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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of powerThe justice department has alleged that Oath Keepers leadership called the president’s confidant to allow them to use force Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, tried to get a Donald Trump confidant to ask the former US president to allow his group to forcibly stop the peaceful transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreThe previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Once the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership around 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington DC, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’s request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.Rhodes and his attorney were not immediately able to be reached for comment.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.Around 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson is the latest in a string of recent such indictments. In January, Rhodes and 10 other Oath Keepers were charged with seditious conspiracy – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of power

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of powerJustice department alleges Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes called unidentified presidential confidant on January 6 to make request Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, asked an intermediary to get Donald Trump to allow his group to forcibly stop the transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.The previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreOnce the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership at about 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’ request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.James Lee Bright, a lawyer for Rhodes, told the Guardian that he was uncertain about who his client called or whether the call took place.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.At about 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison – is the latest in a string of recent such indictments to members of the Oath Keepers. Wilson is cooperating with the the justice department in its criminal investigation into January 6.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump official interfered in report on Russian election meddling – watchdog

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      Trump official interfered in report on Russian election meddling – watchdogChad Wolf, then acting homeland security secretary, demanded changes and delayed report, risking perception of politicisation Chad Wolf, Donald Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security, interfered with a report on Russian interference in the 2020 election by demanding changes, delaying its dissemination and creating a risk the report might be seen as politicised, a government watchdog said.Eventually declassified in March 2021, the report was a summary of foreign election interference into the 2020 election. It found that, as one headline put it, “Russia tried to help Trump in 2020, Iran tried to hurt him and China stayed out of it”.Chad Wolf: who is the Trump official leading the crackdown in Portland?Read moreBut before it was released, and two months before the election, an analyst in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) complained that Wolf, as well as his predecessor Kirstjen Nielsen and the deputy secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, had interfered with the report.According to the whistleblower, in mid-May 2020 Wolf instructed him “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran”.The analyst also said that in July 2020 he was ordered to delay the report because it “made the president look bad”.At the time, a DHS spokesman “flatly denied” the claim.On Tuesday, the office of the DHS inspector general released its own report. It found that DHS “did not adequately follow its internal processes and comply with applicable intelligence community policy standards and requirements when editing and disseminating an Office of Intelligence and Analysis [I&A] intelligence product regarding Russian interference in the 2020 US presidential election”.DHS employees, it said, “changed the product’s scope by making changes that appear to be based in part on political considerations”.Such changes, the report said, included the insertion of a “tone box” about China and Iran.“Additionally, the acting secretary [Wolf] participated in the review process multiple times despite lacking any formal role in reviewing the product, resulting in the delay of its dissemination on at least one occasion.“The delays and deviation from I&A’s standard process and requirements [risked] creating a perception of politicisation. This conclusion is supported by I&A’s own tradecraft assessment, which determined that the product might be viewed as politicised.”Wolf is now head of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump thinktank. He told NBC News the watchdog “did not find any credible evidence that I directed anyone to change the substance of the report because it ‘made President Trump look bad’”.He also said it was “buried in the report … that the grossly false whistleblower complaint against me was withdrawn”.The withdrawal, “pursuant to an agreement with DHS”, is dealt with on page nine of 42 in the watchdog report.On page 11, the watchdog says: “Based on our interviews with relevant officials, as well as our document review, it is clear the acting secretary asked the acting USIA [under secretary for intelligence and analysis] to hold the product from its pending release.“We interviewed the acting USIA, who told us the acting secretary asked the product be held because it made President Trump look bad and hurt President Trump’s campaign – the concept that Russia was denigrating candidate Biden would be used against President Trump.“The acting USIA also told us he took contemporaneous notes of the meeting, a copy of which we obtained. The notes … read ‘AS1 – will hurt POTUS – kill it per his authorities’.“The acting USIA told us these notes meant that the acting secretary told him to hold the product because it would hurt President Trump.”The watchdog said Wolf and others denied that.Its report also included a 7 July email telling the acting USIA to “hold on sending this one out until you have a chance to speak to” Wolf. The watchdog said Wolf told it he wanted the delay because the report was poorly written.According to the watchdog, dissemination of the report was delayed again in August.TopicsTrump administrationUS politicsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel set to subpoena Trump allies, Republican Kinzinger says

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      Capitol attack panel set to subpoena Trump allies, Republican Kinzinger saysMembers of Congress involved in attempt to overturn election have refused to testify voluntarily before June public hearings

      This Will Not Pass review: Dire reading for Democrats
      The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will decide “in the next week or two” whether to issue subpoenas trying to force Republican lawmakers to testify about Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, one of two Republicans on the panel said on Sunday.‘A horrible plague, then Covid’: Biden and correspondents joke in post-Trump return to normalityRead more“If that takes a subpoena, it takes a subpoena,” Adam Kinzinger said.The Illinois congressman also told CBS’s Face the Nation public hearings planned for June will aim to “lay the whole story out in front of the American people … because ultimately, they have to be the judge” of Trump’s attempt to hold on to power.Kinzinger and nine other House Republicans voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol attack, which a bipartisan Senate committee linked to seven deaths.But Senate Republicans stayed loyal, acquitting Trump, and Kinzinger is one of four anti-Trump House Republicans who have since announced their retirements.He and Liz Cheney of Wyoming are the only Republicans on the January 6 committee.The June hearings, Kinzinger said, will involve laying out “what led to January 6, the lies after the election, fundraising, the 187 minutes the president basically sat in the Oval Office [as the Capitol was attacked] … the response by [the Department of Defense].“It’s important for us to be able to put that in front of the American people because ultimately, they have to be the judge. The Department of Justice will make decisions based on information but the American people … have to take the work we’ve done and decide what they want to do with it or what they want to believe.”Majorities of Republicans in Congress and in public polls believe – or choose to support and repeat – Trump’s lie that Biden stole the presidency via electoral fraud.Prominent Trump supporters in Congress who have advanced that lie and were involved in attempts to overturn the election before 6 January have refused to speak to the House committee.“I won’t say who I think we need to talk to yet,” Kinzinger said. “I mean, I think everybody needs to come and talk to us. We’ve requested information from various members.“In terms of whether we move forward with a subpoena, it’s going to be both a strategic tactical decision and the question of whether or not we can do that and get the information in time. Decisions we make every day.”Kinzinger added, “I think ultimately, whatever we can do to get that information. I think if that takes a subpoena, it takes a subpoena.“But I think the key is, regardless of even what some members of Congress are going to tell us, we know a lot of information … we’re going deeper with richer and more detail to show the American people.”Kinzinger said he would “love to see” Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president who ultimately refused to reject electoral college results on 6 January, testify before the committee.“I hope he would do so voluntarily,” he said. “These are decisions I think that we’re going to end up making from a tactical perspective in the next week or two, because we basically pinned down what this hearing schedule is going to look like, the content.“And as we go into the full narrative of this thing. I would hope and think that the vice-president would want to come in and tell this story, because he did do the right thing on that day. If he doesn’t, we have to look at the options we have available to us if there’s information we don’t already have.”Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseRead moreA lawyer for Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a far-right Republican congresswoman shown in court filings by the committee to have been in contact with the White House around 6 January, has claimed she was in fact a victim of the riot.“I’d love to ask her a few questions,” Kinzinger said. “We know some things. I won’t confirm or deny the text messages of course, but let me just say this.“For Marjorie Taylor Greene to say she’s a victim, it’s amazing … I mean, she assaulted I think a survivor … from a school shooting at some point in DC. She stood outside a congresswoman’s office and yelled through a mail slot and said [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] was too scared to come out and confront her.“And then when Marjorie Taylor Greene is confronted she’s all of a sudden a victim and a poor helpless congresswoman that’s just trying to do a job? That’s insane.“We want the information.”TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpMike PenceRepublicansUS politicsTrump administrationDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows claims US Capitol attack panel leaked texts to ‘vilify’ him

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      Mark Meadows claims US Capitol attack panel leaked texts to ‘vilify’ himArgument made in federal court filing in Washington, where Trump’s chief of staff sued to invalidate subpoenas Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has accused the congressional committee investigating the US Capitol attack of leaking all the text messages he provided in what he says is an effort to vilify him publicly.The argument was made in a filing on Friday in federal court in Washington, where Meadows sued in December to invalidate subpoenas issued for his testimony and to Verizon for his cellphone records.Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack caseRead moreIn the latest filing, lawyers asked a judge to reject the committee’s request for a ruling that could force Meadows to comply with the subpoenas. The committee requested an expedited briefing schedule on Wednesday after filing its motion the previous week.The lawyers say Meadows deserves a chance through the fact-gathering process known as discovery to gather information about questions still in dispute, such as the committee’s claims that Trump did not properly invoke executive privilege over the items subpoenaed because he did not communicate that position directly.“Mr Meadows cannot possibly know whether that unsupported contention is true without discovery – or whether the select committee had awareness of former president Trump’s assertions,” the motion states.It adds that Meadows must have the ability to obtain any communications between the committee and Trump and possibly to take depositions of people familiar with those discussions.The House voted in December to hold Meadows in criminal contempt after he ceased cooperating, referring the matter to the justice department, which has not said if it will take action. Meadows’ legal team has said he provided extensive cooperation but that the committee refused to respect Trump’s assertion of executive privilege.The motion by Meadows also accuses the committee of waging a “sustained media campaign” against him. Though it does not provide evidence, it says the committee has leaked all of the text messages Meadows has produced.“The congressional defendants, under the auspices of a legitimate subpoena, induced Mr Meadows to produce thousands of his private communications only to use them in a concerted and ongoing effort to vilify him publicly through the media,” Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, wrote in the motion.Court filings by the committee have shown Meadows was in regular contact before 6 January 2021 with Republican allies who advanced false claims of election fraud and supported overturning the race won by Joe Biden.A filing a week ago cited testimony from a White House aide who said Meadows was advised there could be violence on 6 January.The committee declined through a spokesperson to comment about Meadows’ accusations against the panel.TopicsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump White House overrode Covid guidance for churches, emails show

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      Trump White House overrode Covid guidance for churches, emails showCDC planned to suggest in 2020 that religious communities hold services online but key passages were struck out Donald Trump’s administration overrode Covid-19 guidance to religious organizations, according to newly released emails, which would have encouraged churches to consider virtual religious services rather than in-person worship.In May 2020, as coronavirus cases and deaths surged, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent the White House a draft of its planned guidance to faith-based communities, seeking approval for publication.At the time coronavirus cases were increasingly being reported in churches across the US. Cases would continue to soar in places of worship in the following months.In response, the CDC planned to suggest that religious groups restrict in-person attendance at services, and instead hold them online.When that guidance arrived at the White House, however, it prompted discussions which ended up with important passages being struck out. In an email exchange with Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to Trump, Paul Ray, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, suggested a series of edits.“The new CDC draft includes a significant amount of new content, much of which seems to raise religious liberty concerns. In the attached, I have proposed several passages for deletion to address those concerns,” Ray wrote.“If these edits are acceptable to you all, we could tell CDC, as early in the morning as possible, that they are free to publish contingent on striking the offensive passages.”In her reply, Conway thanked Ray for “holding firm against the newest round of mission creep”.In another email chain, Trump officials expressed dissatisfaction with CDC recommendations – which had already been posted online – which suggested that faith communities should consider holding services online.May Davis, a legal adviser to Trump, wrote to Paul and other officials that “problematic guidance is still online”. Davis attached suggested edits to the CDC guidance, which she said “removes all of the tele-church suggestions”.Davis added: “Though personally I will say that if I was old and vulnerable (I do feel old and vulnerable), drive through services would sound welcome.”Representative James Clyburn, chairman of the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, which released the emails, said in a statement that the Trump administration had “prioritized politics over public health”.“As today’s new evidence also makes clear, Trump White House officials worked under the direction of the former president to purposefully undercut public health officials’ recommendations and muzzle their ability to communicate clearly to the American public,” Clyburn wrote.On Friday Gene Dodaro, head of the Government Accountability Office, is due to testify before Congress about a GAO report which found staff at the CDC and other public health agencies witnessed “political interference” during the response to the pandemic.TopicsTrump administrationCoronavirusReligionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow

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      Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow The depth of Trump’s corruption is familiar but still astonishing when presented in the whole. Alas, his party shares itThe great abuses of power by Richard Nixon’s administration which are remembered collectively as Watergate had one tremendous benefit: they inspired a raft of legislation which significantly strengthened American democracy.The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of historyRead moreThis new book from the Brookings Institution, subtitled How to Restore Ethics, The Rule of Law and Democracy, recalls those far-away days of a functioning legislative process.The response to Watergate gave us real limits on individual contributions to candidates and political action committees (Federal Election Campaign Act); a truly independent Office of Special Counsel (Ethics in Government Act); inspector generals in every major agency (Inspector General Act); a vastly more effective freedom of information process; and a Sunshine Law which enshrined the novel notion that the government should be “the servant of the people” and “fully accountable to them”.Since then, a steadily more conservative supreme court has eviscerated all the most important campaign finance reforms, most disastrously in 2010 with Citizens United, and in 2013 destroyed the most effective parts of the Voting Rights Act. Congress let the special counsel law lapse, partly because of how Ken Starr abused it when he investigated Bill Clinton.The unraveling of Watergate reforms was one of many factors that set the stage for the most corrupt US government of modern times, that of Donald Trump.Even someone as inured as I am to Trump’s crimes can still be astonished when all the known abuses are catalogued in one volume. What the authors of this book identify as “The Seven Deadly Sins of Trumpery” include “Disdain for Ethics, Assault on the rule of law, Incessant lying and disinformation, Shamelessness” and, of course, “Pursuit of personal and political interest”.The book identifies Trump’s original sin as his refusal to put his businesses in a blind trust, which led to no less than 3,400 conflicts of interest. It didn’t help that the federal conflict of interests statute specifically exempts the president. Under the first president of modern times with no interest in “the legitimacy” or “the appearance of legitimacy of the presidency”, this left practically nothing off limits.The emoluments clause of the constitution forbids every government official accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State” but lacks any enforcement mechanism. So a shameless president could be paid off through his hotels by everyone from the Philippines to Kuwait while the Bank of China paid one Trump company an estimated $5.4m. (As a fig leaf, Trump gave the treasury $448,000 from profits made from foreign governments during two years of his presidency, but without any accounting.)Trump even got the federal government to pay him directly, by charging the secret service $32,400 for guest rooms for a visit to Mar-a-Lago plus $17,000 a month for a cottage at his New Jersey golf club.The US Office of Special Counsel catalogued dozens of violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity by federal officials. Miscreants included Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Nikki Haley and most persistently Kellyanne Conway. The OSC referred its findings to Trump, who of course did nothing. Conway was gleeful.“Let me know when the jail sentence starts,” she said.There was also the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, addressing the Republican convention from a bluff overlooking Jerusalem during a mission to Israel. In a different category of corruption were the $43,000 soundproof phone booth the EPA administrator Scott Pruitt installed and the $1m the health secretary Tom Price spent on luxury travel. Those two actually resigned.The book is mostly focused on the four-year Trump crimewave. But it is bipartisan enough to spread the blame to Democrats for creating a climate in which no crime seemed too big to go un-prosecuted.Barack Obama’s strict ethics rules enforced by executive orders produced a nearly scandal-free administration. But Claire O Finkelstein and Richard W Painter argue that there was one scandal that established a terrible precedent: the decision not to prosecute anyone at the CIA for illegal torture carried out under George W Bush.This “failure of accountability” was “profoundly corrosive. The decision to ‘look forward, not back’ on torture … damaged the country’s ability to hold government officials to the constraints of the law”.However, the authors are probably a little too optimistic when they argue that a more vigorous stance might have made the Trump administration more eager to prosecute its own law breakers.The authors point out there are two things in the federal government which are even worse than the wholesale violation of ethical codes within the executive branch: the almost total absence of ethical codes within the congressional and judicial branches.The ethics manual for the House says it is “fundamental that a member … may not use his or her official position for personal gain”. But that is “virtually meaningless” became members can take actions on “industries in which they hold company stock”.Dignity in a Digital Age review: a congressman takes big tech to taskRead moreThe Senate exempts itself from ethical concerns with two brilliant words: no member can promote a piece of legislation whose “principal purpose” is “to further only his pecuniary interest”. So as long as legislation also has other purposes, personal profit is no impediment to passage.The authors argue that since the crimes of Watergate pale in comparison to the corruption of Trump, this should be the greatest opportunity for profound reform since the 1970s. But of course there is no chance of any such reform getting through this Congress, because Republicans have no interest in making government honest.Nothing tells us more about the collapse of our democracy than the primary concern of the House and Senate minority leaders, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. Their only goal is to avoid any action that would offend the perpetrator or instigator of all these crimes. Instead of forcing him to resign the way Nixon did, these quivering men still pretend Donald Trump is the only man qualified to lead them.
      Overcoming Trumpery is published in the US by Brookings Institution Press
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      Mark Meadows was warned of illegality of scheme to overturn 2020 election

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      Mark Meadows was warned of illegality of scheme to overturn 2020 electionA former staffer testified that White House counsel said the scheme involving fake electoral college votes was not legally sound Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows was warned the effort to overturn the 2020 election with fake electoral college votes was not legally sound – and yet proceeded anyway, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack said Friday.In a court filing, the panel also said that Meadows went ahead with plans to have Trump speak at the Ellipse rally that descended into the Capitol attack, only days after being expressly told by the US Secret Service that there was potential for violence on 6 January 2021.Mark Meadows is still registered to vote in South Carolina and Virginia, officials sayRead moreThe 248-page court filing could serve to increase the legal exposure for Meadows. It aims to portray Meadows as someone who was instrumental in trying to overturn the outcome of the election that Trump lost to Biden. The allegations, based on testimony from a former White House staffer, Cassidy Hutchinson, suggested that Meadows knowingly acted in an unlawful manner.Hutchinson testified that Pat Cipollone, who was the White House counsel at the time, told Meadows and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani that the scheme to have states send Trump slates of electors to Congress in states that he lost in the 2020 election was not legally sound, the panel said.Hutchinson testified that she heard White House attorneys tell Meadows and other officials – including “certain” but unspecified congressmen – that trying to certify a Trump win in that manner “did not comply with the law” and “was not legally sound”, the filing said.Nonetheless, it said, Meadows “participated in a widely publicized call” with the top election official in Georgia – the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger – “and other related efforts seeking to change the election results” there.Hutchinson, who worked in Meadows’ office, also testified in a separate deposition that Meadows knew about the potential for violence on 6 January 2021 after being briefed on intelligence reports by the Secret Service. “I know that people had brought information forward to [Meadows] that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th,” she said.Hutchinson said Meadows had been presented with the warnings either one or two days before the Capitol attack took place. She said former White House chief of operations Anthony Ornato delivered them to Meadows in his office.“We had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th,” Hutchinson told the select committee in the first of her two depositions, one in February and another in March.“But despite this and other warnings,” wrote Douglas Letter, the general counsel for the House of Representatives, in the court filing, “President Trump urged the attendees at the January 6th rally to march to the Capitol to ‘take back your country.’”The select committee’s investigation into the Capitol riot and its aftermath has been investigating whether Trump and his staffers illegally conspired with the extremists who stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying Biden’s presidential victory. It has also been examining whether Trump and members of his administration broke federal laws prohibiting obstruction of a congressional proceeding, which in this case would be the interrupted certification session.As part of that probe, the committee subpoenaed records from Meadows’s cellphone service provider, Verizon, among others.Though he has turned over at least some communications to the committee, Meadows sued to stop those subpoenas, portraying them as “overly broad and cumbersome”. The select committee included excerpts of Hutchinson’s testimony in an effort to persuade the district court in Washington DC to reject that lawsuit.If granted, the select committee’s motion for summary judgement could finally cap a protracted legal battle with Trump’s final White House chief of staff. It has detailed the numerous ways Meadows was involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, including the scheme to put forward “alternate” slates of electors for Trump in states that he lost.The aim of the scheme, the Guardian has previously reported, was to have then-vice president Mike Pence declare at the joint session of Congress on 6 January 2021 that he could not count states with slates for both Trump and Joe Biden, and return Trump to office.“The select committee’s filing today urges the court to reject Mark Meadows’s baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation,” the panel’s chair, congressman Bennie Thompson, and vice chair, congresswoman Liz Cheney, said in a statement.Much of the panel’s new revelations late on Friday cited testimony from Hutchinson, who was present for key discussions in the White House in the weeks before the Capitol attack. Hutchinson testified after she was issued a subpoena in November.She also recounted how the White House counsel’s office had threatened to resign if Trump went ahead with an extraordinary plan to seize voting machines and assert emergency presidential powers over false claims of election fraud.“Once it became clear that there would be mass resignations, including lawyers in the White House counsel’s office – including some of the staff that Mr Meadows worked closely with – you know, I know that did factor into his thinking,” she said of Meadows.The former Trump White House aide, who served as special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, testified that some members of Congress, such as Scott Perry, who is now the chair of the rightwing House Freedom Caucus, supported sending people to the Capitol on 6 January 2021.Testimony from Hutchinson and other aides also corroborated a Senate judiciary committee report that found Trump unsuccessfully sought the imprimatur of the justice department to bolster his claims of election fraud.Meadows initially cooperated with the inquiry before abruptly withdrawing his assistance last year. He turned over a trove of evidence that included an email in November 2020 discussing appointing alternate slates of electors, and others about overturning the 2020 election.But he then proceeded to withhold more than 1,000 other messages on his personal phone over executive privilege claims, the filing said. He also refused to appear for a deposition, reversing a cooperation deal agreed between his lawyer and the select committee.In response, the House referred Meadows, who was the top official in the Trump administration, for prosecution for contempt of Congress, though the justice department has yet to issue charges.TopicsMark MeadowsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More