Pat Cipollone’s chance to serve the country—not Trump—is now, Jan. 6 probe demands in subpoena

Pat Cipollone had what one former member of the Justice Department described last week to the Jan. 6 committee as “an impossible job” serving the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. 

But Cipollone was “consistent” and “did that job well,” Richard Donoghue, once the second-in-command to former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, testified.

Cipollone “always sided with the department” and did so even as Trump pushed to overturn the results of the 2020 election by attempting to install crony Jeffrey Clark into the attorney general role.

This was a necessary step in a greater plan to have Clark send a letter to swing states falsely informing them their election results were fraudulent and directing them to appoint Trump’s fake electors.

Cipollone, however, appeared to know a bad deal when he saw it three days before the insurrection during a meeting at the White House with Rosen, Donoghue, Office of Legal Counsel head Richard Engel, Clark, and Trump. 

Cipollone rejected Clark’s letter and the plan underpinning it as a “murder-suicide pact,” Donoghue told the committee publicly last week. 

When the mob finally ensued on Jan. 6, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, the one-time aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, it was Cipollone who pleaded with a despondent Meadows as a gallows was being erected on the Capitol lawn. 

“They are literally calling for the vice president to be f-ing hung,” Hutchinson recalled Cipollone telling the president’s chief of staff.

Meadows replied, saying of then-Vice President Mike Pence, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

Cipollone, Hutchinson said under oath, was, in this terrifying moment, at a loss. 

“This is f-ing crazy, we need to be doing something more,” Hutchinson recalled Cipollone saying. 

Now, the Jan. 6 committee wants Cipollone to do something more, and it has issued a subpoena for his deposition by July 6.

Cipollone Subpoena From Jan 6 Cmte by Daily Kos on Scribd

Cipollone’s testimony would be significant for the investigation into the Capitol attack and Trump’s bid to overturn the election results. It would perhaps be some of the most significant testimony to emerge because it would likely expose the former president’s overt role in the insurrection even more directly. 

He sat previously for the committee in April, but he was not under oath and the meeting was not transcribed. He appeared with Patrick Philbin, another Trump White House attorney who once joined him to defend Trump against impeachment.

The subpoena now forces Cipollone to decide what he will say under oath and what he will leave under possible attorney-client privilege or executive privilege with the former president. 

Cipollone, according to Hutchinson, was one of the few voices of reason surrounding Trump on Jan. 6, even explicitly warning him and others in the president’s orbit that if he went to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse, “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.” 

He was at meetings where the question of seizing voting machines was raised, and he was there when not just Donoghue, Engel, and Rosen’s resignations were threatened if Trump insisted on installing Clark, but when Bill Barr, Rosen’s predecessor, offered to quit because he would not declare there was election fraud where none existed. 

Cipollone threatened to resign in the runup to Jan. 6 often, according to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser.

Kushner testified before the probe in recorded deposition and told committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney he chalked up Cipollone’s threats to resign as mere “whining.”

Cheney has publicly called on Cipollone to testify before the committee multiple times and has framed the request in a way that would possibly curry public trust around him.

“Our evidence shows that Mr. Cipollone and his office tried to do what was right,” Cheney remarked during a recent hearing.

But according to the letter notifying him of the subpoena, Cipollone has declined to cooperate since April. And this subpoena is among the last-resort options barring something more extreme down the road, like holding him in contempt.

If he were to sit now, it would be under closely negotiated terms with counsel present. 

In a statement Wednesday, Thompson and Cheney noted, however: ”Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony."  

LIVE: Follow along with the Jan. 6 committee hearings

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.

Watch live here:

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.

RELATED: Jan. 6 public hearings begin, Daily Kos interviews witness Nick Quested

RELATED: The BIG Guide: Who’s who in the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation

RELATED: Three Big Lies about Jan. 6: A quick fact check

RELATED: Exclusive: USCP Officer Harry Dunn shares notes, personal artifacts of the insurrection

RELATED: Reflections on the Jan. 6 insurrection from U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn

RELATED: Capitol Police Sergeant Gonnell talks about Jan. 6 hearings and what really happened that day 

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 11:36:04 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

We are roughly a half-hour away from tonight’s hearing.

I will post updates here and on Twitter tonight. Don’t forget to follow Daily Kos!

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 11:57:40 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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.

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 11:59:10 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

USCP Officer Harry Dunn is in the chamber tonight: 

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn is here and delivering a not so subtle message. pic.twitter.com/EBonZOV4fo

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 9, 2022

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:01:59 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

The members of the committee have entered the chamber and are taking their seats.

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:04:18 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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.

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:08:57 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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. 

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:16:35 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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.

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:23:24 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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.
Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:26:03 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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

Friday, Jun 10, 2022 · 12:30:10 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

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.

Thursday, Jun 9, 2022 · 10:37:04 PM +00:00 · April Siese

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

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) June 9, 2022

The BIG Guide: Who’s who in the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation

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.

RELATED STORY: Finally: The January 6 Committee hearings kick off this week. Details inside.

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.

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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.

One text showed Thomas telling Meadows Trump should not concede because “it takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” The committee indicated it would not pursue a subpoena for Ginni Thomas in May. 

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.

Lawyers the select committee argued that the privileged records indicated Eastman and Trump were very likely engaged in a criminal conspiracy to subvert the election. The committee asked the presiding judge to privately review the sensitive materials. In a hugely significant decision, the presiding judge ruled that Eastman must produce the requested records because based on his review of the evidence, Trump “more likely than not…corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”

In May, it was revealed that Trump sent Eastman at least two handwritten notes containing information the president thought would be helpful towards overturning or stopping his defeat.

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.

The memo offered a plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence stop the count on Jan. 6 in order to bar Biden’s popular and electoral victories from becoming certified and get Senate president pro tempore Chuck Grassley in play where Pence would newly recuse.

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.

One Michigan prosecutor who squared off with Giuliani and Trump, James Rossiter, told The Washington Post that Giuliani and other Trump officials once asked a Republican prosecutor in Michigan to “get his county’s voting machines and pass them to Trump’s team.” 

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.

Peter Navarro, former White House trade adviser

Nvarro was subpoenaed on Feb. 9, a few months after his memoir In Trump Time was published. Navarro was a vocal supporter of fraud claims in the election. He disclosed publicly that he and Steve Bannon met to discuss a delay strategy for Jan. 6 but he has insisted that an express attempt to overturn the results was not part of the plan. Navarro refused to cooperate with the probe, telling them they were “domestic terrorists.”  He was found in criminal contempt of Congress by the committee on March 29. Navarro was indicted on two counts of contempt a week before the public hearings began.

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.

He sued the committee in early March in an attempt to review of his cell phone metadata. Miller said the injunction was necessary because a review of his cell phone data would jeopardize his mother’s privacy since he is still on her mobile plan.

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

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) December 14, 2020

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.”

Cassidy Hutchinson, former Trump White house aide

Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany pictured left, former aide to President Donald Trump Cassidy Hutchinson, right

A special assistant to 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.

Rep. Raskin, an investigator on the probe described Hutchinson's private testimony as a completion of her “legal and civic duty” to The Washington Post and said she was “certainly someone who rendered truthful testimony to our committee. You will see other junior staffers who have come forward and cooperated enthusiastically with this investigation and into this attack on our country.”

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

The top 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.

After a failed attempt to delay his trial until just before the 2022 midterms, a federal judge ruled on Dec. 7 that his trial would commence in July.

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.

A Danish film crew followed Stone around for two years, capturing a variety of moments relevant to the investigation. One such moment was a shot of Stone sitting at a laptop where a visible “action plan” was mocked up. The plan appeared to lay out how the Trump campaign could pressure state lawmakers to reject their respective election results. Stone has expressed outrage at a variety of Trump officials who have agreed to testify and he’s berated Pence on the right-wing social media platform Telegram. Stone has shared articles suggesting plainly that Pence was “treacherous” for refusing to go along with the delay effort and he’s laced into Pence directly, calling him “duplicitous” and a “disloyal POS,” or shorthand for “piece of shit.”

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

Several extremist organizations, their supporters and members were drawn into the committee's probe early on including the Oath Keepers; the Proud Boys. and members of the self-proclaimed militia for Trump at numerous events and rallies, the 1st Amendment Praetorian. Its founder Robert Patrick Lewis was subpoenaed in November.

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.  

As the select committee’s investigation wore on, the Department of Justice was rapidly working behind the scenes to bring charges of its own against Oath Keeper ringleader Elmer Stewart Rhodes for seditious conspiracy. He was joined by a slew of co-defendants, many of whom represented state chapters of the extremist group. Several of those charged alongside Rhodes have since flipped, entering guilty pleas and vowing to cooperate with the select committee and the Justice Department’s respective investigations.

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:

“report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter and use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump from the White House, including the National Guard or other government actors who might be sent to remove President Trump as a result of the presidential election.”

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.

Prosecutors made an unsettling find after arresting Tarrio: a document that strategized how to storm and occupy six congressional office buildings and the Supreme Court. The U.S. Capitol building was not among those listed.

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.

Just days before the public hearings, prosecutors announced new seditious conspiracy charges were added to the separate indictment for Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the national leader of the neofascist group known as the Proud Boys. 

Proud Boy ringleader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio

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. He received 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.

Wood did not deny receiving the draft order. He also said he “didn’t do anything with it.”

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.

Unpublished Trump Draft EO ... by Daily Kos

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.

Alexander Lawsuit by Daily Kos on Scribd

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.

in case he takes the video down, here's the relevant section pic.twitter.com/IYiqxeX6Ch

— Jason Paladino (@jason_paladino) January 8, 2021

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 News host

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

— The Recount (@therecount) January 19, 2021

“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:

“He’s got to condemn this shit Asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Trump Jr. wrote to Meadows on Jan. 6.

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.

McCarthy responds to his subpoena from the @January6thCmte and argues much of the same in re: to committee standing but courts keep proving that theory meritless. Take a look at this argument as well: https://t.co/3cCwcYZbVV pic.twitter.com/GZZ2AnPEpL

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 27, 2022

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

— Rachel Scott (@rachelvscott) February 8, 2022

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!

— Rep. Jody Hice (@CongressmanHice) December 22, 2020

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).”

The latter half of the message was a citation of Alexander Hamilton’s writings in the Federalist Papers and a forward of a message Jordan had received from Joseph Schmitz, he said. Schmitz, a former Trump campaign aide and onetime inspector general for the Defense Department, advocated for Pence to stop the certification of the election. Schmitz, notably, was accused of making anti-semitic remarks during his stint at the Pentagon.

As for the Ohio lawmaker, Jordan’s dodging has continued unabated since July when he 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

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 23, 2021

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.

Jordan and Trump spoke from 9:24 am to 9:34 am on Jan. 6, according to White House call logs. Trump then phoned Senator Josh Hawley at 9:39 a.m. but Hawley never returned his call, at least not according to the official White House records. Trump’s next call on a recorded, official line went to Republican Senator David Perdue of Georgia.

Jordan has flip-flopped on his account of his interactions with Trump and, specifically, has danced around answering what time of day they spoke. He defended his posture in January in a letter to the committee riddled with misinformation, including the suggestion that the committee imposed gag orders on communications companies so that they could collect data without a target knowing.

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.

pic.twitter.com/aAlnLX0CTk

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 10, 2022

After receiving the formal subpoena from the committee, Jordan unloaded with a list of demands that would need to be met before he would consider cooperating.

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.

Investigators allege Perry was the catalyst of a scheme to install Jeffrey Clark as attorney general so that the Trump administration could further its attempt to subvert the 2020 election.

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.

— RepScottPerry (@RepScottPerry) December 21, 2021

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.

Brooks only started to take a step away from Trump when he began vying for the Senate seat in Alabama, but remarks from the congressman about the need to put claims of fraud in the 2020 election in the rearview drew Trump’s ire and rebuke. Trump dumped his endorsement of Brooks for the time. Brooks has since returned to calling the committee a “witch hunt,” like Trump, and said in late May that he would not cooperate with the select committee.

Rep. Andy Biggs, U.S. Representative for Arizona

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ

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

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 2, 2022

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

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 2, 2022

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:

“When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers,” Representative Barry Loudermilk sermonized. “During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than Democrats have afforded this president and this process.”

Attorneys and legal advisers

Sidney Powell

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.”

BuzzFeed reported in March that a nonprofit organization founded by Powell known as “Defending the Republic” has been covering the legal costs for Oath Keeper and Jan. 6 defendant Kelly Meggs.

Jenna Ellis

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 its subpoena, the committee asked Ellis to sit for a deposition on Feb. 8. A federal grand jury in Washington has issued subpoenas to individuals who have cited Ellis, Rudy Giuliani, and John Eastman as integral to promoting the alternate elector strategy

Jenna Ellis Dec. 31 and Jan. 5, 2021 Memo Proposing Strategy to Overturn Election by Daily Kos on Scribd

Trump’s election “fraud” lawyers

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.

Nov 18 Memo_Alt Elector Str... by Daily Kos

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 Friess was 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 committee issued subpoenas to dozens of individuals, including a variety of powerful state and party officials, who once purported to be “alternate electors” for former President Donald Trump over the course of its probe.

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.

The “alternate electors” subpoenaed included Loraine PellegrinoDavid ShaferShawn StillKathy BerdenMayra Rodriguez, Jewll PowdrellDeborah Maestas, and Michael McDonald, James DeGraffenreidBill Bachenberg, Andrew Hitt, Kelly Ruh, and Lisa Patton.

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.

In February, the committee issued several more subpoenas to those involved with the alternate elector scheme. One went to Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward—a faithful devotee to Trump and his administration’s immigration policy—as well as two incumbent state lawmakers, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano and Arizona State House Representative Mark Finchem.

Arizona Electoral Votes Sig... by Daily Kos

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.

Mastriano cooperated with the committee ultimately.

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.

.

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 assistant to 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 aide for 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 assistant to 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 counsel to  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.

James P. Waldron, who admitted to contributing to a Jan. 6 eve PowerPoint presentation shared with GOP members of Congress on election fraud, was subpoenaed by the committee on Dec. 16. Waldron, a retired colonel, was believed to be in close contact with Meadows, at least 8 or 10 times, after the election.

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.
  • Women for America First founder and co-founder Amy Kremer and Kylie Kremer
  • 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 Martin was 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 Unes of  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:

Then after the inadequate response cited by Thompson, the committee issued service on Jan. 13, 2021, to:

Phone record metadata

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 Caporale sued 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 Jones sued 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 Lindell sued 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.

Institutional review

The committee has also sought records and testimony from the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Interior Department, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Archives.

By the minute

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.

Finally: The January 6 Committee hearings kick off this week. Details inside.

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:

“This was a coup that was orchestrated by the president against the vice president and against the Congress,” he said.

“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.”

RELATED STORY: Tick-tock: A timeline of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

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.

RELATED STORY: Jan. 6 Committee: During Capitol attack, Trump reportedly approved of Hang Mike Pence chants

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 DOJ has reportedly requested transcripts of the committee’s interviews as well, a resource that could bolster the department’s collection of evidence for any possible ongoing civil or criminal cases.

RELATED STORY: Navarro indicted on two counts of contempt of congress

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.”

Pence Letter Jan 6 2021 by Daily Kos on Scribd

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.

Eastman Memo by Daily Kos

RELATED STORY: New memo offers look into Pence’s preparation for Jan. 6

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.

Several officers injured have only recently made significant gains in their physical recovery efforts, like U.S. Capitol Police Staff Sergeant Aquilino Gonnell.

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.

RELATED STORY: Exclusive: USCP Officer Harry Dunn shares notes, personal artifacts from Jan. 6

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. 

Negotiations for the committee stretched for more than a month and included moderate Democrats and Republicans in the process. 

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.

Infowars host Owen Shroyer overlooked in abortion coverage while Jan. 6 plea deal may be in works

Owen Shroyer has a history of promoting his anti-abortion stance publicly. There is a reported record of his sharing misinformation or outright false information about organizations like Planned Parenthood, including the lie that they engage in human sacrifice rituals. 

This is untrue, like much else that springs forth from Shroyer’s lips or that of his cohort, Alex Jones, the host of the popular right-wing conspiracy program known as InfoWars.

And if people were unfamiliar with Shroyer for InfoWars, or perhaps wouldn’t recognize his face from a public outburst he had during an impeachment inquiry hearing for Trump in 2019—he was hauled out by police—they could also turn to the wealth of public reporting that exists about Shroyer and his very public fight to beat charges related to the attack of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Owen Shroyer was led out of a public impeachment inquiry hearing for President Donald Trump. 

And yet, when ABC ran World News Tonight on Sunday, the network included a video clip where Shroyer is briefly interviewed about his anti-abortion stance. He is, bizarrely, identified only as a “protester” in the chyron below his name.

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court's leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Noted by Media Matters for America first, what makes the chyron particularly concerning is that less than 24 hours before this interview in Texas by a reporter for ABC’s KVUE affiliate, Shroyer boosted his apperance on Infowars for over an hour. 

During that Infowars program, Shroyer is even seen in clips wearing the same shirt as he did in the ABC interview. He was also carrying a giant picture of a crying baby’s face with him that he apparently cut out, glued to a stick, and held up over his own to taunt pro-abortion rights activists. 

The plain descriptor of Shroyer at the protest is also troublesome because of his history of trolling the abortion rights movement and capitalizing on fears of violence. On the ninth anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller in 2018 by Scott Roeder, for example, Shroyer coordinated a protest in Texas and live-streamed right outside of the Texas Planned Parenthood. 

Meanwhile, Shroyer’s defense attorney made a virtual appearance in federal Washington, D.C., court on Monday afternoon as his client pushes to have criminal charges for Jan. 6 dropped, including entering restricted grounds and disorderly conduct. 

Shroyer, who was arrested in August, has argued that because he is a journalist he should not be charged. His conduct on Jan. 6, he claims, was protected speech under the First Amendment. 

Interestingly, when Shroyer’s Infowars colleague Alex Jones was in divorce court fighting for custody of his children with then-wife Kelly Jones, Alex Jones’s lawyer described Infowars—on the record—as “fake news” and told the judge that Jones was just playing a character. 

Shroyer couched his First Amendment claim in the argument that he was merely trying to calm the mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and essentially do crowd control. The judge presiding over his case, U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly, an appointee of former President Donald Trump’s, rejected that bid once before. 

Motion to Dismiss Shroyer Second Attempt by Daily Kos on Scribd

Another status conference for Shroyer was set for June 23, according to an entry on the court docket by Judge Kelly. 

Shroyer’s attorney, Norm Pattis, told Daily Kos in an email Monday, that after the hearing Monday, no plea agreements had been struck yet. 

“We are negotiating,” he said. 

Another plea agreement appears to be well in the works for fellow Infowars staffer Samuel Christopher Montoya.

Montoya—who was reported to the FBI by his family before his arrest last April—was meant to appear in court Monday for a status conference. But late last week, his attorney filed a motion to delay the hearing as a plea agreement was negotiated. 

US Montoya Motion to Continue Hearing by Daily Kos on Scribd

Audio: McCarthy weighed 25th Amendment for Trump in private after Jan. 6

A new audio recording of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has reportedly captured him weighing whether to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove then-President Donald Trump from the White House two days after the assault on the Capitol.

With much attention largely trained right now on the Supreme Court after the leak of a draft opinion poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, McCarthy has managed a slight reprieve from the headlines. 

It was just over a week ago that a different series of audio recordings featuring the House GOP leader went public and he was heard, in his own words, telling members of his party that he was prepared to call for then-President Donald Trump’s resignation. 

In those recordings, and now in this new set, McCarthy’s private agony is yet again starkly contrasted against the public support—and cover—that he has ceaselessly heaped upon Trump. 

Related story: Jan. 6 committee may have another ‘invitation’ for Kevin McCarthy

The latest audio recordings—obtained by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns as a part of their book, This Too Shall Not Pass and shared with CNN—reportedly have McCarthy considering invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as he listened to an aide go over deliberations then underway by House Democrats. 

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court's leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

When the aide said that the 25th Amendment would “not exactly” be an “elegant solution” to removing Trump, McCarthy is reportedly heard interrupting as he attempts to get a sense of his options.  

The process of invoking the 25th Amendment is one not taken lightly and would require majority approval from members of Trump’s Cabinet as well as from the vice president.

“That takes too long,” McCarthy said after an aide walked him through the steps. “And it could go back to the House, right?”

Indeed, it wasn’t an easy prospect.

Trump would not only have to submit a letter overruling the Cabinet and Pence, but a two-thirds majority would have to be achieved in the House and Senate to overrule Trump. 

“So, it’s kind of an armful,” the aide said. 

On Jan. 7, 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on the president’s allies to divorce themselves from Trump after he loosed his mob on them, Capitol Hill staff, and police. 

“While there are only 13 days left, any day could be a horror show,” Pelosi said at a press conference where she called for the 25th Amendment to be put in motion.

Publicly, McCarthy would not budge.

The House voted 232-197 to approve a resolution that would activate the amendment on Jan. 13.  McCarthy 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. 

During the Jan. 8 call, the House GOP leader lamented that impeachment could further divide the nation. He worried it might also inspire new conflicts. He also told the aide he wanted to have Trump and Biden meet before the inauguration.

It would help with a smooth transition, he said. 

In another moment in the recording after discussing a sit-down with Biden where they could talk about ways to publicly smooth tensions over the transition, McCarthy can be heard saying that “he’s trying to do it not from the basis of Republicans” but rather, “of a basis of, hey, it’s not healthy for the nation” to continue with such uncertainty. 

Yet within the scant week that passed from the time McCarthy said Trump bore some responsibility for the attack and the impeachment vote, McCarthy switched gears again. 

He didn’t believe Trump “provoked” the mob, he said on Jan. 21. 

Not if people “listened to what [Trump] said at the rally,” McCarthy said. 

McCarthy met with Trump at the 45th president’s property in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, a week after Biden was inaugurated. Once he was back in Washington, the House leader issued a statement saying Trump had “committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022.” 

They had founded a “united conservative movement,” he said. 

Trio of Republican lawmakers called up before Jan. 6 committee

Seeking information about their alleged roles in events that led up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the select committee probing the insurrection has now called on Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Ronny Jackson of Texas, to cooperate. 

The committee wants Biggs to face multiple questions, including those involving right-wing conspiracy theorist Ali Alexander and Alexander’s claim that Biggs was just one of a handful of sitting lawmakers whoactively worked to stop the peaceful transfer of power. 

Rep. Mo Brooks, who took the stage before Trump incited the mob and called on people to “fight like hell,” is again under the microscope for his remarks. This time, it was a public admission he made while running for the Senate. Brooks declared in March that Trump demanded he overturn the 2020 election. 

And in arguably the most troubling letter the committee issued Monday, in its request to Rep. Ronny Jackson, investigators asked the Texas Republican to pry back the curtain on his potential ties to the extremist Oath Keepers group and its members currently facing trial for seditious conspiracy. 

The requests come as the committee verges on resuming its public hearings on June 9, but they are not formal subpoenas. Investigators have historically aired on the side of caution when it comes to forcing compliance with their congressional colleagues. They have cited concerns over lengthy legal battles they anticipate they would face as the clock on the probe runs down. 

But they have not ruled this option out altogether. Before Monday, previous requests were sent to Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Both have refused to cooperate. 

According to investigators, Biggs is taking front row and center now for several reasons, chief among them his alleged relationship with right-wing conspiracy theorist Ali Alexander. 

Last December, over a series of live streams, Alexander boasted that the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement he founded was receiving help from Biggs, then the chair of the House Freedom Caucus. 

Alexander also named Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama as instrumental facilitators. 

“We’re the four guys who came up with a Jan. 6 event,” Alexander said in one since-deleted video. 

In another video, as noted by The New York Times, Alexander said:

“We four schemed up 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,” he said.

Biggs has denied ever meeting with Alexander or talking to him. Biggs did not immediately return a request for comment to Daily Kos on Monday.

Alexander, however, has cooperated with the Jan. 6 committee—along with more than 800 other people—and turned over several records. 

In April, he agreed to appear before a federal grand jury after receiving a subpoena for testimony relevant to the Justice Department’s investigation of Jan. 6.

The right-wing bombast has been mum about details of his cooperation, and when talking to the press, his attorney has underlined Alexander’s disavowal of the violence that unfolded. 

Investigators also want to question Biggs about his conduct on Dec. 21 at the White House where he and other House Freedom Caucus members attended an in-person and prominently advertised meeting with Trump. 

Trump’s then-chief-of-staff Mark Meadows boosted the signal after the meeting, noting he and other attendees were “preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud.”

Several members of Congress just finished a meeting in the Oval Office with President @realDonaldTrump, preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud. Stay tuned.

— Mark Meadows (@MarkMeadows) December 21, 2020

That meeting, according to the testimony already obtained by the committee, centered on the role then-Vice President Mike Pence could play if he would abandon his constitutional role during certification.

“As you may be aware, a federal judge… recently concluded that President Trump’s effort to pressure the vice president to refuse to count electoral votes likely violated two provisions of federal criminal law,” the committee wrote Monday, referencing a ruling from a federal judge in California.

In that ruling, the committee successfully obtained access to emails from conservative attorney John Eastman, the author of the six-point memo strategizing how to stop the certification. 

Biggs could also answer questions about his push to see “alternate electors” installed for the count. In a text message to Meadows on Nov. 6—just three days after the election and before results were finalized—the Arizona Republican was already pushing a proposal to get Trump’s electors set up in battleground states. 

Biggs acknowledged the scheme was “highly controversial.”

“It can't be much more controversial than the lunacy that we’re sitting out there now. And It would be pretty difficult because he would take governors and legislators with collective will and backbone to do that. Is anybody on the team researching and considering lobbying for that?" Biggs wrote.

Meadows replied: “I love it.”

In the end, election fraud was not found in Arizona or elsewhere. 

There’s also a push by the committee to learn more about a reported effort by House Republicans angling for presidential pardons after Jan. 6.

The committee disclosed Monday that White House personnel have already testified about the issue.

Just ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, it was widely reported that Trump seriously entertained issuing pardons for those tied up in crimes related to Jan. 6. In February, Politico reported that two people familiar with the discussions, including an adviser to Trump, said Trump was worried about possible criminal charges. 

“Is it everybody that had a Trump sign, or everybody who walked into the Capitol” who could be pardoned? Trump reportedly asked. 

The 45th president believed if he pardoned people, they would “never have to testify or be deposed.”

Trump ended up abandoning the idea when he was informed it could cause him new legal headaches and fresh campaign finance scrutiny. His impeachment-worn attorney Pat Cipollone also allegedly threatened to resign if Trump went through with the plan. 

Rep. Ronny Jackson on Monday slammed the request, dubbing the committee “illegitimate” and consumed by a “malicious and not substantive” agenda. He also described the investigation as a “ruthless crusade against President Trump and his allies.”

Jackson was particularly irked, he claimed, because the committee did not seek him out privately first, according to CBS. 

A committee spokesperson did not immediately return a request to Daily Kos.

Jackson’s cooperation is being sought because of his potential relationship with Oath Keepers accused of orchestrating a complex, weaponized conspiracy to stop the nation’s peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6.

Related: Oath Keepers text expose talk of security details for Trump world figures, more Proud Boys ties

Prosecutors revealed last month that in the trove of text messages seized off Oath Keeper devices, the extremist group members discussed providing a personal security detail to Jackson during the attack. 

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

— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 2, 2022

“Dr. Ronnie Jackson on the move,” one message from an unidentified person said. “Needs protection. If anyone inside cover him. He has critical data to protect.”

Other users in the chat worried about Jackson, once  the White House physician to Trump. 

“Hopefully they can help Dr. Jackson,” a text at 3:03 p.m. read. 

Rhodes responded two minutes later. 

“Help with what?” he wrote.

Within the same minute, Rhodes replied again. 

“Give him my cell,” he said. 

As for Mo Brooks, the Alabama Republican is being called up to discuss his comments in March when he appeared to lapse in total fealty to Trump. 

Trump dropped his endorsement of Brooks’s senate run following weeks of lethargic polling.

The former president first backed Brooks a full year in advance of the primary. But in that time, Brooks—looking to shore up more moderate Republicans in a tough race—began to backpedal, much to Trump’s ire. 

Brooks voted against certification on Jan. 6 and even campaigned with life-size Trump posters at his side, according to the Associated Press.

But during a pro-Trump rally in Alabama in August 2021, Brooks urged the crowd to forget about the failures of the previous year’s election. 

“There are some people who are despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020. Folks, put that behind you, put that behind you,” Brooks said. 

He was booed and as noted by reporters on-site, he “nearly lost the crowd” before waffling again. 

”All right, well, look back at it, but go forward and take advantage of it. We have got to win in 2022. We’ve got to win in 2024,” Brooks said. 

Oh boy. Mo Brooks suggested, in seriousness, that those in attendance should accept the results of the 2020 election and move on to the next one … needless to say it did not go well and he nearly lost the crowd 😮 pic.twitter.com/1htgV3QAgm

— Ryan Phillips (@JournoRyan) August 22, 2021

All lawmakers have been asked to set up a time to meet with investigators beginning next week. 

Though it was nearly a foregone conclusion that Reps. Jackson, Brooks, and Biggs would not comply, ultimately, the panel has made clear that forcing testimony from some individuals would not make or break the entire probe given the voluminous evidence already collected.

Jan. 6 committee may have another ‘invitation’ for Kevin McCarthy

The Jan. 6 committee is not done with Kevin McCarthy. 

The leader of Republicans in the House of Representatives and longtime ally to former President Donald Trump will soon find himself on the receiving end of another request to appear before the panel investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

McCarthy was never formally subpoenaed by the committee, but investigators asked that he cooperate voluntarily this January. His refusal to come forward has simmered as options have been explored by the committee behind the scenes on how to go about navigating the legal thicket that is demanding another member of Congress testify under subpoena. 

“We’ve invited him to come earlier before the latest revelation that was reported on tapes. So in all probability, he will be issued another invitation to come just like some other members,” Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters Tuesday. 

That decision will be made “soon,” Thompson added.

RELATED STORY: The Jan. 6 committee wants you, Kevin McCarthy

Audio recordings of McCarthy obtained by The New York Times over this week have exposed the Republican as a leader on edge, fearful, and prepared to call on Trump to resign after Jan. 6 because he believed the president had some responsibility for the attack. McCarthy has denied making the comments.

Markos and Kerry talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections

But in a phone call four days after the insurrection, McCarthy is reportedly heard openly worrying to GOP leadership about the inflammatory remarks pouring out from fellow lawmakers like Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Matt Gaetz of Florida—among others—who supported Trump’s push to overturn the election. 

Brooks took the stage at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 and called on the president’s supporters to “fight like hell” before they descended on the Capitol. Gaetz used the aftermath of the attack to lash out at fellow Republicans critical of Trump, including Liz Cheney, who is now the Jan. 6 committee vice chair. 

“The other thing I want to bring up and I’m making some phone calls to some members, I just got something sent now about … Matt Gaetz where he’s calling peoples names out … this is serious stuff people are doing that has to stop,” McCarthy said.

“I’m calling Gaetz, I’m explaining to him, I don't know necessarily what to say but I’m going to have some other people call him too … This is serious shit, to cut this out,” McCarthy said.

When Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana pointed out to McCarthy that Gaetz’s remarks bordered on illegality, the House leader acknowledged again the severity of the situation. 

“Well, he’s putting people in jeopardy, he doesn't need to be doing this. we saw what people would do in the Capitol and these people came prepared well with everything else,” McCarthy said.

Gaetz has retreated from McCarthy since the recordings were published. In a statement posted on Twitter, the congressman—who is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice—defended his comments and called McCarthy and Scalise “weak men.”

Gaetz said he was “protecting President Trump from impeachment” while the House GOP leader was defending Rep. Adam Kinzinger and “protecting Liz Cheney from criticism.”

Gaetz has not yet been asked to appear before the Jan. 6 committee thus far—at least not publicly. A spokesman for the committee did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday. Gaetz also did not immediately return a request for comment to Daily Kos.

Besides McCarthy, the committee has previously issued requests for records and deposition to Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. Both Republicans have refused to appear voluntarily. 

Details about Jordan and Perry’s conduct in the runup to Jan. 6 have been made more transparent with the recent publication of text messages sent to Trump’s chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows. 

More than a month after the 2020 election, Perry texted Meadows frantically in search of guidance as the administration sought a path to overturn the election results. 

“Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” Perry wrote on Dec. 26. 

Perry wasn’t just looking for guidance, however—he was also offering some of his own.

It was Perry who spurred Meadows to meet with Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice on board with Trump’s claims of rampant election fraud.

According to the testimony that former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Trump not only pushed the Department of Justice to discredit the election results, but it was Clark who led a charge to have him ousted so the scheme could be better controlled.

Clark pleaded the Fifth Amendment over 100 times when he finally sat with members of the committee in February following weeks of delays. 

The texts show Perrry also spewed conspiracy theories to Meadows about rigged voting machines and accused the CIA of a cover-up. 

As for Jordan, White House call logs show the Ohio Republican spoke with Trump for roughly 10 minutes on Jan. 6. A text message obtained by the committee and made public in December also appeared to show Jordan sharing legal arguments in support of an unconstitutional pressure campaign leveled at then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the count.

Jordan said the text was a forward from former Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, but it is not clear whether the text was in fact a forward or why it was sent at all, based on what the committee released.

Jordan has been notoriously inconsistent when fielding questions about his engagement with Trump on Jan. 6. 

Both he and Perry voted against the formation of the select committee investigating the attempted overthrow. Both now sit on a shadow committee purporting to analyze the events of Jan. 6.

RELATED STORY: White House Jan. 6 call log confirms what Jim Jordan couldn’t—or wouldn’t

When Thompson told reporters Tuesday that another invitation was due soon for McCarthy, the Mississippi Democrat also did not rule out issuing “invites” to other members of Congress. 

“We’ll make a decision on any others before the week is out,” Thompson told The Hill

When asked if he would skip the second invite for McCarthy and move straight to a subpoena, Thompson said it was “a consideration.” 

According to the Times, in the Jan. 10 GOP leadership call where McCarthy lamented the remarks from Gaetz and Brooks, Cheney was on the line too and raised concerns about Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado publicly tweeting about the movement of lawmakers as they were under siege. 

In other clips, McCarthy is heard asking about whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was involved in any remarks at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. She did not speak at the rally that morning but had spent weeks advocating for Trump and promoting the lie that the election was stolen by Democrats.  

McCarthy is gunning to become speaker of the House should Republicans take the majority. It has been a long-awaited goal for the legislator and may explain the increasingly light touch he has employed with some of the most extreme members in the House and in particular those on the uber conservative House Freedom Caucus. 

When Rep. Paul Gosar was censured and removed from his committees for posting an animated video depicting the murder of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, McCarthy called it an “abuse of power” inflicted by “one-party rule.” 

A month after the insurrection, when Greene posted a sign outside of her Capitol Hill office targeting a fellow lawmaker who is the parent of a transgender child, McCarthy was quiet. 

A few months later in May 2021, when Greene was reportedly stalking Ocasio-Cortez through the halls of Congress and harassing her, McCarthy was quiet.

When Greene spewed conspiracy theories on social media about everything from “staged” school shootings to questioning whether a plane actually hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 to antisemitic rhetoric, she was booted off her committee assignments. 

McCarthy said he was opposed to Greene’s remarks but said in the same breath that her ouster was a Democrat “power grab” and called it “dangerous.” 

When both Gosar and Greene attended a conference organized by white nationalists this February, McCarthy said he spoke to both lawmakers but wouldn’t divulge what, if any, the repercussions might be.  

According to CNN, during a House GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning, McCarthy said his remarks on the calls were merely him “floating scenarios about Trump’s future after Jan. 6.”

He reportedly received a standing ovation.

NEW: Kevin McCarthy just gave a full throated defense of the Nyt tapes during a House GOP conference this morning, saying he was just floating scenarios about Trump’s future after Jan 6, and received a standing ovation, per multiple sources in the room.

— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) April 27, 2022

McCarthy did not respond to multiple requests for comment by Daily Kos.

Mike Lee has some explaining to do about Jan. 6

In 2020, when a reporter asked Utah Senator Mike Lee about the extent of his involvement in then President Donald Trump’s push to overturn that year’s election results, Lee chalked up his own investment in the president’s scheme to a benign curiosity. 

His recently published text messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows at the time, however, tell a far different story. The texts appear to show Lee pledging himself to find every “legal and constitutional remedy” to assist Trump’s mission. He was quick with a suggestion—like an audit of ballots in swing states—and stumped for Trump to use conspiracy theory peddling lawyer Sidney Powell to take up the cause in court.

And when Lee received a copy of John Eastman’s memo laying out a scheme to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election just four days before the insurrection, he publicly derided it as “ridiculous.”

Yet in private, Lee appeared to strongly advocate for that strategy and lamented the hours he otherwise spent searching for ways to “unravel” a pathway to victory for a clearly defeated president. 

RELATED STORY: Texts show they were all for Trump overturning the election—until a lack of key evidence got in the way

Samuel Benson over at Utah’s Deseret News published an article on Wednesday raising questions—and rightly so—over Lee’s track record of conflicting positions. Benson interviewed Lee at length before and after the assault on the Capitol. 

And when CNN published the text messages, Benson followed up, asking for an interview. Where once Lee was willing to speak on the subject at length, he has now clammed up. Instead, he dispatched his spokesman, Lee Lonsberry, to do damage control. 

Lonsberry told Benson: 

“When Senator Lee reviewed evidence and legal arguments related to the 2020 presidential election, his principal concern was for the law, the Constitution, and especially the more than 150 million Americans who voted in that election. From the moment the electoral college cast its votes in mid-December, he made clear that Joe Biden had won, and would within weeks become the 46th president of the United States absent a court order or state legislative action invalidating electoral votes.”

Further, “once it became clear” to Lee that no states would be rescinding their electoral slates, he told Meadows any effort to reverse the election results would “end badly.” 

Lee, Lonsberry said, just wanted to “let the country move on.”

Lee publicly acknowledged that Biden won the Electoral College on Dec. 14, the final deadline for states to send their slate of electors to the National Archives. But he also delicately couched his statement with a nod to Trump’s “fraud” claims.

There were still  “concerns regarding fraud and irregularities in this election remain active in multiple states,” Lee said at the time.

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr had already declared two weeks earlier there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump too had been on a losing streak in various courts around the U.S.  as his team of attorneys bumbled through lawsuits demanding election results be thrown out or electors decertified. 

Nevertheless, in the two days after Lee proclaimed Biden was the rightful winner, in a text to Meadows, the Utah Republican was still exploring alternatives. 

“Also, if you want senators to object, we need to hear from you on that ideally getting some guidance on what arguments to raise,” Lee wrote on Dec. 16. 

Right up to Jan. 4, the senator was “calling state legislators for hours” and planning to do the same, or so he told Mark Meadows, on Jan. 5. 

“We need something from state legislatures to make this legitimate and to have any hope of winning. Even if they can't convene, it might be enough if a majority of them are willing to sign a statement indicating how they would vote,” Lee fretted to Meadows just a day before.

In the end, but only after Trump incited a mob that stormed the Capitol and hundreds of police officers—including those sworn to protect Lee and others—were violently assaulted and one woman was killed, Lee voted to certify Biden as the winner. 

In his remarks from the House floor on Jan. 6, Lee said his initial speech for proceedings had looked a little different. But, he said, he would keep his message mostly the same. 

“Our job is open and then count. Open, then count. That’s it. That’s all there is to it,” Lee said of electoral college votes.

He noted how he spent “the last few weeks” meeting with lawyers representing “both sides of the issue” and representing the Trump campaign. 

“I didn’t initially declare my position because I didn’t yet have one,” he added. “I wanted to get the facts first and I wanted to understand what was happening.”

However, when Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection, Lee voted against it. He could not “condone the horrific violence” of Jan. 6, he said. Lee also said he could not condone Trump’s “words, actions or commissions on that day.” 

“But the fact is that the word incitement has a very specific meaning in the law, and Donald Trump’s words and actions on Jan. 6 fell short of that standard,” Lee remarked before also calling the impeachment a “politically suspicious process.”

Less than six months after the insurrection, Lee also opposed to the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack. He voted against a bill for a bipartisan commission that was equally divided between five Republicans and five Democrats. Both sides, according to the resolution he opposed, would have had equal subpoena power. 

Lee opposed the bill 24 hours after meeting privately with U.S. Capitol Police officers who were attacked as well as Gladys Sicknick, the mother of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Sicknick died one day after the insurrection. A coroner’s office said Sicknick, 42, experienced multiple strokes. 

Prepare to be ‘mesmerized’: An interview with Jan. 6 probe investigator Jamie Raskin

I last interviewed Rep. Jamie Raskin in October 2020, before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Our conversation was about the guardrails that the Constitution has in place to stop a tyrant from taking power.

There was no mystery about then-President Donald Trump’s position in public. He had spent months vowing fraud would be overwhelming in the impending election. When he took the stage for the very first night of presidential debates with now President Joe Biden, Trump told the world he would not accept any outcome he believed was rigged.

In the days since then, the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol was formed and it has unearthed staggering evidence that Donald Trump, the nation’s 45th president, not only incited a mob to a bloody insurrection but perpetrated a fraud on the American public so that he could pull off a coup that would install him into the White House against the will of millions of voters and the Electoral College. 

Recently, I interviewed Rep. Raskin again. He now serves as a member of the Jan. 6 committee, a role that was arguably an unmatched fit not just because of his experience as a constitutional and legal scholar, but because of his direct experience with Trump. Raskin was the lead impeachment manager when Trump was impeached—for the second time.

Telling the story of Jan. 6 is a formidable task and the passing months have revealed increasingly critical nuances and contours emerging from that day’s chaos.

There is evidence of a crime. A federal judge has agreed with the select committee on that count and over the course of a contentious battle for key documents, a judge determined that, at the very least, the “illegality of the plan” orchestrated by Trump and his attorney John Eastman—the architect of a strategy pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to certify bunk electors—was “obvious.” 

Trump and his attorneys stoked claims of bogus election fraud for months and with Eastman, Trump engaged in a “coup in search of legal theory,” Judge David Carter wrote just a month ago. 

Judge David Carter Ruling_Trump Eastman by Daily Kos on Scribd

And yet there is still so much more to come.

There are questions that must be aired out about this attempted coup and its abettors.

When the committee finally resumes its public hearings, which it says will be in May, Rep. Raskin told Daily Kos they will be hearings unlike anything Americans have seen come out of Congress. 

“We believe every American has the right to observe and participate in this. I believe based on what I have seen over the last several months, these hearings will be not just important but mesmerizing to the public,” Raskin said. “Everybody needs to be equipped with the means of intellectual self defense against the authoritarian and fascistic policies that have been unleashed in this country.”

So far, the probe has released limited information about its findings and it has navigated the course of its investigation with deft yet disciplined transparency, despite regular attacks and goading from those perched atop some of the highest branches of power in Congress like House Minority Leader and Trump ally Kevin McCarthy. 

Listen Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain what how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

The panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans has largely established its intent and findings on the public record through its court filings and subpoenas and from House meetings on Capitol Hill, where they have forwarded criminal contempt of Congress referrals for members of the Trump White House who have obstructed their investigation.

Those referrals for officials like former chief of staff Mark Meadows, ex-adviser Steve Bannon, and others now live with the Department of Justice, a body ensconced in an entirely separate yet similarly painstaking investigation of the Capitol attack, its catalysts, and alleged conspirators. 

“The events of Jan. 6 were breathtaking,” Raskin said by phone, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before considering the scope of what lies ahead. 

A daunting amount of information will be parsed, prioritized, and presented from the 800-plus interviews the panel has conducted and the thousands of pages of records it has secured from a wide array of players spanning the Trump White House to the Trump reelection campaign to extremist right-wing activists and others.

That doesn’t even mention everything that was also sourced from the National Archives following Biden’s waiver of executive privilege over presidential records Trump sought to hide.

That bid by Trump, taken all the way to the Supreme Court, ultimately failed to keep documents like White House call logs hidden and more of Trump’s presidential records continue to flood the committee now. 

RELATED STORY: Let’s talk about the White House call logs from Jan. 6

But until the hearings play out, the public is left to grapple with important information in bits and pieces as investigators occasionally and, likely strategically, highlight portions of their findings at a schedule of their choosing.

Speculation swirls around the committee’s work on a fact-based narrative it is crafting for hearings and that is to be expected.

There are inherent difficulties in this unprecedented undertaking.

“Well, people still have not yet fully understood the distinction between the violent insurrection and the attempted coup. Even with the insurrection, even within the insurrectionary violence, a lot of people think that this was just a rowdy demonstration that got out of hand,” Raskin told Daily Kos. 

And of course, Trump. Raskin added, is “out there telling people his mob greeted officers with hugs and kisses.” 

“So there’s a lot of confusion about what took place. And I think people will come to understand that this was a premeditated and coordinated violent attack on Congress and the vice president in order to thwart the counting of electoral votes,” Raskin said.

But 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,” Raskin said. 

What the public hearings will do is tell the story of “every step in that process,” he explained.  

“And it is a harrowing and gripping and utterly sobering story rooted in the events of the day and the weeks before it,” he added.

RELATED STORY: Tick-tock: A timeline of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

Millions of Americans have seen footage of rioters beating police, scaling the walls of the nation’s Capitol building, and doing so in everything from homemade to high-grade tactical gear and with makeshift or professional-grade weapons in tow.

Millions of Americans have heard the calls of people shouting for the execution of Pence or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the melee erupted. Many people saw the gallows erected by Trump’s supporters on the Capitol lawn. 

But a disconnect seems to persist somehow around how severe and significant Jan. 6 was and remains.

The Pew Research Center, for example, noted this February that more than a year after the attack, fewer Americans believed Trump was responsible for the events of Jan. 6. It was a nearly 10% drop from the year before.

The study found too that people are still largely divided a year later on whether the Jan. 6 probe is even given the “right amount” of attention.

“The difficult thing is that people have a very hard time assimilating something so extreme taking place right at the heart of the Capitol. We saw a violent mob led by insurrectionary violent extremists set upon federal officers and injure and wound and hospitalize more than 150 of them,” Raskin said. 

It was the first time in American history that a violent insurrection interfered with the peaceful transfer of power and counting of electoral votes.

“It nearly toppled our system of government,” Raskin added.

The idea of a coup is “radically unfamiliar” to the bulk of the American population, he noted. 

“We’re just not—we just don’t have a lot of experience with coups in our own society. We think of a coup as something that takes place against a president. Well, this was a coup that was orchestrated by the president against the vice president and against the Congress,” Raskin said. “It’s what political scientists call a self-coup, not the military trying to overthrow a president but a president trying to defeat and vanquish the constitutional process in order to perpetuate his stay in office and power. Donald Trump was trying to seize the presidency for four more years.”

When Judge Carter issued his ruling about Trump and Eastman on March 28, it was a deeply important finding but it did not shift or change the committee’s trajectory, he said. 

It only “solidified” the path they were on.

“It was a powerful warning to the American people about what took place,” he said.

If they missed that warning bell, however, the committee will keep ringing it.

The committee will produce its final report after the hearings are over. Raskin told Daily Kos he hopes it will be a “multimedia report” that will be both easily accessible and digestible. 

It will be composed of the committee’s findings as well as recommendations for legislation that would strengthen many of the weak points in the democratic system that the Trump White House undermined or exploited.

“There’s no reason this report has to be a 500-page document written by a computer somewhere. We can write the report in such a way that it really does wake the country up to the nature of the threats that we’ve just dodged and the threats that remain,” Raskin said. 

To wit, when the committee holds its public hearings, the Justice Department's prosecution of those who stormed the Capitol will keep rolling.

At the top of April, the DOJ announced it had arrested nearly 800 defendants and charged over 250 people so far with serious crimes including assaulting police and using a deadly weapon to injure an officer.  

More than 248 people have entered guilty pleas, copping to misdemeanors and felony charges alike.

The most serious charges— like seditious conspiracy—have been leveled at some of the president’s most ardent supporters, namely the ringleaders and members of domestic extremist networks like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Trump told the latter group in September 2020 to “stand back and stand by” when asked on a presidential debate stage if he would condemn white supremacy and militia groups.

“Who would you like me to condemn? The Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s gotta do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem,” Trump said.

The dog-whistle was well received by Proud Boys and their leader Henry Tarrio. 

“Standing by,” Tarrio responded on Parler. “So proud of my guys right now.”

Others, like Proud Boy Joe Biggs, took it as a direct cue to attack those opposed to Trump.

“Trump basically said to go fuck them up!” Biggs wrote.

The Proud Boys are ecstatic tonight about getting mentioned in the debate tonight. "Trump basically said to go fuck them up! this makes me so happy," writes one prominent Proud Boy. pic.twitter.com/hYA7yQVAOn

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) September 30, 2020

Tarrio was indicted on March 8 for conspiracy to obstruct congressional proceedings on Jan. 6 as well as several other charges. Biggs—and many other Proud Boys—were indicted alongside him and separately.

Oath Keeper leader Elmer Rhodes's seditious conspiracy trial is currently slated for September. One of the key members in the group charged alongside Rhodes, Alabama Oath Keeper chapter leader Joshua James, has already flipped.

James admitted he was dispatched to the Capitol on Jan. 6 by Rhodes as part of an organized conspiracy to stop proceedings. James told prosecutors he was prepared to use force to keep Trump in power. 

While the committee’s work and the DOJ’s work operate on entirely different tracks and timetables, Raskin said when the committee makes its case to the public, the panel won’t shy away from presenting any of the relevant details shaken loose by the DOJ. 

“To the extent there are factual findings related to these cases, yes, we will be able to use those,” he said. 

Juries will decide the fates of those charged with seditious conspiracy. The Justice Department will decide the fate of those the committee has referred for criminal contempt of Congress. 

These are the facts. 

For those cynical or skeptical about what the committee’s hearings will achieve or accomplish, Raskin offered a message for those feeling faint of heart.

Before speaking, the congressman paused for just a moment.

“Look,” he said, “For the greater part—for the duration of the human species—people have lived under tyrants and dictators and bullies and kings like Vladimir Putin and all of his sycophants around the world. Democracy, democratic self-governance is still a very fragile experiment. And democracy thrives on truth. The people need to be armed with the power that truth will give us.”

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who endured racial slurs and assault for hours while defending the Capitol to the brink of exhaustion told Daily Kos in a recent interview when it comes to Jan. 6: “The truth is the truth.” 

If people will believe the truth when they hear it, well, he knows it is not for him to decide. 

But he did have one question. 

“How the hell is anyone against finding out the full truth?” Dunn said.