming weeks, you will hear testimony, live and on video, from more than a half dozen former White House staff in the Trump administration, all of whom were in the West Wing of the White House on January 6th. You will hear testimony that “The President didn’t really want to put anything out” calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave. You will hear that President Trump was yelling, and “really angry at advisors who told him he needed to be doing something more.” And, aware of the rioters’ chants to “hang Mike Pence,” the President responded with this sentiment: “maybe our supporters have the right idea.” Mike Pence “deserves” it.
You will hear evidence that President Trump refused for hours to do what his staff, his family, and many of his other advisors begged him to do: immediately instruct his supporters to stand down and evacuate the Capitol.
Tonight, you will see never-before-seen footage of the brutal attack on our Capitol, an attack that unfolded while, a few blocks away, President Trump sat watching television in his dining room off the Oval Office. You will hear audio from the brave police officers battling for their lives and ours, fighting to defend our democracy, against a violent mob Donald Trump refused to call off.
Tonight and in the weeks to come, you will see evidence of what motivated this violence, including directly from those who participated in this attack. You will see video of them explaining what caused them to do it. You will see their posts on social media. We will show you what they have said in federal court. On this point, there is no room for debate. Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful President. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.
You will also hear about plots to commit seditious conspiracy on January 6th, a crime defined in our laws as “conspir[ing] to overthrow, put down or destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to oppose by force the authority thereof.” Multiple members of two groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, have been charged with this crime for their involvement in the events leading up to and on January 6th. Some have pled guilty. The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot. Intelligence available before January 6th identified plans to “invade” the Capitol, “occupy” the Capitol, and take other steps to halt Congress’ count of Electoral Votes that day. In our hearings to come, we will identify elements of those plans, and we will show specifically how a group of Proud Boys led a mob into the Capitol building on January 6th.
Tonight I am going to describe for you some of what our committee has learned and highlight initial findings you will see this month in our hearings. As you hear this, all Americans should keep in mind this fact: On the morning of January 6th, 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. Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.
In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisors knew that he had, in fact, lost the election. But, despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information – to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him. This was not true.
Jason Miller was a senior Trump Campaign spokesman. In this clip, Miller describes a call between the Trump campaign’s internal data expert and President Trump a few days after the 2020 election:
A: I was in the Oval Office. At some point in the conversation, Matt Oczkowski who was the lead data person was brought on and I remember he delivered to the President in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose.
Q: And that was based, Mr. Miller, on Matt and the data team’s assessment of this sort of county by county state by state results as reported?
A: Correct.
Alex Cannon was one of President Trump’s campaign lawyers. He previously worked for the Trump Organization. One of his responsibilities was to assess allegations of election fraud in November 2020. Here is one sample of his testimony -- discussing what he told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows:
A: I remember a call with Mr. Meadows where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything and I remember sharing with him that we weren’t finding anything that would be sufficient to um change the results in any of the key states.
Q: When was that conversation?
A: Probably in November, mid to late November, I think it was before my child was born.
Q: And what was Mr. Meadows’ reaction to that information?
A: I believe the words he used were “so there’s no there there.”
There’s no there there. The Trump Campaign’s General Counsel Matt Morgan gave similar testimony. He explained that all of the fraud allegations and the campaign’s other election arguments taken together and viewed in the best possible light for President Trump, could still not change the outcome of the election.
President Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr also told Donald Trump his election claims were wrong:
A: And I repeatedly told the President in no uncertain terms that I did not see evidence of fraud, you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election. And frankly, a year and a half later, I haven’t seen anything to change my mind on that.
Attorney General Barr also told President Trump that his allegations about Dominion voting machines were groundless:
“I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn’t count, and that these machines, controlled by somebody else, were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. And it was being laid out there. And I told him that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that and that it was doing great, great disservice to the country.”
But President Trump persisted, repeating the false Dominion allegations in public at least a dozen more times even after his Attorney General told him they were “complete nonsense.”
And after Barr’s resignation on December 23rd, the Acting Attorney General who replaced him, Jeff Rosen and the acting Deputy, Richard Donoghue told President Trump over and over again that the evidence did not support allegations he was making in public.
Many of President Trump’s White House staff also recognized that the evidence did not support the claims President Trump was making. This is the President’s daughter, commenting on Bill Barr’s statement that the Department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election:
Q: How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement?
A: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he was saying.
As you will hear on Monday, the President had every right to litigate his campaign claims, but he ultimately lost more than 60 cases in state and federal courts. The President’s claims in the election cases were so frivolous and unsupported that the President’s lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, not only lost the lawsuits, his license to practice law was suspended. Here is what the court said of Mr. Giuliani:
Giuliani “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.”
As you will see in great detail in these hearings, President Trump ignored the rulings of our nation’s courts, he ignored his own campaign leadership, his White House staff, many Republican state officials, he ignored the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information, running ads he knew were false, and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and he was the true President. As you will see, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th.
In our third hearing, you will see that President Trump corruptly planned to replace the Attorney General of the United States so the U.S. Justice Department would spread his false stolen election claims. In the days before January 6th, President Trump told his top Justice Department officials “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.” Senior Justice Department officials, men he had appointed, told him they could not do that, because it was not true. So President Trump decided to replace them.
He offered Jeff Clark, an environmental lawyer at the Justice Department, the job of Acting Attorney General. President Trump wanted Mr. Clark to take a number of steps, including sending this letter to Georgia and five other states, saying the U.S. Department of Justice had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election.” This letter is a lie. The Department of Justice had, in fact, repeatedly told President Trump exactly the opposite – that they had investigated his stolen election allegations and found no credible fraud that could impact the outcome of the election. This letter, and others like it, would have urged multiple states to withdraw their official and lawful electoral votes for Biden.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue described Jeff Clark’s letter this way: “This would be a grave step for the Department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political and social ramifications for the country.” The Committee agrees with Mr. Donoghue’s assessment. Had Clark assumed the role of Attorney General in the days before January 6th and issued these letters, the ramifications could indeed have been grave. Mr. Donoghue also said this about Clark’s plan:
“And I recall towards the end saying, what you’re proposing is nothing less than the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a Presidential Election.”
In our hearings, you will hear first-hand how the senior leadership of the Department of Justice threatened to resign, how the White House Counsel threatened to resign, and how they confronted Donald Trump and Jeff Clark in the Oval Office. The men involved, including Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, were appointed by President Trump. These men honored their oaths of office. They did their duty, and you will hear from them in our hearings.
By contrast, Jeff Clark has invoked his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify. Representative Scott Perry, who was involved in trying to get Clark appointed as Attorney General, has refused to testify here. As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a Presidential Pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought Presidential Pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
In our fourth hearing, we will focus on President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th. Vice President Pence has spoken publicly about this:
“President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional. You will hear this in great detail from the Vice President’s former General Counsel. Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former Vice President and his staff informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal.
As you will hear, President Trump engaged in a relentless effort to pressure Pence both in private and in public. You will see the evidence of that pressure from multiple witnesses live and on video. Vice President Pence demonstrated his loyalty to Donald Trump consistently over four years, but he knew that he had a higher duty – to the United States Constitution. This is testimony from the Vice President’s Chief of Staff:
A: I think the Vice President was proud of his four years of service and he felt like much had been accomplished in those four years. And I think he was proud to have stood beside the President for all that had been done. But I think he ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath, and that’s – that’s what he articulated publicly and I think that’s what he felt.
Q: His fidelity to the Constitution was more important than his fidelity to President Trump and his desire …
A: The oath he took, yes.
You will also hear about a lawyer named John Eastman. Mr. Eastman was deeply involved in President Trump’s plans. You will hear from former Fourth Circuit Federal Judge Michael Luttig, a highly respected leading conservative judge. John Eastman clerked for Judge Luttig. Judge Luttig provided counsel to the Vice President’s team in the days before January 6th. The Judge will explain how Eastman “was wrong at every turn.” And you will see the email exchanges between Eastman and the Vice President’s Counsel as the violent attack on Congress was underway. Mr. Jacob said this to Mr. Eastman: “And thanks to your bullshit, we are under siege.” You will also see evidence that John Eastman did not actually believe the legal position he was taking. In fact, a month before the 2020 election, Eastman took exactly the opposite view on the same legal issues.
In the course of the Select Committee’s work to obtain information from Mr. Eastman, we have had occasion to present evidence to a federal judge. The judge evaluated these facts and he reached the conclusion that President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act illegally by refusing to count electoral votes likely violated two federal criminal statutes. And the judge also said this: “If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6th will repeat itself.” Every American should read what this federal judge has written. The same Judge, Judge Carter, issued another decision on Tuesday night, indicating that John Eastman and other Trump lawyers knew that their legal arguments had no real chance of success in court. But they relied on those arguments anyway to try to “overturn a democratic election.”
And you will hear that while Congress was under attack on January 6th and the hours following the violence, the Trump legal team in the Willard Hotel war room continued to work to halt the count of electoral votes.
In our fifth hearing, you will see evidence that President Trump corruptly pressured state legislators and election officials to change election results. You will hear additional details about President Trump’s call to Georgia officials urging them to “find” 11,780 voted – votes that did not exist, and his efforts to get states to rescind certified electoral slates without factual basis and contrary to law. You will hear new details about the Trump campaign and other Trump associates’ efforts to instruct Republican officials in multiple states to create intentionally false electoral slates, and transmit those slates to Congress, to the Vice President, and the National Archives, falsely certifying that Trump won states he actually lost.
In our final two June hearings, you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the U.S. Capitol. While the violence was underway, President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.
As we present these initial findings, keep two points in mind. First, our investigation is still ongoing, so what we make public here will not be the complete set of information we will ultimately disclose. And second, the Department of Justice is currently working with cooperating witnesses, and has disclosed to date only some of the information it has identified from encrypted communications and other sources.
On December 18, 2020, a group including General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and others visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections. You will also hear that President Trump met with that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there, and rushed to intervene.
A little more than an hour after Ms. Powell, Mr. Giuliani, General Flynn and the others finally left the White House, President Trump sent the tweet on the screen now, telling people to come to Washington on January 6th: “Be there,” he instructed them. “Will be Wild!”
As you will see, this was a pivotal moment. This tweet initiated a chain of events. The tweet led to the planning for what occurred on January 6th, including by the Proud Boys who ultimately led the invasion of the Capitol and the violence that day. The indictment of a group of Proud Boys alleges that they planned to “oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States.” And according to the Department of Justice:
“On Jan. 6, 2021, the defendants directed, mobilized and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol, leading to dismantling of metal barricades, destruction of property, breaching of the Capitol building, and assaults on law enforcement.”
Although certain former Trump officials have argued that they did not anticipate violence on January 6th, the evidence suggests otherwise. As you will see in our hearings, the White House was receiving specific reports in the days leading up to January 6th, including during President Trump’s Ellipse rally, indicating that elements in the crowd were preparing for violence at the Capitol. And, on the evening of January 5th, the President’s close advisor Steve Bannon said this on his podcast: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this, all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.
As part of our investigation, we will present information about what the White House and other intelligence agencies knew, and why the Capitol was not better prepared. But we will not lose sight of the fact that the Capitol Police did not cause the crowd to attack. And we will not blame the violence that day, violence provoked by Donald Trump, on the officers who bravely defended all of us.
In our final hearing, you will hear a moment-by-moment account of the hours-long attack from more than a half dozen White House staff, both live in the hearing room and via videotaped testimony. There is no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed. White House staff urged President Trump to intervene and call off the mob. Here is a document written while the attack was underway by a member of the White House staff advising what the President needed to say: “Anyone who entered the capitol without proper authority should leave immediately.”
This is exactly what his supporters on Capitol Hill and nationwide were urging the President to do. He would not. You will hear that leaders on Capitol Hill begged the President for help, including Republican Leader McCarthy, who was “scared” and called multiple members of President Trump’s family after he could not persuade the President himself.
Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the U.S. government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. But Vice President Pence did each of those things. For example, here is what General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to this committee:
A: There were two or three calls with Vice President Pence. He was very animated, and he issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders. There was no question about that. And I can get you the exact quotes from some of our records somewhere. But he was very animated, very direct, very firm to Secretary Miller. Get the military down here, get the guard down here. Put down this situation, et cetera.
By contrast, here is General Milley’s description of his conversation with President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 6th:
A: “He said: We have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions. We need to establish the narrative, you know, that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable, or words to that effect. I immediately interpreted that as politics. Politics. Politics. Red flag for me, personally. No action. But I remember it distinctly.”
And you will hear from witnesses how the day played out inside the White House, how multiple White House staff resigned in disgust, and how President Trump would not ask his supporters to leave the Capitol. It was only after multiple hours of violence that President Trump finally released a video instructing the riotous mob to leave, and as he did so, he said to them: “We love you. You’re very special.”
You will also hear that in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, members of the President’s family, White House staff and others tried to step in to stabilize the situation “to land the plane” before the Presidential Transition on January 20th. You will hear about members of the Trump cabinet discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, and replacing the President of the United States. Multiple Members of President Trump’s own Cabinet resigned immediately after January 6th. One member of the Cabinet suggested that remaining Cabinet Officers needed to take a more active role in running the White House and the Administration. But most emblematic of those days is this exchange of texts between Sean Hannity and former President Trump’s Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Sean Hannity wrote in part: “Key now, no more crazy people.” “No more stolen election talk.” “Yes, impeachment and 25th amendment are real, and many people will quit.” Ms. McEnany responded in part: “Love that. That’s the playbook.”
The White House staff knew that President Trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. They knew the President needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone. At least until he left office on January 20th. These are important facts for Congress and the American people to understand fully.
When a President fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union, or worse, causes a constitutional crisis, we are at a moment of maximum danger for our Republic. Some in the White House took responsible steps to try to prevent January 6th. Others egged the President on. Others, who could have acted, refused to do so. In this case, the White House Counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity, that he threatened to resign, multiple times. That is exceedingly rare and exceedingly serious. It requires immediate attention, especially when the entire team threatens to resign. However, in the Trump White House, it was not exceedingly rare and it was not treated seriously. This is a clip of Jared Kushner, addressing multiple threats by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his team of White House lawyers to resign in the weeks before January 6th.
Q: Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign?
A: I kind of, like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done, and I know that he was always, him and the team, were always saying oh we are going to resign. We are not going to be here if this happens, if that happens … So, I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you.
Whining. There is a reason why people serving in our Government take an oath to the Constitution. As our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. People in positions of public trust are duty-bound to defend it – to step forward when action is required.
In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.
Finally, I ask all of our fellow Americans as you watch our hearings over the coming weeks, please remember what’s at stake. Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the Rule of Law, not the rule of men. I ask you to think of the scene in our Capitol rotunda on the night of January 6th. There, in, a sacred space in our constitutional republic, the place where our presidents lie in state, watched over by statues of Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant, Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan, against every wall that night encircling the room, there were SWAT teams, men and women in tactical gear with long guns deployed inside our Capitol building.
There in the rotunda, these brave men and women rested beneath paintings depicting the earliest scenes of our Republic, including one painted in 1824 depicting George Washington resigning his commission, voluntarily relinquishing power, handing control of the Continental Army back to Congress. With this noble act, Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power. What President Reagan called, “nothing less than a miracle.” The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president...Except one.
As Americans, we all have a duty to ensure what happened on January 6th never happens again, to set aside partisan battles to stand together to perpetuate and preserve our great Republic.
The Jan. 6 committee launches its public hearings tonight. For the first hearing—a total of six are currently slated—the panel is expected to present its findings to the American public about former President Donald Trump’s role in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election and more specifically, how extremist elements were involved in efforts to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Daily Kos will post live updates from tonight’s hearing starting at 8 PM ET.
For in-depth information about the committee’s investigation so far, check out the related story links below. There’s a BIG Guide to help you stay on top of who’s who plus Daily Kos interviews with one of the committee’s first witnesses as well as members of law enforcement who fought off the mob on Jan. 6.
The next hearing is scheduled for June 13 at 10 PM ET. Additional hearings are expected on June 15 at 10 PM ET. and June 16 at 1 PM ET. A time for the June 21 hearing has not yet been confirmed. A final presentation is anticipated on June 23 and that hearing will be in primetime, like tonight, at 8 PM.
Witnesses on Thursday night are filmmaker Nick Quested, who embedded with the Proud Boys in the lead-up to Jan. 6, and U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after being assaulted by members of the mob.
New video footage from Jan. 6 is expected to be released during tonight’s hearing, putting the extremist elements that were at play that day in sharp relief. Heavy attention will likely be paid to the speech that Trump delivered from the Ellipse as well. It was those remarks that earned him his second impeachment for incitement of insurrection.
Next week, witnesses reportedly in the mix include Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who once fielded a call from Trump to “find” 11,000 votes so he could beat now-President Joe Biden’s victory in that state. Members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s office, including onetime chief of staff Marc Short and former chief counsel Greg Jacob, have been invited to testify. Other witnesses reportedly invited include officials who worked at the Department of Justice under Trump, including Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue. More details to come on that in the days ahead.
The hearing will get underway tonight at 8:02:30 PM ET, if you take CSPAN’s word for it—and since they are the only cameras in the room tonight, we will. Live updates to post soon.
Chairman Bennie Thompson begins tonights hearing by thanking everyone for their attention.
“I’m Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Jan. 6 Committee, I was born raised and still lived in Bolton, Mississippi,” he says, explaining his background, a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the KKK and lynching.
“I'm reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try to justify the actions of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021,” Thompson says.
In his opening remarks this evening, Chairman Thompson outlines how in 1862, after citizens took up arms against the country, Congress adopted a new oath that no person who supported a rebellion could hold an office of public trust. Members swear an oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
He praises the officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6.
They did this to defend “your vote,” Thompson said, to protect the peaceful transfer of power.
Chairman Thompson says the truth must be confronted with resolve and determination and delivers a barn-burner of a speech. He has made it plain what the committee believes it has uncovered: overwhelming evidence that the 45th president attempted to overthrow the election. We move now to remarks from Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee. She is just one of two Republicans, including Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger.
In her opening remarks, vicechair Liz Cheney says that the public will hear extensive evidence tonight and in the coming weeks about the overarching conspiracy by Trump to overturn the 2020 election
Cheney: "Jan. 6 was not a spontaneous incident." Intelligence has revealed that this was a well-orchestrated plan. The committee will identify elements of those plans and will show how Proud Boys led a mob into the Capitol on Jan. 6”
She continued: “On the morning of Jan. 6, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain POTUS despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power.”
Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the election and prevent a presidential transfer of power.
In the 2nd hearing, evidence will be shown demonstrating how Trump knew he lost the election but he perpetrated fraud, they argue, by promoting the lie that he won.
Recorded deposition from Attorney General Bill Barr:
WATCH: Attorney General Barr declares that Donald Trump lost the Presidential election in 2020. There is no doubt that the American people voted Trump out of office and the Select Committee has found no evidence of election fraud. pic.twitter.com/qa5qNyMXqS
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022
In a recorded deposition of Ivanka Trump before the Jan. 6 Cmte where she faced questions about AG’s Barr's conclusion of no widespread fraud, she says Barr's determination "affected her perspective.
"I accepted what he was saying," Ivanka Trump said.
In an excerpt of his opening statement for tonight's @January6thCmte hearings, chair Bennie Thompson says what happened cannot be swept under the rug and that he appears tonight as an American first and one who swore to protect the Constitution. pic.twitter.com/pGX4BxScg1
The Jan. 6 committee has obtained huge amounts of information from sources high and low to piece together a clearer understanding of what happened when the U.S. Capitol came under siege by a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters and members of neofascist extremist groups.
This week when the committee resumes its public hearings—the debut hearing was held in July 2021—investigators are expected to unveil their findings and argue that the evidence obtained through more than 1,000 interviews and sourced from more than 125,000 pages of records, indicates that the twice-impeached former president possibly broke the law when he deployed a scheme aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election.
During the 11-month investigation, subpoenas from the probe have flowed steadily. The public hearings will lay out the story and the key individuals at focus. The committee will issue its final report in September. In the meantime, to guide those following the probe, the following is a comprehensive guide to who’s who at the center of the Jan. 6 investigation.
The next hearing is scheduled for June 13 at 10 a.m. Additional hearings are expected on June 15 at 10 a.m. and June 16 at 1 p.m. A time for the June 21 hearing has not yet been confirmed as of Thursday, June 9. A final presentation is anticipated on June 23 and that hearing will be in primetime at 8 PM.
Daily Kos will offer up-to-the-minute coverage of each hearing on its front page, as well as on Twitter. The hearings will be broadcast and carried live on most major networks except for Fox News. The select committee is also expected to stream the hearings on its website, here.
Trump speaks at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, delivering remarks that Congress found to be incitement of an insurrection. Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives one week after the attack. The U.S. Senate voted to acquit Trump instead, falling just 10 votes short.
The following guide includes a variety of Trump White House and administration officials, strategists, advisers and lawyers and others, including those in Vice President Mike Pence’s office. They orbited Trump or figured prominently in the select committe’s investigation. Each section provides some context behind subpoenas and requests. Links embedded throughout will take you to related reporting here at Daily Kos and elsewhere.
Mark Meadows,former White House chief of staff to former President Donald Trump
Mark Meadows
Just a week before the select committee begins its hearings in Washington, the Department of Justice announced it would not pursue criminal contempt charges against Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Meadows was first subpoenaed by the committee on Sept. 23. He refused to cooperate initially and would not provide information relevant to the former president’s push to appoint bogus electors nor would he share correspondence related to engagement with Trump’s attorneys leading those efforts in the public eye.
Meadows did an about face, however, and began cooperating in part before he then stopped again. This prompted the committee to hold him in contempt of Congress. That vote was unanimous and when passed to the full House, the House found him in contempt 222-208. The referral went to the DOJ and after several months of quiet from Attorney General Merrick Garland, the department announced it declined to pursue charges in June 2022.
Meadows remitted 9,000 pages of records, mainly emails, and texts, according to Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson. As chief of staff, he was in Trump’s vicinity on Jan. 6 and bore witness to Trump’s conduct before, during, and after the attack. Testimony obtained by the committee has indicated Meadows was also privy to meetings or conversations where the impending rally was discussed.
Text messages revealed Meadows spoke to Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham on Jan. 6. He fielded a battery of incoming messages where the commentators begged him to get Trump on television and ask people to leave.
Among those records were non-privileged texts illuminating Meadows’ correspondence with lawmakers like Rep. Jim Jordan who, among others, pushed for the appointment of unsanctioned electors for Trump. Jordan said the messages were forwards of information from the former inspector general of the Pentagon Joseph Schmitz.
Other messages sent to Meadows came from Ginni Thomas, the right-wing activist wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She pushed wild conspiracies about the election, shared her disdain and distrust of Pence after he wouldn’t go along with the plot to overthrow the federal government and called for Trump’s “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell to lead the fraud charges in court.
Meadows sued the committee to stop a subpoena to Verizon for his cell phone records.
2021 campaign finance reports note that Trump’s onetime political action committee, Save America PAC, has poured $1 million into the Conservative Partnership Institute, a right-wing nonprofit group that lists Meadows as a senior partner. The Federal Election Commission report notes the donation was made on July 26, just a few weeks after the Jan. 6 committee was officially approved by the full House of Representatives.
The former congressman is also under investigation for voter fraud in the State of North Carolina. He was removed from voter rolls in there in April after reports emerged suggesting he did not live at the North Carolina residence where he was registered to vote.
John Eastman, attorney, adviser to former President Donald Trump
John Eastman, left, with Rudy Giuliani, right, on Jan. 6.
John Eastman was first subpoenaed by the committee on Oct. 8 after a memo he authored emerged laying out a six-point plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence stop or delay the outcome of the 2020 election. Eastman met with Trump repeatedly before Jan. 6 and delivered an address from the Ellipse just before the riots exploded. He was joined on stage by Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Eastman began prolifically sharing Trump’s bogus election fraud claims mere days from the 2020 election. He shared the disinformation with Georgia state senators and even went so far as to urge them to directly appoint electors. He was at the Willard Hotel “war room” on Jan. 6 with Steve Bannon and was in contact with Pence’s counsel, Greg Jacob, about his strategies to manipulate the election.
A tug-of-war in court between Eastman and the committe has resulted in thousands of pages of his communications from his tenure at Chapman University being remitted to investigators, fleshing out previously unknown details about Trump’s overt role in the events around Jan. 6. It started in February, the Trump stalwart was ordered to produce those university records specific to Jan. 4 through Jan. 7, 2021. He was directed to provide detailed explanations for his privilege assertions and disclose the nature of any attorney-client relationship he might cite to mask those documents.
It was Eastman’s decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment right after receiving his October subpoena that prompted the committee to work around him and pursue the university emails. Eastman first unsuccessfully sued the committee and Verizon in December.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney
Rudy Giuliani
The former New York City mayor, personal attorney to Trump and leader of Trump’s “alternate elector” gambit, Rudy Giuliani first received a subpoena from the committee on Jan. 18. Investigators premised their demands on Giuliani’s very public promotion of Trump’s disinformation campaign about election fraud in 2020 and his insistence that Dominion Voting Systems machines were rigged.
He finally testified before the committee in May and spent a reported nine hours under questioning. Court records produced by Trump’s adviser John Eastman in a separate legal matter also exposed a memo sent to Giuliani by Kenneth Chesebro, another member of Trump’s legal team and purveyor of bunk election fraud claims.
Per protocols excellently explained by CBS News, Chesebro essentially pitched what he believed was a loophole in procedural rules that would allow for disruption or delay. This memo also went to John Eastman before Jan. 6 though Eastman has denied being involved with its drafting.
As for Giuliani, he focused on officials in key battleground states and was present at all if not most meetings where administration officials and fellow attorneys and advisers discussed the seizure of voting machines. He even went so far as to ask the Department of Homeland Security if he could legally seize machines. The official dismissed the request promptly.
His reach extended into Congress, too. Text messages, for example, from Dec. 31, 2020, show Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia asking Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows to arrange another meeting between her and Giuliani.
An aide to Trump, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified to members of the select committee that she told both Giuliani and Meadows their alternate elector bid wouldn’t work.
Nonetheless, on the day of what would be the insurrection, Giuliani told a mob of Trump’s supporters gathered at the Ellipse they would have “trial by combat” if necessary to determine the election results.
Jeffrey Clark, former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice Civil Division appointed by Trump
Jeffrey Clark.
The committee subpoenaed Clark on Oct. 13 and in short order, entered into a battle with the former Trump official over claims to executive privilege. Lawmakers rejected that argument as spurious since Trump earlier this year declined to assert privilege over materials requested by the committee from Clark.
A Senate Judiciary Committee report released last year revealed emails and other correspondence from Clark to fellow Department of Justice officials where he angled to have then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen removed so Trump could install him in Rosen’s place.
The push was part of a larger scheme that began when Clark pushed Rosen and Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue, to inform swing state legislatures they should appoint new electors and reject certified votes. That plot unfolded well after courts had rejected Trump’s claims of election fraud almost 60 times.
Clark appeared for a closed-door deposition with the committee on Nov. 5 but was uncooperative and eventually walked out without returning. He was held on contempt by the panel in December but a full vote by the House wasn’t held. Clark eventually announced he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right and then sat for deposition for a swift one hour and 40 minutes. He refused to answer over 100 questions posed to him. Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren called the exchange with Clark “very disappointing.”
Daniel Scavino, former White House deputy chief of staff for communications
Dan Scavino.
Scavino was subpoenaed by the committee in September. His failure to cooperate with the probe earned him a criminal contempt of congress referral from the committee in March and by April, the full House of Representatives voted in favor of sending the referral to the DOJ. The DOJ declined to prosecute in June. Scavino’s attorney maintained that that the former Trump administration official worked with the committee in good faith.
Scavino’s relationship stretches back nearly a decade with the former president and he is among Trump’s chief allies. Scavino served him at various points over the years including as a digital strategy director and overseer of Trump’s presence on social media platforms like Twitter.
The committee sought materials from Scavino relevant to Trump’s “videotaping and tweeting message on Jan. 6.” They argue he was intimately familiar with what occurred during meetings where the president and other administration officials hashed out ways to stop the certification of the election.
White House call logs obtained by the probe show that Trump tried to call Scavino the night of the attack. Scavino reportedly kept at least two phones during his time at the White House. The National Archives confirmed in February that Trump destroyed numerous presidential records while in office, often leaving it to staff to tape some of the records back together.
Scavino, as Trump’s aide and with an office just near the Oval, was often a reported workaround for Trump to avoid using official White House telephones, relying instead on Scavino’s mobile among others.
He sued Verizon on Jan. 5, 2022 to stop a transfer of phone records to the committee. He did this under some subterfuge initially filing the request as an anonymous plaintiff. While it was his right to do so, such shrouding can only be done with a judge’s approval. The judge denied the request and unmasked Scavino weeks later, ordering him to file his request to block the committee from his phone records publicly.
Stephen Miller, former senior adviser to Trump
Stephen Miller.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior adviser and architect of the Trump administration's inhumane immigration policies, received a subpoena from the committee on Nov. 9. He finally testified before the committee virtually in April and for more than eight hours.
Miller’s public statements first piqued the committee’s interest. He vowed “alternate electors” would keep Trump in power in an interview with Fox News in late 2020. Those alternate electors sent bogus slates from battleground states to the National Archives for certification on Dec. 14, 2020. The Archives rejected them because those who had signed were not recognized by their respective state officials as certified electors.
Miller also helped write the speech that would be delivered from the Ellipse on Jan. 6. He was at the White House on the morning of Jan. 6 and accompanied Trump on their short trip to ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.
During his deposition in April, it was widely reported that Miller fielded questions about the language in the speech, namely how Trump often referred to “we” in his remarks, including those times when he told the crowd gathered at the Ellipse that “we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “we are going to the Capitol.” Miller allegedly defended the language by saying it was political rhetoric.
Stephen Miller says Trump electors will be voting and sending results to Congress. (They'll be worthless because they won't have the seals of the state Secretaries of State, though) pic.twitter.com/B9pKXqYGIa
Jason Miller, former senior adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign
Jason Miller.
Jason Miller, a longtime Trump confidante, was subpoenaed by the committee on Nov. 8 and along with Bannon and others, was reportedly at the meeting at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 5.. Much of those activities, the committee has learned, were overseen by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Long before that November, however, Miller routinely crowed about Democrats stealing the election, lawmakers wrote in their notice to Miller. That message, they added, was of course directly echoed by the mob that breached the Capitol in its attempt to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. Prior to the attack, Miller also took frequent opportunities to hold press conferences propagating Trump’s lies about the election, and legislators on the committee believe the campaign adviser was a facilitator of the pressure strategy on then-Vice President Pence or was, at the very least, attuned to the scheme’s details.
The committee postponed his deposition on Dec. 9 after he finally began cooperating with investigators. He also appeared to lose favor with Trump ally Roger Stone following his cooperation with the investigation. In a message on the right-wing social media platform Gab posted on Jan. 22, Stone lashed out at Miller.
“You can always tell when Jason Miller of Gettr is lying—his lips are moving. in the 40 years, I have been in American politics I have never met a bigger more despicable piece of shit. I got him his job with Donald Trump in 2016,” Stone said.
According to court records, in testimony this February, Miller disclosed to investigators that he and other aides, like Matt Oczkowski told Trump in “blunt” terms he lost the election. That nevertheless stopped Trump from seeking “to use the Vice President to manipulate the results in his favor,” Miller said.
Other text messages obtained by the committee in June showed Miller trying to shape the narrative for Meadows and Scavino as the mob was raging, however:
”Call me crazy, but ideas for two tweets from POTUS: 1) Bad apples, likely ANTIFA or other crazed leftists, infiltrated today's peaceful protest over the fraudulent vote count. Violence is never acceptable! MAGA supporters embrace our police and the rule of law and should leave the Capitol now! 2) The fake news media who encouraged this summer's violent and radical riots are now trying to blame peaceful and innocent MAGA supporters for violent actions. This isn't who we are! Our people should head home and let the criminals suffer the consequences!
Just after 10 p.m. that night, Miller gave Meadows, Scavino and Jared Kushner an approved statement from Trump that would be released as soon as Congress finished counting the votes.
In the text, Miller wrote: “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. Nevertheless, there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it's only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.”
Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany pictured left, former aide to President Donald Trump Cassidy Hutchinson, right
A special assistantto Trump for legislative affairs and onetime aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows, was first subpoeaned in November. Hutchinson is expected to testify during the select committee’s public hearings. Hutchinson was in the White House with Trump on Jan. 6 and traveled with him to the Ellipse for the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.
She also joined Meadows for a Dec. 30 trip to Georgia for an election audit there.
Before the hearings went public, Hutchinson told members of the committee that she raised concerns about the propriety of the former president’s bid to submit “alternate electors” to Congress on Jan. 6. Hutchinson also told lawmakers that Trumps’ chief of staff was alerted to threats of violence looming over the Capitol before Congress was slated to meet. And disturbingly, Hutchinson also testified that she watched as Meadows burned papers in his possession following a meeting with Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who was actively promoting Trump's baseless election fraud theories.
And perhaps most critically, Hutchinson also revealed to investigators that she heard Trump “complain” that Vice President Mike Pence “was being whisked to safety” as the president’s supporters mobbed the Capitol and clashed with outnumbered police.
From The New York Times:
Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged.
Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence
Keith Kellogg.
Once the national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, now-retired U.S. Army General Keith Kellogg was subpoenaed by on Nov. 23. Lawmakers sought information from Kellogg regarding his participation in at least one meeting with Trump and Trump’s attorney Pat Cipollone as the attack was unfolding. He was also reportedly part of multiple conversations where Trump insisted Pence not certify the election.
Kellogg met with Trump before the president delivered his remarks at the Ellipse. When the violence began to erupt at the Capitol while they were in the White House, Kellogg told investigators during his closed-door deposition in December that he urged Trump to deliver a message to his supporters that would end the chaos.
His deposition corroborated public reporting that it was Ivanka Trump, the ex-president’s daughter and adviser, who was called upon repeatedly to soothe Trump during the riots and attempt to persuade him to issue a call for peace.
Kellogg may end up testifying during the public hearings.
Marc Short, senior aide to former Vice President Mike Pence
Thetop aide to Pence expected to testify during public hearings spent most of Jan. 6 at the former vice president’s side. He cooperated with the committee after a subpoena was issued in December. The former Pence staffer has been forthcoming with investigators and has providing several key records. Last year, it was confirmed that it was Short who gave investigators a copy of a memo written by John McEntee offering a bunk legal strategy for Pence to stop the certification. Short was also in the Oval Office on Jan. 4 during a meeting with John Eastman and Trump where Trump discussed how to get Pence on board with overturning the election. According to AP, “As Pence’s top aide, Short was also present for several White House meetings ahead of the insurrection. At one point, Trump banned Short from the White House grounds because he objected to the pressure on Pence to reject the legitimate election results.” Short has said publicly that it was “bad advisers who were basically snake-oil salesman” that gave Trump the idea to have Pence intervene. “But our office researched that and recognized that was never an option,” he said. Short also warned a Secret Service agent on Jan. 5 that he was concerned about Pence’s safety.
John McEntee, former bag man turned White House personnel director
John McEntee, pictured left.
The committee issued its subpoena to John McEntee on Nov. 9. McEntee’s ascent into Trump’s world happened fast. He started out as Trump’s bag man, but his dogged defense of the president was quickly parlayed into an opportunity where he would serve in a far more powerful role.
McEntee was tapped by Trump to serve as the director of the White House personnel office, making him a key arbiter in deciding who was hired or fired across the administration.
A memo made public in November illuminated the role McEntee played in having Defense Secretary Mark Esper removed, a maneuver that ultimately opened the door for Clark to try his power grab at the Department of Justice. That memo was turned over to the committee by Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff when Short testified before the committee for several hours.
McEntee was reportedly in the room with Trump, Pence, Giuliani, and Trump campaign lawyer Justin Clark when the men hashed out a plan to conduct an audit of votes in Georgia. He was also with Trump when Trump traveled to the Ellipse and while he delivered his inflammatory speech at the ‘Stop the Steal ‘rally that day.
Extremists, allies and ‘friends’
Steve Bannon, former White House strategist
Steve Bannon.
Steve Bannon, a right-wing extremist and conspiracy peddler, is currently awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to two counts of contempt of Congress filed against him in November.
Investigators hit Bannon with a subpoena on Sept. 23, and the Trump stalwart stonewalled the committee on both its record request and a request for deposition. He surrendered himself to authorities in Washington, D.C. after the Department of Justice indicted him.
Bannon was not officially in Trump’s employ at the time of the assault; he left the administration in 2017. Bannon was, however, at Trump’s alleged “command center” on Jan. 5.
A “war room” at the Willard Hotel—just a block from the White House—was often populated by Trump’s lawyers and advisers. Investigators say plans to subvert the election were hatched there and that Bannon was present on Jan. 5 when guests discussed a strategy to have members of Congress block the certification of election results the next day.
Bannon was often in Trump’s ear, allegedly urging the president as early as Nov. 30 “to plan for and focus his efforts on Jan. 6,” his subpoena noted.
Bannon has since spent time boasting on his podcast about Trump’s non-existent victory. He’s railed against the Jan. 6 probe. continues to promote election fraud allegations and threatened to take over the nation’s election apparatus.
Just a few days before the first anniversary of the attack, Bannon lashed out at GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy on his podcast. McCarthy, Bannon said, refused to “counterprogram” events on Capitol Hill that solemnly commemorated the anniversary. He suggested Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida ought to take up the mantle for Trump where McCarthy would not.
McCarthy, Bannon said, is “controlled opposition” and when the “right leadership” is in place, Bannon suggested the GOP’s ‘Make America Great Again’ wing could rule for “100 years.”
Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally and GOP operative
Roger Stone
A long-time operative for the Republican Party and self-described “dirty trickster,” Roger Stone was hit with a subpoena from the select committee on Nov. 22. Prior to the Capitol attack, Stone spoke publicly in support of Trump’s claims of election fraud and funneled cash for “private security” at events in Washington held on Jan. 5 and 6. Though he once solicited donations on a ‘Stop the Steal’ official website, he removed the link after the attack, according to Mother Jones.
A month before the insurrection, Stone appeared at various events including one rally in D.C. heavily attended by Proud Boys and Oath Keepers on Dec. 12. He urged the president’s supporters to “fight until the bitter end” to stop Biden from taking office. For his remarks at an event in D.C. on Jan. 5, he had a security detail comprised of Oath Keepers. One of the men in his detail, Robert Minuta, has been indicted on charges related to the breach.
Stone has said that he was invited to lead a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 but told press he declined the opportunity. He was also slated to speak at an event at the Ellipse that day hosted by Women for America First.
Upon receipt of a subpoena, Stone informed the committee on Dec. 7 that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right. Through attorney Grant Smith, he wrote: “Given that the Select Committee's demand for documents is overbroad, overreaching, and far too wide-ranging to be deemed anything other than a fishing expedition, Mr. Stone has a constitutional right to decline to respond.”
Stone’ eventually appeared for deposition on Dec. 17 and as planned, invoked his Fifth Amendment to all questions. He also denied, despite the existence of widespread reporting and video footage, that he was in Washington before and on Jan. 6.
Stone insists Pence and his advisors undermined Trump from the very beginning of his time in office.
Meanwhile, reports on Stone’s recent stream of income have revealed that he has been accepting tens of thousands of dollars around the same time he has thrown endorsements behind pro-Trump anti-Jan. 6 committee Republicans like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
In May, the New York Times reported that it obtained access to a chat log entitled “Friends of Stone,” or Friends of Roger Stone, with Stone’s picture affixed at the top of the chat. Many members in the group chat are also facing charges tied to Jan. 6 attack including Elmer Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers now facing seditious conspiracy charges and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, also facing obstruction and conspiracy charges.
Other members in the group chat were identified as individuals who organized anti-vaccine rallies to be held at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Jason Sullivan, a former aide to Stone, was also a member of the group chat. Just before the insurrection, on Dec. 30, Sullivan hosted a conference call where he encouraged supporters to “descend on the Capitol” and vowed that Trump would impose some form of martial law.
Investigator Jamie Raskin has described Stone as the “nexus” between Trump and his “street fighters.”
Oath Keepers and Proud Boys
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, leader of the extremist network known as the Oath Keepers
The committee was particularly keen to learn more about events that extremists attended in 2020 including Covid lockdown protests or racial justice protests. For right-wing extremists, those events may have served as “proving grounds” for the insurrection.
One Oath Keeper who was with Rhodes on Jan. 6 and ultimately charged alongside him, entered a guilty plea this year, telling prosecutors he was committed to protecting Trump by force on Jan. 6 and that he was part of a quick force reaction team that was equipped with weapons and stationed at a nearby hotel in northern Virginia.
The Oath Keepers defendant Joshua James said he and others were prepared to:
Similar scenarios have played out for Tarrio and his Proud Boys. The Miami, Florida resident entered a not guilty plea, maintaining he was not involved in any effort to overturn the election or obstruct congressional proceedings.
Tarrio once proclaimed on social media, “Make no mistake" and "We did this," when the events of Jan. 6 were active. In the document found after his arrest, one section dubbed "Storm the Winter Palace" described plans to gather recruiters and use hypemen to get inside restricted government buildings. The plans would use ‘covert sleepers’ would could arrange appointments with government or officials in advance of an occupation or attack so they could spend a day gathering reconnaissance.
Both Rhodes and Tarrio are detained and expected to go to trial this summer and early fall.
Others targeted by the committee for records and deposition included Nick Fuentes, described by the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist and leader of the xenophobic America First/Groyper movement. Hereceived a subpoena on Jan. 19. The committee pointed to his many public statements urging the destruction of the GOP if the election results were not overturned. He also reportedly accepted $250,000 in Bitcoin for funds from a French computer programmer that may have been used to support the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement. The FBI is scrutinizing that funding.
Patrick Casey, another leader in the America First/Groyper movement, was also subpoenaed on Jan. 19 and like Fuentes, he was vocal about his support of movements to overturn the election for several weeks before Jan. 6. On Jan. 5 he shared logistics for how to get into D.C. on social media and as the attack kicked off, he posted to Telegram “It’s happening.” He also reportedly received $25,000 in Bitcoin from the same programmer that may have sent funding to Fuentes. Casey and Fuentes used to be close but have reportedly fallen out with each other in the wake of the insurrection. Casey told investigators he would not cooperate voluntarily before the subpoena was issued.
Ali Alexander’s Stop the Steal LLC, was also hit with an subpoena independent of the one he received personally.
Michael Flynn, former national security adviser, and Trump’s personal assistant
Michael Flynn
Subpoenaed on Nov. 8, Flynn came under the committee’s purview after it was reported that he attended a Dec. 18 meeting in the Oval Office where discussions of how to seize voting machines abounded. That same meeting also featured suggestions to Trump that he declare a national emergency or invoke emergency powers, like martial law, to “rerun” the election.
In February, leaked emails went public showing how Flynn and retired Army Colonel Phil Waldron—days before that meeting with Trump—workshopped a draft executive order aimed at seizing voting machines.
Flynn was pardoned by Trump last December after being charged with lying to federal investigators about his contact with Russian officials. He was scheduled for deposition with the committee in early December and was granted a brief delay. A spokesperson said Flynn had agreed to “engage” with investigators but talks temporarily fell apart. He finally appeared in March for a closed-door deposition but invoked his Fifth Amendment.
This June, the Los Angeles Times obtained a draft letter and series of leaked emails that appeared to be the “first iteration” of the draft order to seize voting machines. In this draft, it was recommended that armed private contractors be used to seize voting machines. it granted authority to three third-party companies to seize the data at will and with the assistance of U.S. Marshals if needed, since “hostile conditions” were expected.
That letter was sent via email by Jim Penrose and Doug Logan of Cyber Ninjas, the same company that conducted the audit for Trump in Maricopa County, Arizona. The email exchange also featured correspondence with Lin Wood, the conservative trial lawyer who failed to successfully challenge election results in Georgia. Wood often had Flynn over at his Tomotely Plantation estate along with Sidney Powell, former CEO for Overstock Patrick Byrne, Logan and Penrose. Penrose reportedly met with John Eastman and Trump on Jan. 5 to finalize details of the overthrow strategy.
A federal judge on Dec. 21 scrapped a lawsuit against the committee from Flynn. The ex-national security official sought a temporary restraining order against investigators but a judge found that because he was unable to prove that even so much as attempted to comply with the probe, he could not prove he was being injured by the demand.
Bernard Kerik, former New York Police Department police commissioner
Bernard Kerik
The former commissioner for the New York Police Department and longtime ally of Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik, was subpoenaed by the select committee on Nov. 8. Kerik, who served three years in prison for tax fraud and was sentenced in 2010, was pardoned by Trump for those crimes. According to investigators, Kerik was a close associate of the former president and attended meetings at the Willard Hotel, including on Jan. 5, where the committee says the election subversion scheme was coordinated. Investigators claim Kerrik paid for and reserved the “war room” at the Willard and other hotels where the Trump allies could meet.
The committee claims Kerik was in cahoots with Giuliani since Nov. 5, 2020, to promote bogus election fraud theories though Kerik has publicly denied the allegations. In November, after word of the subpoena broke, he issued a letter to the committee saying he would cooperate with the probe but he also demanded an apology in the same breath.
In Dec. 31, as noted in this interview, Kerik finally handed over a privilege log to the committee. It featured a list of documents that the former police commissioner was unwilling to provide freely. He said the records were to be protected under executive privilege.
One of those documents was entitled, “Draft letter from POTUS to seize evidence in the interest of national security for the 2020 election.”
Kerik’s attorney told reporters that the document was created one day before Trump met with former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Giuliani. The group discussed how to seize voting machines and election equipment in states Trump was losing to Biden.
Kerik, upon sitting for deposition in January, told the committee it was onetime U.S. Army Colonel Phil Waldron who dreamed up the idea to seize voting machines. The draft executive order would have permitted 60 days for the Defense Secretary to assess so-called irregularities in the 2020 election. Its deadline would have fallen after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, however.
Waldron previously told The Washington Post that he met with Trump up to 10 times to discuss ways to replace electors in “states where fraud occurred” and that he circulated proposals that outlined ways the National Guard or U.S. marshals could be used to “secure” ballots.
Ali Alexander, right-wing extremist activist, ‘Stop the Steal’ rally organizer
Ali Alexander (screenshot of YouTube feed published by The Intercept).
Ali Alexander is a walking, talking ball of contradictions and conflations. The select committee issued a subpoena to Ali Alexander on Oct. 7 and laid out a litany of requests it had for him regarding records related to his role in organizing “Stop the Steal” rallies, including the one outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Alexander once openly stated on Periscope that Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican, helped him organize the insurrection. He also fingered Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona for their involvement in those December 2020 clips and has said that he had contact with the lawmakers in a lawsuit he filed against the committee.
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting so that who we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside,” Alexander said in a now-deleted livestream.
But when Alexander finally sat for deposition with the committee on Dec. 9, he denied the lawmakers’ involvement. According to CNN, following his closed-door deposition, he said: “There's this conspiracy theory ... that me and members of Congress worked to jeopardize the safety of their colleagues. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Alexander also said that the evidence he has provided thus far “actually exonerates those members” and himself.
This March, Rep. Mo Brooks attempted to memory hole his promotion of Trump’s election fraud lies, and Alexander came out swinging against the congressman.
“You betrayed our election integrity movement. We’re done here. You’ve been rejected by #StopTheSteal and now Trump. Tell your staff never to come for me again,” Alexander wrote on Gab.
When 2022 first got underway, CNN uncovered more Periscope videos including one livestream from Dec. 23, 2020, dubbed “JAN6” where Alexander said he called on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to provide security for the rally at the Ellipse. Less than a week later, on Dec. 29, 2020, in another livestream Alexander said it again.
“My team will find you a room. I talked tonight to the Proud Boys to make sure that they were all covered,” Alexander said.
Alexander’s attorney defended the remarks in the videos, saying that the 'Stop the Steal’ rally organizer was just making “colorful remarks” and “exaggerations during playful livestreams contextualizing his intentions.”
Nonetheless, Alexander’s attorney conceded that his client helped members of the extremist groups find “new housing, and the Oath Keepers did provide security for several clients,” CNN reported.
Alexander appeared for his deposition on Capitol Hill with his lawyer Joseph McBride and conspiracy theorist Jacob Wohl.
Alexander led a rally 24 hours before the Capitol attack at Freedom Plaza with the Eighty Percent Coalition. He whipped people into a chant of “victory or death.”
Alexander sued the committee in mid-December in an attempt to block telephone carrier Verizon from providing his call logs to investigators. Alexander also named Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in the lawsuit. An online stream he posted this January featured Alexander delivering a minutes-long rant expressing how he worked “behind the scenes” for weeks on something that could “help over 100 million people” when cooperating with investigators.
Alexander received a subpoena from a federal grand jury this April and said that he was taking a “cooperative posture” with the DOJ’s probe into Jan. 6. Alexander has said that he was in frequent contact with Roger Stone and that the two discussed logistics around Jan. 6 often.
Alex Jones, right-wing personality and conspiracy theorist
Alex Jones, addressing Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6.
Conspiracy theory and smut peddler Alex Jones was subpoenaed by the committee on Nov. 22. Investigators say Jones worked closely with members of Women for America First to organize rallies on Jan. 6. The right-wing talk show host reportedly told those same organizers that he was responsible for facilitating contributions for the rally from Publix supermarket heiress Julie Fancelli. The committee said that Jones helped secure $650,000 from Fancelli.
Jones allegedly tried to nab a speaking spot with Trump on Jan. 6 but was denied by fellow organizers. When that happened, he instead spoke on Jan. 5 at Freedom Plaza at the invitation of the Eighty Percent Coalition and its head sponsor Cindy Chafian. Though he never had his moment at the Ellipse with Trump on Jan. 6, Jones did march alongside right-wing extremists and ‘Stop the Steal’ founder Ali Alexander.
Before the attack, Jones spent hours broadcasting Trump’s election fraud claims and made statements implying he knew what might be coming when Congress met to certify the electoral votes.
“This is the most important call to action on domestic soil since Paul Revere and his ride in 1776,” Jones told listeners of his podcast, InfoWars, on Dec. 19.
The committee noted in its subpoena to Jones that when he arrived at the Capitol, he told people to gather on the east side of the complex to hear Trump speak. That location directly coincided with a site that Ali Alexander’s ‘Stop the Steal’ organization had reserved with its permit for a rally using the name “One Nation Under God.”
Jones sued the committee on Dec. 20 claiming it did not have authority to subpoena his correspondence with the White House, lawmakers, or other campaign officials. He insisted many of the records sought after by the committee were protected under the First Amendment because he deems himself a journalist. Jones indicated in that lawsuit he intended to invoke his Fifth Amendment right if forced to testify at deposition and that was exactly what he did during his appearance on Jan. 25.
While he would not answer questions in the formal setting, Jones took to his podcast right after to breathlessly describe the experience, a decision that could have negative repercussions according to experts. Then in April, Jones’ attorney, Norm Pattis, announced that the bombast was trying to negotiate an immunity deal with the Justice Department to discuss Jan. 6. Jones denied any criminal wrongdoing.
Sean Hannity, Fox Newshost
Fox News host Sean Hannity on a giant screen displayed at a Trump rally in Michigan in October 2021.
The commentator was not officially subpoenaed by the committee, but members did request that he voluntarily comply. The committee argued Hannity had factual information that could illuminate Trump’s thinking and conduct before, during, and after the attack on the Capitol.
Text messages shared with former chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawmakers like Rep. Jim Jordan suggest Hannity felt Trump’s subversion efforts were practically doomed. Nevertheless, the committee was careful to narrow its request to Hannity for messages that were only sent over a period of roughly a month. That maneuver anticipated a First Amendment challenge in response from the Fox host.
After the request, Hannity hosted Trump on his show. In January he allowed the former president to continue making baseless election fraud claims without fact check. He sat back as Trump said, more than a year since the attack, that those in the crowd offered “a lot of love there” and that they were “great people.”
Hannity, according to a mid-riot text message sent to Mark Meadows on Jan. 6 once wrote: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”
In another text message sent to Meadows on Jan. 19, 2021, Hannity sent a link to the following video of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying from the floor that the mob on Jan. 6 was provoked by Trump and “other powerful people.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Capitol insurrectionists were "provoked by the president and other powerful people." pic.twitter.com/6kqSlAJHky
“Well, this is as bad as it can get,” Hannity wrote.
The Trump family
Ivanka Trump
The former president’s daughter and senior adviser was requested to comply voluntarily with the investigation into the Capitol attack on Jan. 20. She appeared in April. The letter first came after Pence’s ex-national security adviser Keith Kellogg testified behind closed doors that it was he and Ivanka Trump who witnessed her father’s phone call to Pence on Jan. 6.
As Trump reportedly leaned on Pence to go along with the subversion strategy, Kellogg’s deposition transcript shows Ivanka turned to Kellogg and remarked: “Mike Pence is a good man.”
The committee reportedly asked Ivanka to testify about any actions Trump may have taken to direct Pence to violate the Constitution. Pleading from Kellogg and other officials to Trump that he make an announcement calling for peace went ignored. Kellogg felt she was one of the only people who could garner a response from the president. Kellogg testified that Ivanka made multiple attempts to soothe her father.
During public hearings, the committee is expected to play portions of Ivanka Trump's recorded testimony before the committee.
Her husband and Donald Trump’s onetime adviser, Jared Kushner, also cooperated with the select committee. He was deposed for six hours.
Jared Kushner
Donald Trump Jr. met with the committee in May voluntarily. He did not invoke his Fifth Amendment. Text messages secured by the committee showed a panicked Trump Jr. on Jan. 6. Details and more inside his interview linked below:
Eric Trump was not subpoenaed by the committee, but investigators did pursue his phone records successfully. Before the public hearings, it was never clearly established whether or not Eric Trump met with investigators.
Donald Trump Jr.
The lawmakers
Kevin McCarthy, U.S. House GOP Leader
Kevin McCarthy
The leader of the House GOP, Kevin McCarthy spoke to Trump on Jan. 6 according to his own statements. But when the committee submitted a voluntary request for his records and deposition, the lawmaker refused to cooperate. When they issued a subpoena, he met them with the same reply.
In stark contrast to his public acknowledgment of conversations, there have been questions raised over omissions in the White House call logs. While the Capitol was under siege, McCarthy said he spoke to Trump and Trump rebuffed his pleas for help. Trump told McCarthy it was “antifa” that had breached the building. McCarthy pushed back, saying it was the president’s supporters.
McCarthy said last year that Trump responded: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
This May, an audio recording of McCarthy emerged where the House leader weighed whether to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office two days after the Capitol assault. Another recording featured McCarthy calling for Trump’s resignation. On Jan. 13, the House voted 232-197 to approve a resolution to activate the amendment.
McCarthy, instead, called for censure instead of impeachment through the 25th Amendment. Then, from the floor of the House, McCarthy denounced Trump:
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” McCarthy said on Jan. 13, 2021.
The audio recordings were only made public after reports without them first surfaced and McCarthy denied their existence. It did nothing to slow down the former president’s support of McCarthy; Trump endorsed him for his upcoming run at Speaker of the House in the coming midterms.
Today, McCarthy maintains the committee is purely politically motivated and illegitimate. When he rejected the subpoena in May, he, like Rep. Jim Jordan, made a list of demands and argued at length that the committee fails to have the authority to conduct its review.
Multiple federal courts have rejected this premise and historically, McCarthy has dodged questions from reporters, even running away from one during an exchange in February after the Republican National Committee agreed to censure the probe’s only Republican members: Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
I tried to ask @GOPLeader about the RNC’s resolution describing Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse” He told me to make an appointment with his office… insisting it’s “not good” to answer questions in hallways. pic.twitter.com/yaL8opl6Pf
McCarthy defended the RNC’s language in the censure, saying that the “legitimate political discourse” was a reference to those RNC officials subpoenaed by the committee for information about alternate elector activities.
“Anybody who broke in and caused damage, that was not called for. Those people, we've said from the very beginning, should be in jail,” McCarthy once told CNN.
The RNC tried to walk back its statement, saying that the “legitimate political discourse” was a reference to all those legislators who objected to certification on Jan. 6.
Rep. Jim Jordan, U.S. Representative for Ohio
Jordan was the second lawmaker to receive a request from the Jan. 6 committee to voluntarily comply. He later received an official subpoena. Investigators say Jordan had at least one “and possibly multiple” exchanges with Trump on the day of the attack. His testimony could provide valuable insight into Trump’s thoughts and conduct while rioters were actively breaching the Capitol and viciously beating police defending the complex.
Jordan is one of several Republican lawmakers who took meetings with the president in December 2020 to discuss election fraud allegations and other plans to object to the election certification on Jan. 6.
On Dec. 21, a full week after the Electoral College had certified the election for Joe Biden, Hice announced the impending meeting on Twitter.
Big meeting today with @realDonaldTrump, @VP, the President's legal team, @freedomcaucus and other Members of Congress. I will lead an objection to Georgia's electors on Jan 6. The courts refuse to hear the President's legal case. We're going to make sure the People can!
Lawmakers attending those meetings included Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Jody Hice of Georgia.
As for Jordan, after he received the “friendly subpoena” from the committee, he appeared on Fox News and suggested investigators were in cahoots against him after a portion of a text message he sent to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows went public.
Jordan sent a message to Meadows stating: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”
The full text continued: “In accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence. ‘No legislative act,’ wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78, ‘contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.’ The court in Hubbard v. Lowe reinforced this truth: ‘That an unconstitutional statute is not a law at all is a proposition no longer open to discussion.’ 226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916).”
As for the Ohio lawmaker, Jordan’s dodging has continued unabated since July whenhe was first asked whether he would answer questions about his communications with Trump if ever called upon.
He said:
Jim Jordan in July when I asked if he'd be willing to talk to the select committee if they asked him to testify about his conversations with Trump. "Yeah, I've got nothing to hide." pic.twitter.com/oyvCgGrcQ2
Other text messages provided to the committee by Meadows before he abruptly stopped cooperation also showed Fox News host Sean Hannity writing to Jordan and Meadows about concerns over Trump’s strategy and state of mind before the Capitol assault.
Jordan was a huge proponent of Trump’s election lies and Hannity, at one point, felt the need to tell Jordan on Jan. 10 nearly a week after the attack:
“Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days. He can’t mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say and I don’t like not knowing if it's truly understood. Ideas?”
White House call logs obtained by the committee in February confirmed what Jordan has been unable or unwilling to confirm for months: He did speak to Trump on Jan. 6.
But at least one company—Verizon—did disclose that the request was made and disclosed that to several figures who saw their metadata targeted by the committee.
The company had to disclose that information so the individuals subpoenaed would have a chance to contest the matter.
Rep. Scott Perry, a U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania
Rep. Scott Perry, R-PA.
Rep. Scott Perry received a letter on Dec. 20 requesting his “voluntary cooperation” with the committee. Perry was the first lawmaker to come into the select committee’s purview though the request was not part of a formal subpoena.
On Dec. 21, Perry said that he would not cooperate with the voluntary request.
(1/2) I stand with immense respect for our Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the Americans I represent who know that this entity is illegitimate, and not duly constituted under the rules of the US House of Representatives.
An official subpoena was issued to Perry and four other Republican lawmakers in May. Perry again refused to cooperate. A former aide to Trump, Cassidy Hutchinson, told members of the Jan. 6 committee that Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows allegedly burned papers in his office after a meeting with Perry just after the 2020 election.
Court records also revealed a text message from Perry to Meadows that appeared to show Perry taking efforts to hide his communication with Meadows by moving it over to an encrypted chat app known as Signal. Perry also serves as head of the staunchly pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus.
A Dec. 2020 text message unearthed in court records was sent to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows by Rep. Scott Perry.
Rep. Mo Brooks, U.S. Representative for Alabama
Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL
Brooks was subpoenaed by the committee in May after repeated requests for his voluntary cooperation. Investigators wanted to question Brooks about a number of issues given his outsized presence in the events leading up to and on Jan. 6. The Alabama Republican took the stage at the rally on Jan. 6, before the Capitol was totally overwhelmed.
He called on the crowd to “fight like hell.”
Brooks effectively earned that spot on stage after making no fewer than five speeches from the House floor promoting Trump’s baseless claims. He scapegoated “illegal aliens” as perpetrators of fraud and objected when it was time for Congress to certify the Electoral College results on Jan. 6. His social media presence was littered with election disinformation, as this field guide written up by Daily Kos shows.
Biggs was subpoenaed by the committee in May and rejected the demand swiftly. The former leader of the House Freedom Caucus was a vocal opponent to the select committee’s formation; an unsurprising development given his devotion to Trump since before Trump’s first impeachment. In the run-up to the November election, Biggs blasted dog whistles and echoed Trump’s claims of election fraud spurred by Democrats or by way of immigrants he regularly demonized.
Investigators wished to interview Biggs about reported meetings the held with ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer Ali Alexander and others. Notably, Alexander gave Biggs credit for the success of the movement, per The Washington Post.
There are also questions for Biggs about alleged pardons that he sought for “activities taken in connection” with Trump’s effort to overturn the election.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, U.S. Representative for Texas
Rep. Ronny Jackson
Rep. Jackson’s cooperation was requested in May. The select committee was particularly interested in Jackson’s possible ties to members of the extremist Oath Keepers group, including its leader, Elmer Rhodes. Rhodes mentioned Jackson in one of his encrypted chats and said that Jackson had “critical data to protect” in the run-up to Jan. 6.
Critically, the @January6thCmte also calls on Rep. Ronny Jackson to answer questions about why the extremist Oath Keepers, including leader Elmer Rhodes, discussed him in their encrypted chat and their efforts to protect him because he had "critical data to protect" pic.twitter.com/xqMuzD4Xj9
The @January6thCmte asks Rep. Ronny Jackson: - Why would Oath Keepers have an interest in his location? - Why would they want to provide a security detail? - Who did Jackson speak to by phone? Cmte notes OKers & Proud Boys had contact w/a # of people Jackson also had contact with pic.twitter.com/NlXUZvZLT6
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, U.S. Representative for Georgia
The Georgia Republican was not asked to appear under the force of subpoena, but investigators on the committee did request that he voluntarily cooperate and provide information about alleged tours he provided of the U.S. Capitol on the eve of the insurrection.
Loudermilk has denied any wrongdoing but his accounting of reported tours in the Capitol has shifted over time. Where first he claimed that no tours were given, he later shifted to saying that he gave a tour to a constituent family with children. This was despite the active Covid-19 restrictions in place barring visitors and tourists at that time. He’s also denied that anyone on a tour with him was wearing a red baseball cap but he back-pedaled once the committee came calling. Now there were a few people “wearing red baseball caps.”
Loudermilk voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and he offered a fierce defense of Trump during his first impeachment for obstruction of congress and abuse of power. This reporter covered Loudermilk’s remarks during the impeachment in 2019 for Courthouse News Service:
Sidney Powell secured her place in history over the course of the 2020 election as one of Trump’s most vocal proponents pushing election disinformation. The former federal prosecutor was slapped with a subpoena on Jan. 18. The committee pointed to Powell’s promotion of disinformation about the election and her repeated urging to Trump that he seize voting machines as a basis for the demand.
Powell asked to meet with Pence while he was in Colorado in late December so she could discuss her baseless allegations about rigged machines. It never happened, according to The New York Times.
Powell’s full-throated support of election fraud prompted Dominion Voting Systems and voting machine maker Smartmatic to sue her for defamation. She’s faced professional sanctions as well. But for all of her blowhard rhetoric during the election about a “Kraken” case that would upend America’s world as it knew it, Powell’s defense in the defamation case was that “reasonable people would not accept such statements [about dysfunctional machines] as fact” but they would take her rhetoric to mean that it was up to courts to decide. Powell further justified her conduct with another argument: Even if election fraud did not occur, the very appearance of it would absolve any legal contentions against her.
Powell’s fundraising efforts for the 2020 election through her group Defending the Republic are currently under investigation in a separate probe led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. That probe is over a year old. She has been producing records for that investigation on a “rolling basis” as well according to her lawyer Howard Kleinhendler. Powell, to be clear, has not been charged with a crime in that case,
Powell cooperated with the Jan. 6 committee and has emphasized through her attorney that she thinks her conversations with Trump are protected under attorney-client privilege, though the ex-president never paid her for her legal services. Her attorney told CNN in January Powell “never worked as a lawyer for the former president personally or for the Trump campaign.”
Jenna Ellis was plucked from the sidelines to serve as Trump’s senior legal adviser after the former president saw her on television promoting baseless conspiracy theories about the outcome of the 2020 election. Ellis was subpoenaed by the committee on Jan. 18.
Investigators are interested in two memos Ellis circulated in December 2020 and Jan. 2021 advancing the thin legal argument that Pence could simply refuse to consider electors during the count on Jan. 6. The Dec. 31 memo went to Trump's office and proposed that Pence could simply decline to open state certificates on Jan. 6 if he believed there was cause to think they were bogus. The second memo from Jan. 5, 2021, delved slightly deeper. This went to Trump attorney Jay Sekulow.
States would have to stop or delay certification, the memo suggested, because the first state to object on Jan. 6, Arizona, had not met the criteria for state electors. Further, Ellis argued that the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional. Ellis has defended the documents saying they were mere explorations of legal theory and that she “at no time” advocated for Pence to stop or delay the results of the 2020 election.
In March, the committee announced that it issued six subpoenas to a handful of the former president’s most loyal attorneys. Their loyalty, of course, hinged on their promotion in court—and in the press—of his false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. The panel wants each witness to produce records and depositions about their efforts to promote those claims and in some cases, more information about how they interacted with state officials to advance Trump's agenda.
In the group, there was a subpoena for Cleta Mitchell, the prominent conservative attorney and activist who mostly worked in the background of Trump’s bid to retake the White House. She made some media appearances, however, and in them, claimed to have come to Trump’s campaign as a “volunteer” to litigate his claims of election fraud. She could not escape attention when The Washington Post published Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 3, 2021.
Mitchell insisted there was fraud and that voting machines were rigged. Her exposure led to a public resignation from her partnership at a D.C. law firm. The firm said it was her political closeness to Trump that concerned them despite her claims of being canceled “by leftist groups.”
Mitchell now sits on the advisory board for the Election Assistance Commission, the only agency in the federal government that has authority over elections. Emails revealed in court records this May showed Mitchell engaging with John Eastman on multiple occasions. Eastman, the emails showed, was not even privately convinced of the fraud he purported publicly. But he continued to pump the false statements anyway.
Attorney Kurt Olsen’s correspondence with officials at the Department of Justice about “last-minute changes” to election laws ahead of Jan. 6 raised the panel’s curiosity. He was the driving force, allegedly, behind an effort to oust uncooperative DOJ officials at Trump’s behest and evidence already collected by the committee has pointed to his role in writing a draft executive order directing the DOJ to “take voter action” to alter the 2020 election outcome.
Olsen allegedly had multiple calls with Trump on Jan. 6, too. He sued the committee in March, arguing that the subpoena was invalid and that it unfairly prejudiced Trump
Boston-based attorney Kenneth Chesebro’s promotion of the “alternate electors” scheme led by Giuliani and his hand in writing a memo that proposed alternative deadlines for electoral certification were the focus of his subpoena. That memo was sent to James Troupis, Trump’s lead campaign attorney in Wisconsin. They brought their claims of fraud to the Supreme Court and the high court denied the lawsuit.
Former Kansas Attorney General Phillip Kline—whose law license is indefinitely suspended— was subpoenaed in March. Kline promoted Trump’s election fraud scheme in several states and organized a conference call with over 300 state legislators to discuss the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and then-trade adviser Peter Navarro were on the call as well.
Lawyer and lobbyist Katherine Friesswas subpoenaed too. Politico detailed her role in the drafting of an executive order that would have directed federal agencies to seize voting machines from local election officials by citing Trump’s specious fraud claims. Bernie Kerik told reporters that Friess arranged interviews, prepared documents, reviewed affidavits, and was instrumental in coordinating meetings between core advisers and the president.
The “alternate electors”
Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, in 2018.
The electors affixed their signatures to electoral certificates for Trump though they were unrecognized under state law when they met to draw up the documents on the same day the Electoral College convened to ratify Biden’s victory.
So-called “alternate electors” held meetings and often broadcast them on social media. They elected chairpersons, and appointed secretaries. These efforts were reportedly led or overseen by Rudy Giuliani.
The rival slates were a key component of the Trump White House’s push to stop or delay the certification on Jan. 6. The strategy was to have the Trump certifications ready and waiting should courts rule in favor of lawsuits brought by the former president alleging widespread fraud. Notably, there was an attempt by some who breached the Capitol to locate the authentic electoral ballot boxes on Jan. 6 with the real certificates inside. If those boxes were unable to be located, an opening would have almost certainly been created for Trump’s allies to cry fraud and use the alternate slates.
By the time the “alternate electors” met in December, Trump had lost dozens of lawsuits. They sent their certificates to the National Archives but the records were rejected. Since the electors were unsanctioned, the Archives deemed the certificates “unofficial.” Under the Electoral Count Act, such submissions are forbidden.
Shafer is the chair of the Georgia Republican Party. Kathy Berden and Michael McDonald serve as the chairs of the Michigan and Nevada Republican Party, respectively.
Ward’s T-Mobile phone records were subpoenaed by investigators along with records from Mole Medical Services, a company owned by Ward and her husband. Both are osteopaths and in a lawsuit attempting to bar the committee’s review, they argued that disclosing metadata would violate the privacy rights of “an unknown but quantifiable number of individuals.”
As for Mastriano: the Pennsylvania State Senator was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 but never inside the building. He witnessed police and “agitators” scrapping, he has said. He also took photos with pro-Trump former state legislator Rick Saccone. Saccone spent Jan. 6 celebrating the storming of the Capitol on social media. Campaign finance records show Mastriano’s campaign made three payments over six days for buses headed into D.C. on Jan. 6.
Mastriano has not been charged with any wrongdoing and he’s been insistent that he was against the rioting. Investigators want Mastriano to testify about the alternate elector scheme as well as the role he played in allegedly arranging an event in Phoenix with Trump’s lawyers on Nov. 30, 2021.
Witnesses overheard Mastriano say that voter systems had been “hacked” as he left that meeting.
Arizona legislator Mark Finchem, who said he came to Washington on Jan. 6 so he could give Pence an “evidence book and letter” about fraud in his state and call for a delay of the certification, was in reported talks with leaders of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement about the rally at the Ellipse. The former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, Laura Cox, was subpoenaed in February. Cox hosted an online live event on Zoom and Facebook in December 2020 where Trump’s attorney and alleged ringleader of the alternate elector scheme Rudy Giuliani was featured. Cox has denied any wrongdoing.
In late May, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to individuals who led the alternate elector scheme like Giuliani, Eastman, and others.
Additional key White House, administration, and campaign officials
Several others in Trump’s administration and campaign were called up by the committee either through a formal subpoena or through a request to comply voluntarily. Some of the key targets included:
Kimberly Guilfoyle
Guilfoyle helped fundraise and organize the rally at the Ellipse and initially sat for a voluntary interview with the committee but chaos ensued. Guilfoyle bowed out when realizing she would have to offer testimony to the committee with members present, not just panel attorneys. She eventually sat again, but this time under force of subpoena. Lawmakers sought her records and testimony related to the alleged raising of $3 million for the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse.
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Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary
The White House press secretary who promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election routinely from the White House press briefing room, accompanied Trump to the Ellipse on Jan. 6. She allegedly watched the attack unfold with him or nearby. McEnany’s sat for questioning by the committee on Jan. 12. By Feb. 1, it was reported that it was McEnany who was responsible for turning over a series of text messages to investigators showing Fox News host Sean Hannity peppering the press secretary with advice. “No more stolen election talk,” and “Yes, impeachment and the 25th Amendment are real and many people will quit,” he wrote to McEnany. She responded, “Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce...”
Boris Epshteyn, senior White House aide
Epshteyn was subpoenaed on Jan. 18. The senior White House aide had a call with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6 to discuss possible ways to delay or stop the counting of electoral votes. Epshteyn also “regularly attended” meetings at the Trump admin’s “war room” at the Willard Hotel. During an appearance on CNN on Jan. 22, Epshteyn acknowledged that he was “part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors” for Trump submitted to Congress. Epshteyn has continued to promote claims that Trump won the 2020 election.
Days before the select committee’s hearing, emails obtained by The Washington Post showed how on Dec. 13, 2021, one day before the Electoral College safe harbor deadline, Trump’s electors in Georgia were told to keep their plans to submit their bunk slates veiled in total secrecy. A Justice Department inquiry into alternate electors has named Epshteyn and others in its quest for records.
Nicholas Luna, personal assistant to Trump
Trump’s personal assistant or ”body man” was reportedly in the Oval Office on Jan. 6 when Trump was on a call with Pence, in which he pressured Pence not to certify the results of the 2020 election. Luna reportedly entered the Oval on Jan. 6 before his speech, handing Trump a note letting him know he was ready to go on. Luna reportedly heard Trump yell at Pence, “You’re going to wimp out!” Luna was deposed on March 21 after a brief delay and has reportedly been cooperating with the committee and submitting to document requests. Notably, Luna was not an official White House staffer on Jan. 6 but when he was at a meeting in December with Trump and Pence, investigators allege that he was privy to talks between his superiors about seizing voting machines by way of declaring a national emergency.
Kashyap Patel, former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller
Kashyap “Kash” Patel.
Kash Patel was subpoenaed by the committee on Sept. 23. Patel slid into the Defense Department role after Trump canned Defense Secretary Mark Esper and put Chris Miller in Esper’s place. Patel made for a good yes-man and rose quickly to the White House as a result. Once a senior congressional aide to Trump ally Rep. Devin Nunes, Patel joined the Trump administration in 2019 as a staffer on the National Security Council.
The Washington Post reported in April that Patel was the subject of an inquiry by the Department of Justice due to a complaint filed earlier in the year by an unidentified intelligence agency suggesting Patel “repeatedly pressed intelligence agencies to release secrets that, in his view, showed that the president was being persecuted unfairly by critics.”
Patel has records that investigators believe show how the White House prepared for and responded to the Capitol attack with Defense Department and White House officials. There are also documents sought relating to Patel’s “personal involvement” in disrupting the peaceful transfer of power, the committee says.
Kash met with the committee on Dec. 9, according to CNN reporters who were staked out in the Capitol. He appeared with his attorney and was carrying a bevy of documents. In a statement on Dec. 9, Patel said he was answering the committee’s questions to the best of his ability.
Patel appeared on the Fox News podcast The Kitchen Table shortly after his appearance and spoke with hosts about “fighting the deep state.”
Robert “Bobby” Peede Jr., the former deputy assistantto Trump, was subpoenaed on Dec. 9. Investigators say Peede met with Trump in his private dining room just off the Oval Office on Jan. 4 to discuss the impending rally on Jan. 6 and its speakers. Katrina Pierson was also reportedly at this meeting.
Max Miller, another aidefor Trump was with Peede and Trump during a Jan. 4 meeting where the Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally was discussed with Katrina Pierson. Miller was subpoenaed on Dec. 9. Miller received Trump’s full-throated endorsement for his congressional run in December.
Brian Jack, director of political affairs for Trump reportedly contacted several members of Congress on Trump’s behalf, asking them to speak at the Ellipse about so-called fraud in the 2020 election. One of those lawmakers, according to the committee, was Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican who told reporters he was wearing body armor to the rally on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse because he was warned that violence was imminent.
Christopher Liddell, White House deputy chief of staff in the White House on Jan. 6; investigators believe his role as Meadows’ deputy meant he was privy to conversations involving state officials in Georgia, discussions of election fraud lawsuits, and correspondence with Jan. 6 rally organizers, the Department of Justice, and others. Investigators say Liddell tried to resign during the attack but was coaxed out of that decision. On Feb. 11, Liddell did not comment on reports that the transition process from Trump to Biden was particularly arduous.
Ben Williamson, a deputy assistant to Trump and senior adviser to Meadows, has records similar to that of Liddell’s. Williamson was also allegedly contacted by White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah during the siege, who urged him, to no avail, to have Trump issue a statement condemning the violence.
Molly Michael, a special assistantto Trump and Oval Office operations coordinator, forwarded emails on Dec. 14 to then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, with the subject line including “FROM POTUS,” that laid out talking points on bogus forensic information alleging fraud in Michigan. Similar emails went out on Dec. 29 to the U.S. solicitor general, urging the Department of Justice to file a lawsuit at the Supreme Court that requested the election be overturned.
Taylor Budowich, Trump’s current primary political spokesperson and communications director for Trump’s Save America PAC, allegedly solicited and then directed a nonprofit organization to donate $200,000 from an undisclosed source to pay for its ad campaign promoting election falsehoods. Budowich sued the Committee in late December in a bid to stop investigators from reviewing his financial records. But on Jan. 20, a judge ruled against Budowich, saying his financial records should not be returned to him after JP Morgan Chase handed them off to the committee.
Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign official that helped organize the Women for American First rally at the Ellipse and on Jan. 6 urged the crowd before the attack started to “fight much harder” to “stop the steal.” She also reportedly participated in a Jan. 4 meeting with Trump in the Oval Office where she assured him there would be another rally on Jan. 5 where “people like Ali Alexander and Roger Stone could speak.” Stone has said Pierson was “deeply involved” in the attack.
William Stepien, Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign manager, promoted false claims about voting machines despite internal campaign memos determining those claims were false. Stepien has since signed onto advise Ohio Republican Mike Gibbon’s senate campaign.
Angela McCallum, the national executive assistant to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, spread false information about voter fraud on Trump’s behalf and encouraged, unconstitutionally, state electors to appoint alternate slates and send competing votes to Congress; she also left a voicemail for an election official in Michigan saying Trump was counting on the unidentified representative.
Kenneth Klukowski, senior counselto Jeffrey Clark. Investigators say he and Clark worked on the letter for Georgia state and election officials and that he met with Clark before a meeting where Clark proposed Jeffrey Rosen’s removal at Trump’s behest.
Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and adviser to Donald Trump Jr., the committee contends that Surabian was privy to planning or coordination efforts for the rally on Jan. 6 and that he had contact with multiple people who led the organization of the rally including Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, fundraiser Caroline Wren and Julie Fancelli who flooded the Trump reelection campaign with cash.
Arthur Schwartz, like Surabian, is a Republican strategist and adviser to Donald Trump Jr. and the committee subpoenaed Schwartz for information related to the planning of the rally.
Ross Worthington, former White House and campaign aide, helped former President Donald Trump write the speech that he delivered from the Ellipse on Jan. 6. Investigators want Worthington to provide further information about Trump’s state of mind and conduct ahead of the speech and have inquired about why Trump littered his remarks with claims of election fraud.
Christina Bobb, an anchor at the pro-Trump right-wing propaganda network One America News Network, was subpoenaed in March as investigators sought more information about her role in advancing the “alternate elector scheme” and specifically, how she assisted Giuliani. Bobb was also in the “war room” at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 6.
Jan. 6 rally organizers
A lengthy list of rally organizers has come under scrutiny. They include but are not limited to:
Dustin Stockton, a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally organizer who investigators say raised the alarm to Mark Meadows that the Jan. 6 event could be unsafe. Stockton was revealed in mid-December as the source for an October Rolling Stone piece where it was alleged that several members of congress were intimately involved in a scheme to overturn the election results. Stockton and his fiancee Jennifer Lynn Lawrence said in an interview with Rolling Stone published Dec. 13 that they were going to cooperate with the committee in full and begin naming names.
Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, along with her fiance Dustin Stockton, assisted Women for America First with its rallies after the November election and right through to the rally on Jan. 6.
Caroline Wren, described as “VIP Adviser” on the WFAF permit for Jan. 6; believed to be in regular contact with Mark Meadows about election certification, allegedly parked dark money funds with the Republican Attorneys General Association, the young Republican hub Turning Point, and the Tea Party Express
Cynthia Chafian, who submitted the first permit application for WFAF'’s Jan. 6 rally, founder of the Eighty Percent Coalition
Maggie Mulvaney, was listed as “VIP Lead” on a permit application filed by WFAF
Justin Caporale, of Event Strategies, Inc.—which received over $2 million in payments from the Trump campaign—was listed as a point of contact and project manager for WFAF rally on Jan. 6
Lyndon Brentnall was listed as an on-site supervisor for Jan. 6 rally permits
Nathan Martinwas listed on a permit for the “One Nation Under God” rally on Jan. 6; Martin allegedly failed to disclose that he was also associated with the ‘Stop the Steal’ event and reportedly told U.S Capitol Police that he was not associated with ‘Stop the Steal’
Tim Unesof Event Strategies, Inc., was listed as a “Stage Manager” on permit paperwork filed by WFAF for Jan. 6.
Megan Powers of MPowers Consulting LLC was listed on permit paperwork for WFAF as “Operations Manager for Scheduling and Guidance”
Hannah Salem of Salem Strategies LLC was listed on permit paperwork for WFAF as “Operations Manager for Logistics and Communications”
Bryan Lewis, records have shown, obtained a permit for a rally on Jan. 6 that expressly urged Congress to nullify electoral votes and make illegal changes to voting rules during the election
Ed Martin helped organize the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement and was directly involved in coordinating the “Wild Protest” event planned for Jan. 6. Investigators say he also paid for vendors associated with that event.
Kimberly Fletcher, head of Moms for America, a pro-Trump group, coordinated a Jan. 5 rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. The group was also identified as a participant in the rally on Jan. 6. Documents obtained by the committee reportedly show Fletcher’s group was in contact with ‘Stop the Steal’ leader Ali Alexander
‘Friendly’ compliance highlights
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger served as a witness in the committee’s probe. Raffensperger was not formally subpoenaed but said in August that he would cooperate with any inquiries. The state official came into the spotlight during the 2020 election after Trump called him and pressured him to "find” 11,000 votes for his campaign. Chair Thompson recently called his cooperation as a witness “crucial” to their probe. Raffensperger has since been testifying to a grand jury about the alternate elector scheme.
Though he has not been publicly subpoenaed by the committee, Chris Krebs, once a senior Trump administration official for cybersecurity, reportedly sat down for questions on Dec. 9. Trump fired Krebs after the election and after Krebs stood vehemently against Trump’s claims of election fraud. The committee requested information about Krebs’ termination this August when it sent a request to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Stephanie Grisham, former White House press secretary and chief of staff to former First Lady Melania Trump, voluntarily sat for a deposition in early January and informed that committee that Trump had “secret meetings” in the White House residence in the days just before the Capitol attack. Grisham reportedly told investigators that Mark Meadows helped coordinate the clandestine gatherings.
Big tech requests and demands
Over a dozen social media/technology companies received informal demands for information last summer. The committee was primarily interested in learning how misinformation, like claims of widespread fraud in 2020, was allowed to spread on the respective sites.
There was voluntary compliance from several of the companies noticed in August but the biggest hitters like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Reddit failed to respond “adequately,” according to Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson. That prompted formal subpoenas to be submitted to those four entities this January.
Beyond Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Reddit, informal demands initially went to:
In court, the committee aggressively pursued the phone records of more than 100 figures related to the Jan. 6. attack. The requests started to flow last August when telecommunications companies like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and U.S. Celluar were asked to preserve phone records from a host of Republican lawmakers like Kevin McCarthy as well as Trump administration officials and Jan. 6 rally organizers. The data requested would not reveal the content of calls or text messages but would help investigators piece together the dates and times that calls were made and for how long calls lasted.
Many sued to stop the review. Rally organizers Unes, Mulvaney, Powers, and Caporalesued the Jan. 6th Committee in federal court arguing the request for their cell phone data was a breach of their constitutional right to privacy and private communications. They sat for lengthy depositions and otherwise cooperated with the committee in November, however.
Alex Jonessued investigators in December, trying to keep the probe away from his phone data. He amended the complaint to include Timothy Enlow, the security operations manager for Free Speech Systems, a media entity owned by Jones, in February after it was revealed to Jones that the committee had served Enlow’s provider.
Mark Meadows and John Eastman sued to keep phone records hidden as did onetime Trump White House adviser Sebastian Gorka. The committee demanded Verizon hand over his records in December. Election disinformation purveyor and Trump ally My Pillow CEO Mike Lindellsued the committee in January to stop a subpoena served on his telephone provider.
Cleta Mitchell, a right-wing activist and longtime conservative attorney who once represented the National Rifle Association, has sued the committee to stop the review of her phone records. Mitchell was on the call with Trump when he pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to alter election results in 2020. Notably, McClatchy reported that Mitchell expressed concern in 2018 that the NRA and Russia coordinated to funnel cash into Trump’s first presidential bid. Mitchell denied the allegations but cooperated with legislators. The committee subpoenaed her in March.
Stephen Miller sued the committee in March in hopes of stopping investigators from reviewing his phone’s metadata. The reason for his request? It would violate his mother’s privacy since he remains on her family cell phone plan.
For a minute-by-minute breakdown of Jan. 6, 2021, check out the tick-tock outline available here.
A comprehensive guide to social media posts from legislators about Jan. 6 before, during, and after the attack was first compiled by Rep. Zoe Lofgren last year. A digestible recap with source documents is available here.
This week the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol will commence its public hearings on Thursday, June 9 at 8 p.m. ET beginning what will be a month-long presentation of evidence that congressional investigators have compiled through extensive interviews with key witnesses to the violent insurrection incited by former President Donald Trump.
Hearings will be televised and streamed online and will feature live witness testimony, new and unseen video footage, and previously-recorded interviews with members of Trump’s innermost circle and reportedly, members of his family including his daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law-turned-White House adviser, Jared Kushner, and others.
On the path to this moment, investigators have amassed over 125,000 pages of records and hundreds of hours of deposition. Many records were obtained voluntarily, while others were only secured after hard-fought but critically victorious legal battles against Trump and his entourage of lawyers, campaign and administration staff, so-called “alternate electors,” and other allies like right-wing conspiracy theory peddlers and members of extremist hate groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Committee investigator, constitutional scholar, and Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, described the probe’s findings to this Daily Kos reporter recently:
“The insurrection is only comprehensible when you understand that it was unleashed as a way to assist this political coup, this inside political coup. Donald Trump and his entourage had been looking for ways to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results for months.”
The hearings begin June 9 at 8 p.m. ET. The next hearings will be held at 10 a.m. on June 13th, 15th, 16th, and 21st. The final anticipated session will unfold on June 23rd at 8 p.m. ET. Daily Kos will offer up-to-the-minute coverage of each hearing on its front page as well as on Twitter.
For the first hearing, the violence that exploded at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 will be put into whip-sharp relief as the committee is expected to introduce the broad strokes of a plot that its members say was orchestrated by the former president to stop the nation’s transfer of power after he lost the popular and Electoral College vote to Joe Biden in 2020.
Other hearings will zero in on how that plot was navigated including through the use of bogus electors in key battleground states. It is expected that the committee will explore the nuances behind the concerted pressure campaign foisted on then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the counting of votes by Congress on Jan. 6 despite a lack of constitutional authority to do so.
On Jan. 6, many in the crowd hoisted banners and flags identifying membership or support for known extremist groups and movements like the anti-government, white supremacy drenched militia movement known as Three Percenters.
Trump’s private conduct in the White House on the day of the insurrection, which reportedly included him vocalizing support for those clamoring to “Hang Mike Pence,” will also come under the magnifying glass.
As a result of the Jan. 6 attack, five people died. Hundreds of police officers were assaulted. More than $1 million in damages were inflicted to the Capitol building alone. The committee, as it has made clear since its inception, does not have the power to prosecute anyone, It only has the power to investigate and legislate.
A final report with legislative recommendations will be issued this September.
What those recommendations will look like exactly is uncertain for now, but the committee has said repeatedly over the last 11 months that its plan is to beef up all available legislative firewalls against would-be usurpers of the nation’s peaceful, democratic process.
Important to note is that a criminal referral of Trump by the committee to the Department of Justice has not been ruled out as of yet.
The department has slogged through its own Jan. 6 investigation for more than a year, arresting over 800 people for a sprawling number of crimes including seditious conspiracy. It has also opened up a number of grand juries—special or otherwise—to weigh indictments for key Trump-tethered figures.
The DOJ recently refused to indict Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and aide Dan Scavino for contempt of congress following their respective defiance of initial subpoenas. The decision was announced late Friday and left committee chairman Bennie Thompson and vice-chair, Liz Cheney, “puzzled.”
“If the department’s position is that either or both of these men have absolute immunity, from appearing before Congress because of their former positions in the Trump administration, that question is the focus of pending litigation,” Thompson and Cheney said in a June 3 statement.
U.S. prosecutors did, however, indict Steve Bannon, Trump’s short-lived White House strategist as well as Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro.
Meadows cooperated in part, giving the committee a plethora of text messages and other correspondence, only some of which has been made public prior to the hearings. Those messages demonstrated how Meadows was at the center of a storm of election fraud conspiracy and legally dubious strategies proposed to keep Trump in office well after his defeat.
Meadows was also the touchstone for an onslaught of panicked presidential allies, who, records have revealed, begged for Trump to quell the violence during a staggering 187-minutes of silence from the Oval Office as the mob raged, lawmakers fled and blood was spilled.
Scavino cooperated with the committee in part, haggling for weeks over executive privilege concerns. Bannon and Navarro, however, flatly refused to cooperate. Bannon’s executive privilege claims started on shaky ground: at the time of the insurrection, he was years removed from Trump’s formal employ though he was still well embedded with the administration.
Navarro was officially-entrenched until the end and though he argues executive privilege should bar his compliance with the select committee, federal prosecutors disagree. Bannon goes to trial in July. Navarro’s next moves will be hashed out in court following his arrest last week.
How his case progresses will warrant close attention since prosecutors have taken the slightly unusual step of asking Navarro to not only produce records first meant for the committee but other specific communications from Trump, in particular. This could signify that Trump is under investigation by the department directly.
The witness list for the public hearings is evolving even now, as are the exact details of its presentations.
Members of Pence’s staff including counsel Greg Jacob and aide Marc Short have been invited to testify. So too has Michael Luttig and Luttig is expected to appear.
It was Luttig’s advice, as a former federal judge, that Pence relied on when Pence announced mere minutes before Congress was set to convene on Jan. 6 that he would not and could not “claim the unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
Luttig is considered an expert on the Constitutional process and, crucially, the Electoral Count Act, the very legislation that his former clerk-turned-consigliere for Trump John Eastman sought to unwind when Eastman authored a memo proposing a six-point strategy to overturn the election.
As for the former vice president, he is not expected to testify.
Short and Jacob’s testimony will be useful to set the scene for the public: Both men were present for a Jan. 4, 2021 meeting when Eastman presented the strategy to have Pence stop the count.
Other possible witnesses include Cassidy Hutchinson, a senior aide to Meadows who sat with the committee privately on multiple occasions. Legal records revealed in April that Hutchinson told investigators Meadows was warned of violence looming over Washington prior to Jan. 6.
Hutchinson testified too that several lawmakers, including Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Mo Brooks, of Alabama and Matt Gaetz of Florida, among others were integral forces n the public and private pushes to advance the unconstitutional alternate elector scheme.
Former DOJ officials Jeffrey Rosen or Richard Donoghue may also testify.
Rosen, once the acting attorney general under Trump, told oversight and judiciary committees in both the House and Senate last summer that he was pressured by Trump’s allies at the DOJ—namely, Rosen’s subordinate, Jeffrey Clark—to issue a public statement saying the FBI found evidence of voter fraud in various states. The draft was proposed during a meeting just after Christmas 2020.
Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s deputy, took contemporaneous notes from that call with Trump.
“Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. congressman,” Donoghue wrote of Trump’s remarks.
“
Notes were taken by Richard Donoghue during a Dec. 27, 2020 call with Trump.
When the committee’s held its first-ever public hearing last July, it heard visceral testimony from a handful of police officers who fought off the mob for hours.
Still can’t even them out. Scar tissues prevent me from doing some range of motions. Nevertheless it’s Still progress. Three weeks ago I couldn’t do this. pic.twitter.com/kf9TucCnls
— Staff Sergeant Gonell, Aquilino (@SergeantAqGo) March 25, 2022
Others are still working through the post-traumatic stress.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who dealt with a barrage of racial slurs and physical attacks on Jan. 6, has been vocal about the need for officers to receive therapy. A year after the attack, Dunn has kept up that messaging as well as demands for accountability and transparency as he continues to work on the Hill surrounded by the memories of that fateful day.
January 6 Committee members from left to right Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA, Bennie Thompson, D-MS, and Liz Cheney, R-WY.
As the hearings get underway, there is counterprogramming expected from the committee’s most staunch opponents.
Axios reported an exclusive scoop in advance of the committee hearings that House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Elise Stefanik of New York will lead the counterprogramming efforts publicly. Matt Schlapp, Trump’s onetime political director and now chairman of the powerful Conservative Political Action Committee, is reportedly in charge behind the scenes.
Jordan, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, is one of Trump’s most loyal lapdogs in Congress. During the former president’s first impeachment inquiry, the congressman used every opportunity during proceedings to throw witness interviews off track or demean their testimony.
When McCarthy nominated Jordan to serve on one of the first iterations of the committee to investigate Jan. 6, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi—per rules of a founding resolution—refused to seat Jordan. The California Democrat also refused to seat another one of McCarthy’s picks, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana.
Pelosi accepted other Republican nominees put forward by McCarthy but Jordan and Banks had a track record that proved too divisive to be seriously considered. Both legislators had promoted Trump’s claims of election fraud openly and vociferously. Both voted to overturn the results. Both vowed before the committee was even formed, that they would use the opportunity to explore how Democrats were to blame for security lapses on Jan. 6. They also sought to equate the violence of Jan. 6 with racial justice protests that dotted the nation after the police killing of George Floyd.
But when Jordan and Banks were skipped over for seats on what would have been a truly bipartisan committee with five Democrats and five Republicans sharing equal subpoena powers, McCarthy abruptly ended all negotiations.
The select committee was formed not long after. This time, its resolution established it would have nine members including seven Democrats and two Republicans. The only two Republicans that would participate on the committee were Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Kinzinger is not seeking reelection.
As for Stefanik, her rapid ascent in the GOP will undoubtedly be underlined this month. Since her effective anointment by GOP Leader McCarthy to replace Liz Cheney as the party’s conference chair, the New York Republican has tirelessly echoed Trump’s cries of “witch hunt” whenever his conduct comes up for review or the events of Jan. 6 are discussed.
The counterprogramming will largely be a continuation of the meritless arguments and legal theories Trump’s allies have advanced in various court battles where they have sought to evade congressional subpoenas for their records and testimony. McCarthy, Jordan, Brooks, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania have all received subpoenas from the select committee.
Despite many of those same lawmakers admitting publicly to having conversations with Trump at critical times before, during, or after the insurrection, none agreed to come forward, either voluntarily or under force of subpoena.
McCarthy and the rest will staunchly defend the former president by presenting the easily-debunked argument that the committee was not properly formed and its members, as such, illegally empowered. That is not so, according to the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts that have ruled, again and again, in favor of the committee’s standing as well as its pursuit of information relevant to its probe.
The select committee has been recognized not only as a valid legislative body but also as a properly formed one thanks to its binding resolution that was afforded the protocols necessary before a final vote in the full House of Representatives was held.
The House voted last June, 222-190, to establish the select committee.
Last month, Vox obtained a copy of a strategy memo prepared by the Republican National Committee for its members and operatives to use as the Jan. 6 hearings are underway.
One goal allegedly listed was to push the message that “Democrats are the real election deniers” and that “Trump’s requests” this month to his “surrogates” should shape coverage on friendly media networks.
Though the endgame for Republicans during the hearings will largely be to deflect and distract, the committee’s sessions will be followed by a long summer with the events of Jan. 6 still in focus: Bannon goes to trial in July to face his contempt charge and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers facing seditious conspiracy charges (and other allegations) are slated to meet jurors in July and September, respectively.
While Trump and his cohorts are spinning, President Joe Biden is expected to keep somewhat of a distance from the spectacle of the proceedings.
He waived executive privilege over Trump’s presidential records related to Jan. 6 and on the record has been measured in his response to the select committee’s function and work. Politico reported Sunday that a former official suggested anonymously that Biden’s team would likely reconsider the hands-off approach if the counterprogramming billows out of control.
At least one Republican, the former Representative for Virginia, Denver Riggleman, has thrown his support behind the hearings and then some. Riggleman has been an adviser to the committee for several months.
He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Sunday that the hearings would be a refreshing and unique change from the typical congressional committee hearing setting where Republicans and Democrats are often locked into partisan bickering and waste valuable time trying to course-correct.
“There’s not going to be a lot partisan whining and screaming,” Riggleman said.
Rep. Raskin told Daily Kos in April that he believed the committee hearings would, at the very least, empower voters with “intellectual self-defense against the authoritarian and fascistic policies that have been unleashed in this country.”
Time, which is now running out, will tell.
Protesters enter the Senate Chamber on Jan. 6 during a joint session to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump, nearly the same exact margin that Trump had when he won over his opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton.
Since Donald Trump came down the escalator of Trump Tower to launch his run for president, we have found ourselves asking questions we never believed we would have to ask about our leaders. The loudest of those questions concern Trump’s criminal activity. While we know that Trump was perhaps the most blatantly criminal person ever to occupy the White House, it’s quite another matter to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
That effort has been hindered by the longstanding Department of Justice (DOJ) policy against indicting sitting presidents for crimes committed while in office. That policy did not anticipate a situation where a president’s political allies were willing to look the other way when said president essentially ran the White House and the country as a crime syndicate.
In 2019, former FBI director Robert Mueller released the results of his special counsel investigation into Russia’s attempt to hack the 2016 election for Trump. While Mueller outlined at least ten potential instances in which Trump obstructed justice, he concluded that none were egregious enough to merit a criminal referral. By the time Trump left office, the already limited window to prosecute him for these potential crimes was even narrower, given that much of the time in the five-year statute of limitations had already elapsed. The ticking clock has only added to frustrations inside and outside this country about the prospect of Trump never facing justice for his actions.
Fortunately, two of Trump’s biggest gadflies in Congress—Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York and Adam Schiff of California—realize that even if we can’t make Trump stand trial for his crimes in office, we have to prevent the possibility of another criminal president avoiding accountability. They have introduced legislation that would all but eliminate the statute of limitations for presidents who commit crimes while in office.
The DOJ’s policy against indicting sitting presidents for federal crimes has its roots in a DOJ memo issued in 1973, during the worst of Watergate. The 41-page document, penned by assistant attorney general Robert Dixon, head of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, was titled “Amenability of the President, Vice President, and other Civil Officers to Federal Criminal Prosecution while in Office.” While delving into several historical documents to weigh the pros and cons of indicting a sitting president, Dixon ultimately concluded that the president’s role was too vital for him to be indicted while in office.
Dixon argued that if a president had to face criminal charges, it would interfere with many duties “which cannot be performed by anyone else.” Dixon believed the concern was especially acute given that the president’s power had grown to a level “undreamed of in the 18th and early 19th centuries.” Dixon also claimed that if an indicted president opted to go to trial, a guilty verdict might not be seen as legitimate, given the “passions and exposure” surrounding the presidency.
For these and other reasons, Dixon argued that impeachment and removal were the only means of dealing with potentially criminal conduct by a sitting president. While he reiterated that there was no bar to criminally charging a president once he left office, he openly admitted that there was a possibility the statute of limitations could run out before then. While conceding that this potentially created a “gap in the law,” he believed indicting a sitting president carried too many unacceptable risks.
Unsurprisingly, having to endure a blatantly criminal president in recent years has led to calls for the Dixon memo to be revisited. Among the loudest voices calling for the memo to be reconsidered is J. T. Smith, who served at the DOJ alongside Dixon. Watch him make the case on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show in 2019.
One thing is unmistakable from reading Dixon’s memo. He clearly assumed that Congress would swiftly impeach and remove a president who engaged in criminal conduct. After all, impeachment and removal would make any concerns about indicting a sitting president moot. That process worked perfectly during Watergate. When the “smoking gun tape” provided irrefutable evidence that Richard Nixon was directly involved in covering up the break-in, Nixon’s support in Congress evaporated. According to Sen. Barry Goldwater, Nixon was facing impeachment by an overwhelming margin in the House—something close to unanimous support. Goldwater claimed only 15 senators were willing even to consider acquitting Nixon—not even half of the 33 votes Nixon needed to stay in office. Faced with this stark and unmistakably bipartisan math, Nixon resigned.
Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford soon after resigning. It turned out that Nixon had become gravely ill less than a week after leaving office. With reports that a trial could not credibly begin until early 1975, it appears that Ford was partly motivated by concerns that Nixon wouldn’t live that long—or at least that he would have been physically unable to stand trial.
Ford’s earlier claims that Nixon had suffered enough by being forced out of the White House in disgrace proved to be an albatross around his party’s neck in 1974, and his own two years later. Political fallout notwithstanding, the system worked exactly as Dixon seemed to have expected.
But to be effective, the process requires Congress to have the political will to act. During Trump’s two impeachments, even though it was beyond dispute that Trump had trampled both the Constitution and his oath to preserve, protect, and defend it, intransigent Republican opposition prevented him from facing his reckoning.
In 2019, after Trump attempted to bully Ukraine into joining a politically motivated investigation into Joe Biden, Republicans were unwilling to take off their red blinders even for a minute and uphold their oaths of office. Instead, we were served with hair-on-fire claims about how evil liberals were in cahoots with the deep state to stop Trump, as well as warnings from Trump’s evangelical supporters that impeachment amounted to an attack on their values.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy summed up this mentality. At the very start of his remarks opposing Trump’s first impeachment he claimed, with a straight face, that the Democrats were only impeaching Trump because they could not bring themselves to accept that he was president.
McCarthy also claimed that Democrats were trying to turn impeachment into “an exercise of raw political power.” His remarks were little more than a longer version of this tweet from then-First Daughter-in-Law Lara Trump.
If anything, the Republicans’ failure was even starker during Trump’s second impeachment. Even though it was clear that Trump had incited the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, to steal a second term, only 10 House Republicans were willing to summon the will to impeach him. When Trump was tried in the Senate, only seven Republicans voted to convict—10 short of the necessary threshold.
One of the 10 House Republicans who voted for impeachment, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, later recalled that he believed as many as 25 Republicans would vote to impeach—only to be surprised when just nine of his colleagues joined him. According to Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, one of the managers during Trump’s first impeachment, several more would have done so, but feared for their lives. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to call the Senate back into session in order to ensure the trial would begin before the end of Trump’s term. That made his ultimate decision to acquit Trump because he was no longer in office—a sentiment shared by no fewer than seven other senators (Rob Portman, John Thune, Shelley Moore Capito, John Cornyn, Mike Rounds, Steve Daines, and Jerry Moran)—sound disingenuous, to put it mildly.
The current DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president is grounded on the idea that such an indictment would do too much damage to the country. According to the man who authored that policy, the only way to solve that problem is to render that president a private citizen by impeaching him and removing him from office in short order. But if Congress isn’t willing to hold up its end of the bargain, then you have at least the appearance of, in Nixon’s words, a “gap in the law.”
Such a situation is untenable in any society that purports to be based on the rule of law. It also risks irreparable damage to America’s reputation abroad; more than a few of my acquaintances outside this country have wondered why Trump hasn’t been arrested.
I have been of the mind for some time that the sheer egregiousness of Trump’s alleged misdeeds in office was such that there was at least one federal criminal investigation well underway, in addition to the state-level investigations being led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis. Any doubt I had of this was put to rest in February by former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. On his podcast, Justice Matters, Kirschner opined that he believed we would see indictments of Trump and much of his inner circle because “there are too many dedicated people at the Department of Justice not to ...” Earlier, he’d cautioned that the DOJ’s inclination to conduct “long exhaustive proactive investigations with no deadlines” is a big reason we haven’t seen the indictments roll out yet.
Kirschner spent his entire 24-year career as an assistant U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, the second-most prestigious U. S. Attorney’s Office in the country, behind the Southern District of New York. He knows what it takes to conduct “long exhaustive proactive investigations” of which he spoke. And when the target of that investigation is a former president with a very cult-like following, it’s even more important to make sure that case is ironclad.
We got a reminder of just how ponderous this process is later in February when CNN revealed that the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection was being snarled by Trump’s pesky habit of using other people’s phones. According to multiple sources in the Trump White House, Trump was so paranoid about people listening in on his calls that he frequently confiscated the cell phones of aides and Secret Service agents.
These accounts appear to have been corroborated by Trump’s third White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham. In an interview with CNN’s New Day, Grisham revealed that Trump was known to commandeer the phones of anyone who happened to be in the same room.
This makes reconstructing the events of that horrible day even more difficult. If Trump was using other people’s phones, anyone investigating the events leading up to the pro-Trump hordes swarming into the Capitol would have to wade through the phone records of innocent third parties and try to separate legitimate calls from not-so-legitimate calls. If the House investigators were stymied by this, the odds are pretty good that federal prosecutors are as well.
The need to wade through this evidence would make building a solid case against Trump difficult, even without the compressed time frame to bring an indictment before the statute of limitations runs out. Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the de facto second-in-command during Trump’s first impeachment, had this in mind when he wrote the No President is Above the Law Act of 2020. This bill would “toll,” or pause, the statute of limitations for any federal crimes committed by a sitting president before or during his time in office. The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee had a simple rationale for this bill: to prevent a president from using his office “to avoid legal consequences.”
The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, scoffed that this bill was a solution in search of a problem. However, they claimed that its premise was undermined by Mueller’s report, since any claims that Trump colluded with Russia were “disproven” by Mueller. They ignore that Mueller explicitly stated that his report did not exonerate Trump. Moreover, are the House Republicans okay with creating even the appearance that you can be above the law just by virtue of being president?
Much of Nadler’s bill was folded into the Protecting Our Democracy Act, authored by Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the lead manager during Trump’s first impeachment. In an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, Schiff heralded the bill as an effort to codify “what had been, we thought, inviolate norms of behavior in office.” However, Schiff’s act sets up new guardrails, including the effective pause of the statute of limitations for sitting presidents as proposed by Nadler.
The Protecting Our Democracy Act passed the House in December, with Kinzinger being the only Republican to support it. The Senate has yet to take up the bill as of this writing, which, to put it mildly, is unfortunate. The Republicans had a chance to make up for their failure to uphold their oaths of office during Trump’s two impeachments. So far, they’re squandering it.
This cannot stand.
Even if the clock runs out on any effort to make Trump answer for his misdeeds in federal court, Nadler and Schiff have crafted what is arguably the best mechanism to prevent another president from following his example. Call your senators and tell them to support the Protect Our Democracy Act. We cannot allow even the appearance of a president being above the law.
The Guardian is reporting that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is planning to hold six public hearings in June on how Donald Trump and some allies broke the law in their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. But Rick Wilson, a former top GOP strategist and the co-founder of The Lincoln Project, sounded alarm bells, saying the committee members are not putting enough effort into making their case to the public.
The British newspaper, citing sources familiar with the inquiry, said it had reviewed a draft schedule prepared by the House committee. The first hearing is scheduled for June 9 and the last hearing on June 23 will be televised in prime time.
The Guardian wrote:
We want to paint a picture as clear as possible as to what occurred,” the chairman of the select committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson, recently told reporters. “The public needs to know what to think. We just have to show clearly what happened on January 6.”
The select committee has already alleged that Trump violated multiple federal laws to overturn the 2020 election, including obstructing Congress and defrauding the United States. But the hearings are where the panel intends to show how they reached those conclusions.
According to the draft schedule, the June public hearings will explore Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, starting and ending with prime-time hearings at 8 pm on the 9th and the 23rd. In between, the panel will hold 10 am hearings on the 13th, 15th, 16th and 21st.
The Guardian said the schedule is still subject to change. The two prime-time hearings are scheduled to last between one-and-a-half and two hours, while the four other morning hearings will last between two and two-and-a-half hours.
Each hearing will be led by a select committee member, the sources told the newspaper, but the questioning of witnesses who have been subpoenaed to appear will be primarily conducted by the committee’s top investigative lawyers. The investigators also intend to use flash texts, photos, and videos to illustrate the testimony, the sources said.
The Guardian report added that the panel will lay out how the efforts to overturn the election results unfolded over a 65-day period from the time Trump falsely claimed victory until Jan. 6:
The panel is also expected to chart the reactivation of the Stop the Steal movement by the Trump activist Ali Alexander and associates, and how he applied for a permit to protest near the Capitol on January 6 but never held the “Wild Protest” and instead went up the Capitol steps.
The select committee additionally intends to address the question of intent, such as why Trump deliberately misled the crowd that he would march with them to the Capitol, and why he resisted entreaties to call off the rioters from obstructing the joint session on January 6.
The sources said the current schedule calls for capping off the six hearings with a close examination of video footage of leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups meeting in a parking lot on Jan. 5 and their activities at the Capitol.
The sources said the select committee wants to draw a connection between “Trump’s political plan for January 6 and the militia groups’ violence at the Capitol in what could form evidence that Trump oversaw an unlawful conspiracy.”
Wilson sharply criticized the committee’s plan to only hold six hearings in a Twitter thread:
“SIX HEARINGS? SIX? Are. You. F*cking. Kidding. Me?" before adding, "Does no one understand the ballgame here?"
2/ Does no one understand the ballgame here? The witnesses from the Trump world will filibuster, bullshit, evade and jerk themselves off on live TV for roughly 40% of the hearings. Everyone will have a long statement at the opening.
Wilson went on to say: "You have to create a spectacle. You have to make people care. You have to have drama. You have to drag and grind the people who tried to do this so long and so hard their knees bleed. A coup attempt that goes unpunished is a training exercise."
And he warned that should the GOP take control over Congress next year, they will hold months of hearings on Hunter Biden’s laptop, begin impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden for failing to secure the border, and hold months of “show trials” on Afghanistan or antifa.
4/ I PROMISE you, if the GOP was in charge of this, the hearings would NEVER, EVER, EVER stop. cc: @kurtbardella@TaraSetmayer Six hearings means the GOP will try to disrupt them (see Gaetz et al previously) and the Democrats will mumble their objections.
Just for comparison’s sake, the Senate Watergate Committee headed by Democratic Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina began holding public hearings on May 17, 1973. In all, the committee held 51 days of public hearings, a total of 319 hours, before issuing its final report on June 27, 1974.
Here are highlights of that Senate committee’s hearings:
In May 1974, the House Judiciary Committee began holding formal impeachment hearings against President Richard M. Nixon, and in late July approved three articles of impeachment. Nixon resigned in August 1974 before he could be impeached in a House vote.
Of course, now we probably don’t have that amount of time to hold extended public hearings given the looming midterm elections, but the question is whether the House committee is allowing enough time to make its case to the American public.
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is trying to codify the Big Lie and expunge the second impeachment of the former guy. The Hill obtained a copy of Mullin’s draft legislation, which asserts that the charge against Trump for incitement of insurrection “contains a subjective account of that which transpired at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Because what the entire world witnessed on their television sets for hour upon hour on Jan. 6… wasn’t as bad as it looked? This is a particularly interesting reimagining of history because Markwaye went to great pains to highlight his own heroics as the MAGA army of orcs attacked on January 6. He told Politico a few weeks later that he “first leapt into action, helping an officer barricade the door on the House floor that leads to Statuary Hall.”
“The idea was just to try to delay. I honestly didn’t believe we were going to keep them out of the chamber. I was 100 percent convinced that we were going to pile up at the door,” Mullin told Politico. “It is all about time,” he added. He described how he broke up wooden hand sanitizer stands to create some kind of weapon, giving a piece of wood to Texas freshman Rep. Troy Nehls. “We have a choice. I’m with you, brother,” Mullin said he told Nehls.
Then he described how he attempted to try to talk the invaders down. “You almost got shot. You almost died. Is it worth it?’” he said he asked them. Someone in the mob supposedly helped back “This is our House. This is our House. And we’re taking our House back.’” Mullin told Politico he shot back with “This is our House, too. That is not going to happen.”
But in retrospect, all those heroics must have been overblown, because it was just an overly zealous attempt to exercise free speech on the part of those Trump supporters. Or something. Mullin’s big argument in the legislation is that the impeachment arcticles “omits any discussion of the circumstances, unusual voting patterns, and voting anomalies of the 2020 Presidential election itself.” Mullin was among the Republicans who challenged the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, even after his action-figure heroics were called upon earlier in the day.
Mullin was expected to introduce the bill Wednesday. In an email to fellow Republican House members Tuesday, reported by the Daily Beast, Mullin’s office wrote, “The Democrats’ weaponization of impeachment against President Trump cannot go unanswered in the history books.” The bill decries the “rabid partisanship the Democrats displayed in exercising one of the most grave and consequential powers with which the House is charged.”
“Democrats used their second impeachment resolution to once again weaponize one of the most grave and consequential powers of the House,” Mullin said in a statement. “This was never about the Constitution; it was rooted in personal politics.”
“Liberals couldn’t see through their blind rage long enough to follow parliamentary procedure, and instead barreled through Congress in order to have one more bite at the apple with President Trump,” said Mullin.
You don’t have to look too hard to find Mullin’s motivation in pushing this bill—which, by the way, will not get anywhere near the House floor as long as Democrats hold the chamber. Mullin is running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jim Inhofe in June’s special election. Trump hasn’t endorsed yet in the crowded Republican primary.
Back in April, Mullin made the Mar-a-Lago pilgrimage to beg for his ruler’s favor. He and Trump “discussed the state of the economy and the upcoming election,” Mullin’s campaign said. Sure.
Not to be outdone by Mullin in the Trump genuflection contest, the perfectly odious Elise Stefanik jumped on board. “The American people know Democrats weaponized the power of impeachment against President Donald Trump to advance their own extreme political agenda,” she told Fox News Digital. “President Donald Trump was rightfully acquitted, and it is past time to expunge Democrats’ sham smear against not only President Trump’s name, but against millions of patriots across the country.”
Let it be known that during a brief, ephemeral moment when Donald Trump sycophant Sen. Lindsey Graham momentarily gained a conscience and understood just how horrific the Jan. 6 insurrection provoked by Trump's lies really was, even he expressed relief that Joe Biden would soon be taking office and sending Trump back to the toxic swamp from which he came.
"We'll actually come out of this thing stronger," Graham told reporter Jonathan Martin in a recording only being released by Martin now to goose publicity for his new book. "Moments like this reset. It'll take a while."
Martin probed Graham on his optimism: "And Biden will be better, right?"
"Yeah, totally," responded Graham. "He'll be maybe the best person to have, right? I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?"
Yeah, we're all just going to have to let that sit there for a while. It turns out that Lindsey Graham is just as wrong about the actions the Lindsey Graham of the future will take as he is about everything else. What followed next was indeed Graham's predicted "reset," but it was he and his closest allies who did the resetting. In the immediate aftermath of the attempted coup, numerous Republican House and Senate leaders expressed horror at the violence Trump had unleashed and privately vowed to cut him loose, or at least think real hard about cutting him loose. House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy was among those to float either removing Trump as unfit for office or asking for his resignation.
But then Republicans "reset," and not only returned to rally around Trump but to publicly dismiss the severity of the violent coup, to near-unanimously once again support Trump during his impeachment trial, and indeed to flit to Trump's Florida crime laboratory to publicly polish his boots. (A fun thing to think about: McCarthy and all the other Republican visitors presumably not knowing, during their Mar-a-Lago trips, that inside a private room sat boxes of documents Trump had stolen from the government, some of them highly classified. Or maybe Trump was handing them out as party favors.)
And Graham bungled his prediction even worse when he supposed that nobody could get too mad at the incoming Joe Biden. Republicans quite swiftly pivoted back into lying about Biden outright, and Biden's every new proposal was met with bulging Republican eyes as lawmakers declared him to be the real "fascist."
Graham and the others weighed an attempted coup against proposals to hike corporate tax rates or speed the transition away from fossil fuels and decided that they preferred the coup. So here we are—except, now, with Republican state legislatures and Republican Party functionaries all hurriedly scribbling up new rules allowing the precise methods Trump attempted for his coup, evidence-free declarations that some communities should not have their votes counted paired with new Republican means of overturning elections if the votes do not go their way, to go forward with less resistance next time around.
In Graham's case the motives for flipping from outrage to coverup may be simpler than most. Graham himself was one of the Republicans to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to alter presidential vote totals in the state, backing the very Trump strategies that would soon consolidate into an attempted coup.
Yes, Lindsey Graham is a terrible person. Just terrible. This has been evident for years and was evident when he ditched his longtime ally Sen. John McCain to back Trumpism instead, and is evident every time he defends Republican sexual assaults, international crimes, or violent coup attempts with teary eyes and sneering contempt for the witnesses. He is a horrible, horrible, horrible person of the sort that Republicanism breeds; you cannot back Trumpism after all that has happened unless your devotion to horribleness surpasses every other ambition and personality trait.
So-called journalists who keep private these demonstrations that our elected officials lie constantly and grotesquely to us, exposing them only later when the quotes can be better monetized, aren't much better.
