‘Truth matters’: Liz Cheney lambasts Trump-backed rival in Wyoming debateRepublican vice-chair of January 6 committee, trailing in primary, challenges Harriet Hageman to say 2020 election was not stolen More
New Zealand declares US far-right Proud Boys and the Base terrorist groupsProud Boys’ involvement in US Capitol attack cited in ruling outlawing organisation New Zealand’s government has declared that the American far-right groups the Proud Boys and the Base are terrorist organisations. The two groups join 18 others, including the Islamic State group, that have been given an official terrorist designation, making it illegal in New Zealand to fund, recruit or participate in the groups, and obligating authorities to take action against them. The US groups are not known to be active in New Zealand, but the South Pacific nation has become more attuned to threats from the far right after a white supremacist shot and killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in 2019.Proud Boys leaders charged with seditious conspiracy in 6 January riotRead moreThe New Zealand massacre inspired other white supremacists around the world, including a white gunman who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May.In the US, the state department only lists foreign groups as terrorist entities. But the Proud Boys were last year named a terrorist group in Canada, while the Base has previously been declared a terrorist group in Britain, Canada and Australia. In a 29-page explanation of the Proud Boys designation published Thursday, New Zealand authorities said the group’s involvement in the violent attack on the US Capitol building on 6 January 6 2021 amounted to an act of terrorism. The statement said that while several militia groups were involved, it was the Proud Boys who incited crowds, coordinated attacks on law enforcement officers and led other rioters to where they could break into the building. The statement said there were unlinked but ideologically affiliated chapters of the Proud Boys operating in Canada and Australia. New Zealand authorities argued that before the Capitol attack, the Proud Boys had a history of using street rallies and social media to intimidate opponents and recruit young men through demonstrations of violence. It said the group had put up various smoke screens to hide its extremism. Earlier this month, the former leader of the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, and four others linked to the group were charged in the US with seditious conspiracy for what federal prosecutors say was a coordinated attack on the Capitol.The decline of Proud Boys: what does the future hold for far-right group?Read moreThe indictment alleges that the Proud Boys conspired to forcibly oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power. The five are scheduled to stand trial in August in Washington DC’s federal court. Asked by media on Thursday in New Zealand if the Proud Boys weren’t better known for protest actions rather than extreme violence, the South Pacific nation’s police minister, Chris Hipkins, said: “Well, violent protests attempting to overthrow the government, clearly there is evidence of that.” In making its case against the Base, New Zealand authorities said a key goal of the group was to “train a cadre of extremists capable of accelerationist violence”. The statement said founder Rinaldo Nazzaro “has repetitively counselled members online about violence, the acquisition of weapons, and actions to accelerate the collapse of the US government and survive the consequent period of chaos and violence”.TopicsNew ZealandThe far rightUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More
Mark Meadows’ associate threatened ex-White House aide before her testimonyIt was the second warning Cassidy Hutchinson had received before her deposition, cautioning her against cooperating with the panel Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson received at least one message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the House January 6 select committee from an associate of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panelRead moreThe message in question was the second of the two warnings that the select committee disclosed at the end of its special hearing when Hutchinson testified about how Donald Trump directed a crowd he knew was armed to march on the Capitol, the sources said.“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition,” read the message. The redaction was Meadows, the sources said.The message was presented during closing remarks at the special hearing with Hutchinson by the panel’s vice-chair Liz Cheney, who characterized the missive as improper pressure on a crucial witness that could extend to illegal witness tampering or intimidation.The exact identity of the person who sent Hutchinson the message – beyond the fact that they were an associate of Meadows – could not be confirmed on Thursday, but that may be in part because the select committee may wish to interview that person, the sources said.That appears to indicate that the person who sent the message was a close associate of the former White House chief of staff who may themselves be a fact witness to what Trump and Meadows were doing and thinking ahead of the Capitol attack.Neither a spokesman for Meadows nor Hutchinson responded to a request for comment Thursday evening.The other message was also directed at Hutchinson, the sources said; the quote displayed on the slide was one of several calls from Trump allies that Hutchinson recounted to House investigators.“What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a teamplayer, they know that I’m on the team, I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in the good graces in Trump World,” the slide read.“And they reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceeded through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”The identity of the people who called Hutchinson, warning her presumably not to implicate the former president, could not be established beyond the fact that they were people close to Trump, though the select committee is understood to be aware of all of the people.Politico, which first reported that the message to Hutchinson came from an associate of Meadows, also reported that it came before her second interview with the select committee. Hutchinson changed lawyers before her fourth deposition that preceded her public testimony.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpMark MeadowsnewsReuse this content More
January 6 committee subpoenas former White House counsel Pat CipolloneDonald Trump’s former counsel was a key witness to some of the ex-president’s most brazen schemes to overturn the 2020 election The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack issued a subpoena on Wednesday to former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, compelling him to testify about at least three parts of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.The subpoena marked a dramatic escalation for the panel and showed its resolve in seeking to obtain inside information about how the former president sought to return himself to office from the unique perspective of the White House counsel’s office.Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panelRead more“Mr Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded,” the chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement accompanying the subpoena.“The committee needs to hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations. Concerns Mr Cipollone has about the prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony.”Cipollone was a key witness to some of Trump’s most brazen schemes to overturn the 2020 election results, which, the select committee has said in its hearings, was part of a sprawling and potentially unlawful multi-pronged strategy that culminated in the Capitol attack.Cipollone has information about Trump’s push to send fake slates of electors to Congress, the subpoena letter said, a plot that would have given then-vice-president Mike Pence cover to supposedly refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election win.He also has information about Trump’s foiled plan to pressure the justice department into falsely declaring the results of the 2020 election “corrupt”, the subpoena letter said, and potentially illegal conduct on the part of the former president on 6 January.Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, according to her public testimony, was told by Cipollone that “we’re going to be charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump went to the Capitol that day as he pressured Congress to not certify Biden’s win.Thompson acknowledged in the subpoena letter that Cipollone had spoken to House investigators in a more informal setting on 13 April. But, he said, recent evidence to which he was in a “unique position” to discuss necessitated on-the-record testimony at a 6 July deposition.The panel had been negotiating Cipollone’s testimony for weeks without success, with Cipollone apparently concerned about its scope. A spokesperson for Cipollone did not respond to requests for comment about whether he would comply with the subpoena or litigate.Cipollone remained in the Trump administration through its final weeks and months, effectively becoming a fact witness to Trump’s thinking and conduct as the former president scrambled to find any way to keep himself in office after losing the election.Together with his deputy, Pat Philbin, and another White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, who has cooperated extensively with the select committee, Cipollone sought to restrain some of Trump’s most dangerous impulses, fearing Trump could face serious legal exposure.In doing so, former Trump White House aides say, Cipollone became one of the final senior administration officials who acted as a guardrail for Trump. After leaving the administration, Cipollone returned to private practice as a partner at Ellis George Cipollone LLP.Should Cipollone testify to the select committee, he may seek advice from another lawyer at EGC: former Nixon deputy White House counsel Fred Fielding, who worked under Nixon White House counsel John Dean, and testified at the Watergate trial.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Secret Service agent reportedly willing to testify Trump did not lunge at himRow comes after ex-White House aide’s explosive testimony that portrayed a violent and unhinged Trump on day of Capitol attack Senior Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to testify that Donald Trump did not lunge for the wheel of his vehicle or physically attack the chief of his security detail after his speech near the White House on January 6 – as a former aide said he did in sworn testimony on Tuesday.January 6 testimony puts Donald Trump in even greater legal perilRead moreThe row comes after the explosive testimony painted an unhinged and violent portrait of Trump on the day of the Capitol attack, in a shocking hearing many have seen as potentially loosening the former president’s grip on the Republican party.CNN and other outlets reported the pushback on the alleged Secret Service incident from Tony Ornato, who was also a deputy chief of staff in the Trump White House, and Robert Engel, who was Trump’s security chief.Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, appeared before the House January 6 committee for its sixth public hearing.Her extraordinary testimony spanned nearly two hours.In particularly striking passages, she described what she said Ornato told her was Trump’s reaction to being told that after speaking to supporters at the Ellipse – and telling a crowd he knew in part to be armed to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat – he could not go with the crowd to the US Capitol as planned.Hutchinson, 25, testified that Ornato told her Trump had a “very strong, very angry response”.Trump allegedly told Engel: “I’m the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now.”When he was turned down, Hutchinson said, Trump tried to seize the steering wheel. Engel grabbed his arm and said: “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.”Hutchinson said “Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel and when Mr Ornato recounted the story to me he motioned towards his clavicles”.Questioned by Liz Cheney, the committee vice-chair, Hutchinson said Engel did not dispute the account when Ornato relayed it.In the aftermath of the explosive hearing, Hutchinson was depicted as a former Trump loyalist whose testimony could prove hugely damaging, in the vein of John Dean, the White House counsel who turned on Richard Nixon during the Watergate hearings half a century ago.Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment. Trump was impeached for a second time over the insurrection but acquitted when only seven Republican senators voted for his guilt. He remains free to run for the White House again in 2024.On Tuesday, reporters swiftly relayed news that the Secret Service agents disputed Hutchinson’s account of events in the presidential vehicle.Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post, author of two books on the Trump administration and a history of the Secret Service, Zero Fail, said: “Sources tell me agents dispute that Donald Trump assaulted any agent or tried to grab the steering wheel on Jan 6. They agree Trump was furious about not being able to go to Capitol with his supporters. They offer to testify under oath.”Secret Service agents have testified before, during the impeachment of Bill Clinton.Trump attacked Hutchinson during the hearing, using his Truth Social platform to call her a “phony”, a “leaker” and a “whacko”. He denied grabbing the steering wheel or attacking an agent.Republicans on the House judiciary committee tweeted that Hutchinson’s evidence was “all hearsay” and added: “What a joke.”But Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas in Austin, said: “Don’t be distracted by claims of ‘hearsay’. That goes to whether evidence can be admitted in court, not Congress.“The key is that Hutchinson testified under oath. If she was lying, she faces felony charges. The same can’t be said for those trying to discredit her testimony.”Most observers thought the case for Trump facing felony charges increased after Tuesday’s hearing.‘Things might get real, real bad’: key takeaways from latest January 6 hearingRead moreLaurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, said the new evidence against Trump was “devastating for inciting, aiding and abetting violent insurrection”.Tribe also said: “Whatever anybody says about [Department of Justice] reluctance to indict Trump – reluctance I abhor – failing to indict Mark Meadows along with Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell would be a travesty.”Hutchinson described Meadows’ behavior on and around January 6. The chief of staff, she said, was unwilling to confront Trump but eager to be included in meetings involving Giuliani, Eastman and other Trump allies plotting to overturn the election.Meadows and Giuliani, Hutchinson said, asked about being given presidential pardons before Trump left office.Vladeck also said: “Holy shit, that hearing.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
January 6 testimony puts Donald Trump in even greater legal perilFormer president and senior aides face exposure over knowledge that supporters were armed and intended to march on Capitol02:44Donald Trump and his two closest advisers could face widening criminal exposure over the Capitol attack after ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified about their potentially unlawful conduct to the House January 6 select committee at a special hearing on Thursday.The testimony revolved around the disclosure – one of several major revelations from Hutchinson – that the former president directed supporters to descend on the Capitol even though he knew they were armed and probably intended to cause harm.Angry, violent, reckless: testimony paints shocking portrait of Trump Read moreHutchinson testified under oath that Trump was deeply angered by the fact that some of his supporters who had gathered on the National Mall were not entering the secure perimeter for the Save America rally at the Ellipse, where he was due to make remarks.The supporters did not want to enter the secure perimeter, Hutchinson testified, because many were armed with knives, blades, pepper-spray and, as it later turned out, guns, and did not want to surrender their weapons to the Secret Service to attend the rally.“I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,” Trump exclaimed in an extraordinary outburst of fury, according to Hutchinson. “Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the fucking mags [magnetometers] away.”The response from the former president is significant for two main reasons: it makes clear that he had been informed that his supporters were carrying weapons, and that he knew those armed people intended to make a non-permitted march to the Capitol.Trump then took the stage at the Save America rally and told his supporters both there at the Ellipse and around the Washington monument that he would march to the Capitol with them – giving them the strongest incentive to descend on the joint session of Congress.The former president additionally made the comments, Hutchinson said, despite the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, desperately trying to stop Trump and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, going to the Capitol for fear of potential legal exposure.“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” if Trump went to the Capitol, Hutchinson said Cipollone told her the morning of January 6, alluding to obstruction of an official proceeding and defrauding the United States.The legal analysis from Cipollone was prescient: the select committee, even before hearing from Hutchinson for the first time earlier this year in closed-door depositions, has argued Trump and his top advisers violated multiple federal laws over January 6.At the special hearing, Hutchinson also revealed that Trump’s then attorney Rudy Giuliani and Meadows expressed an interest in receiving pre-emptive presidential pardons in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack.The disclosure from Hutchinson marked a new degree of apparent consciousness of guilt among Trump’s closest advisers – in addition to that of at least half a dozen Republican congressmen and the Trump lawyer John Eastman – or fear that they might have committed a crime.In raising Giuliani’s interest in a pardon, Hutchinson also testified that Trump’s former attorney may have also been central to a crime with respect to his seeming knowledge of what the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups were planning for January 6.“Oath Keepers” and “Proud Boys” were words heard at the White House when Giuliani was around the complex in the days before the Capitol attack, Hutchinson testified at the hearing.The new connection between Giuliani and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys raised the spectre that the former president’s then attorney was broadly aware of the intentions of two far-right groups – whose senior members have since been indicted for seditious conspiracy.Meanwhile, on the eve of the Capitol attack, Trump asked Meadows to speak to the far-right political operative Roger Stone and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, which Meadows did, according to Hutchinson’s testimony.The former president’s chief of staff then repeatedly raised the prospect of travelling to the Trump war room at the Willard hotel in Washington DC, though Meadows ultimately demurred and ended up calling the Trump war room instead, Hutchinson testified.The Guardian first reported last year that from the White House, Trump then called Giuliani and a cadre of lawyers working at the Trump war room at the Willard and discussed ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.01:42Meadows’s connection to the Trump war room appears to be as significant as Giuliani discussing the far-right groups, not least because the Willard was also the base for Stone, who has ties to the Proud Boys, and Flynn, who previously worked with the Oath Keepers.The select committee’s vice-chair, Liz Cheney, ended the special hearing with evidence of potential attempted witness tampering by people apparently close to the former president. In one mafia-style call, one witness was warned that Trump knew they would remain “loyal”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpRudy GiulianinewsReuse this content More
‘He thinks Mike deserves it’: Trump said rioters were right to call for vice-president’s deathTrump aides wanted to be ‘doing something more’ to stop the riot, Cassidy Hutchinson told January 6 committee A crucial witness before the House January 6 committee testified that senior aides had described how Donald Trump thought his vice-president, Mike Pence, deserved to be hanged for not blocking certification of election results, as demanded by the mob that attacked the US Capitol.Trump knew crowd at rally was armed yet demanded they be allowed closerRead moreDescribing events at the White House on the afternoon of 6 January 2021, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said: “I remember Pat [Cipollone, the White House counsel] saying something to the effect of, ‘Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice-president to be fucking hung.’“And Mark had responded something to the effect of, ‘You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.’“To which Pat said something like, “This is fucking crazy. We need to be doing something more.”Liz Cheney, the committee vice-chair, repeated: “When rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, said that, quote, ‘Mike deserves it’ and that those rioters were not doing anything wrong.”Hutchinson’s description of Trump’s words was included in a previous hearing, via recorded testimony. The committee had also previously shown that at one point the mob was just 40ft away from Pence.Hutchinson appeared in person on Tuesday, in a sixth public session announced at short notice and full of explosive revelations.Cheney, from Wyoming and one of two anti-Trump Republicans on the January 6 committee, played a recording in which Trump, speaking to Jon Karl of ABC News, refused to condemn the rioters who chanted for Pence to be hanged.“Because it’s common sense,” Trump said. “It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect … if you know a vote is fraudulent, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”Electoral college results confirming Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden were not fraudulent. Trump’s claim that they were and his instruction to “fight like hell” in service of his lie fueled the mob that attacked the Capitol.Cheney said: “President Trump’s view that the rioters were not doing anything wrong and that, quote, ‘Mike deserved it’, helps us to understand why the president did not ask the rioters to leave the Capitol for multiple hours.”The mob did not succeed in stopping certification of election results. A bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths to the riot. More than 840 people, some members of far-right groups, have been charged with seditious conspiracy.TopicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackMike PencenewsReuse this content More
It’s worth noting that Cassidy Hutchinson recently changed her legal representation in connection to the January 6 investigation.Hutchinson’s decision to replace her former lawyer, Stefan Passantino, with Jody Hunt of the law firm Alston Bird was interpreted as a signal of her increased willingness to cooperate with the January 6 committee’s requests for information.Politico reported earlier this month:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Hutchinson’s former attorney, Stefan Passantino, has deep Trump World connections. Her new lawyer, Jody Hunt, is a longtime close ally of Jeff Sessions and served as his chief of staff when the former attorney general enraged Trump by recusing from the Russia probe. …
Passantino, Hutchinson’s former attorney, was the Trump White House’s chief ethics lawyer. And Passantino’s firm, Michael Best, has Trump World connections; its president is former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, and Justin Clark — also a top Trump World lawyer — is currently on leave from the firm, according to its website.Today’s testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson could also reveal more details about Donald Trump’s response to insurrectionists’ chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” on January 6.At the January 6 committee’s first public hearing earlier this month, Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the panel, said witness testimony indicated Trump was informed of the chants and reacted approvingly to them.“You will hear that President Trump was yelling and ‘really angry’ at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more,” Cheney said at the first hearing. “And aware of the rioters’ chants to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment, ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves it.’”According to CNN, Hutchinson was the witness who provided the committee with that information, so today’s hearing could give her an opportunity to offer valuable new insight into how Trump reacted as January 6 turned violent. The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is expected to hear live public testimony on Tuesday from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Mark Meadows, the last chief of staff to Donald Trump, according to a source familiar with the matter.The committee on Monday abruptly scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, suggesting a sense of urgency to disclose what it said was “recently obtained evidence”. The committee had previously said it would not hold any more hearings until next month.It is the sixth public hearing held by the committee after a year-long investigation into the Capitol attack. Two more hearings are expected next month.The hearings next month are expected to delve into the role of far-right and paramilitary groups organized and prepared for the January 6 attack and Trump’s abdication of leadership during the hours-long siege of the Capitol.January 6 committee schedules surprise session to hear new evidenceRead moreJoe Biden will meet tomorrow with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, as the two leaders attend the Nato summit in Madrid, Spain.The White House announced the planned meeting during the daily press briefing, which was held today aboard Air Force One as Biden flew from Germany, where he attended the G7 summit, to Spain.Biden has just arrived in Madrid, where he will soon meet with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and King Felipe VI.The exact format and timing of the Erdoğan meeting is still unclear, but Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters that the focus of the discussion would be on US-Turkish relations and the bids from Finland and Sweden to join Nato.Turkey has raised objections to Finland and Sweden’s bids, which were submitted in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Erdoğan has specifically accused Sweden of being a “hatchery” for terrorist organizations, per Reuters.The meeting tomorrow could give Biden an opportunity to press Erdoğan on those reservations and attempt to convince him to support Nato membership for Finland and Sweden.It remains unclear what new information Cassidy Hutchinson, former senior aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, might provide in her testimony today before the January 6 committee.But according to Brendan Buck, a longtime adviser to former Republican House speaker Paul Ryan, Hutchinson joined every meeting that Meadows participated in as a congressman. (Meadows served in the House from 2013 to 2020.)“I don’t know Cassidy Hutchinson, and I can’t speak to how things worked at the White House, but when Meadows was on the Hill he always insisted that she be in *every* meeting he had, no matter how small,” Buck said on Twitter. “It was odd then, and [doesn’t] seem to be working out for him now.”I don’t know Cassidy Hutchinson, and I can’t speak to how things worked at the White House, but when Meadows was on the Hill he always insisted that she be in *every* meeting he had, no matter how small. It was odd then, and doesnt seem to be working out for him now.— Brendan Buck (@BrendanBuck) June 28, 2022
The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trump’s children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter.The calls among Trump’s children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said.The select committee is interested in the calls, the sources said, since the footage is understood to show the former president’s children, including Donald Jr and Eric Trump, privately discussing strategies about the election at a crucial time in the presidential campaign.House investigators first learned about the event, hosted by the Trump campaign, and the existence of the footage through British film-maker Alex Holder, who testified about what he and his crew recorded during a two-hour interview last week, the sources said.Read the Guardian’s full report:January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trump’s children and aidesRead moreGreetings from Washington, live blog readers.The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection will hold its sixth public hearing of the month at 1pm ET, after the panel surprisingly announced the event yesterday.According to multiple reports, the star witness for today’s surprise hearing will be Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, who served as Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff. (Punchbowl News first reported Hutchinson’s expected appearance.)Hutchinson has already spoken to investigators behind closed doors, and she provided the committee with some of its most damning evidence about the Trump White House’s ties to the attack on the Capitol.In a clip of her private testimony played at a hearing last week, Hutchinson named several Republican members of Congress who sought president pardons in connection to their involvement in the insurrection.Today could give Hutchinson her first opportunity to speak directly to the American people about what she witnessed in the White House on January 6 and in the aftermath of that violent day.The hearing will kick off in a few hours, and the blog will have updates and analysis once it starts. Stay tuned.And here’s what else is happening today:
Joe Biden is traveling from Germany to Spain. Biden is participating in the final day of the G7 summit in Schloss Elmau, Germany, before traveling on to Madrid, Spain, for the start of the Nato summit.
Karine Jean-Pierre will gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Madrid. The White House press secretary will be joined by Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the supreme court’s decision to uphold key portions of the Affordable Care Act. The anniversary comes as the country awaits the court’s final four decisions of the term, which has already seen conservative justices overturn Roe v Wade and deliver a major victory to gun rights groups.
The blog will have more coming up, so stick around. More
