House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Jan. 6 Hearings to Resume Next Week With Focus on Domestic Extremists

      by

      Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, has said he plans to show ties between Donald J. Trump and militias that helped orchestrate the Capitol attack.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol plans to hold a hearing next Tuesday to reveal its findings about the connections between former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election and the domestic violent extremist groups that helped to organize the siege on Congress.The panel announced that the session would take place on July 12 at 10 a.m. It is expected to be led by Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, and Representative Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida, who plan to chart the rise of the right-wing domestic violent extremist groups that attacked the Capitol and how Mr. Trump amassed and inspired the mob. The panel also plans to detail known links and conversations between political actors close to Mr. Trump and extremists.The hearing will be the first since the explosive, surprise testimony last week by Cassidy Hutchinson, a junior-level aide in Mr. Trump’s White House who came forward to provide a damning account of the president’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. She recounted how Mr. Trump, knowing his supporters were armed and threatening violence, wanted to relax security measures to allow them to move around Washington freely, urging them to march to the Capitol and seeking to join them there.She testified to having overheard a conversation in which Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff and her boss at the time, said that Mr. Trump had privately sided with the rioters as they stormed the building and called for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence, saying that he deserved it and that his supporters were doing what they should be doing.The select committee has held seven public hearings to date, beginning with one last year in which it highlighted the testimonials of four police officers who battled the mob and helped secure the Capitol.After conducting more than 1,000 interviews, the committee began a series of public hearings last month to lay out the findings of its investigation, including one in which it focused heavily on the role the Proud Boys extremist group played in the storming of the building.The next session focused on how Mr. Trump spread the lie of a stolen election even as he was told repeatedly that the vote was legitimate, ripping off his donors and deceiving his supporters in the process. Subsequent hearings focused on how Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Pence, state officials and the Justice Department in a barrage of increasingly desperate efforts to overturn the election.In a recent interview with The New York Times, Mr. Raskin declined to provide specific details about communications between political actors close to Mr. Trump and militia groups. But he said it was clear that no mob would have come to Washington or descended on the Capitol were it not for Mr. Trump’s direction.“Donald Trump solicited the mob; he summoned the mob to Washington,” Mr. Raskin said, adding, “All of this was targeted on the joint session of Congress.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani and Graham Among Trump Allies Subpoenaed by Georgia Grand Jury

      by

      Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, John Eastman and several others in the former president’s orbit were subpoenaed in the election meddling inquiry.Seven advisers and allies of Donald J. Trump, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham, were subpoenaed on Tuesday in the ongoing criminal investigation in Georgia of election interference by Mr. Trump and his associates. The move was the latest sign that the inquiry has entangled a number of prominent members of Mr. Trump’s orbit, and may cloud the future for the former president.The subpoenas underscore the breadth of the investigation by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta. She is weighing a range of charges, according to legal filings, including racketeering and conspiracy, and her inquiry has encompassed witnesses from beyond the state. The latest round of subpoenas was reported earlier by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The Fulton County investigation is one of several inquiries into efforts by Mr. Trump and his team to overturn the election, but it is the one that appears to put them in the greatest immediate legal jeopardy. A House committee continues to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And there is an intensifying investigation by the Justice Department into a scheme to create slates of fake presidential electors in 2020.Amid the deepening investigations, Mr. Trump is weighing an early entrance into the 2024 presidential race; people close to him have said he believes it would bolster his claims that the investigations are politically motivated.A subpoena is not an indication that someone is a subject of an inquiry, though some of the latest recipients are considered at risk in the case — in particular Mr. Giuliani, a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump who has emerged as a central figure in the grand jury proceedings in the Georgia investigation. Mr. Giuliani spent several hours speaking before state legislative panels in December 2020, where he peddled false conspiracy theories about corrupted voting machines and a video that he claimed showed secret suitcases of Democratic ballots. He told members of the State House at the time, “You cannot possibly certify Georgia in good faith.”Ms. Willis’s office, in its subpoena, said Mr. Giuliani “possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself, former President Trump, the Trump campaign, and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”Though the subpoenas were issued Tuesday, not all had necessarily been received. Robert J. Costello, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, said, “We have not been served with any subpoena, therefore we have no current comment.”Others sent subpoenas included Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked closely with Mr. Giuliani to overturn the 2020 election results; John Eastman, the legal architect of a plan to keep Mr. Trump in power by using fake electors, and Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican who called the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, days after the election to inquire about the rules for discarding mail-in ballots.Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked with Rudolph W. Giuliani to overturn the 2020 election results, was also subpoenaed.Rey Del Rio/Getty ImagesAnother prominent lawyer who received a subpoena, Cleta Mitchell, was on a Jan. 2, 2021, call that Mr. Trump made to Mr. Raffensperger where he asked him to find enough votes to reverse the state’s results. The subpoena to her said, “During the telephone call, the witness and others made allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia and pressured Secretary Raffensperger to take action in his official capacity to investigate unfounded claims of fraud.”Two other Trump lawyers were also subpoenaed: Jacki Pick Deason, who helped make the Trump team’s case before the Georgia legislature, and Kenneth Chesebro, whose role has come into sharper focus during the House Jan. 6 hearings in Washington. In an email exchange with Mr. Eastman in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, he wrote that the Supreme Court would be more likely to act on a Wisconsin legal challenge “if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”Most of those subpoenaed could not be immediately reached for comment. A spokesman for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where Ms. Deason is a senior fellow, declined to comment.The special grand jury was impaneled in early May and has up to one year to complete its work before issuing a report advising Ms. Willis on whether to pursue criminal charges, though Ms. Willis has said she hopes to conclude much sooner. In official letters sent to potential witnesses, her office has said that it is examining potential violations that include “the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”The new subpoenas offered some further clues about where her investigation is focused.Mr. Eastman was a key witness at one of the December 2020 legislative hearings that were led by Mr. Giuliani. Ms. Willis’s office said in its subpoena to Mr. Eastman that during the hearing he had “advised lawmakers that they had both the lawful authority and a ‘duty’ to replace the Democratic Party’s slate of presidential electors, who had been certified as the duly appointed electors for the State of Georgia after the November 2020 election, due to unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud within the state.”John Eastman, a Trump legal adviser and the architect of the fake-elector plan, with Mr. Giuliani.Jim Bourg/ReutersThey called the appearance part of a “multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”The subpoena also noted that Mr. Eastman “drafted at least two memoranda to the Trump Campaign and others detailing a plan through which Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, could refuse to count some of President Joe Biden’s electoral votes” on Jan. 6 — a plan that was rejected by Mr. Pence.Regarding Ms. Ellis, Ms. Willis’s office said that even after Mr. Raffensperger’s office debunked claims of fraud by election workers at an Atlanta arena, Ms. Ellis persisted. “Despite this, the witness made additional statements claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election,” the subpoena said.Mr. Trump has derided the inquiry; last year, a spokesman for the former president called it “the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.”Sean Keenan More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      New Insights Into Trump’s State of Mind on Jan. 6 Chip Away at Doubts

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump has weathered scandals by keeping his intentions under wraps, but recent testimony paints a stark portrait of a man willing to do almost anything to hang onto power.WASHINGTON — He was not speaking metaphorically. It was not an offhand comment. President Donald J. Trump had every intention of joining a mob of supporters he knew to be armed and dangerous as it marched to the Capitol. And there had even been talk of marching into the House chamber himself to disrupt Congress from ratifying his election defeat.For a year and a half, Mr. Trump has been shielded by obfuscations and mischaracterizations, benefiting from uncertainty about what he was thinking on Jan. 6, 2021. If he truly believed the election had been stolen, if he genuinely expected the gathering at the Capitol would be a peaceful protest, the argument went, then could he be held accountable, much less indicted, for the mayhem that ensued?But for a man who famously avoids leaving emails or other trails of evidence of his unspoken motives, any doubts about what was really going through Mr. Trump’s mind on that day of violence seemed to have been eviscerated by testimony presented in recent weeks by the House committee investigating the Capitol attack — especially the dramatic appearance last week of a 26-year-old former White House aide who offered a chilling portrait of a president willing to do almost anything to hang onto power.More than perhaps any insider account that has emerged, the recollections of the aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, demolished the fiction of a president who had nothing to do with what happened. Each revelation was stunning on its own: Mr. Trump knew that weapons were in the crowd as he exhorted supporters to “fight like hell,” and even tried to stop anyone from disarming them. He was so determined to join the mob at the Capitol that he lashed out at his Secret Service detail for refusing to take him. And he was so nonchalant about the bedlam he had unleashed that he suggested Vice President Mike Pence might deserve to be executed for refusing to overturn the election.But when added together, the various disclosures have produced the clearest picture yet of an unprecedented attempt to subvert the traditional American democratic process, with a sitting president who had lost at the ballot box planning to march with an armed crowd to the Capitol to block the transfer of power, brushing aside manifold concerns about the potential for violence along the way.“The innocent explanations for Trump’s conduct seem virtually impossible to credit following the testimony we have seen,” said Joshua Matz, who served as a lawyer for House Democrats during both of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trials in the Senate. “At the very least, they powerfully shift the burden to Trump and his defenders to offer evidence that he did not act with a corrupt, criminal state of mind.”And so nearly two and a half centuries after the 13 American colonies declared independence from an unelected king, the nation is left weighing a somber new view of the fragility of its democracy — and the question of what, if anything, could and should be done about it.To the extent that there may be a turning point in that debate, Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony proved decisive for some who had been willing to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt or had been uncertain that the committee had gathered enough evidence about the former president’s state of mind.Solomon L. Wisenberg, a former deputy independent counsel under Ken Starr, called her account “the smoking gun” making a case “for his criminal culpability on seditious conspiracy charges.” Mick Mulvaney, who served as Mr. Trump’s third White House chief of staff, said he had been defending him, but learning that Mr. Trump knew some in the crowd were armed and still encouraged it to go to the Capitol “certainly changes my mind,” he told Fox News.David French, a conservative critic of Mr. Trump, had been skeptical the committee would produce sufficient evidence. “But Hutchinson’s sworn testimony closes a gap in the criminal case against Trump,” he wrote on The Dispatch, a conservative website. Two law professors, Alan Z. Rozenshtein of the University of Minnesota and Jed Handelsman Shugerman of Fordham University, likewise opposed prosecution until seeing Ms. Hutchinson, writing on the Lawfare blog that she changed their minds because she provided “proof of intent.”The hearings, which will continue after Congress returns on July 11 from its holiday recess, have presented only the prosecution’s side of the story. With Mr. Trump’s acquiescence, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, opted against appointing anyone to the select committee after Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected a couple of his original selections, leaving the panel composed entirely of Democrats and two Republicans deeply critical of the former president.Neither Ms. Hutchinson nor any of the other witnesses who have testified have been cross-examined. Their testimony has often been presented in short edited clips rather than in their entirety, and no contrary testimony has been offered publicly. In a courtroom, if it ever came to that, the case against Mr. Trump would be tested as it has not been so far.“The committee’s presentation has been a purely political exercise, deceptively edited,” said Jason Miller, who served as a political adviser to Mr. Trump during and after the election.Yet even outside the confines of the hearing room, Mr. Miller and others in Mr. Trump’s camp have mainly attacked the committee or tried to chip away at pieces of the testimony rather than produce much of a defense of the former president’s actions or an alternate explanation for his state of mind.In his social media posts, Mr. Trump denied asking that armed supporters be allowed at his rally. “Who would ever want that?” he wrote. “Not me!” He focused more of his energy on castigating Ms. Hutchinson in scathing personal terms (“whacko,” “total phony”) and concentrated on one small aspect of her testimony, namely whether he lunged for the wheel of his presidential vehicle when his Secret Service detail refused to take him to the Capitol on Jan. 6.Throughout his time in politics, Mr. Trump has survived one scandal after another in part because people in authority felt unable to read his mind. Investigators were not sure they could definitively prove that he intended to break the law when he authorized hush money to silence a pornographic film actress or when he provided false valuations of his properties to lenders or when he sought to impede the inquiry into Russia’s election interference. Fact checkers similarly documented tens of thousands of false statements he made while in office, but were reluctant to declare that he knowingly lied.“He learned from Dad, Norman Vincent Peale and especially Roy Cohn that you can get away with almost anything if you never back down and insist long enough and loud enough that you’re right, and he held onto that right up to the final ride” back to the White House, said Gwenda Blair, his biographer, referring in turn to Fred Trump; the author of “The Power of Positive Thinking”; and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting chief counsel, who became a mentor to Mr. Trump. For Mr. Trump, “he was being completely consistent with the way he has acted his entire life.”Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime associate who served briefly in the White House before breaking with Mr. Trump, has talked in the past about Mr. Trump’s power to interpret reality in whatever way suited him. But Mr. Scaramucci said he had concluded that Mr. Trump understood perfectly well that the election was not stolen and that his actions on Jan. 6 to overturn it were illegitimate.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 7Making a case against Trump. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Eyes Early 2024 Announcement as Jan. 6 Scrutiny Intensifies

      by

      Donald Trump has accelerated his campaign planning, hoping a White House bid will blunt a series of damaging revelations. Some Republicans are worried.Republicans are bracing for Donald J. Trump to announce an unusually early bid for the White House, a move designed in part to shield the former president from a stream of damaging revelations emerging from investigations into his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.While many Republicans would welcome Mr. Trump’s entry into the race, his move would also exacerbate persistent divisions over whether the former president is the party’s best hope to win back the White House. The party is also divided over whether his candidacy would be an unnecessary distraction from midterm elections or even a direct threat to democracy.Mr. Trump has long hinted at a third consecutive White House bid and has campaigned for much of the past year. He has accelerated his planning in recent weeks just as a pair of investigations have intensified and congressional testimony has revealed new details about Mr. Trump’s indifference to the threat of violence on Jan. 6 and his refusal to act to stop an insurrection.Mr. Trump has also watched as some of his preferred candidates have lost recent primary elections, raising hopes among his potential Republican competitors that voters may be drifting from a politician long thought to have an iron grip on the party.Rather than humble Mr. Trump, the developments have emboldened him to try to reassert himself as the head of the party, eclipse damaging headlines and steal attention from potential rivals, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a rising favorite of donors and voters. Republicans close to Mr. Trump have said he believes a formal announcement would bolster his claims that the investigations are politically motivated.Mr. Trump would enter the race as the clear front-runner, with an approval rating among Republicans around 80 percent, but there are signs that a growing number of the party’s voters are exploring other options.There have been signs that growing numbers of Republican voters are looking beyond Mr. Trump.Rachel Mummey for The New York Times“I don’t think anyone is inevitable,” said Haley Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman who also served eight years as Mississippi’s governor.The timing of a formal announcement from Mr. Trump remains uncertain. But he recently surprised some advisers by saying he might declare his candidacy on social media without warning even his own team, and aides are scrambling to build out basic campaign infrastructure in time for an announcement as early as this month.That timing would be extraordinary — presidential candidates typically announce their candidacies in the year before the election — and could have immediate implications for Republicans seeking to take control of Congress in November. Mr. Trump’s presence as an active candidate would make it easier for Democrats to turn midterm races into a referendum on the former president, who since losing in 2020 has relentlessly spread lies about the legitimacy of the election. Some Republicans fear that would distract from pocketbook issues that have given their party a strong advantage in congressional races.“Republicans want to win badly in 2022, and it is dawning on many of them that relitigating the 2020 election with Trump’s daily conspiracy diatribes are sure losers,” said Dick Wadhams, a Republican strategist and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.The former president’s team remains divided over whether he should even run again. Those opposed to a third White House bid have expressed concerns ranging from doubts about Mr. Trump’s remaining political potency to questions about whether he can articulate a clear rationale for running and avoid a repeat of 2020.Others are urging Mr. Trump to take his time. Donald Trump Jr., his eldest son, has taken a more central role in Mr. Trump’s inner circle of political advisers and has told others that he wants his father to install a more expansive campaign team around him in preparation for a run.Donald Trump Jr. has expressed concerns that his father does not yet have a more expansive campaign team in place.Adam Davis/EPA, via ShutterstockOne of the most compelling arguments against an early announcement had been federal campaign finance laws. If and when Mr. Trump announces, he would be ineligible to use any of the $100 million that he has parked in his political action committee to directly support his presidential run. His campaign would also be constrained by a strict $2,900-per-person donation cap for the primaries, meaning he could tap his largest donors only once over the next period of roughly two years to directly fund a candidacy.But Mr. Trump’s command over small-dollar donors has remained strong, leaving some on his team unconcerned about the fund-raising limits.The debate over timing comes as investigations into the behavior of Mr. Trump and his associates are gathering steam. The Justice Department is looking into efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office after his defeat. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., have convened a grand jury as part of an investigation into whether the former president and his team tried to influence the vote count there. Each is separate from the House committee scrutinizing his conduct in the run-up to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.Among those urging Mr. Trump to announce soon is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Mr. Graham said the former president would be blamed for — or credited with — whatever happened in the November elections and suggested that an early announcement would focus Mr. Trump’s attention on policy.“It’s up to him if he runs or not,” Mr. Graham said in an interview. “But the key to him being successful is comparing his policy agenda and policy successes with what is going on today.”Other Republican leaders have sought to dissuade Mr. Trump from an early announcement.Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, had urged Mr. Trump to wait until after the midterms, worried that news about his campaign could derail the party’s midterm messaging. One R.N.C. official noted that when Mr. Trump opened a campaign, the party would stop paying his legal bills related to an investigation by the New York attorney general. Still, Ms. McDaniel has recently resigned herself to the idea that he will announce before the elections, according to people familiar with the conversations.But even Trump aides who are supportive of another campaign worry that the former president’s path to a third nomination has become more difficult than he’s willing to acknowledge.Some close to Mr. Trump have grown concerned about potential legal and political consequences from the congressional hearings into the Capitol riot. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, testified this week that Mr. Trump had known that some of his supporters were carrying weapons that day and had still encouraged his team to let them through security checkpoints. Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who is on the committee, said the panel had evidence of witness tampering.Cassidy Hutchinson testifying on Tuesday before the House committee investigating the Capitol riot.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Trump signaled his concern about the potential political consequences of the testimony, reacting in real time to the hearing by posting a dozen messages on his Truth Social website attacking Ms. Hutchinson and denying her most explosive testimony.Few Republican officeholders have spoken publicly about the hearings, and most have either said nothing about the congressional investigation or dismissed it as a partisan sham. But there have been signs that Republicans recognize its potential power.“Ms. Hutchinson would be the star member of a women’s Republican club — a committed conservative, no reason to say anything but the truth,” said Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict in Mr. Trump’s second impeachment and has been a target of Mr. Trump’s since. He was one of the few lawmakers who spoke on the record. “It gives power to a testimony that allows Americans to judge for themselves.”Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 7Making a case against Trump. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Liz Cheney Calls Trump ‘a Domestic Threat That We Have Never Faced Before’

      by

      Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican and vice chairwoman of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, described former President Donald J. Trump in stark terms on Wednesday night as a threat to the republic who had “gone to war with the rule of law.”“At this moment, we are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before — and that is a former president who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic,” Ms. Cheney said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where her address was met with a sustained standing ovation.“He is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man,” she said, continuing, “Even after all we’ve seen, they’re enabling his lies.”Ms. Cheney spoke at a moment when Mr. Trump is potentially on the verge of announcing a presidential campaign for 2024, according to his advisers, raising the prospect of a front-running candidate in early polls who is also facing active civil and criminal investigations. Mr. Trump has also continued to repeat lies about his 2020 election loss, maintaining that the contest was “stolen” from him.“As the full picture is coming into view with the Jan. 6 committee, it has become clear that the efforts Donald Trump oversaw and engaged in were even more chilling and more threatening than we could have imagined,” Ms. Cheney said.Republicans, she said at another point, “have to choose,” because they “cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution.”It was a striking commentary from the daughter of a Republican former vice president, Dick Cheney, against the current leader of the Republican Party, even as he is out of office. Ms. Cheney had been a supporter of Mr. Trump’s until shortly after the 2020 election, when she criticized him for his baseless fraud allegations.In May 2021, she said she regretted voting for him the previous year.Ms. Cheney, who was forced out of her leadership post as the No. 3 Republican in the House last year as she repeatedly excoriated Mr. Trump for the events of Jan. 6, has become a fairly isolated presence within a party that remains heavily in thrall of the former president.She is seen as a potential presidential candidate in the 2024 election, in which she could try to plant a flag showing how the party has morphed from the one her father helped lead into one reshaped by Trumpism.Ms. Cheney began her speech by talking about undemocratic countries around the world and nations that are adversaries of the United States, including Russia and China. From there, she talked about Mr. Trump.She praised Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s last White House chief of staff, for her public testimony in Congress a day earlier.“Her bravery and patriotism were awesome to behold,” Ms. Cheney said.Ms. Cheney is facing a Trump-backed primary challenger for her Wyoming congressional seat in August, and the race is widely seen as an uphill battle for her. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House Counsel

      by

      Mr. Cipollone, who repeatedly fought extreme plans to overturn the election, had resisted publicly testifying to the panel.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued a subpoena Wednesday for the testimony of Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel to President Donald J. Trump who repeatedly fought back against extreme plans to overturn the 2020 election, after he resisted testifying publicly.In a statement accompanying the subpoena, the leaders of the committee said they were seeking Mr. Cipollone’s deposition testimony because investigators needed to “hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations.”The committee said it was seeking information about Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his involvement in plans to submit false slates of electors to Congress and interfere with the Justice Department.The subpoena of a White House counsel, a rare step for a congressional committee, sent a clear signal of the aggressive tactics the panel is willing to use to try to force cooperation of even the White House’s former top lawyer, who most likely could invoke attorney-client privilege in response to many questions. But the testimony of Mr. Cipollone — who participated in key conversations on Jan. 6 and throughout Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and is known to have doubted the legality of many of those plans — could prove consequential.The committee has at times used the leverage a subpoena creates to force witnesses to negotiate a deal for their cooperation. Discussions about the scope of a possible appearance are expected to begin soon.“Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said in a statement.A lawyer familiar with Mr. Cipollone’s deliberations, who was not authorized to speak for the record, said that the subpoena was needed before the former White House counsel could consider transcribed testimony before the committee, and that Mr. Cipollone would now evaluate matters of privilege as appropriate.Photos of Mr. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, who was his deputy, on screen during one of the Jan. 6 commitee’s hearings. Both men met with the panel in April, but they were not under oath.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesIn April, Mr. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, who was his deputy, met separately with the panel, two people familiar with the sessions said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the meetings.At the time, the two men were not under oath, and their interviews were not transcribed. Since then, Mr. Cipollone has resisted testifying publicly, despite calls from the committee for him to do so.“Our committee is certain that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Cipollone to testify here. But we think the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally,” Ms. Cheney announced from the dais at a hearing last week. “He should appear before this committee, and we are working to secure his testimony.”At a hearing on Tuesday, the committee heard testimony from a former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, who described Mr. Cipollone’s pivotal role during the events of Jan. 6.“Mark, we need to do something more,” Ms. Hutchinson said she heard Mr. Cipollone tell Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, on Jan. 6 as Mr. Trump’s supporters entered the Capitol. “They’re literally calling for the vice president to be f-ing hung.”Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 7Making a case against Trump. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Jan. 6 Panel Explores Links Between Trump Allies and Extremist Groups

      by

      Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide, testified that the former president directed his chief of staff to reach out to Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, who had ties to the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.In their relationships with President Donald J. Trump in recent years, Roger J. Stone Jr., his longtime political adviser, and Michael T. Flynn, who was briefly his national security adviser, have followed a similar trajectory.Both were either convicted of or pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. Both were pardoned by Mr. Trump after the 2020 presidential election. And both supported Mr. Trump in his relentless, multilayered efforts to reverse its outcome and remain in power.The two were, in a sense, together again on Tuesday, when both were mentioned within an instant of one another at the House select committee hearing by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff. Ms. Hutchinson told the panel that on Jan. 5, 2021, a day before the Capitol was stormed, Mr. Trump had directed Mr. Meadows to reach out to Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn.Ms. Hutchinson acknowledged that she did not know what her boss may have said to the men. But her testimony was the first time it was revealed that Mr. Trump, on the eve of the Capitol attack, had opened a channel of communication with a pair of allies who had not only worked on his behalf for weeks challenging the results of the election, but who also had extensive ties to extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who were soon to be at the forefront of the violence.The question of whether there was communication or coordination between the far-right groups that helped storm the Capitol and Mr. Trump and his aides and allies is among the most important facing the Jan. 6 investigators.Barring a criminal prosecution — or something else that could force the details of the calls into the public sphere — it could be tough to be figure out exactly what Mr. Meadows discussed with Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn.Since late last year, Mr. Meadows has refused to comply with a committee subpoena that seeks his testimony about the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 — a move that risked his indictment on contempt of Congress charges. As for Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn, both repeatedly exercised their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during their own interviews with the committee.Mr. Flynn’s interview was especially remarkable, according to a recording of it played at the hearing on Tuesday. A former three-star general who still collects a military pension, Mr. Flynn pleaded the Fifth Amendment even when he was asked if he believed the violence at the Capitol was wrong, and whether he supported the lawful transfer of presidential power.Ms. Hutchinson also told the panel that she recalled hearing about the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers while the planning was taking place for Mr. Trump’s public event near the White House on Jan. 6 — a time, she explained, when the former president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had been around.It is possible that Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn will receive more attention when the panel reconvenes for its next public hearing in July. That is when Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, has said he intends to lead a presentation that will focus on the roles far-right groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the 1st Amendment Praetorian played in the Capitol attack. Mr. Raskin has also promised to explore the connections between those groups and the people in Mr. Trump’s orbit.Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to President Donald J. Trump, has repeatedly denied that he had any role in the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan.6.Al Drago for The New York TimesBoth Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn fit that description, having maintained extensive ties to far-right groups in the postelection period. Much of the contact came at pro-Trump rallies in Washington when the men were guarded by members of the groups, who served as their bodyguards.For over a year, Mr. Stone has repeatedly denied that he had any role in the violence that erupted at the Capitol. Shortly after Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, he denied in a post on social media that Mr. Meadows had called him on the day before the attack.Mr. Flynn’s lawyer has failed to respond to numerous requests for comments about the role his client played in the events of Jan. 6 and the weeks leading up to it.As early as Dec. 12, 2020, the 1st Amendment Praetorian protected Mr. Flynn when he appeared as a speaker at a pro-Trump march in Washington. Joining the group as security at the event were members of the Oath Keepers, including the organization’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, who has since been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack.The 1st Amendment Praetorian also helped Mr. Flynn’s onetime lawyer, Sidney Powell, gather open source intelligence about allegations of election fraud that was ultimately funneled into a series of conspiracy-laden lawsuits she filed challenging the voting results, according to the group’s leader, Robert Patrick Lewis.Mr. Lewis, by his own account, played a minor role in another, even more brazen, attempt to overturn the election. He has claimed that, on Dec. 18, 2020, he drove Mr. Flynn and Ms. Powell to the White House for an Oval Office meeting at which they sought to persuade Mr. Trump to use his national security apparatus to seize voting machines around the country in his bid to stay in power.On Jan. 6 itself, according to audio recordings obtained by The New York Times, a few members of the 1st Amendment Praetorian protected Mr. Flynn again. Around the same time, according to court papers filed in a recent defamation case, a member of the group, Philip Luelsdorff, was briefly present in the so-called war room at the Willard Hotel where pro-Trump lawyers, including Mr. Giuliani and John Eastman, had set up shop to plan the objections to the certification of the Electoral College vote count.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 7Making a case against Trump. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Key Questions Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 Testimony Raises

      by

      The former White House aide’s appearance before the House Jan. 6 committee raised a host of issues sure to be topics of further inquiry.For two hours, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, laid out a devastating account on Tuesday of former President Donald J. Trump’s actions and state of mind on Jan. 6, 2021, and in the days leading up to it.Her testimony to the House select committee and a national television audience raised a series of questions that are sure to be the focus of continued inquiry by the committee, federal prosecutors and others seeking to flesh out Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse his election loss and remain in power.Here are some of the key issues presented by her testimony.What does this mean for a possible criminal prosecution?Ms. Hutchinson told the panel that moments before Mr. Trump went onstage to deliver his speech on the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, he was informed that people in the crowd were armed with a variety of weapons.By her account, he responded by urging that security measures be taken down to allow his supporters to fill in the area around the stage. And she testified that Mr. Trump said he was in no danger because the crowd was supportive of him and that the people there could go on to march to the Capitol.Legal experts said the testimony provided more evidence to support a possible criminal prosecution, as it suggested that Mr. Trump was aware of the potential for violence but went on to urge his supporters to head to the Capitol. During the speech, Mr. Trump encouraged the crowd to “fight like hell” and march to where Congress was certifying the Electoral College results — even promising that he would join them.The Justice Department has said nothing explicit about any investigative focus on Mr. Trump. But lawyers have pointed to a number of potential charges against him, including obstructing Congress, conspiracy and incitement.For months, the Justice Department has been documenting in court papers how rioters charged in the attack have claimed they were following Mr. Trump’s orders when they descended on and breached the Capitol. Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony could place Mr. Trump into a conspiratorial relationship with members of the mob, lawyers said, suggesting that he pushed them into action even though he was aware that they presented an immediate threat.How the Justice Department will proceed is perhaps the biggest question of all.What happened in the presidential vehicle?No piece of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony electrified the hearing room like her detailed description of a story she said she was told about Mr. Trump demanding to be taken to the Capitol in his armored vehicle when his speech at the Ellipse ended.Ms. Hutchinson recalled being told by Anthony Ornato, a deputy White House chief of staff, that after Mr. Trump’s security detail told him he could not go to the Capitol, the president “lunged” for the steering wheel and then struck or grabbed his lead agent, Robert Engel. Mr. Trump was not in the armored limousine known as “the Beast,” as Ms. Hutchinson implied, but in an S.U.V. that presidents sometimes ride in.Secret Service officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that both Mr. Engel and Mr. Ornato would dispute that Mr. Trump tried to grab the wheel of the car or that Mr. Engel was struck. They said the two men would not dispute that Mr. Trump wanted to be driven to the Capitol as the angry pro-Trump protesters, some of them armed, headed in that direction and Congress was gathered to ratify that he had lost the election and that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would be the next president.Both Mr. Engel and Mr. Ornato have appeared in private before the committee. It is not clear when they will appear again to answer questions about Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony. It is also unclear when the committee first heard the story about Mr. Trump’s actions in the vehicle from Ms. Hutchinson.Ms. Hutchinson made clear in her public testimony that she did not have direct knowledge of the incident, and it remains unclear what, if anything, the committee did to corroborate it. Still, Mr. Trump’s allies are now pointing to it as a misstep by the committee and using it to undermine the credibility of her testimony.Did Trump allies try to intimidate witnesses?For months, the committee has suggested that Mr. Trump or those close to him might have attempted to influence potential witnesses. Its members have suggested, for instance, that Mr. Trump may have influenced the refusal of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, to cooperate with the investigation.On Tuesday, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman, displayed what she said were two examples of unnamed people associated with Mr. Trump attempting to influence witnesses. One witness was told to “protect” certain individuals to “stay in good graces in Trump World.” In the other example, a witness was encouraged to remain “loyal.”“Most people know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns,” Ms. Cheney said. “We will be discussing these issues as a committee and carefully considering our next steps.”It is not clear whether the committee referred the incidents to the Justice Department for investigation or possible prosecution. According to Punchbowl News, Ms. Hutchinson was one of the people who received such a warning. Her lawyer did not respond to a message seeking comment.Mr. Trump and his advisers have come under scrutiny in previous situations for reportedly trying to influence witnesses. In 2017, a lawyer for Mr. Trump in the investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Russian officials in 2016 dangled the prospect of pardons to two people under investigation, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort. And in 2018, Mr. Trump’s public statements related to Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer who was under investigation by federal prosecutors, were looked at as possible acts of obstruction of justice.How did Trump and his aides react to the violence?Network PoolOne of the biggest issues is what exactly Mr. Trump was doing for the 187 minutes of the attack and what exactly the White House was doing to combat it. According to Ms. Hutchinson, the answer was: not much.On the day of the attack, Mr. Trump rebuffed efforts by his aides and family members, including his daughter Ivanka, to put out a statement telling the mob to stand down. Instead, he posted to Twitter attacking Mr. Pence.“Mark, we need to do something more,” Ms. Hutchinson said she heard the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, tell Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, as he rushed into her office after Mr. Trump’s supporters began entering the Capitol. “They’re literally calling for the vice president to be f-ing hung.”“You heard him, Pat,” she said Mr. Meadows responded, referring to Mr. Trump. “He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 7Making a case against Trump. More