1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

A comprehensive timeline of Jan. 6 intelligence failures
https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6th-intelligence/

[Rick Plant]

Head of Trump Secret Service detail spoke with House investigators about Jan. 6: report

According to a report from Politico's Betsy Woodruff Swan, the head of former President Donald Trump's Secret Service detail on January 6, 2021, has already sat down with House committee members investigating the insurrection.

With the Washington Post reporting that Trump's protective detail was forced to scramble when he wanted to motorcade to the scene of the riot, the Politico report notes that agent Robert Engel has provided valuable information to the committee.

According to Woodruff Swan, Engel was "the special agent in charge on Jan. 6, 2021, meaning he was responsible for protecting the president from 'socks on to socks off' — the whole work day. In that role, he rode from the White House to that day’s 'Stop the Steal' rally with Trump in the presidential armored car called 'The Beast.'"

The report adds that the committee asked him about the day's details and "how the Secret Service handled the day’s chaos."

A Secret Service spokesperson confirmed the sit-down in a statement that said, "Every single member of the Secret Service who was requested by the committee has been provided to them. We fully support and are cooperating with the committee’s work. Employees, documentation, whatever is requested by the committee, we have cooperated with.”

A spokesperson for the committee refused comment on what was divulged, the report states.

Read more here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/07/jan-6-committee-interviews-head-of-trumps-secret-service-detail-on-day-of-capitol-attack-00037748

[Rick Plant]

How Mark Meadows may have been instrumental in the Jan. 6 attack

The role of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in Donald Trump's efforts is examined in a new book by veteran journalists Peter Baker of The New York Times and his wife, Susan Glasser, of The New Yorker.

The book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, was previewed by Glasser in her "Letter from Biden's Washington" column.

"Meadows and his two different personas are at the center of many of the controversies lingering since Trump’s tumultuous exit from office. The January 6th committee has discovered this duality. Meadows at first agreed to coöperate with the panel but then abruptly stopped after Trump castigated him for publishing a memoir, The Chief’s Chief, which airbrushed their history—though not sufficiently for Trump. The former President was furious with Meadows for revealing his lies, which Trump dismissed as 'Fake News,' to the public about the seriousness and timing of his October, 2020, bout with Covid," Glasser wrote.

The two found that Jan. 6 might not have happened were not for Meadows.

"Meadows’ remarkable ability, even for a politician, to do one thing while saying another has also been the subject of running news reports. My colleague Charles Bethea disclosed, in The New Yorker, that Trump’s chief of staff was publicly alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election while apparently committing voter fraud himself."

"Meadows registered to vote by absentee ballot in September, 2020, from a mobile home in North Carolina which he had never visited. North Carolina’s authorities have removed Meadows from the state’s voter rolls and are investigating his actions," she wrote. "In many ways, Meadows’s skill for obfuscation has delayed an inevitable reckoning about his role in enabling Trump’s post-election conduct. But the evidence is now much clearer that Meadows’s actions in the White House at this crucial moment not only mattered but might well have been decisive. It’s very possible, in fact, that the tragedy of January 6th might never have happened had it not been for Trump’s final chief of staff."

The two also reported that Meadows "consolidated power" and excluded then-Vice President Mike Pence from meetings.

Read more here:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/mark-meadows-was-trumps-matador-for-his-fake-election-lies

[Rick Plant]

U.S. Capitol assault hearings to open with injured police officer and filmmaker



A police officer hurt by Donald Trump supporters trying to overturn his election defeat and a filmmaker who recorded some leaders of the U.S. Capitol riot will be among the first witnesses when hearings into the assault begin on Thursday, organizers said.

The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee will attempt to reverse Republican efforts to downplay or deny the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, with five months to go until Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years.

The committee's first public hearing will begin on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, a prime time spot intended to capture the attention of as many Americans as possible, to be shown live on major networks including NBC, ABC and CBS.

U.S. Capitol Officer Caroline Edwards, who sustained a traumatic brain injury that has so far prevented her from returning to her previous duties, and Nick Quested, a filmmaker who has captured footage of the right-wing group Proud Boys and documented events that morning, are due to appear.

Five further hearings are expected in the next two weeks.

Four people died the day of the attack, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. Four police officers later took their own lives and more than 100 were injured.

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

Former GOP staffer suggests Fox doesn't deserve White House press access if they'll ignore Jan 6 hearings



On MSNBC Tuesday, former Republican Party spokesman Kurt Bardella tore into Fox News for refusing to carry coverage of the upcoming January 6 hearings in Congress.

Fox has said that coverage of the hearings will be relegated to its business channel, leaving its primetime lineup on its main channel in regular programming.

"This is the most ... troubling and disturbing news story ever," said anchor Joy Reid. "To not cover it seems negligent, but there are studies that show that if even Fox viewers, as read in and in the bubble as they are, when they watch non-Fox coverage when they are made to sit down and watch other coverage, they do develop a broader view."

"Well, this is why, Joy," said Bardella. "I think it's time that we reach the point where we stop treating Fox like a news outlet at all, because it's clearly not. They are making the conscious decision to commit journalistic malpractice by ignoring the biggest story right now, the biggest story perhaps in our — in our entire country's history actually, when you look at where this is all going. This is a major pivotal inflection point in the fight to salvage democracy, and they are choosing not to cover it. That's not the action of a responsible news outlet. Not the action of a journalist or reporter. That's the action of a propaganda vehicle for a political party that's determined to play a substantial role in undermining democracy as we know it."

Bardella took it further, suggesting that Fox News doesn't deserve to have White House press passes.

"Why these people are allowed to have a White House press briefing access, why they are allowed to have a press credential to cover the U.S. Capitol, I have no idea," said Bardella. "I know this. If al-Qaeda created a media outlet, we wouldn't give them a hard pass to cover our government. Why in the world would we allow the people who are egging on, fomenting and defending insurrectionists to have that type of access? They shouldn't."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Revealed: Nearly every Proud Boy indicted for seditious conspiracy is a military veteran

On Tuesday, Axios reported that nearly all of the Proud Boys indicted for seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, are military veterans.

"Four out of five members of the Proud Boys right-wing extremist group who were indicted on sedition charges previously served in the military," reported Herb Scribner. "The indicted members include an Army veteran with a Purple Heart, two marines and a sailor recruit." Military.com was first to report the connections.

"The charges against the Proud Boys allege the group's members were among hundreds of Trump supporters who gathered to riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6," the report continued. "The Proud Boys members 'directed, mobilized and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol,' the Department of Justice said in a statement. The group also worked to dismantle barricades, destroy property, breach the Capitol building and assault law enforcement officers, the DOJ said."

The Proud Boys are a self-described "Western Chauvinist" group with ties to white supremacists, notorious for their street brawling behavior.

Prior to the conspiracy indictment, several Proud Boys were already facing a number of other charges, including lead figure Enrique Tarrio.

This comes after another far-right extremist group, the paramilitary Oath Keepers, also saw seditious conspiracy charges for several of its leaders.

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/07/proud-boys-military-indicted-jan-6-capitol-riot

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting to be highlighted in Jan. 6 hearings -- and may feature ​Trump senior staffer



The upcoming select committee prime-time hearings could feature two senior staffers to Donald Trump who were participants in a key Oval Office on the Sunday before the attempted coup.

"The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is in active discussions with former White House counsel Pat Cipollone regarding a potential public appearance in one of their upcoming hearings, according to sources familiar with the matter," ABC News reported Tuesday. "Cipollone was one of the few aides who was with then-President Donald Trump in the West Wing on Jan. 6. ABC News previously reported that in the days following the attack on the Capitol, he advised Trump that Trump could potentially face civil liability in connection with his role encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol."

Former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin has also had an informal interview with the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"The committee hopes to secure Cipollone's public testimony on a panel with Rosen and his then-deputy Richard Donoghue, along with one of DOJ's former top attorneys, Steve Engel, sources said. Both Rosen and Donoghue have received formal invitations from the committee to appear," ABC News reported. "Both Cipollone and Philbin were part of a Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting where Trump insisted on replacing [acting Attorney General Jeffey Rosen with Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark, who had vowed to use the Department of Justice to investigate the election."

At the meeting, Trump reportedly said, "One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election."

There was a lot that reportedly went on during the Sunday afternoon meeting.

"The officials in that meeting also debated a proposal by Clark to send a letter to state officials in Georgia urging officials in the state to investigate unfounded claims of fraud with an eye toward overturning President Joe Biden's victory in the state," ABC News reported. "According to Donoghue, Cipollone and Philbin made it clear to Trump that they would resign if Clark were installed, with Cipollone describing the Georgia letter as a 'murder-suicide pact' that would 'damage anyone and anything that it touches,' according to a Senate committee report released last year that detailed instances where Trump and his allies sought to use the DOJ to overturn the election."

Read the full report:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-trump-white-house-lawyer-active-talks-jan/story?id=85246792