US Politics

January 6 investigator resigns to run against Greitens for Senate in MissouriJohn F Wood is seeking to stop far-right Republican who leads the field for nomination in the August primary An attorney who resigned last week as a senior investigator for the House January 6 committee is running for a Missouri US Senate seat as an independent, seeking to stop a far-right former governor, Eric Greitens, who leads the Republican field.Missouri Senate primary highlights rise of violent rhetoric on the rightRead moreJohn F Wood, who once worked in the administration of George W Bush, announced that he was beginning the effort to get on the November general election ballot for the seat held by Roy Blunt, a retiring Republican.Some Republican leaders have expressed concern that Greitens might prevail in a 21-candidate field for the Republican nomination in the 2 August primary, then lose to a Democrat in November because of sex and campaign finance scandals that pushed him from office in 2018.Greitens also faces allegations of physical abuse from his ex-wife, which he has denied. With the Senate evenly divided, the GOP cannot afford to lose what would otherwise be a safe seat.Those concerns intensified last week when Facebook removed a Greitens campaign video that shows him brandishing a shotgun and declaring that he is hunting Rinos, or Republicans In Name Only.“I am conservative and a life-long Republican. But the primaries for both parties have become a race to the bottom,” Wood said.“This was evident a few days ago when the leading candidate for one of the parties released a campaign advertisement glorifying violence against his political enemies, from his own party no less. Missouri deserves better. Missouri needs another option.”Wood, 52, was US attorney for Missouri’s western district from 2007 to 2009. He was general counsel for the US Chamber of Commerce when he stepped down in September to become senior investigative counsel for the January 6 committee. He resigned that post on Friday.A former Republican senator, John Danforth, has urged Wood to run as a right-leaning independent. Wood once worked for Danforth.Besides Greitens, other Republican contenders include the state attorney general, Eric Schmitt, US representatives Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long, the Missouri Senate president pro tem, Dave Schatz, and a St Louis attorney, Mark McCloskey, who became famous for pointing an assault rifle at protesters for racial equality.Schatz is positioning himself as a “Reagan Republican”. The others are strong supporters of Donald Trump, who has not yet endorsed a candidate in the race.Leading Democratic contenders include a former Marine, Lucas Kunce, and Trudy Busch Valentine, who is part of the Busch brewery family.TopicsMissouriRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

To the migrants who died in Texas, Biden is no different than Trump on immigrationMaeve HigginsThey were killed by this nation’s migration policies, our exclusionary laws, and our obsession with the closing southern border More than 50 men and women – the current count is 51, but it may well climb – were killed on Monday. They died trapped in a tractor-trailer rig and abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, in 100F (38C) heat. More than a dozen are in hospital, including children. The dead were migrants from Mexico and Central America. The local fire chief, Charles Hood, said the people in the truck were “hot to the touch” and that they had no water and no air conditioning inside the truck.That is how they died, but that is not why they died. They died because they had no safe route into the United States. And why is that? It is because of border controls and deadly, racist migration policies created and upheld by our government, Democrats and Republicans alike.Many of these policies, such as Title 42, which effectively bans people from seeking asylum under cover of Covid restrictions, are the same under Joe Biden as they were under Donald Trump. The same goes for Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico”, which allows US border officers to return non-Mexican asylum seekers to dangerous locations in Mexico. Successive US governments have deliberately and relentlessly pushed against the human right to asylum. The post-mortem results will show whether heat, dehydration or suffocation killed the people in that truck. But, fundamentally, they were killed by this nation’s migration policies, our exclusionary laws and our multibillion-dollar obsession with the southern border and keeping Black and brown people out.Border security is primarily a federal responsibility, and in claiming that, the federal government must accept responsibility for the injury and deaths of migrants. State lawmakers are also to blame. At 6pm on Monday, the same time the truck was discovered, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, released a statement about ‘Operation Lone Star’, a controversial $2bn border security operation he launched last year. The statement claims that the multi-agency effort “has led to more than 265,500 migrant apprehensions” and leads with a boast that law enforcement has turned back 22,000 migrants from the border. That is what the people who died yesterday were up against; a need to move and few options to do so is what drove them to get into that truck.People move. We always have, we always will. We are just one species out of many in which migration is a natural event. What is not natural is the disproportionate death and suffering of people who cross borders – that is artificial, caused by dehumanizing migration policy. The same heat radiating through the truck in San Antonio is forcing people worldwide to move. The extreme temperatures caused by climate chaos and growing numbers of wars and conflicts mean more of us are on the move today than at any time since the second world war. The US is not alone in targeting and victimizing Black and brown migrants. Because of Europe’s draconian anti-migrant policies, people are regularly pushed back from European shores, with thousands left to drown in the Mediterranean Sea last year alone. Treating people as disposable has knock-on effects, and none are good. The Guardian’s reporting on the thousands of migrant worker deaths in Qatar shows that once our life is reduced to “migrant” status, it is in peril.How can we tolerate this? The people our governments exclude and target are rarely white; we see that clearly as Ukrainian refugees (the majority of whom are white) can fly into the US to claim asylum. Meanwhile, crossing by land, migrants on the border (predominantly Black and brown) are blocked from doing the same thing.The secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, states on Twitter that he is a “Husband. Dad. Immigrant.” He puts those identifiers before his government role in his bio. And it was on Twitter that the husband, the dad, the immigrant, Mayorkas made a short statement about the deaths last night. He said he was heartbroken, called it a tragedy, and put it on smugglers. In this way, Mayorkas and the US government, past and present, dodge responsibility while actively endangering people on the move. They blame these deaths on the symptoms of an illness, but it’s an illness they cause. Among yesterday’s dead were husbands, dads and immigrants, too. Now they are ghosts and will haunt us until we make this right.
Maeve Higgins is a Guardian US columnist
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This week, from 2016: Whether he wins the US presidency or not, his rise reveals a growing attraction to political demagogues – and points to a wider crisis of democracy

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Election denier Tina Peters loses Colorado primary for top poll officialThe Republican, a county clerk, is facing criminal charges for tampering with election equipment Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk who is facing criminal charges for tampering with election equipment, lost the Republican nomination to be the state’s top election official on Tuesday. She was defeated by Pam Anderson, a former county clerk.The race was among several closely watched contests this year in which Republicans who denied the election results are seeking key roles with oversight of elections.In March, a grand jury indicted Peters and a deputy in her office after they allegedly helped an unauthorized person impersonate a county employee and access and copy information from the county’s voting equipment. Peters and a deputy allegedly turned off security cameras in a sensitive area, gave an IT consultant’s security badge to Conan Hayes, a former pro surfer who has spread disinformation about the 2020 election, and allowed him to image Dominion software.Shortly after the incident, passwords linked to the county’s voting equipment appeared on Gateway Pundit, a far-right website that has pushed election conspiracy claims. Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold decertified the county’s election equipment and obtained a court order blocking her from overseeing elections in 2021 and 2022. The FBI is also investigating Peters.Nick Penniman, the CEO of Issue One, a government watchdog group said in a statement: “Based on her record and her rhetoric, Tina Peters is unfit to oversee elections. To this day, Tina Peters continues to peddle lies and disinformation about the integrity of our elections. People who do not believe in free and fair elections are unfit for elected office in the United States – especially for the position of secretary of state.”Peters has said she wanted to image the equipment to preserve evidence of fraud and has produced debunked reports claiming irregularities. In 2020, Peters also signed off on a bipartisan audit of a sample of random ballots, required by Colorado law, that affirmed the county’s presidential election results were accurate. She nonetheless has continued to say the election was stolen.“This is a personal opinion based on the evidence that I have seen and gone through and based on what I know from our reports. I do believe there may have been enough fraud that it turned the election,” she told the Colorado Sun earlier this month.Peters is closely linked to two of the most prominent funders of the movement to spread election misinformation: Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, and Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com. Lindell has given at least $200,000 to support Peters’ legal defense, according to the New York Times, and provided a “safe house” for Peters outside of Colorado last year. Byrne, who the Times reported received a FaceTime from Hayes while he was imaging the county’s voting equipment, has donated to a PAC that attacked Peters’ opponent.Colorado conducts its elections primarily by mail and automatically sends a ballot to registered voters. It is seen as state that has some of the best run elections in the US – it is currently ranked ninth among all states for election administration by the non-partisan MIT election index. Peters has said she would end all mail-in voting in Colorado.TopicsColoradoUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

‘Things might get real, real bad’: key takeaways from latest January 6 hearingCassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, gives explosive revelations about Trump 02:44The sixth hearing into the attack on the Capitol on Tuesday heard from just one witness but presented a series of explosive revelations about Donald Trump and the events of January 6.Here are the key points from an extraordinary two hours on Capitol Hill.Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panelRead moreKey aides warned of violenceThe sole witness was Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She described how in December 2020, a month after election day, the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, told her Trump’s refusal to accept defeat by Joe Biden “could spiral out of control and be dangerous for our democracy”.On 2 January 2021, four days before electoral college results would be certified, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, told Hutchinson: “The 6th is going to be a great day … we’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The president is going to be there. He’s going to look powerful.”Meadows then told Hutchinson: “Things might get real, real bad on January 6.”Trump knew protesters were armed – and didn’t careThe committee played recordings from 6 January of law enforcement reporting protesters armed with AR-15 rifles and pistols. Waiting to speak at a rally near the White House, Trump was told protesters also had bear spray and flags to use as spears, and that some wore body armour.Demanding such people be let past security measures in order to fill the area in front of his stage, Trump said: “I don’t fucking care that they have weapons, they’re not here to hurt me. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags [magnetometers] away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here, let the people in and take the mags away.”He then told a crowd he knew to contain armed elements to march on the Capitol, and said he would go with them.Trump threatened his security chiefHutchinson relayed a story told by Tony Ornato, a secret service official and deputy chief of staff. Ornato, she said, told her that when Trump was in his armoured limousine after his speech, he was told he could not go to the Capitol.Trump had “a very strong, very angry response to that … something to the effect of, ‘I’m the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now.’ To which Bobby [Engel, chief of Trump’s secret service detail] responded, ‘Sir, you have to go back to the West Wing.’Trump then “reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr Engel grabbed his arm, 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.’ Mr 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.”The committee heard of Trump’s fury at other moments, including when his attorney general, Bill Barr, told the Associated Press there was no widespread electoral fraud. Trump “had thrown his lunch against the wall”, Hutchinson said, also describing how she helped the president’s valet mop up the spilled ketchup.Meadows was too attached to his phone …Hutchinson repeatedly described the chief of staff not looking up from his phone when being told urgent news, including on January 6.“I remember him being alone in his office for most of the afternoon,” she said. “Around 2pm to 2.05pm we were watching the TV and I could see that the rioters were getting closer and closer to the Capitol. Mark still hadn’t popped out of his office or said anything about it.”Meadows was “sitting on his couch on his cellphone, same as the morning where he was just kind of scrolling and typing. I said, ‘Hey, are you watching the TV, Chief? … I didn’t know if he was really paying attention. He was like, ‘Yeah.’ [I said] ‘The rioters are getting really close, so if you talk to the president…’ He said, ‘No, he wants to be alone right now.’“Still looking at his phone. So I started to get frustrated.”… except when he wanted to go to Bannon’s ‘war room’Hutchinson described how on 5 January she stopped Meadows attending a meeting at the Willard Hotel held by Giuliani, the former White House strategist Steve Bannon, the law professor John Eastman and other pro-Trump extremists.Meadows, she said, “wanted me to work with secret service on a movement from the White House to the Willard Hotel so he could attend the meeting with Mr Giuliani and his associates in the ‘war room’.“I made it clear to Mr Meadows that I didn’t believe it was a smart idea … I knew enough about what Mr Giuliani and his associates were pushing that I didn’t think that it was something appropriate for the White House chief of staff to attend or to consider involvement.”Meadows “mentioned a few more times going up the Willard that evening, then eventually … said he would dial in instead”.Trump said Pence deserved to hangHutchinson’s description of the president’s response to the mob calling for the vice-president to be hanged was included in an earlier hearing but was stunning in repeat.She 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.”Meadows and Giuliani sought pardonsWhen Trump finally recorded a speech asking the mob to leave the Capitol, Meadows pushed for a promise of presidential pardons. Asked if Giuliani and Meadows sought their own pardons related to January 6, Hutchinson said that they did.Trump’s circle has pressured witnessesThe committee vice-chair, Liz Cheney, saved one of the most chilling revelations for her closing statement. The committee, she said, had asked witnesses if former colleagues in Trump circles had attempted to influence testimony.Angry, violent, reckless: testimony paints shocking portrait of Trump Read more“One witness described phone calls from people interested in that witness’s testimony. ‘Well, what they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I’m on the right team, I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect. I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump world. They reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts, and just keep that in mind.’”Another witness reported a call in which they were told Trump “wants me to let you know he’s thinking about you. You know, you’re loyal. And you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”Debate continues about whether Trump will be charged with criminal conduct.Cheney said: “I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns. We will be discussing these issues as a committee and carefully considering our next steps.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More

Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, applauded Cassidy Hutchinson’s willingness to testify about what she witnessed in the Trump White House, but she also criticized Hutchinson’s colleagues who have refused to do so.“While our committee has seen many witnesses, including many Republicans, testify fully and forthrightly, this has not been true of every witness,” Cheney said at the end of today’s hearing.She added, “We have received evidence of one particular practice that raises significant concern.”Cheney noted that the committee regularly asks witnesses whether they have been contacted by any of their former colleagues or anyone else who may attempt to influence their testimony.We commonly ask witnesses connected to Trump whether they have been contacted by anyone attempting to impact testimony.Below are examples of answers we have received to this question. pic.twitter.com/pwxyJBf7Kl— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 28, 2022
Cheney read aloud from the testimony of two witnesses who said they had recently spoken to people who encouraged them to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces with their comments to the committee.One witness told investigators, “What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know that I’m on the right team. I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect. … They have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceed through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”Cheney’s comments point to the possibility of witness intimidation impacting the investigation, although it will ultimately be up to the justice department to determine what (if any) criminal charges stem from the committee’s findings.That’s it from me, after a historic day in Washington. Here’s how the January 6 committee’s sixth public hearing unfolded:
A former senior White House aide testified that Donald Trump knew some of his supporters were armed on January 6 and still encouraged them to march on the Capitol. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former senior adviser to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said she overheard a conversation with Trump shortly before he addressed a rally crowd on January 6. “I don’t f’ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson. “Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.” The rally where Trump spoke culminated in the insurrection, which resulted in several deaths.
Liz Cheney described potential witness tampering among Trump’s allies in connection to the January 6 investigation. Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, quoted testimony from two witnesses who said they were advised to remain loyal to Trump in their comments to investigators. “I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns,” Cheney said. “We will be discussing these issues as a committee, carefully considering our next steps.”
Trump wanted to go to the Capitol with his supporters on January 6, so much so that he tried to redirect his car when aides told him they would be returning to the White House. Hutchinson said Tony Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff, told her that Trump was “irate” when he was informed he would not be going to the Capitol. Already inside a car with his aides, Trump tried to grab for the vehicle’s steering wheel and then lunged at the throat of a Secret Service agent, Hutchinson said.
Meadows told Hutchinson that Trump had endorsed insurrectionists’ chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” on January 6. As Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Hutchinson was involved in a conversation with Meadows and Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel. According to Hutchinson, Cipollone told Meadows, “Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice-president to be f-ing hung.” Meadows replied, “You heard [Trump], Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.”
Some of Trump’s closest advisers, including Meadows, expressed fear days before the insurrection that January 6 could turn violent. Hutchinson said Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s campaign lawyers, asked her on January 2 whether she was “excited” for January 6, the day that Congress was scheduled to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. When Hutchinson asked Meadows about Giuliani’s comments, he said, “There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know. Things might get real, real bad on January 6.”
Meadows and Giuliani both inquired about presidential pardons after January 6, Hutchinson told the committee. She previously testified that several Republican members of Congress also reached out about pardons in connection to their involvement with the insurrection.
The blog will be back tomorrow with more analysis of today’s January 6 hearing and news from the supreme court, which still has four decisions left to announce before wrapping up its term. See you then.Democrat Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 committee, said the panel would continue to investigate possible witness tampering among Donald Trump’s allies.At the end of today’s hearing, Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, quoted testimony from two witnesses who said they had been told to remain loyal to Trump in their comments to investigators.“It’s a crime to tamper with witnesses. It’s a form of obstructing justice. The committee won’t tolerate it,” Raskin told reporters after the hearing concluded.He emphasized that the committee’s investigation is ongoing, saying, “We haven’t had the chance to fully investigate it or fully discuss it, but it’s something on our agenda.”Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin, after today’s hearing, said the committee will continue to investigate possible witness tampering, after texts Rep. Cheney presented appeared to show that.”It’s a crime to tamper with witnesses…The committee won’t tolerate it.” pic.twitter.com/t74KZvmEC0— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 28, 2022
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino and Hugo Lowell have a full writeup of Cassidy Hutchinson’s shocking testimony before the January 6 committee:In explosive public testimony, a former White House aide on Tuesday told the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that Donald Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the US Capitol in a last-gasp effort to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election that he lost.Appearing at a hastily scheduled hearing on Capitol Hill, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, also painted a devastating portrait of a president spiraling out of control and a White House staff often ambivalent about the violence building around them.Hutchinson also offered extraordinary new details that the White House – and the former US president – were aware that the rally on January 6 could turn violent days before Trump stepped on stage at a rally on the Ellipse and urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to keep him in power.“I felt like I was watching a bad car accident about to happen, where you cannot stop it,” Hutchinson, a conservative Republican who worked just steps from the Oval Office, testified at the panel’s sixth and most revealing hearing to date.Over the course of two hours, Hutchinson offered a shocking view into the West Wing in the moments before, during and after the siege of the US Capitol.Read the Guardian’s full report on the history-making hearing:Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panelRead moreFox News host Bret Baier acknowledged that Cassidy Hutchinson’s detailed testimony about Donald Trump’s actions on January 6 could have far-reaching consequences.While noting that he wished that some of Trump’s congressional allies were serving on the January 6 committee, Baier said of today’s hearing, “The testimony in and of itself is really, really powerful.”Baier’s words were met with a long pause from his colleagues, prompting fellow host John Roberts to ask co-anchor Sandra Smith, “Can you still hear?”This post-hearing moment of awkward silence on Fox kinda says a lot. pic.twitter.com/5yRNJ0btKd— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 28, 2022
Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, indicated that the panel may return to the issue of potential witness tampering in future hearings.Cheney concluded her remarks at today’s hearing by reading aloud from the testimony of two witnesses who said they were advised to remain loyal to Donald Trump when speaking to investigators..@RepLizCheney (R-WY): “I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns.” pic.twitter.com/xlsUwnAGPr— CSPAN (@cspan) June 28, 2022
“I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns,” Cheney said. “We will be discussing these issues as a committee, carefully considering our next steps.”As of now, the January 6 committee is expected to resume its hearings when the House returns from its recess on 12 July.The committee’s evidence of potential witness tampering could also be used by the department of justice if federal prosecutors choose to pursue charges in connection to the allegations.Some members of Congress reacted with outrage as they listened to Cassidy Hutchinson recount how Donald Trump was informed that some of his supporters at his January 6 rally were carrying weapons.According to Hutchinson, Trump responded to that information by saying, “I don’t f’ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”The rally that Trump spoke at on January 6 culminated in the Capitol insurrection, which resulted in several deaths and many serious injuries for US Capitol Police officers.“It was a set up. They set up the Capitol Police and Congress to to get overrun,” congressman Ruben Gallego, a Democrat of Arizona, said on Twitter. He went on to insult Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff and Hutchinson’s boss, as a “traitorous fuck”.It was a set up. They set up the Capitol Police and Congress to to get overrun. @MarkMeadows you traitorous fuck.— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) June 28, 2022
Some of Cassidy Hutchinson’s former White House colleagues have applauded her willingness to testify publicly before the January 6 committee.They have also pushed back against suggestions from Donald Trump and some of his allies that Hutchinson, who served as a senior adviser to the White House chief of staff, was an unimportant staffer in the administration.“Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is,” said Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy White House press secretary in the Trump administration.Matthews added, “For those complaining of ‘hearsay,’ I imagine the Jan. 6 committee would welcome any of those involved to deny these allegations under oath.”Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.— Sarah Matthews (@SarahAMatthews1) June 28, 2022
Trump’s former White House communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin, echoed that suggestion, while applauding Hutchinson’s “courage [and] integrity”.“Cassidy Hutchinson is my friend. I knew her testimony would be damning. I had no idea it’d be THIS damning,” Griffin said on Twitter. “To anyone who would try to impugn her character, I’d be glad to put you in touch w/@January6thCmte to appear UNDER OATH.”Cassidy Hutchinson is my friend. I knew her testimony would be damning. I had no idea it’d be THIS damning.I am so grateful for her courage & integrity. To anyone who would try to impugn her character, I’d be glad to put you in touch w/ @January6thCmte to appear UNDER OATH.— Alyssa Farah Griffin 🇺🇸 (@Alyssafarah) June 28, 2022
Mick Mulvaney, who previously served as Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff, said Liz Cheney’s closing remarks at today’s hearing indicate the January 6 committee has evidence of witness tampering.Cheney’s closing is stunning: they think they have evidence of witness tampering and obstruction of justice.There is an old maxim: it’s never the crime, it’s always the coverup.Things went very badly for the former President today. My guess is that it will get worse from here— Mick Mulvaney (@MickMulvaney) June 28, 2022
“Cheney’s closing is stunning: they think they have evidence of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. There is an old maxim: it’s never the crime, it’s always the coverup,” Mulvaney said on Twitter.“Things went very badly for the former President today. My guess is that it will get worse from here.”The committee is currently set to resume its hearings next month, after the House returns from its recess on 12 July.Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, applauded Cassidy Hutchinson’s willingness to testify about what she witnessed in the Trump White House, but she also criticized Hutchinson’s colleagues who have refused to do so.“While our committee has seen many witnesses, including many Republicans, testify fully and forthrightly, this has not been true of every witness,” Cheney said at the end of today’s hearing.She added, “We have received evidence of one particular practice that raises significant concern.”Cheney noted that the committee regularly asks witnesses whether they have been contacted by any of their former colleagues or anyone else who may attempt to influence their testimony.We commonly ask witnesses connected to Trump whether they have been contacted by anyone attempting to impact testimony.Below are examples of answers we have received to this question. pic.twitter.com/pwxyJBf7Kl— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 28, 2022
Cheney read aloud from the testimony of two witnesses who said they had recently spoken to people who encouraged them to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces with their comments to the committee.One witness told investigators, “What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know that I’m on the right team. I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect. … They have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceed through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”Cheney’s comments point to the possibility of witness intimidation impacting the investigation, although it will ultimately be up to the justice department to determine what (if any) criminal charges stem from the committee’s findings.The January 6 committee hearing, which featured explosive testimony from former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, has now concluded after nearly two hours.In her closing statement, Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, thanked Hutchinson for her courage in speaking out about Donald Trump’s actions on the day of the Capitol insurrection.“Our nation is preserved by those who abide by their oaths to our Constitution. Our nation is preserved by those who know the fundamental difference between right and wrong,” Cheney said. “I want all Americans to know that what Miss Hutchinson has done today is not easy. The easy course is to hide from the spotlight, to refuse to come forward, to attempt to downplay or deny what happened.”Cassidy Hutchinson said that both Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Rudy Giuliani, one of Donald Trump’s campaign lawyers, sought presidential pardons after January 6.Hutchinson previously testified to investigators that several Republican members of Congress also reached out to inquire about potential pardons in connection to their involvement in the Capitol attack.According to Hutchinson, Trump even wanted to add a line to his January 7 speech about potential pardons for the Capitol insurrectionists, but he ultimately did not do so.Cassidy Hutchinson said she was horrified by Donald Trump’s tweet pressuring Mike Pence to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.At 2.24pm on January 6, as insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”Asked for her response to that tweet, Hutchinson said, “As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.” Cassidy Hutchinson witnessed a conversation between Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, about the insurrectionists’ chants of “Hang Mike Pence!”The committee has previously demonstrated how those who attacked the Capitol threatened Pence, as the vice-president oversaw the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Donald Trump himself repeatedly pressured Pence to disrupt the certification process.According to Hutchinson, Cipollone said something to Meadows along the lines of, “Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice-president to be f-ing hung.” Referring to Trump, Meadows replied, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.” After a brief break, the January 6 committee hearing has resumed, and the panel shared a clip from Michael Flynn’s testimony with investigators.Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser and a close ally, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering the committee’s questions about the January 6 insurrection.Among other things, Flynn would not answer a question from Liz Cheney, the committee’s Republican vice-chair, about whether he believes in the peaceful transfer of power. More

Angry, violent, reckless: testimony paints shocking portrait of Trump Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony of a president lunging at a Secret Service agent’s throat ‘is going to loom very large’ in US history, experts say He lunged at a Secret Service agent’s throat. He threw dishes during temper tantrums. And he wanted metal detectors taken away so his fans could march with guns and knives.An astonishing portrait of Donald Trump as an unhinged and personally violent president emerged at Tuesday’s hearing of the congressional committee investigating last year’s attack on the US Capitol.Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panelRead moreEven for a country – and a political press corps – long used to the norm-shattering of the Trump years, the picture painted of Trump at the surprise hearing was a shock to the system. The January 6 panel had promised new revelations and it did not disappoint. “Never before in American history have we ever seen credible testimony this shocking against a president of the United States before Congress,” Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, told the MSNBC network. “This is a day that is going to loom very large in American history.”The star witness at the hastily arranged hearing was Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She described how Trump wanted to go to the US Capitol with his supporters on January 6 after giving a fiery speech that urged them to fight for him.Hutchinson, 25, testified to the panel that Tony Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff, told her that Trump had a “very strong, very angry response” when informed he would be driven back to to the White House instead.Trump allegedly told a Secret Service agent: “I’m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now.”When the agent refused, Trump tried to seize the steering wheel of the presidential limousine, known as “the Beast”. His security detail, Robert 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.”01:42Hutchinson told the hearing that Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Engel’s clavicle. Engel has never contradicted the account, she added.The committee also heard how Trump erupted in fury on 1 December after his attorney general, William Barr, gave an interview to the Associated Press saying there was no evidence of widespread election fraud.Hutchinson recalled seeing a shattered porcelain plate and ketchup on the wall of a dining room at the White House. “The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general’s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall.”This was not an isolated incident. She added: “There are several times … I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go on to the floor and break or go everywhere.”The account demonstrated that the coup attempt on January 6 was no anomaly but on brand for a man who seems to regard violence as sport. Trump has long been prominent in the worlds of boxing and wrestling and in a 2013 interview said of organised crime: “I have met on occasion a few of those people. They happen to be very nice people.”During his election campaign in 2016, he told one rally crowd: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? … I promise you I will pay for the legal fees.” At another, he said of a protester: “Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court. Don’t worry about it.”Earlier at Thursday’s hearing, Hutchinson told the House of Representatives select committee that Trump was told people at the January 6 rally had guns, knives and other weapons and was disappointed at them being turned away.She said: “I overheard the president say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags [magnetometers] away. Let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here.’”After the session, Jamie Raskin, a member of the committee, told reporters: “We had the president of the United States upset that the Secret Services and other authorities were using metal detectors for people entering his rally and he wanted those taken down so everyone could enter including people who were armed and there were official reports of people carrying AR-15s on that day.”There was more. Hutchinson testified that, as the mob hunted Mike Pence, Meadows told the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, that Trump was untroubled. “I remember Pat saying … ‘They’re literally calling for the vice-president to be effing 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.’”And the end of the session, Liz Cheney, the vice-chairwoman, showed that witnesses have been receiving calls and messages from people close to Trump telling them that he knows they will remain “loyal” in depositions. Beschloss tweeted: “Why does this sound like a hearing investigating a Mobster?”It all proved that, despite countless newspaper reports and books, the four years of Trump’s presidency still have the power to make jaws drop.How bad his critics think it was, there is always another revelation around the corner that shows it was even worse. Perhaps most incredible of all, the man who sought to overthrow American democracy is the frontrunner for the Republican party presidential nomination in 2024. For the moment, at least.Mehdi Hasan, a broadcaster and journalist, posted on Twitter: “Listening to this hearing today is yet another reminder that there is no aspect of the Trump presidency that could be written by a TV writer in a writing room. It would be ridiculed as too unbelievable and too unrealistic and too crazy.“But it all happened. In real life.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Donald Trump was aware that demonstrators on January 6 were armed. Hutchinson said she overheard Trump say ‘I don’t f’ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f’ing mags [metal detectors] away. Let my people in. They can march the Capitol from here. Let the f’ing people in. Take the mags away.’ Trump instructed the crowd to head towards Capitol Hill, telling them he’d be there with them, Hutchinson said. 

Trump knew supporters had guns when he urged march on Capitol, aide testifies
Jan 6 committee hearings live: Trump tried to grab car steering wheel to go to Capitol, ex-aide testifies More