Jacob, Gregory F (1974- )

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    Correos inéditos detallan el plan de Trump para seguir en el poder

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    Un intercambio de correos electrónicos entre algunos asesores externos y asistentes de la campaña de Trump ofrecen una nueva perspectiva de sus esfuerzos para anular las elecciones en las semanas previas al 6 de enero.Unos correos electrónicos que no habían sido divulgados ofrecen una mirada de los esfuerzos cada vez más desesperados, y a menudo descuidados, de los asesores del expresidente de Estados Unidos Donald Trump para revertir su derrota electoral en las semanas que antecedieron al ataque del 6 de enero, incluidos algunos mensajes que reconocían que algunos elementos cruciales de su plan eran de dudosa legalidad, al punto de que se les llegó a calificar como “falsos”.Decenas de correos electrónicos entre personas vinculadas a la campaña de Trump, asesores externos y aliados cercanos del expresidente muestran una atención especial en reunir listas de personas que, en su nombre, afirmarían —sin fundamento— ser electores en estados clave que Trump había perdido en el Colegio Electoral.En los correos electrónicos revisados por The New York Times y autentificados por personas que trabajaban con la campaña de Trump en ese momento, un abogado que participó en las conversaciones usó en repetidas ocasiones la palabra “falsos” para referirse a los supuestos electores, que pretendían proveer una justificación al vicepresidente Mike Pence y a los aliados de Trump en el Congreso para entorpecer el proceso de certificación del resultado electoral. Y los abogados que trabajaron en la propuesta dejaron claro que sabían que era posible que los electores pro-Trump que estaban presentando no resistirían el escrutinio legal.“Simplemente estaríamos enviando votos electorales ‘falsos’ a Pence para que ‘alguien’ en el Congreso pueda presentar una objeción cuando se empiecen contar los votos, y argumentar que los votos ‘falsos’ deben ser contados”, escribió Jack Wilenchik, un abogado con sede en Phoenix que ayudó a organizar a los votantes a favor de Trump en Arizona, en un correo que le envió a Boris Epshteyn, asesor estratégico de la campaña de Trump, el 8 de diciembre de 2020.En un correo electrónico de seguimiento, Wilenchik escribió que “votos ‘alternativos’ probablemente es un mejor término que votos ‘falsos’”, agregando un emoji de cara sonriente.Los correos brindan detalles inéditos sobre cómo un ala de la campaña de Trump trabajó con abogados y asesores externos para organizar un plan electoral y buscar una variedad de otras opciones, a menudo sin pensar en su practicidad. Un correo electrónico revela que muchos de los principales asesores de Trump fueron informados de los problemas que tenían para nombrar a los votantes de Trump en Michigan —un estado que había perdido—, porque las normas pandémicas habían forzado el cierre del edificio del Capitolio estatal, donde los supuestos electores se habrían reunido.Las comunicaciones muestran que los participantes en las discusiones informaron detalles de sus actividades a Rudolph Giuliani, el abogado personal de Trump y, en al menos un caso, a Mark Meadows, el jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca. Casi al mismo tiempo, según el comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero, Meadows envió un correo a otro asesor de campaña en el que advertía: “Solo necesitamos a alguien que coordine a los votantes de los estados”.Muchos de los correos electrónicos están dirigidos a Epshteyn, quien coordinaba a las personas dentro y fuera de la campaña de Trump y la Casa Blanca y sigue siendo un colaborador cercano de Trump.Epshteyn, según muestran los correos, era un contacto usual para John Eastman, el abogado que diseñó el plan adoptado por Trump para entorpecer la certificación del resultado del Colegio Electoral en el Congreso el 6 de enero de 2021.Epshteyn no solo le presentó y envió a Giuliani la propuesta detallada para el 6 de enero que Eastman preparó, sino que también se encargó de cómo pagarle a Eastman e hizo los arreglos necesarios para que asistiera a la Casa Blanca el 4 de enero de 2021, según los correos electrónicos.Ese fue el día de la reunión en el Despacho Oval en la que Trump y Eastman presionaron sin éxito a Pence para que adoptara el plan, un intercambio del que fueron testigos los dos principales asesores de Pence, Marc Short y Greg Jacob, quienes testificaron la semana pasada frente al jurado federal que investiga el asalto al Capitolio, y las decisiones que provocaron ese incidente.Los correos destacan la actuación de Mike Roman, director de operaciones del día de las elecciones para la campaña de Trump, quien se encargó de buena parte del trabajo preliminar para encontrar las formas de desafiar las derrotas de Trump en los estados clave.Epshteyn y Roman estuvieron en coordinación con otras personas que tuvieron un rol en asesorar a Trump, según muestran los correos electrónicos. Entre esas personas estaban los abogados Jenna Ellis y Bruce Marks; Gary Michael Brown, quien fue subdirector de operaciones del día de las elecciones para la campaña de Trump, y Christina Bobb, quien en ese momento trabajaba para One America News Network y ahora trabaja con el comité de acción política de Trump.Al parecer, los correos electrónicos no se compartieron con los abogados de la Oficina del Abogado de la Casa Blanca, quienes informaron que el plan de “electores falsos” no era sólido legalmente, ni con otros abogados en la campaña.Algunos de los involucrados también expresaron en los correos electrónicos su anuencia para mantener algunas de sus actividades fuera del ojo público.Por ejemplo, después de que Trump recibió a los legisladores del estado de Pensilvania en la Casa Blanca a finales de noviembre para discutir la restitución del resultado de las elecciones, Epshteyn celebró cuando la noticia del encuentro no fue filtrada con rapidez. “La reunión en la CB no se ha hecho pública, lo cual es impactante y grandioso”, le escribió a Ellis.Jenna Ellis, a la izquierda, Rudolph Giuliani y Boris Epshteyn, a la derecha, participaron en el esfuerzo coordinado para anular el resultado de las elecciones de 2020.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersEl 8 de diciembre de 2020, Wilenchik escribió que Kelli Ward, una de las republicanas de Arizona que participaron en el plan de los electores falsos, recomendó tratar de “mantenerlo en secreto hasta que el Congreso cuente los votos el 6 de enero (para que podamos intentar ‘sorprender’ a los demócratas y a los medios con eso), y me inclino a estar de acuerdo con ella”.Epshteyn, Wilenchik, Roman, Eastman, Bobb y James Troupis, otro abogado involucrado en el plan, se negaron a comentar o no respondieron a los correos electrónicos o llamadas para solicitar sus comentarios.Marks, en un correo electrónico, cuestionó que hubiera algo inapropiado o indebido en su trabajo.“No creo que haya nada ‘falso’ o ilegal en las listas alternas de delegados, y particularmente en Pensilvania”, dijo. “Había un historial de listas electorales alternativas en Hawái en 1960. Nada sobre esto era secreto: se proporcionaron a los Archivos Nacionales, según entiendo que fue el procedimiento, y luego le correspondía al Congreso decidir qué hacer”.Marks agregó: “No estuve involucrado con el consejo del profesor Eastman con respecto al papel del vicepresidente, del cual me enteré después del hecho y no respaldo”.El comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero al Capitolio ha recopilado pruebas de que Trump tenía conocimiento del plan sobre los electores. Ronna McDaniel, la presidenta del Comité Nacional Republicano (CNR), dijo en una declaración que Trump la había llamado y puso a Eastman al teléfono “para hablar de la importancia de que el CNR ayude a la campaña para reunir a estos electores contingentes”.El panel también escuchó el testimonio de Jacob, quien fue abogado de Pence en la Casa Blanca, quien indicó que Eastman reconoció en la reunión del Despacho Oval del 4 de enero —donde Trump estaba presente— que su plan de que Pence obstaculizara la certificación electoral violaba la Ley de Conteo Electoral.En ocasiones, los correos electrónicos muestran poca precisión en las conversaciones entre los abogados. Marks se refirió en repetidas ocasiones a Cleta Mitchell, otra abogada que ayudaba a Trump, como “Clita” y “Clavita”, lo que ocasionó que Epshteyn replicara: “Es Cleta, no Clavita”.En otra ocasión, Epshteyn le escribió a Marks: “¿Cuando dices Nevada quieres decir Arizona???”.Para principios de diciembre, Epshteyn parecía estar ayudando a coordinar los esfuerzos, al deliberar repetidamente con Marks y otros. Wilenchik le dijo a sus colegas abogados que había estado discutiendo una idea propuesta por otro abogado que trabajaba con la campaña, Kenneth Chesebro, un aliado de Eastman, para enviar listas de electores leales a Trump.“Su idea básicamente es que todos nosotros (Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pensilvania), hagamos que nuestros electores envíen sus votos (aunque los votos no son legales bajo la ley federal, porque no están firmados por el gobernador), de modo que los integrantes del Congreso se peleen sobre si deben contarse el 6 de enero”, escribió Wilenchik en un correo electrónico enviado a Epshteyn y a otras personas, el 8 de diciembre de 2020.“Medio loco/creativo, me encantaría conversarlo”, continuó Wilenchick. “Lo que le comentó fue que supongo que no hace daño, (al menos legalmente), es decir, solo estaríamos enviando votos electorales ‘falsos’ a Pence para que ‘alguien’ en el Congreso pueda presentar una objeción cuando empiecen a contarse los votos y empiecen a defender que los votos ‘falsos’ deben contarse”.Seguidores del presidente Donald Trump protestaron en Phoenix dos días después del día de las elecciones. Arizona fue uno de los estados escogidos para el esquema de falsos electores.Adriana Zehbrauskas para The New York TimesAl organizar el esquema de falsos electores, los abogados nombraron a una “persona de enlace” en siete estados para organizar a los electores dispuestos a firmar documentos falsos. En Pensilvania, ese enlace era Douglas V. Mastriano, quien ahora es el nominado republicano a la gubernatura y fue partidario de las mentiras de Trump sobre el robo de las elecciones.Pero incluso Mastriano exigía garantías para seguir el plan que otros republicanos le decían era “ilegal”, según un correo electrónico enviado por Bobb que también apuntaba a Giuliani, exalcalde de la Ciudad de Nueva York, el 12 de diciembre.“Mastriano necesita una llamada del alcalde. Hay que hacerlo. Hablarle de la legalidad de lo que están haciendo”, escribió. Y añadió: “Los electores quieren que los tranquilicen de que el proceso es * legal * y esencial para la estrategía general”.Los correos mostraban que, al principio, el grupo esperaba que las legislaturas estatales republicanas o los gobernadores se unieran a sus planes para darles un sello de legitimidad. Pero para diciembre, estaba claro que ninguna autoridad iba a aceptar participar, así que los abogados de Trump se propusieron presionar a Pence, quien debía presidir una sesión conjunta del Congreso el 6 de enero.El 7 de diciembre, Troupis, que trabajaba para la campaña de Trump en Wisconsin, le escribió a Epshteyn que no había “necesidad de que los legisladores actuaran”. Invocó el análisis jurídico de Chesebro de que la clave para las esperanzas de Trump no era bloquear la certificación estatal de los electores el 14 de diciembre, sino crear un motivo para que Pence bloqueara o dilatara la certificación del Congreso de los resultados del Colegio Electoral el 6 de enero.“La segunda lista solo se presenta al mediodía del lunes y vota y luego transmite los resultados”, escribió Troupis sobre la organización de las listas de electores republicanos para que emitieran votos por Trump el 14 de diciembre. “Le corresponde a Pence abrirlos el 6 de enero. Nuestra estrategia, que pensamos se puede replicar en los 6 estados en disputa, es que los electores se reúnan y voten de modo que una decisión interina de una corte certifique a Trump como ganador pueda ejecutarse por la corte y ordenar al gobernador que emita lo necesario para nombrar a los electores. La clave sería que los seis estados lo hagan de modo que la elección siga en duda hasta enero”.Los documentos también mostraron que el equipo legal se había apoyado en información muy desacreditada para los reclamos de fraude electoral. El 17 de diciembre, Epshteyn escribió a Giuliani que un documento de fraude electoral creado por el asesor de Trump en materia de comercio, Peter Navarro — que ha sido desacreditado por informes periodísticos, funcionarios estatales y tribunales— “parece ser el resumen más completo de fraude de votantes de esta temporada electoral”.Los abogados estaban conscientes de que sus esfuerzos jurídicos eran motivo de sorna El 23 de diciembre, Marks escribió: “A ustedes los están matando en los medios por su estrategia de litigio, incluso en Fox y entre los conservadores”.Pero no se amilanaron.Para la víspera de Navidad, Eastman parecía querer aprovechar el poder de los millones de seguidores de Trump.Esa noche, a las 8:04 p. m. Eastman le envió a Epshteyn un correo electrónico que había recibido en el que una mujer le rogaba pedirle a Trump que “le dijera a sus 74 millones de seguidores lo que quiere que hagan para ayudar”. Y añadió: “Tenemos que ser una sola voz, con precisión láser, EXPRESÁNDOSE CON LA FUERZA DE 74 MILLONES”.Un video de John Eastman, a la izquierda, acogiéndose a la Quinta Enmienda durante una declaración ante el comité de la Cámara el 6 de enero.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn su correo electrónico a Epshteyn, Eastman escribió, “Pensé en reenviarte esto. La fuerza de 74 millones. Averigüemos un modo específico de desplegarlos. ¿Estruendo vibrante? ¿Una legislatura a la vez? Los demás podrían darse cuenta”.Días antes, Trump les había dicho a sus seguidores que fueran a Washington el 6 de enero para una “protesta” que prometía sería “salvaje”.El 27 de diciembre, Epshteyn escribió que a Trump le “gustaba” el enfoque agresivo que proponían los abogados y que Eastman sería el “rostro de la estrategia de medios” junto con Giuliani.“Necesitamos una voz allá”, escribió Epshteyn sobre Eastman, diciendo que a él “ya lo había dado a conocer/apoyado POTUS”.En ese momento, solo faltaban días para el 6 de enero.Maggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y formó parte de un equipo que ganó un Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores de Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. @maggieNYTLuke Broadwater cubre el Congreso de Estados Unidos. Fue el reportero principal de una serie de artículos de investigación en The Baltimore Sun que ganó un premio Pulitzer y un premio George Polk en 2020. @lukebroadwater More

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      Justice Dept. Asking Witnesses About Trump in Its Jan. 6 Investigation

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      Federal prosecutors sought information about the former president’s role in the efforts to overturn the election as the inquiry accelerates.Federal prosecutors have directly asked witnesses in recent days about former President Donald J. Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse his election loss, a person familiar with the testimony said on Tuesday, suggesting that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has moved into a more aggressive and politically fraught phase.Mr. Trump’s personal role in elements of the push to overturn his loss in 2020 to Joseph R. Biden Jr. has long been established, both through his public actions and statements and evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.But the Justice Department has been largely silent about how and even whether it would weigh pursuing potential charges against Mr. Trump, and reluctant even to concede that his role was discussed in senior leadership meetings at the department.Asking questions about Mr. Trump in connection with the electors plot or the attack on the Capitol does not mean the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into him, a decision that would have immense political and legal ramifications.The department’s investigation into a central element of the push to keep Mr. Trump in office — the plan to name slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in battleground states won by Mr. Biden — now appears to be accelerating as prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington ask witnesses about Mr. Trump and members of his inner circle, including the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the person familiar with the testimony said.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Emails Reveal Details of Trump Fake Electors Plan

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      Previously undisclosed communications among Trump campaign aides and outside advisers provide new insight into their efforts to overturn the election in the weeks leading to Jan. 6.Previously undisclosed emails provide an inside look at the increasingly desperate and often slapdash efforts by advisers to President Donald J. Trump to reverse his election defeat in the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack, including acknowledgments that a key element of their plan was of dubious legality and lived up to its billing as “fake.”The dozens of emails among people connected to the Trump campaign, outside advisers and close associates of Mr. Trump show a particular focus on assembling lists of people who would claim — with no basis — to be Electoral College electors on his behalf in battleground states that he had lost.In emails reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who had worked with the Trump campaign at the time, one lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called electors, who were intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome. And lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny.“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign.In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” adding a smiley face emoji.The emails provide new details of how a wing of the Trump campaign worked with outside lawyers and advisers to organize the elector plan and pursue a range of other options, often with little thought to their practicality. One email showed that many of Mr. Trump’s top advisers were informed of problems naming Trump electors in Michigan — a state he had lost — because pandemic rules had closed the state Capitol building where the so-called electors had to gather.The emails show that participants in the discussions reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and in at least one case to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. Around the same time, according to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, Mr. Meadows emailed another campaign adviser saying, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.”Many of the emails went to Mr. Epshteyn, who was acting as a coordinator for people inside and outside the Trump campaign and the White House and remains a close aide to Mr. Trump.Mr. Epshteyn, the emails show, was a regular point of contact for John Eastman, the lawyer whose plan for derailing congressional certification of the Electoral College result on Jan. 6, 2021, was embraced by Mr. Trump.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Marc Short Testifies to Grand Jury in Jan. 6 Investigation

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      Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Greg Jacob, a lawyer for Mr. Pence, were subpoenaed in the Justice Department’s expanding criminal inquiry.Two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence testified last week to a federal grand jury in Washington investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the highest-ranking officials of the Trump administration so far known to have cooperated with the Justice Department’s widening inquiry into the events leading up to the assault.The appearances before the grand jury of the men — Marc Short, who was Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, who was his counsel — were the latest indication that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the events surrounding and preceding the riot is intensifying after weeks of growing questions about the urgency the department has put on examining former President Donald J. Trump’s potential criminal liability.The testimony of the two Pence aides marked the first time it has become publicly known that figures with firsthand knowledge of what took place inside the White House in the tumultuous days before the attack have cooperated with federal prosecutors.Both Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob played important roles in describing to a House select committee conducting a parallel investigation of the Capitol attack how Mr. Trump, working with allies like the lawyer John Eastman, mounted a campaign to pressure Mr. Pence into disrupting the normal counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, as part of an effort to keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Short’s testimony was confirmed by two people familiar with it, as was Mr. Jacob’s.The Justice Department has at times appeared to be lagging behind the House select committee, which has spoken to more than 1,000 witnesses, including some from inside the Trump White House. Much of that testimony has been highlighted at a series of public hearings over the past two months.It remains unclear precisely what Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob told the grand jury or what questions prosecutors may have asked them. But both previously gave recorded and transcribed interviews to the House committee, and Mr. Jacob served as a live witness at one of the panel’s public hearings that focused on the effort to strong-arm Mr. Pence.Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob were present in the Oval Office for a meeting on Jan. 4, 2021, at which Mr. Trump had Mr. Eastman try to persuade Mr. Pence that he could delay or block congressional certification of Mr. Trump’s Electoral College defeat.Mr. Eastman’s plan relied on Mr. Pence being willing to accept, as he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, that there were disputes over the validity of electors whose votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. had already been certified by the states — a baseless assertion that had been promoted by a number of Trump allies in the previous weeks as a last-ditch way to help keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Pence ultimately rejected Mr. Trump’s pressure on him to go along. But the so-called fake electors proposal has been one of the primary lines of inquiry to have become public in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation.Mr. Short also provided the House committee with testimony that highlighted the sense of threat that built from Mr. Trump’s efforts to derail the congressional proceedings on Jan. 6.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      For Mike Pence, Jan. 6 Began Like Many Days. It Ended Like No Other.

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      An angry mob chanting “hang Mike Pence” came within 40 feet of the vice president. He spent nearly five hours in an underground loading dock. And the president called him a “wimp” and worse.Former Vice President Mike Pence spent almost five hours on Jan. 6 in a loading dock beneath the Capitol. At one point, an angry mob chanting “hang Mike Pence” came within 40 feet of him.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWASHINGTON — He started the day with a prayer.Vice President Mike Pence, preparing to withstand the final stage of a relentless campaign by President Donald J. Trump to force him to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, began Jan. 6, 2021, surrounded by aides at his official residence at the Naval Observatory, asking God for guidance.The group was expecting a difficult day. But what followed over the next 12 hours was more harrowing than they imagined.An angry mob with baseball bats and pepper spray chanting “hang Mike Pence” came within 40 feet of the vice president. Mr. Pence’s Secret Service detail had to hustle him to safety and hold him for nearly five hours in the bowels of the Capitol. Mr. Trump called Mr. Pence a “wimp” and worse in a coarse and abusive call that morning from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump’s daughter and former White House aides testified.And a confidential witness who traveled to Washington with the Proud Boys, the most prominent of the far-right groups that helped lead the assault on the Capitol, later told investigators the group would have killed Mr. Pence — and Speaker Nancy Pelosi — if they got the chance.Those were among the extraordinary new details that emerged during the third public hearing held Thursday by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol.Mr. Pence’s day dawned as it often did. The vice president, whose evangelical faith was a selling point for adding him to the presidential ticket in 2016 but often a source of skepticism for Mr. Trump, was joined by three people in prayer: his chief counsel, Greg Jacob; his chief of staff, Marc Short; and his director of legislative affairs, Chris Hodgson.Mr. Pence and the team had been subjected to a barrage of demands from Mr. Trump that the vice president refuse to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory in a joint session of Congress — an unconstitutional action never before taken in the two and a half centuries since the nation’s founding.“We just asked for guidance and wisdom, knowing the day was going to be a challenging one,” Mr. Short said in videotaped testimony played by the committee.While Mr. Pence was at the Naval Observatory, Mr. Trump was in the Oval Office with aides and family members trickling in and out, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Ivanka Trump. He had already sent two Twitter posts further pressuring Mr. Pence, the first at 1 a.m. The second, at 8 a.m., concluded, “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”At 11:20 a.m., Mr. Trump called Mr. Pence, who stepped away from his aides to take the call.The group in the Oval Office could hear Mr. Trump’s side of the call but paid little attention to what seemed to start as a routine conversation. But as Mr. Trump became increasingly heated that Mr. Pence was holding firm in his refusal to give in, the call became hard to ignore.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers in declaring victory prematurely and relentlessly pressing claims of fraud he was told were wrong.Day Three: Mr. Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing.“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp,’” Nick Luna, an aide to Mr. Trump, said in videotaped testimony. “‘Wimp’ is the word I remember.”Ivanka Trump, the president’s older daughter and a former top White House adviser, said in her videotaped testimony that “it was a different tone than I heard him take with the vice president before.”Ms. Trump’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, appeared in videotaped testimony to say that Ms. Trump told her shortly after the call that Mr. Trump had an “upsetting” conversation with Mr. Pence. The president, Ms. Radford said, used “the P word.” (The New York Times reported previously that Mr. Trump had told Mr. Pence, “You can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy,” according to two people briefed on the conversation.)Over at the Naval Observatory, Mr. Pence returned to the room after taking the call looking “steely,” “determined” and “grim,” Mr. Jacob told the committee.Mr. Trump in the meantime revised a speech that he delivered later that day to throngs of supporters on the Ellipse. An early draft of the speech, the committee said, included no mention of Mr. Pence. But after the call, the president included language that video footage showed riled up the mob.“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing,” Mr. Trump said in his speech. “I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win.”“All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people,” Mr. Trump continued, referring to one of his demands that Mr. Pence send the election results back to the states, a delaying tactic that he hoped would ultimately keep him in office. If Mr. Pence failed to comply, Mr. Trump told the crowd, “that will be a sad day for our country.’’He added, “So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to,” using the term for “Republicans in name only.”Mr. Trump directed his supporters to march to the Capitol and make themselves heard.By the time Mr. Pence arrived at the Capitol with his wife, Karen Pence, and their daughter Charlotte, an angry mob was already massing outside.Inside, as the joint session began, Mr. Pence’s aides released a memo to the public laying out the vice president’s view that he did not have the power over the certification that Mr. Trump and his lawyer, John Eastman, insisted he did.Shortly after 2:10 p.m., the proceedings were interrupted by loud noises. The mob was swarming into the building. At 2:24 p.m. — when Democrats on the committee said Mr. Trump was aware that the Capitol had been breached — the president posted to Twitter that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary.”At that point, the Secret Service had moved Mr. Pence from the Senate chamber to his office across the hall. His advisers said the noise from the rioters had become audible, leading them to assume they had entered the building. Yet there was not yet a pervasive sense of alarm.Mr. Pence in his office in the Capitol on Jan. 6 shortly after leaving the Senate chamber.White HouseOnce in his office, Mr. Pence sat with his family, including his brother, Representative Greg Pence and top aides as Mr. Short ducked downstairs to grab some food. Mrs. Pence drew the curtains to keep the rioters from looking in.Mr. Short made his way back to the office. By then, Tim Giebels, the lead Secret Service agent for Mr. Pence, had made a few attempts to nudge Mr. Pence and his family to move to a different location. But soon he was no longer making a suggestion. Mr. Pence, he said, had to get to safety.The entourage began to make its way down a stairway toward an underground loading dock — the point at which they came within 40 feet of the rioters. Mr. Pence and his aides did not know at the time just how close they were to the mob, some of whom were threatening to kill him.“I could hear the din of the rioters in the building,” Mr. Jacob said Thursday at the hearing. “I don’t think I was aware they were as close as that.”From the loading dock, Mr. Pence handled calls to congressional leaders who had been evacuated from the Capitol complex and ordered the Pentagon to send in the National Guard. The Secret Service directed him to get into a car and evacuate, but he refused to leave the building.“The vice president did not want to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol,” Mr. Jacob said Thursday, noting that Mr. Pence did not want to give the rioters the satisfaction of disrupting the proceedings more than they had already done. “He was determined that we would complete the work that we had set out to do that day.”One person he never spoke with again that day was Mr. Trump, who did not call to check on Mr. Pence’s safety. Neither did the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.Just after 8 p.m., the Senate chamber opened again, after the rioters had been cleared from the complex.“Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol,” Mr. Pence said as the proceedings began again. He was greeted with applause when he said, “Let’s get back to work.”Back at the White House, egged on by some of his advisers, Mr. Trump told aides he wanted to bar Mr. Short from entering the West Wing from then on.At 3:42 in the morning, it was all over. Mr. Biden’s victory had been certified.At 3:50 a.m., as Mr. Pence and Mr. Short went their separate ways, Mr. Short texted his boss a passage from the Bible.“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” the message read. More

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      4 Takeaways From Today’s Jan. 6 Hearing

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      The Jan. 6 committee’s hearing on Thursday, which documented the relentless but unsuccessful campaign by President Donald J. Trump to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into helping him to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election, swerved wildly at times between wonky discussions of constitutional law and unsettling images of the threats and violence that Mr. Trump’s attacks on Mr. Pence inspired.But at the heart of the committee’s presentation was a straightforward narrative.Weeks before the mob attack on the Capitol, Mr. Trump joined forces with a law professor named John Eastman, who was espousing a theory that Mr. Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, had the power to alter the outcome of the election — or at least to delay certification of Mr. Trump’s defeat.Armed with this dubious legal cudgel, and with his other avenues for retaining power closing off, Mr. Trump pushed and pushed at Mr. Pence, including publicly on Jan. 6, helping to rile up his supporters and trigger the riot at the Capitol.Mr. Pence — backed by his own advisers and other legal experts — resisted Mr. Trump from the moment the idea came up.Here are four takeaways from Thursday’s hearing.Even Eastman doubted his plan’s legality, and he let Trump know that.The panel displayed on Thursday an image of the handwritten notes of Greg Jacob, attorney for Vice President Mike Pence, from a meeting with John Eastman.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Trump went ahead with the pressure campaign on Mr. Pence even though Mr. Eastman, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and a law professor at Chapman University, was less than certain at times about the legality and political viability of his own plan.The committee, for example, introduced an email that Mr. Eastman had written in the early stages of the scheme, in which he said that the idea of having lawmakers in pro-Trump states draft alternate slates of electors to give Mr. Pence a reason for disputing the results was “dead on arrival in Congress.”Mr. Eastman also admitted in a private conversation with Mr. Pence’s top lawyer, Greg Jacob, that if the Supreme Court ever had to rule on the legality of a vice president deciding the results of an election on his own, the court would unanimously vote to toss the matter, Mr. Jacob testified.But more important, Mr. Jacob told the committee in a videotaped deposition — snippets of which were played during the hearing — that Mr. Eastman had admitted in Mr. Trump’s presence that the plan to pressure Mr. Pence violated an 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act. According to Mr. Jacob, Mr. Eastman acknowledged the illegality of the scheme in front of Mr. Trump on Jan. 4, 2021, just two days before Mr. Pence was to oversee the certification of the election.That crucial admission by Mr. Eastman was highlighted by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the committee’s vice chairwoman, who has long suggested that Mr. Trump could be charged with a federal crime for the role he played in obstructing the certification of the vote count on Jan. 6.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee assembled an account of how Mr. Trump’s advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night in 2020, but instead he listened to Rudolph W. Giuliani.A Striking Contrast: Many Trump officials have told the committee that they tried to dissuade the former president from his bid to overturn the election. But at the time, their words were far different in public.Fund-Raising Tactics: The Jan. 6 panel has raised questions about Mr. Trump’s aggressive solicitations, accusing him of misleading donors with election fraud claims.If prosecutors can prove that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman were aware in advance that the scheme to pressure Mr. Pence would violate the law, it could be an important piece of evidence suggesting intent, should the Justice Department decide to pursue a criminal case against either of them.Both Ms. Cheney and a colleague on the committee, Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California, mentioned that a federal judge had already ruled in a related civil suit that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman most likely conspired together to obstruct the certification of the election and to commit fraud against the United States.In his ruling from March, Judge David O. Carter wrote that “the illegality of the plan was obvious,” calling it a “coup in search of a legal theory.”Mr. Eastman was apparently sufficiently worried about being prosecuted for his role that he inquired a few days after Jan. 6 about getting a pardon before Mr. Trump left office.Pence never wavered on rebuffing Trump.Vice President Mike Pence, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, certifying the results of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf there was one thing the committee’s hearing made clear, it was that Mr. Pence, despite his history of loyalty to Mr. Trump, never believed he had the power to decide the election — and almost no one else in Mr. Trump’s orbit did, either.According to Mr. Jacob, Mr. Pence’s “first instinct” was to reject the notion out of hand, undercutting assertions by Mr. Trump’s allies at the time that he was open to the idea. Mr. Jacob told the committee that even during his first meeting with Mr. Pence about Mr. Eastman’s plan, the vice president was horrified, saying he did not believe that the founders who “abhorred concentrated power” would have ever agreed that one person — especially one who had an interest in the outcome — could have exercised sole discretion over an election.Mr. Pence, it turned out, had wide support both inside and outside the White House. The committee, in its presentation, offered up a lengthy list of aides and advisers who seemed to disagree with Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman.In a recorded deposition, Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, said that Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s own chief of staff, agreed that the vice president did not have a broad or decisive role to play in determining election results.Another top Trump aide, Jason Miller, in his own recorded deposition, told the committee that Pat Cipollone, Mr. Trump’s White House counsel, thought Mr. Eastman’s plan was “nutty.” He added that Sean Hannity, the very pro-Trump Fox News host, felt that Mr. Pence had done the “right thing” by rebuffing it.Even Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, seemed to doubt Mr. Eastman’s legal theory, according to Eric Herschmann, a former top White House lawyer. But, as Mr. Herschmann noted in a recorded deposition, that did not stop Mr. Giuliani from publicly promoting Mr. Eastman’s plan on Jan. 6.There was no legal underpinning to the Eastman plan.J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge, speaking during Thursday’s hearing.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAt times, the hearing sounded not unlike like a law school seminar on election procedure, with highly technical discussions of how the vice president’s role on Jan. 6 fit into the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act.Leading those discussions was J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge, revered by conservatives. On the morning before the Capitol attack, Judge Luttig posted a thread of messages on Twitter asserting that Mr. Pence had no power to use his own discretion in deciding the election.“The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast,” Judge Luttig wrote.He added: “The Constitution does not empower the vice president to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain of them or otherwise.”In his testimony on Thursday, Judge Luttig denounced Mr. Eastman’s plan as “constitutional mischief,” adding that if Mr. Pence had gone along with it, it would have “plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America.”The pressure campaign helped trigger the violence.Supporters of President Donald J. Trump storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s public calls for Mr. Pence to carry out Mr. Eastman’s plan raised expectations among his supporters that the vice president would do so — and ignited fury when he did not.Mr. Short, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, had grown sufficiently concerned about the potential for Trump supporters to turn against the vice president that he alerted the Secret Service on Jan. 5.Mr. Pence continued to rebuff Mr. Trump even after a call from the president on the morning of Jan. 6 in which Mr. Trump called him a “wimp” and worse, according to testimony gathered by the committee.At 2:24 p.m. on Jan. 6, Mr. Trump sent out a tweet that said, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”One Trump aide told the committee that it felt at the time like Mr. Trump was “pouring gasoline on the fire.” Immediately, the committee said, there was a noticeable surge in the crowds both inside and outside the Capitol, some of whom began to chant, “Hang Mike Pence!”Mr. Pence was evacuated from his ceremonial office in the Senate and taken to a secure location, barely escaping the angry mob that breached the building. When Mr. Aguilar told Mr. Jacob, who had been with Mr. Pence in the Capitol that day, that members of the crowd had been only 40 feet from them, he seemed unnerved.“I could hear the din of the rioters in the building while we moved,” Mr. Jacob said. “But I don’t think I was aware that they were as close as that.” More

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      Trump Lawyer Cited ‘Heated Fight’ Among Justices Over Election Suits

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      In an email weeks after the election, another lawyer advising the Trump campaign responded that the prospect of “‘wild’ chaos” on Jan. 6 could lead the Supreme Court to take up a case.WASHINGTON — A lawyer advising President Donald J. Trump claimed in an email after Election Day 2020 to have insight into a “heated fight” among the Supreme Court justices over whether to hear arguments about the president’s efforts to overturn his defeat at the polls, two people briefed on the email said.The lawyer, John Eastman, made the statement in a Dec. 24, 2020, exchange with a pro-Trump lawyer and Trump campaign officials over whether to file legal papers that they hoped might prompt four justices to agree to hear an election case from Wisconsin.“So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Mr. Eastman wrote, according to the people briefed on the contents of the email. Referring to the process by which at least four justices are needed to take up a case, he added, “For those willing to do their duty, we should help them by giving them a Wisconsin cert petition to add into the mix.”The pro-Trump lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, replied that the “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”Their exchange took place five days after Mr. Trump issued a call for his supporters to attend a “protest” at the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress would certify the electoral vote count confirming Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. “Be there. Will be wild!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.The previously unreported exchange is part of a group of emails obtained by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol by a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters.Mr. Chesebro’s comment about the justices being more open to hearing a case if they fear chaos was striking for its link to the potential for the kind of mob scene that materialized at the Capitol weeks later.And Mr. Eastman’s email, if taken at face value, raised the question of how he would have known about internal tension among the justices about dealing with election cases. Mr. Eastman had been a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas.The committee is also reviewing emails between Mr. Eastman and Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas. Ms. Thomas was an outspoken supporter of Mr. Trump and in the period after Election Day sent a barrage of text messages to the Trump White House urging efforts to reverse the outcome and supported a variety of efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office.It was not immediately clear when the communications took place between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman or what they discussed. The existence of the emails between Mr. Eastman and Ms. Thomas was reported earlier by The Washington Post.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee assembled an account of how Mr. Trump’s advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night in 2020, but instead he listened to Rudolph W. Giuliani.A Striking Contrast: Many Trump officials have told the committee that they tried to dissuade the former president from his bid to overturn the election. But at the time, their words were far different in public.Fund-Raising Tactics: The Jan. 6 panel has raised questions about Mr. Trump’s aggressive solicitations, accusing him of misleading donors with election fraud claims.A federal judge recently ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over documents to the panel from the period after the November 2020 election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss fighting the election results.After debating internally about whether to seek an interview with Ms. Thomas, members of the committee have said in recent weeks that they do not see her actions as central to the plans to overturn the election.Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the committee, told NBC News last weekend that Ms. Thomas was “not the focus of this investigation.”But her contact with Mr. Eastman could add a new dimension to the inquiry.A federal judge has already concluded in a civil case that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman “more likely than not” had committed two felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the American people, in their attempts to overturn the election.Mr. Chesebro, and lawyers for Mr. Eastman and Ms. Thomas, did not respond to requests for comment.Word of the exchanges between Mr. Eastman, Mr. Chesebro and the campaign lawyers emerged as the House committee prepared for a public hearing on Thursday to present new details of the intense pressure campaign Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman waged against Vice President Mike Pence, which the panel says directly contributed to the violent siege of Congress.The public hearing, the panel’s third this month as it lays out the steps Mr. Trump took to try to overturn the 2020 election, is scheduled for 1 p.m. The committee plans to release materials detailing the threats of violence against Mr. Pence, and the ways the vice president’s security team scrambled to try to keep him safe from the mob.The email exchange involving Mr. Eastman and Mr. Chesebro included a request, which appears to have been denied, that the Trump campaign pay for the effort to get another case in front of the Supreme Court. In the emails, Mr. Chesebro made clear that he did not consider the odds of success to be good, but he pressed to try, laying out why he claimed the election was invalid.Mr. Eastman said that he and Mr. Chesebro “are of similar” minds and that the legal arguments “are rock solid,” before going on to describe what he said were the divisions among the justices and the benefits of giving them another chance to take up an election case.In the previous several weeks, the court had turned aside two other efforts to consider election-related suits brought by allies of Mr. Trump.Mr. Chesebro then replied, according to the people briefed on the exchange: “I don’t have the personal insight that John has into the four justices likely to be most upset about what is happening in the various states, who might want to intervene, so I should make it clear that I don’t discount John’s estimate.”He went on that he agreed that “getting this on file gives more ammo to the justices fighting for the court to intervene.”“I think the odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way,” he said. “Though that factor could go against us on the merits. Easiest way to quell chaos would be to rule against us — our side would accept that result as legitimate.”Mr. Chesebro concluded: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. A campaign that believes it really won the election would file a petition as long as it’s plausible and the resource constraints aren’t too great.”In the weeks after the election, Mr. Chesebro wrote a string of memos supporting a plan to send so-called alternate electors to Congress for the certification. A little more than two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Chesebro sent a memo to James Troupis, another lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, laying out a plan to name pro-Trump electors in the state, which was won by Mr. Biden.Mr. Chesebro also sent a Dec. 13, 2020, email to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer who was by then leading the legal efforts to overturn the election results. In it, he encouraged Mr. Pence to “firmly take the position that he, and he alone, is charged with the constitutional responsibility not just to open the votes, but to count them — including making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes.”That idea took root with Mr. Trump, who engaged in a lengthy effort to convince Mr. Pence that he could block or delay the congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.The House committee’s hearing on Thursday is set to feature testimony from J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who advised Mr. Pence that Mr. Trump’s push for the vice president to unilaterally decide to invalidate election results was unconstitutional, and that he should not go along with the plan.Also scheduled to appear is Greg Jacob, Mr. Pence’s top White House lawyer, who has provided the committee with crucial evidence about the role played by Mr. Eastman, who conceded during an email exchange with Mr. Jacob that his plan to overturn the election was in “violation” of federal law.The Jan. 6 committee is reviewing emails between Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and Mr. Eastman.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe committee is also expected to play video from an interview it recorded with Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short. A day before the mob violence, Mr. Short grew so concerned about Mr. Trump’s actions that he presented a warning to a Secret Service agent: The president was going to publicly turn against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.The committee is not expected to display any of the new emails it received involving Ms. Thomas on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the presentation.Ms. Thomas, known as Ginni, is a conservative political activist who became a close ally of Mr. Trump during his presidency. After he lost the election, she sent a series of messages to Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Arizona lawmakers and others pushing for the election to be overturned.The Jan. 6 committee has been presenting the televised hearings as a series of movie-length chapters laying out the different ways Mr. Trump tried to cling to power. After an initial prime-time hearing that drew more than 20 million viewers, in which the panel sought to establish that the former president was at the center of the plot, investigators focused their second hearing on how Mr. Trump spread the lie of a stolen election.The committee is expected to detail on Thursday some of its findings about the plot involving pro-Trump electors. The panel will present evidence that the White House counsel also concluded that the vice president had no legal power to throw out legitimate electoral votes for the fake electors Mr. Trump’s team put forward.Investigators will show how Mr. Trump was advised that his plans were unlawful but he pressed forward with them anyway, committee aides said. More

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      Ginni Thomas Was in Contact With John Eastman as He Pushed to Overturn Election

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      The Jan. 6 committee has received emails showing the contact between the wife of the Supreme Court justice and the conservative lawyer who created a blueprint for Donald J. Trump’s postelection fight.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has received emails that show Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was in contact with the conservative lawyer John Eastman as he pushed to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the panel’s work.The emails show Ms. Thomas, who had advocated widely for conservatives to fight the results of the election, expressed those views to Mr. Eastman, according to one person familiar with the messages. The existence of the emails was reported earlier by The Washington Post.While it was not immediately clear when the emails involving Ms. Thomas were sent, a federal judge recently ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over additional documents to the panel from the period after the November election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss fighting the election results.The committee received the emails as it prepares on Thursday to present new details of the intense pressure campaign President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Eastman waged against Vice President Mike Pence, which the panel says directly contributed to the violent siege of Congress.The public hearing, the panel’s third this month as it lays out the steps Mr. Trump took to try to overturn the 2020 election, is scheduled for 1 p.m. The committee plans to release materials detailing the threats of violence against Mr. Pence, and the ways the vice president’s security team scrambled to try to keep him safe from the mob.The hearing is set to feature testimony from J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who advised Mr. Pence that Mr. Trump’s push for the vice president to unilaterally decide to invalidate election results was unconstitutional, and that he should not go along with the plan.Also scheduled to appear is Greg Jacob, Mr. Pence’s top White House lawyer, who has provided the committee with crucial evidence about the role played by Mr. Eastman, who wrote a memo that members of both parties have described as a blueprint for a coup.Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California and a member of the panel, is expected to lead a presentation of the evidence. A committee senior investigative counsel, John Wood, whom President George W. Bush hired as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is expected to conduct some of the questioning of witnesses.Mr. Eastman, left, and Rudolph W. Giuliani at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Eastman’s plan to overturn the election is expected to feature prominently in a Jan. 6 committee hearing on Thursday.Jim Bourg/ReutersThe committee is also expected to play video from an interview it recorded with Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short. A day before the mob violence, Mr. Short grew so concerned about Mr. Trump’s actions that he presented a warning to a Secret Service agent: The president was going to publicly turn against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.The committee is not expected to display any of the new emails it received involving Ms. Thomas on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the presentation.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee assembled an account of how Mr. Trump’s advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night in 2020, but instead he listened to Rudolph W. Giuliani.A Striking Contrast: Many Trump officials have told the committee that they tried to dissuade the former president from his bid to overturn the election. But at the time, their words were far different in public.Fund-Raising Tactics: The Jan. 6 panel has raised questions about Mr. Trump’s aggressive solicitations, accusing him of misleading donors with election fraud claims.Ms. Thomas, known as Ginni, is a right-wing political activist who became a close ally of Mr. Trump during his presidency. After he lost the election, she sent a series of messages to Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Arizona lawmakers and others pushing for the election to be overturned.In one of her texts to Mr. Meadows, she said to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a web of conspiracy theories that Trump supporters believed would overturn the election.“Do your constitutional duty,” Ms. Thomas wrote to Arizona lawmakers on Nov. 9. On Dec. 13, with Mr. Trump still refusing to concede on the eve of the Electoral College vote, she contacted the lawmakers again.After debating internally about whether to seek an interview with Ms. Thomas, members of the committee have said in recent weeks that they do not see her actions as central to the plans to overturn the election.Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the committee, this weekend told NBC that Ms. Thomas was “not the focus of this investigation.”But her contact with Mr. Eastman, who was her husband’s former law clerk, is likely to raise new questions for the panel. Mr. Eastman was central to effort to the overturn the 2020 election and put pressure on Mr. Pence.A federal judge has already concluded in a civil case that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman had “more likely than not” committed two felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the American people, in their attempts to overturn the election.The Jan. 6 committee has been presenting the televised hearings as a series of movie-length chapters laying out the different ways Mr. Trump tried to cling to power. After an initial prime-time hearing that drew more than 20 million viewers, in which the panel sought to establish that the former president was at the center of the plot, investigators focused their second hearing on how Mr. Trump spread the lie of a stolen election.Future hearings are expected to focus on how Mr. Trump and his allies pressured state officials to overturn the election; attempted to interfere with the Justice Department; created slates of pro-Trump electors in states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and amassed a mob that marched on the Capitol, while the president did nothing to stop the violence for 187 minutes.Through the hearings, the committee is drawing upon the more than 1,000 interviews it conducted and the more than 140,000 documents it obtained.The committee is expected to detail on Thursday some of its findings about the plot involving pro-Trump electors. The panel will present evidence that the White House counsel also concluded that the vice president had no legal power to throw out legitimate electoral votes for the fake electors Mr. Trump’s team put forward.Investigators will show how Mr. Trump was advised that his plans were unlawful but he pressed forward with them anyway, committee aides said.The panel also plans to demonstrate that the threat to American democracy is ongoing, committee aides said.To build public anticipation, the committee has begun releasing teaser clips to preview its hearings. On Tuesday, the panel released a clip of Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer, telling Mr. Eastman the day after the Capitol riot that he believed Mr. Eastman had committed a crime.“I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life,” Mr. Herschmann recalls telling Mr. Eastman before recommending that he find a criminal defense lawyer, and adding, “You’re going to need it.”Mr. Jacob has provided the committee with important evidence about Mr. Eastman’s role in the events that led to the attack on the Capitol.Mr. Eastman conceded during an email exchange with Mr. Jacob that his plan to overturn the election was in “violation” of federal law.As the mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 — some of its members chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” — Mr. Jacob sent an email to Mr. Eastman blaming him for the violence.“Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege,” Mr. Jacob wrote that day at 12:14 p.m.“It was gravely, gravely irresponsible for you to entice the president with an academic theory that had no legal viability,” Mr. Jacob wrote in a subsequent email to Mr. Eastman.The committee could also hear testimony about Mr. Trump’s state of mind during the violence.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said last week that the panel had received testimony that when Mr. Trump learned of the mob’s threats to hang Mr. Pence, he said, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” and added that Mr. Pence “deserves it.”The committee has scheduled two more hearings, for June 21 and June 23, at 1 p.m. More