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      Ivanka Trump testifies before panel investigating Capitol attack

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      Ivanka Trump testifies before panel investigating Capitol attackDonald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, spoke via video to committee about events of January 6 Ivanka Trump testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Donald Trump attempted in vain to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansRead moreThe Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said on Tuesday afternoon that she had been answering investigators’ questions on a video teleconference since the morning and was not “chatty” but had been helpful. “She came in on her own” and did not have to be subpoenaed, Thompson said.Ivanka Trump, who was with her father in the White House that day, is one of more than 800 witnesses the committee has interviewed as it works to compile a record of the attack, the worst on the Capitol in more than two centuries.She is the first of Trump’s children known to speak to the committee and one of the closest people to her father.Whether she gave the committee new information or not, her decision to cooperate was significant for the panel, which has been trying to secure an interview with her since late January.The nine-member panel is particularly focused on what the former president was doing as his supporters broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s victory for several hours as lawmakers and staff fled for their lives.The Guardian had earlier confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, would speak to the panel virtually.Her testimony came after that of her husband and fellow former presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who spoke to the panel for more than six hours last week.After Kushner’s testimony, Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation. When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Donald Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Republican senators stayed loyal.The House’s January 6 committee includes two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.As the Guardian reported this week, the committee has identified Ivanka Trump as a senior adviser who would have known her father’s attempt to block certification of electoral college results at the Capitol was unlawful.Referring to a law professor who presented the plan to block certification, a federal judge recently said it was “more likely than not that President Trump and Dr [John] Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 2021”, and thereby committed multiple felonies.Also in Washington on Tuesday, Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, pleaded not guilty to felony charges including conspiracy to block the certification by Congress of electoral college results on January 6. The January 6 committee also hopes Ivanka Trump might help explain a more-than seven-hour gap in White House call logs for the day of the Capitol attack.Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration has long been a lightning rod for controversy. On Monday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) said: “Here’s a question Ivanka Trump can answer: how did she and Jared make up to $640m while working ‘for free’ in the White House?”TopicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump to testify before panel investigating Capitol attack

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      Ivanka Trump to testify before panel investigating Capitol attackDonald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, to speak virtually to committee about events of January 6 Ivanka Trump will testify before the January 6 committee on Tuesday.‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansRead moreThe Guardian confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, will speak to the panel virtually.Her testimony will come after that of her husband and fellow former presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who spoke to the panel for more than six hours last week.After Kushner’s testimony, Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation. When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Donald Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Republican senators stayed loyal.The House’s January 6 committee includes two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.As the Guardian reported this week, the committee has identified Ivanka Trump as a senior adviser who would have known her father’s attempt to block certification of electoral college results at the Capitol was unlawful.Referring to a law professor who presented the plan to block certification, a federal judge recently said it was “more likely than not that President Trump and Dr [John] Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 2021”, and thereby committed multiple felonies.The committee also hopes Ivanka Trump might help explain a more-than seven-hour gap in White House call logs for 6 January.Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration has long been a lightning rod for controversy. On Monday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) said: “Here’s a question Ivanka Trump can answer: how did she and Jared make up to $640m while working ‘for free’ in the White House?”TopicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circle

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      Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circle House select committee seizes momentum as it embarks on final push to conclude evidence-gathering phase of inquiryThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalize on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete the roughly one hundred remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election.Members on the select committee believe Kushner’s cooperation might prompt other Trump officials to assist the investigation as the panel inches closer to Trump’s inner circle and the former president himself, according to sources familiar with the matter.The panel has also been buoyed by the federal court ruling that said Trump “more likely than not” violated the law over 6 January, reaffirming the purpose of the investigation and making it harder for Trump’s allies to defy the inquiry, the sources said.And members on the select committee believe that opening contempt of Congress proceedings against the Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino for ignoring their subpoenas, will reinforce the message that the panel will punish non-compliance, the sources said.“There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation,” Jamie Raskin, one of the congressmen on the panel, said of the burst of recent activity. “When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”The select committee has now conducted more than 800 depositions and interviews, obtained almost 90,000 documents and followed up on more than 435 tips received through the tip line on its website, since it started its work in earnest last August.House investigators also have more than 100 depositions remaining on the schedule, the sources said, including one with a key witness who is expected to reveal connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys militia groups and the Capitol attack.That deposition – slated for 5 April – would represent another breakthrough and could play a big role in establishing for the select committee whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy as part of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.It is so crucial, the sources said, since it could form part of the evidence to connect the militia groups that stormed the Capitol to the organizers of the rallies that immediately preceded the attack – who in turn are slowly being linked to the Trump White House.But that testimony has been on the books for several weeks, and the greater challenge for the select committee remains to resolve ongoing cooperation talks with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s one-time attorney, and Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter.The select committee has a special interest in Giuliani since he was in close contact with Trump as he oversaw the implementation of the scheme to have the thenvice-president, Mike Pence, stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win and return Trump to office.The Guardian first reported that Giuliani was poised to cooperate with the investigation and reveal the roles played by Republican members of Congress with caveats – such as not discussing matters covered by executive privilege – that are not yet resolved.House investigators have also identified Ivanka Trump as a key person of interest since she appeared to have learned before 6 January that the scheme to have Pence stop the certification was unlawful – but and might shed light on why the former president still went ahead with the plan.Testimony that speaks to whether Trump knew what he was pressing Pence to do was unlawful – and when he knew it – is a central question for the panel as it seeks to establish whether Trump’s actions should warrant a criminal referral to the justice department.The panel has also privately noted in recent days that Ivanka Trump might be able to shed light on who Trump was calling from the White House as the Capitol attack unfolded, after call logs from that day showed a near eight-hour gap in communications.The Guardian has revealed at least one of Trump’s phone calls on 6 January – when he dialed the Republican senator Mike Lee trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville – was routed through an official White House phone and should have been in the call logs but was not.As the select committee moves towards wrapping up the evidence-gathering phase of the investigation, the hope among its members is that the recent momentum will carry the inquiry through to public hearings that are now expected to start in mid-May.The panel remains undecided whether to demand cooperation from Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, after the Washington Post and CBS reported she pressed Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in texts to overturn the 2020 election.The issue centers on the fact that several members on the select committee did not know about Thomas’s texts – turned over by Meadows months ago – until news reports brought them to public attention, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Some members wanted to call her in to ask her about the texts, but others who had discussed the issue months ago demurred, arguing that Thomas, a far-right activist, was unlikely to assist the panel and would try to turn the inquiry into a political circus.A spokesperson for the panel did not respond to a request for comment.The select committee may yet request cooperation from Thomas, but House investigators are pursuing myriad lines of inquiry and whether to ask her for voluntary assistance or demand documents and testimony pursuant to a subpoena is just one strand, the sources said.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationJared KushnerIvanka TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump is helping Ukrainian refugees – it’s a far cry from her days palling around with oligarchs | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Ivanka Trump is helping Ukrainian refugees – it’s a far cry from her days palling around with oligarchsArwa MahdawiThe former president’s daughter has announced she helped deliver more than a million meals to Ukrainian refugees in Poland. How things have changed since the Abramovich party days Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Ivanka Trump swooping in to save Ukraine. Nato may not be giving Volodymyr Zelenskiy the no-fly zone he wants, but he can at least take solace in the fact that he has the full force of Saint Ivanka by his side.If you haven’t heard about the former first daughter’s latest selfless humanitarian exertions, it’s not because she has been modest about them. Ivanka has kept a low profile since her father lost the 2020 election, but has recently stepped back into the spotlight to ensure her good deeds don’t go unnoticed. On Friday, Ivanka updated her Instagram account for the first time since January with a post trumpeting the fact that she has helped deliver more than a million meals to Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Fox News also published a long puff piece full of adoring quotes from anonymous sources and a Florida pastor she is working with about how a plane full of food destined for refugees would never have got off the ground “if it weren’t for [Ivanka’s] immediate involvement”.Don’t get me wrong, helping refugees should always be applauded. Hurrah Ivanka! But it’s easy to be cynical about a Trump’s charity; quid pro quo seems to be the family motto. Donald Trump withheld congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine in 2019, 90 minutes after a phone call with Zelenskiy in which Trump seems to have pressured him for a favour – the subject of Trump’s first impeachment. Weirdly, I don’t recall Ivanka being quite so concerned about the Ukrainian people back then. She was, after all, busy palling around with oligarchs in Vladmir Putin’s inner circle, such as Roman Abramovich.People change, of course. I’ll be the first to admit that Ivanka is a very different person now to how she was when Dad was in power. She’s in the middle of fighting a fraud case for one thing and, very embarrassingly and inconveniently, Trump can’t prevent himself from calling Putin “smart”. There’s nothing like clinging to a crisis to help whitewash your image.TopicsIvanka TrumpOpinionUS politicsUkraineEuropefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump in talks to cooperate with January 6 panel, reports say

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      Ivanka Trump in talks to cooperate with January 6 panel, reports sayEx-president’s daughter may voluntarily appear for an interview, according to congressional committee Ivanka Trump is in talks with the January 6 House select committee about potentially cooperating with the panel, according to multiple US media reports.“Ivanka Trump is in discussions with the Committee to voluntarily appear for an interview,” a spokesperson for the daughter of former President Donald Trump said in a statement on Wednesday, CNN reported.According to the New York Times, which first reported the discussions, it remains unclear whether the preliminary negotiations would result in Trump actually providing substantial information to the committee.US Capitol attack panel discusses subpoena for Ivanka TrumpRead moreEarlier this month, the Guardian reported that the committee was considering issuing a subpoena to Trump to force her cooperation with the inquiry into the former president’s efforts to return himself to power on 6 January 2021.Any move to subpoena Trump and, for the first time, force a member of Donald Trump’s own family to testify against him, would mark a dramatic escalation in the January 6 inquiry that would amount to a treacherous legal and political moment for the former president.In January, the committee released a public letter addressed to Ivanka Trump in which committee members called upon her to provide “voluntary cooperation with our investigation”.“We write to request your voluntary cooperation with our investigation on a range of critical topics … We respect your privacy, and our questions will be limited to issues relating to January 6th, the activities that contributed to or influenced events on January 6th, and your role in the White House during that period,” the letter said.Sources familiar with the discussions told the New York Times that Trump had not yet agreed on a date for when she might speak with the committee and that the panel had not made any subpoena threats.Trump reportedly does not plan to follow in the steps of Steve Bannon, a staunch ally of her father who refused to cooperate with the panel and was later indicted for contempt of Congress. The sources added that Donald Trump had not requested his daughter refuse the committee’s requests.In the letter addressed to Ivanka Trump last month, the committee revealed new details about attempts to urge Donald Trump to condemn the violence on 6 January 2021.According to Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and the former vice-president Mike Pence’s national security adviser, Ivanka Trump and White House officials urged the president twice to condemn the violence.Donald Trump allegedly said no to aides, including his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Kellogg then asked Ivanka Trump to speak to the president, saying: “She went back in, because Ivanka can be pretty tenacious.”In an interview with the Washington Examiner last month, the former president criticized the committee’s investigation into his children, saying, “It’s a very unfair situation for my children … Very, very unfair.”TopicsUS Capitol attackIvanka TrumpDonald TrumpUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      It’s Trump’s time to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth | Lloyd Green

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      It’s Trump’s time to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truthLloyd GreenA New York judge has ruled Trump will have to testify in his fraud investigation, leaving Trump sweating and his investors shaking their heads Donald Trump’s bad luck continues. On Thursday afternoon, Arthur Engoron, a Manhattan judge, gave the thumbs up to subpoenas issued to Trump, favorite child Ivanka, and Donald Trump Jr, by Tish James, New York’s attorney general. The court’s ruling follows a decision by Trump’s accountants to walk away from the one-term president and disavow years of financial statements issued by his company.Much as the Trump trio tried, they could not shut down James’s investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices, which could lead to a civil suit by James. Unlike a criminal prosecution, a civil action comes with a lower burden of proof for the government. At the same time, civil lawsuits can drag on – like right into 2024. Barring a stay, Trump and his two children have been ordered to appear at deposition within 21 days.Trump and two eldest children must testify in New York case, judge rulesRead moreIf they tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, who knows what liability may result? On the other hand, if they invoke their right to remain silent, they will probably be portrayed as criminals.“You see, the mob takes the fifth,” Trump observed on the campaign trail in 2016. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment?”Time sure flies. And if the Trump family refuses to appear at deposition or simply stays mum when grilled, they risk being charged with contempt, a distinction presently held by Steve Bannon, Trump’s White House counselor and 2016 campaign guru.At this moment, Trump must be sweating while his lenders have to be shaking their collective heads. How much is Trump worth and how bad can things get are no longer hypothetical issues. In the absence of operative financial statements, restructurings and bank-called defaults have spilled into the realm of the real.As one Trump insider confided: “Hey, this might be serious. Could Donald Trump [and his business] be screwed? I don’t know, but I’m not as confident as I once was in saying, ‘No’.”Meanwhile, 2024 Republican presidential aspirants are likely stifling a collective smirk. Trump’s legal woes stand to broaden the Republican party’s presidential field, and for some it is downright personal.For Mike Pence, Trump’s hapless vice-president, these recent developments may well trigger a sense of schadenfreude. It wasn’t that long ago when Trump’s loyalists came with makeshift gallows for Pence as they stormed the Capitol, and Trump said nothing to deter the mob. Instead, he demanded loyalty from his No 2.As for Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, Trump’s troubles could not come at a better time. Trump has all but called DeSantis a coward for refusing to say whether he was vaccinated. Beyond that, Florida’s recent per capita Covid mortality rate is the seventh highest in the US, and DeSantis is having a hard time denouncing neo-Nazi violence.“So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to do with that,” the Sunshine state governor declared. “We’re not playing their game.”To be sure, Trump’s Maga base would stick with him through thick-and-thin. The party’s deep-pocketed donors are a different story. Trump may have delivered them a trove of tax cuts and ambassadorships, but he’s emotionally draining.Beyond that, his antics in the run-up to the 2020 Georgia runoff elections cost the Republicans control of the Senate. There are reasons Mitch McConnell rejects Trump’s lie that the election was stolen and is seeking to bypass the 45th president.Thursday’s ruling was scathing. At one point, the court concluded that the attorney general had uncovered “copious evidence of possible financial fraud”. Elsewhere, the judge excoriated Trump & Co for their flight to fantasy and fiction, invoking Alice in Wonderland, 1984 and Kellyanne Conway all in a single sentence.“The idea that an accounting firm’s announcement that no one should rely on a decade’s worth of financial statements that it issued based on numbers submitted by an entity somehow exonerates that entity and renders an investigation into its past practices moot is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll (‘When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said … it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less’); George Orwell (‘War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength’); and ‘alternative facts.’”In the past, Trump managed to weather storms surrounding his finances and credibility. Trump University did not stop the ex-reality show host’s political ascent. What happens next remains to be seen.Right now, Joe Biden’s poll numbers are in the low 40s, inflation is on the loose, and Nancy Pelosi is poised to lose the speaker’s gavel. Against that tableau, Trump poses a distraction from Republican ambitions, an unwelcome detour from anticipated outcome.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS politicsDonald Trump JrIvanka TrumpMike PenceKellyanne ConwayNew YorkcommentReuse this content More

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      US Capitol attack panel discusses subpoena for Ivanka Trump

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      US Capitol attack panel discusses subpoena for Ivanka TrumpHouse select committee is considering best way to get evidence from ex-president’s daughter about his efforts to cling to power The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is considering issuing a subpoena to Ivanka Trump to force her cooperation with the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to return himself to power on 6 January, according to a source familiar with the matter.Any move to subpoena Ivanka Trump and, for the first time, force a member of Trump’s own family to testify against him, would mark a dramatic escalation in the 6 January inquiry that could amount to a treacherous legal and political moment for the former president. Biden orders release of Trump White House visitor logs to January 6 panelRead moreThe panel is not expected to take the crucial step for the time being, the source said, and the prospect of a subpoena to the former president’s daughter emerged in discussions about what options remained available after she appeared to refuse a request for voluntary cooperation.But the fact that members on the select committee have started to discuss a subpoena suggests they believe it may ultimately take such a measure – and the threat of prosecution should she defy it – to ensure her appearance at a deposition on Capitol Hill.The select committee did not address a possible subpoena for Ivanka Trump at a closed-door meeting last Friday, and the panel wants to give her a reasonable window of opportunity to engage with the investigation before moving to force her cooperation, the source said.The panel would also have to formally vote to move ahead with such a measure, the source said, and Thompson would probably inform the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, of the decision before formally authorizing a subpoena to the former president’s daughter.But members on the select committee are not confident that Ivanka Trump would appear on her own volition, the source said, and the discussion about a subpoena reflected how important they consider her insight into whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy on 6 January.The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in an 11-page letter requesting her voluntary cooperation last month that the panel wanted to ask about Trump’s plan to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory to return himself to office.Ivanka Trump was close to the former president in the days leading up to the Capitol attack, Thompson said, and appeared to have learned the plan to have the then vice-president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify Biden’s election win in certain states was possibly unlawful.“The committee has information suggesting that President Trump’s White House counsel may have concluded that the actions President Trump directed Vice-President Pence to take would … otherwise be illegal. Did you discuss these issues?” the letter said.The letter added House investigators had additional questions about whether Ivanka Trump could say whether the former president had been told that such an action might be unlawful, and yet nonetheless persisted in pressuring Pence to reinstall him for a second term.Thompson also said in the letter that the panel wanted to learn more about Trump’s indifference to the insurrection, and discussions inside the White House about his tweet castigating Pence for not adopting his plan as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in his name.The letter said a persistent question for Ivanka Trump – who White House aides thought had the best chance of persuading the former president to condemn the rioters – was what she did about the situation and why her father did not call off the rioters in a White House address.The select committee said in the letter that they also wanted to ask her about what she knew with regard to the long delay in deploying the national guard to the Capitol, which allowed the insurrection to overwhelm law enforcement into the afternoon of 6 January.Thompson said that House investigators were curious why there appeared to have been no evidence that Trump issued any order to request the national guard, or called the justice department to request the deployment of personnel to the Capitol.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment on whether the panel was considering a subpoena for Ivanka Trump or the content of the Friday meeting. Neither a spokesperson for the former president nor Ivanka Trump responded to requests for comment.But Ivanka Trump has appeared to suggest she is not prepared to appear voluntarily, and said in a statement at the time of the letter requesting voluntary cooperation that “as the committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the January 6 rally”.TopicsUS Capitol attackIvanka TrumpDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump asked to cooperate with Capitol attack committee

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      Ivanka Trump asked to cooperate with Capitol attack committeeInvestigators seek testimony from former first daughter, with panel increasingly focused on Donald Trump’s inner circle The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is asking Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the former president, to appear for a voluntary deposition to answer questions about Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.Biden warns Russia will ‘pay a heavy price’ if Putin launches Ukraine invasion – liveRead moreThe move by the panel marks an aggressive new phase in its inquiry into the 6 January insurrection, as House investigators seek for the first time testimony from a member of the Trump family about potential criminality on the part of the former president.Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee, said in an 11-page letter to Ivanka Trump that the panel wanted to ask about Trump’s plan to stop the certification, and his response to the Capitol attack, including delays to deploying the national guard.Ivanka Trump was a senior adviser to her father during her presidency, as was her husband Jared Kushner. The two were seen as a power couple very close to the inner workings of the Trump White House.The questions to Ivanka appear directed at a key issue: whether her father oversaw a criminal conspiracy on 6 January that also involved obstructing a congressional proceeding – a crime.The letter said that the panel first wanted to question Ivanka Trump about what she recalled of a heated Oval Office meeting on the morning of the 6 January insurrection when the former president was trying to co-opt Mike Pence into rejecting Biden’s win.The former president was on the phone with the then vice-president in an Oval Office meeting with Ivanka and Keith Kellogg, a top Pence aide, the letter said. When Pence demurred on the former president’s repeated request, Ivanka turned to Kellogg and said Pence was “a good man”.Thompson said in the letter that the panel wanted to learn more about that exchange with Pence she heard, as well as other conversations about impeding the electoral count at the joint session of Congress on 6 January that she may have witnessed or participated in.“The committee has information suggesting that President Trump’s White House counsel may have concluded that the actions President Trump directed Vice-President Pence to take would … otherwise be illegal. Did you discuss these issues?” the letter said.Thompson added House investigators had additional questions about whether Trump could shed light on whether the former president had been told that such an action might be unlawful, and yet nonetheless persisted in pressuring Pence to reinstall him for a second term.The letter said the select committee was also interested in learning more from Trump about her father’s response to the Capitol attack on 6 January, and discussions inside the White House about the former president’s tweet castigating Pence for not adopting his plan.Thompson said the nagging question for Ivanka Trump – who White House aides thought had the best chance of having the former president condemn the rioters – was what she did about the situation and why her father did not call off the rioters in a White House address.The select committee said in the letter that they also wanted to ask her about what she knew with regard to the long delay in deploying the national guard to the Capitol, which allowed the insurrection to overwhelm law enforcement into the afternoon of 6 January.Thompson said that House investigators were curious why there appeared to have been no evidence that Trump issued any order to request the national guard, or called the justice department to request the deployment of personnel to the Capitol.Speaking to the Guardian and a small group of reporters on Thursday, the chairman of the select committee said that the immediate focus for the investigation was on the former president’s daughter and not subpoenas to Republican members of Congress.Thompson said the panel would be “inviting some people to come and talk to us. Not lawmakers right now. Ivanka Trump.”The letter comes after the US supreme court, in another blow to the former president, late on Wednesday rejected his request to block the release of more than 700 of the most sensitive of White House documents he had tried to hide from the select committee.The former president’s defeat means those documents – including presidential diaries, notes and memos from the files of top aides including the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows – that could shed light on the Capitol attack can now be transferred to Congress.TopicsUS Capitol attackIvanka TrumpUS politicsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More