1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

'Why was he so worried?' Congressional reporter zeroes on in key J6 question Kevin McCarthy is stonewalling



Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony before the Jan. 6 committee has raised a lot of questions about the actions of multiple administration officials and members of Congress, but one person who has escaped significant scrutiny has been House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

Veteran congressional reporter Jamie Dupree, however, thinks that it's time to ask McCarthy some questions about interactions that he had with Hutchinson before and during the January 6 Capitol riots, as she alleges that he implored her to keep former President Donald Trump away from the building as Congress worked to certify President Joe Biden's election victory.

"At Donald Trump's rally on Jan. 6, as soon as Trump said he was going with the crowd to the Capitol, McCarthy called Hutchinson," Dupree writes on Twitter. "'You told me the whole week you aren't coming up here,' she quoted McCarthy as saying. 'Why would you lie to me?'"

This strongly implies that McCarthy and Hutchinson had been in contact in the days leading up to January 6th and that McCarthy had been extremely concerned about the possibility of Trump barging into the proceedings.

Dupree goes on to write that this is a question that McCarthy should be willing to answer -- except he's instead decided to completely refuse cooperation with the committee.

"McCarthy has refused to answer questions from the Jan. 6 panel," he concludes. "He could describe why he was concerned about Trump coming to the Capitol on Jan. 6 - so concerned that he instantly called a White House staffer and accused her of lying about it. Why was he so worried?"

https://twitter.com/jamiedupree/status/1542910745175810050

[Rick Plant]

Feds say photo shows MAGA-rioting Trump appointee using riot shield against cops after he claims unfair prosecution



Federico Klein, a former Trump-appointed State Department aide who was arrested last year for taking part in the January 6 Capitol riots, is facing pushback from his claims that he's being unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors.

CBS News' Scott MacFarlane flags a new court filing made by DOJ lawyers in which they rebut Klein's claims that he's being "selectively prosecuted" by showing a photo that allegedly shows him using a riot shield against law enforcement officers at the United States Capitol.

"Klein and others around him attacked, and attempted to enter, the Capitol as the Vice President, Members of Congress, and thousands of staffers convened inside," DOJ lawyers wrote in the filing. "That conduct, and the 'threat to civilians' it engendered... dispels any inference of disparate treatment."

Former Trump political appointee Federico Klein argues he's being selectively prosecuted in Jan 6 case because of his prior service in Trump Admin

Justice Dept hits back hard against the claim, in new court filing arguing Klein used police riot shield *against* officers

Justice Dept: "Klein & others around him attacked, and attempted to enter, the Capitol as the Vice President, Members of Congress, and 1000s of staffers convened inside. That conduct, and the “threat to civilians” it engendered... dispels any inference of disparate treatment"



https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1542889561793200128

[Rick Plant]

Mark Meadows asked an associate to 'influence' January 6 testimony of his former aide



On Friday, CNN reported that one of the people who tried to "influence" the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, did so on the request of Hutchinson's former boss, Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

"Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the committee, brought up two examples of possible witness intimidation at a hearing featuring Hutchinson, who was an aide to Meadows in the Trump White House, earlier this week, without naming a witness or who made contact," reported Zachary Cohen, Ryan Nobles, and Annie Grayer. "Sources now tell CNN that both instances recounted by Cheney were directed at Hutchinson, and that Hutchinson believes the messages were intended to impact her testimony."

"In one instance, Cheney said a witness received a call in which someone said: '(A person) let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he's thinking about you. He knows you're loyal, and you're going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition,'" said the report.

According to the report, Meadows' team vehemently denies anything of the sort happened, with Meadows spokesperson Ben Williamson saying, "No one from Meadows camp, himself or otherwise, ever sought to intimidate or shape her conversations with the committee."

Legal experts have suggested that Meadows is facing serious liability for his active involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, with former prosecutor Larry Hitman saying that the Justice Department is likely to make Meadows the subject or target of a criminal investigation.

Hutchinson provided a number of explosive new details about Trump's alleged behavior on the day of the attack, including that he demanded rioters be allowed to march to the Capitol even knowing that they were armed, and that he assaulted his own protective detail after the Secret Service told him he couldn't join his supporters at the site of the attack.

Read More Here:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/01/politics/mark-meadows-cassidy-hutchinson/index.html

[Rick Plant]

The Jan. 6 hearings have pulled back the curtain on the 'crazies and cowards' around Trump: Paul Krugman



In his column for the New York Times, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman made his case the Republican Party appears to be nothing less than a confederation of "crazies, cowards and careerists," less interested in governing than they are in kowtowing to Donald Trump.

Reflecting on the January 6 House hearings investigating the storming of the Capitol by supporters of the former president, Krugman said the GOP stands exposed as members of Congress who could provide testimony refuse to do so, and their colleagues turn a blind eye.

According to Krugman what has been revealed thus far "has been riveting and terrifying," he claimed, "realistically there is no longer any doubt that Trump tried to overturn the results of a lawful election, and when all else had failed, encouraged and tried to abet a violent attack on Congress."

Adding that he is not a lawyer and is in no position to specify what laws have been broken, he turned his ire on the GOP leadership and the far-right members of Congress who are aiding and abetting Trump -- just so he can keep his 2024 presidential ambitions alive and they can tag along.

"Dozens of people in or close to the Trump administration must have known what was going on; many of them surely have firsthand knowledge of at least some aspects of the coup attempt. Yet only a handful have come forward with what they know," he wrote, "How can we explain this abdication of duty?"

The columnist suggested there may be a simple answer.

"Even now, full-on MAGA cultists are probably a minority among G.O.P. politicians. For every Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene, there are most likely several Kevin McCarthys — careerists, not crazies, apparatchiks rather than fanatics. Yet the noncrazy wing of the G.O.P., with only a handful of exceptions, has nonetheless done everything it can to prevent any reckoning over the attempted coup," he wrote. "

"The Republican Party is a far more monolithic entity, in which politicians compete over who adheres most faithfully to the party’s line. That line used to be defined by economic ideology, but these days it is more about positioning in the culture wars — and personal loyalty to Trump. It takes great moral courage for Republicans to defy the party’s diktats, and those who do are promptly excommunicated," he explained before citing longtime conservatives like Bill Kristol and Max Boot -- as well as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) -- who have bucked the trend and fought back at the former president's attempt to overthrow democratic institutions.

"I don’t think it’s a slur on these people’s courage to note that the neocons were always a distinct group, never fully assimilated by the Republican monolith, with careers that rested in part on reputations outside the party. This arguably leaves them freer than garden-variety Republicans to act in accord with their consciences," he suggested before concluding, "Unfortunately, that still leaves the rest. If the Democrats are a coalition of interest groups, Republicans are now a coalition of crazies and cowards. And it’s hard to say which Republicans present the greater danger."

Read the full piece here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/opinion/republicans-trump-coup.html

[Rick Plant]

'Committee’s definitely got something': Legal experts claim threat of wire fraud charges loom over Trump and aides



In conversations with the Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger, two former officials in the Department of Justice suggested that specific evidence revealed in the Jan. 6th committee's investigation of Donald Trump provides a roadmap that could lead to wire fraud charges against members of Donald Trump's campaign officials and possibly the former president too.

At issue is the preponderance of evidence that Trump and his aides were well aware that he had lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden on election night and yet sent out a flood of requests for donations maintaining the election results were fraudulent.

As the report notes, "That same day, the Trump campaign sent a fundraising email claiming that 'President Trump will easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with only legal votes cast.' The solicitation called on supporters to donate any dollar amount and join something called the 'Election Defense Task Force.' The campaign, it said, was 'counting on members to help [Trump] fight back and secure FOUR MORE YEARS.'"

Pointing out that legal experts believe that evidence contains the "ingredients for possible federal charges against officials with the campaign and the Republican National Committee—as well as Trump himself," Sollenberger first spoke with former U.S. attorney Barb McQuade, who said wire fraud cases are a specialty of U.S. attorney's offices.

“If it can be shown that Trump or others sent an email asking for money for one purpose, and then used it for another, that could constitute fraud, regardless of whether it can be proved that they knew the election had not been stolen,” she explained.

Her view was bolstered by Natalie Adams, who previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, who bluntly stated, "the committee’s definitely got something."

Speaking with the Beast, she elaborated, "It’s not whether you know something absolutely for sure. It’s if it’s ‘reasonably foreseeable’ to you that people will believe promises and statements that you either know aren’t true, or are reckless or deceptive, which you are trying to use to get something of value.”

According to Adams, there is a wire fraud conspiract case to be made -- which could sweep up the former president as a co-conspirator.

“With conspiracy, you don’t necessarily have to commit an overt act. And jury instructions don’t require proof of a formal agreement, because criminal actors avoid doing that,” she explained.. “But if people work together and profit from it, it’s helpful to show who had the access and opportunity to review those communications, and who would be likely to know by virtue of their job what is ‘reasonably foreseeable’ to occur, who are charged with vetting the truth of statements, and so on.”

AFP


The Sleeper ‘Wire Fraud’ Scheme That Could Nail Trumpworld

The Jan. 6 committee has already laid out a convincing case of wire fraud against the Trump campaign



On Nov. 7, 2020—the day television networks called the election for Joe Biden—then-President Donald Trump’s campaign manager was trying his best to break through to his deluded boss: The election was over.

Specifically, as Bill Stepien, the Trump campaign manager, later said in his testimony to the Jan. 6 Committee, Trump’s chances had dwindled since the election to the point where they were “very, very, very bleak.” The campaign hadn’t been able to verify any claims of voter fraud, and Stepien placed little hope in any “realistic legal challenges.”

That same day, the Trump campaign sent a fundraising email claiming that “President Trump will easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with only legal votes cast.” The solicitation called on supporters to donate any dollar amount and join something called the “Election Defense Task Force.” The campaign, it said, was “counting on members to help [Trump] fight back and secure FOUR MORE YEARS.”

While the Jan. 6 hearings have delivered explosive testimony and evidence suggesting that a number of former administration officials may face criminal liability related to the attack on the Capitol—possibly all the way up to Trump—there’s another potential criminal liability that has largely been lost in the news.

That would be the sprawling wire fraud conspiracy which the Jan. 6 special select committee alleged in its second hearing, on June 13, a scheme which legal experts say contains the ingredients for possible federal charges against officials with the campaign and the Republican National Committee—as well as Trump himself.

The fundamentals of that case may have been lost under the hearing’s success—the instantly viral revelation that Trump had raised $250 million on the Big Lie, much of it for a legal fund that didn’t exist.

But the case they laid out that day is as simple as it is compelling:

- Campaign officials and lawyers eagerly testified that they had told Trump they didn’t believe the claims of fraud

- The campaign team then continued to blast out hundreds of emails raising money off claims that officials, by their own admission, knew to be false.

On top of that, many of those emails told supporters that their money would go to a legal fund that didn’t exist.

Former U.S. attorney Barb McQuade, who teaches at the University of Michigan School of Law, called wire fraud prosecutions “bread and butter cases for federal prosecutors.”

“If it can be shown that Trump or others sent an email asking for money for one purpose, and then used it for another, that could constitute fraud, regardless of whether it can be proved that they knew the election had not been stolen,” she said.

Natalie Adams, a partner at Bradley LLP who prosecuted wire fraud cases as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, told The Daily Beast that “the committee’s definitely got something.”

“You don’t get to say things you know to be false,” Adams said, and the testimony of campaign officials copping to their true beliefs could trip the federal wire fraud statute.

“It’s not whether you know something absolutely for sure,” she explained. “It’s if it’s ‘reasonably foreseeable’ to you that people will believe promises and statements that you either know aren’t true, or are reckless or deceptive, which you are trying to use to get something of value.”

As far as what these top campaign officials knew at the time, they were not only quick to say they didn’t believe the claims of fraud, but told Trump repeatedly he had lost fair and square—while the campaign was sending the emails otherwise.

In one video, former top Trump adviser Jason Miller recalled that, not long after the election, the campaign’s head of data told Trump “in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose.”

The campaign’s former general counsel, Matt Morgan, recalled that a group of advisers delivered the same message in the White House. “I think everyone’s assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff . . . was that [the alleged fraud] was not sufficient to be outcome-determinative,” Morgan said.

Another campaign lawyer, Alex Cannon—whom the campaign had specifically tasked with assessing election fraud—testified that he told Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in mid-to-late November that the campaign hadn’t found “anything sufficient to change the results in any of the key states.” Cannon also recounted telling another Trump aide, Peter Navarro, that the “election was secure,” citing a Homeland Security assessment Cannon had read.

The panel played clips of Stepien, the former campaign manager, describing his efforts to get Trump to see the writing on the wall.

“What was happening was not necessarily honest nor professional, and that sort of led to me stepping away” from the campaign, he said.

The committee also presented recorded testimony from the campaign’s then head of digital strategy, Gary Coby, admitting that the “Official Election Defense Fund” at the center of dozens of fundraising emails was a “marketing trick” and did not, in fact, exist.

Yet in this same period, the Trump campaign continued to barrage small-dollar donors with fundraising emails. They sent as many as 25 a day, most of them perpetuating the Big Lie.

For instance, on Nov. 7, the same day Stepien offered his “bleak” outlook, the campaign bombed supporters with 23 fundraising emails—from Trump, three of his adult children, the chair of the RNC, Vice President Mike Pence, and a number of vague “funds” that don’t appear associated with any real entity.

The emails claimed the campaign was “counting on members to help [Trump] fight back and secure FOUR MORE YEARS,” and that Democrats were “trying to mess with the results” and “rip a TRUMP-PENCE VICTORY away from you.” They all asked for money.

(A researcher archived these solicitations in real time and has made them available in an open document.)

In a Nov. 10 fundraising email, Trump claimed that—contrary to Stepien’s testimony—his early lead on election night had disappeared “miraculously.” A missive the next day bemoaned “voter fraud” and “interference” from “Big Media and Big Tech,” followed by a money request under the subject, “Proof of election fraud.”

On Nov. 13, Team Trump scaremongered a laundry list of (at best unsubstantiated, and at worst disproven) fraud allegations in Antrim County, Michigan. A week later it was “illegal activity in Wisconsin.”

The deception wasn’t just in the body of the emails, either. There were incorrect subject lines and eye-catching headers. Fourteen included the phrase “voter fraud.” Another 14 undermined confidence in ballots—“Mail-in ballot HOAX!” (Nov. 10) and “221,000 ballots were COMPROMISED” (Dec. 2)—with five targeting “illegal ballots” specifically. A dozen headers and subject lines played on defending “election integrity,” and 29 called on donors to “defend the election.”

This continued for weeks. The campaign even begged for alms on the morning of Jan. 6, citing “voting irregularities and potential fraud.”

But while the mendacity of those emails is clear, the blame is still somewhat foggy. Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance said the committee is “telling us the story of what happened,” without the constraints that limit prosecutors.

“The biggest question I see with a wire fraud case, based on publicly available information, is, who are the defendants?” Vance wondered. Justice Department prosecutors would need to know who exactly designed, approved, and disseminated the solicitations before they consider whether the scheme constitutes wire fraud—“although it looks like one!”

The Jan. 6 committee has taken steps to figure that out. In February, the panel subpoenaed the RNC’s digital marketing vendor, Salesforce, for reams of internal data. The order would net information about email authors, project managers, and analytics such as open rates and targeting, all of which would help flesh out the scheme. The RNC is still fighting the subpoena in court.

A Trump representative did not reply to The Daily Beast’s emailed questions. In response to a detailed request for comment, RNC spokesperson Emma Vaughn provided a statement that attacked Democrats but did not address any of the allegations.

“This is nonsense—[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s committee is partisan and illegitimate,” the statement said. “Americans want Congress to focus on the most pressing crises created by Biden and Democrats—record gas prices, the worst inflation in 40 years, empty shelves, and rising crime—not conduct a political circus in prime time.”

The committee, and possibly prosecutors, might start their search with the officials who had authority over email fundraising operations. That would include advisers quoted above—digital lead Gary Coby (his “unquestioned domain”), along with top strategist Jason Miller, and campaign manager Stepien, all of whom exercised direct oversight, according to a former senior campaign official.

Adams, the former AUSA in Florida, said prosecutors could build out a conspiracy to commit wire fraud—and that might reach Trump.

“With conspiracy, you don’t necessarily have to commit an overt act. And jury instructions don’t require proof of a formal agreement, because criminal actors avoid doing that,” Adams pointed out. “But if people work together and profit from it, it’s helpful to show who had the access and opportunity to review those communications, and who would be likely to know by virtue of their job what is ‘reasonably foreseeable’ to occur, who are charged with vetting the truth of statements, and so on.”

With Trump specifically, she said, it seems he was in a position where it would be “foreseeable that people around you will carry out your instructions and carry out your intent.” She also noted that as a fact-checker for a former president, she “triple-checked” every claim that went out.

The emails didn’t just have Trump’s signature line. They also came from his campaign team, other officials, and members of his family (though not Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump).

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean those people actually wrote the letters, or even read them—though if they had not, that might also raise fraud concerns.

Several fundraising asks came from Donald Trump Jr., one of which said Democrats “lie and cheat,” and that “this fight is worth having.” Eric Trump once asked supporters to hand over cash to “help expose the fraud,” as did his wife, Lara.

Other public figures passed the fraud hat, too, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. Multiple emails came from then-Vice President Pence, one of them promising “we’ll uncover all Election fraud.” Some of the recipients of that email would later attend the Jan. 6 riot that targeted Pence and members of Congress for violence.

A Nov. 7 email attributed to RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel told donors that Trump had “activated the Official Election Defense Fund”—which, again, did not exist—adding that she was “confident that President Trump is going to win.”

Aside from Trump himself, “Team Trump 2020” made some of the most explicit allegations of fraud. “We are going to prove that President Trump won by a landslide and we are going to reclaim the United States of America for people who voted for freedom,” read a Nov. 21 request.

Two weeks later, Team Trump 2020 claimed they were “pacing BEHIND” their goal for the Election Defense Fund. The campaign had raised nearly $500 million, warning potential donors that “if we don’t do something quick, we risk losing America.”

It went on to tell donors their contribution could actually reverse the election results: “If every supporter took action and contributed TODAY, we’d be back on track and would have what it takes to SAVE AMERICA from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-sleeper-wire-fraud-scheme-that-could-nail-trumpworld-jan-6-committee

[Rick Plant]

'It was sort of a feeling’: Trump film-maker says he feared trouble at Capitol

Alex Holder, who had extensive access to Trump and his family, says he suspected January 6 would be a likely flashpoint



When the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack deposed British film-maker Alex Holder, it heard from a first-hand fact witness who inadvertently observed some of the darkest and most politically fraught days of Donald Trump’s time in office.

The new witness, who emerged late in the congressional investigation into the Capitol attack, had extensive personal access to Donald Trump and his family as the administration imploded in the post-2020 election period after the former president lost to Joe Biden.

Holder was there for it all: three sit-down interviews with Trump, including one at the White House, numerous other interviews with Trump’s adult children, private conversations among top aides and advisers before the election, and around the Capitol itself as it got stormed.

The second film-maker to cooperate with the panel – the first, Nick Quested, was embedded with the far-right Proud Boys group – in effect had a front-row seat to peer into the mind of the former president at the critical junctures in his efforts to retain the presidency.

The access to Trump, and listening to him and his inner circle, led him to suspect that the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election would somehow culminate in some event at the Capitol on 6 January, Holder said in an interview with the Guardian.

“I wasn’t 100% sure, but it was sort of a feeling, so we prepared for that thing to happen,” Holder said. “The reason we thought January 6 was because, in Trump’s mind, the last-ditch effort was to stop the process” of Biden’s certification.

“That ceremonial process that takes place in Congress on January 6, he felt, was the last time where he could, in his mind, stop the election going to the wrong person, as it were. The rhetoric that was coming out was that the election was rigged, [that] we need to fight.”

Holder testified for about four hours behind closed doors last week about his roughly 100 hours of footage, used for an upcoming documentary titled Unprecedented, and turned over to House investigators the parts demanded in a subpoena compelling his cooperation.

The select committee was broadly interested in his recollections of the buildup to the Capitol attack, as well as his interactions with Trump and his family, Holder said, though he declined to discuss specific lines of inquiry or questioning.

The Guardian previously reported, however, that the panel zeroed in on phone calls among Trump’s adult children – including Don Jr and Eric – that Holder captured on camera at a campaign event on 29 September 2020 at the Trump international hotel that he gatecrashed.

The select committee is closely focused on the footage of the event – in addition to the content of the one-on-one interviews with Trump and Ivanka – because the discussions about strategies mirror similar conversations at that time by top Trump advisers.

What appears to interest the panel is whether Trump and his children had planned to somehow stop the certification of the election on January 6 – a potential violation of federal law – and to force a contingent election if Trump lost as early as September.

The event on the day of the first presidential debate at the Trump hotel that Holder gained access through Eric Trump, was unplanned, and reflected, according to Holder, his approach to filming everything he could, in case it proved to be consequential later.

Holder said he went into the one-to-one interviews with Trump and his children with a deliberately deferential approach and open-ended questions to ensure the exchanges did not come off as confrontational – including about whether Trump lost the 2020 election

“If I start pushing a guy who I know is not going to change his position, and then he throws you out of the room, then it’s all over,” Holder said. “I don’t need to argue and debate him because we contextualise his position with journalist interviews.”

“And also, this English guy from north London isn’t going to change Donald Trump’s mind about the election. Then we would have just wasted our entire hour together while I try to persuade him I’m right and he’s wrong,” Holder added.

The select committee has also been interested in Ivanka Trump’s interviews with Holder, according to a source familiar with the matter, since although she testified to the panel that she accepted that Trump lost the election, at the time, she told Holder the opposite.

Holder said he was not aware if that amounted to Ivanka Trump shifting her belief about the outcome of the 2020 election between her three interviews with him, but said he was surprised that she would effectively testify to the select committee that her father was wrong.

“That was surprising, because the three kids, at least with me, would always echo their father’s positions and support them,” he said.

The documentary broadly presents a portrait of Trump and his family that follows them through the tumultuous 2020 presidential campaign, when the children acted as campaign surrogates, the final months of the administration, and then months after the Capitol attack.

Holder said he interviewed Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, before the 2020 election, and then went to the White House over the first weekend in December 2020 to interview the former president as well as Ivanka for a second time.

He said he did a second interview with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida a few months after the Capitol attack, and then for a third interview with Trump at his Bedminster golf club a few months after that. He also interviewed Ivanka and Eric again after the events of January 6.

The documentary also features raw footage of the Capitol attack recorded by Holder’s director of photography, Michael Crommett, who filmed at the tunnel of the inaugural platform on the west side of the Capitol as the pro-Trump mob unsuccessfully tried to breach that door.

Holder said he additionally did a one-to-one interview with then-vice president Mike Pence, including a scene where Pence briefly reviews an email about the 25th amendment – which concerns the removal of a US president – which was privately discussed among senior White House officials in the wake of the Capitol attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/02/alex-holder-trump-filmmaker-january-6-capitol-attack

[Rick Plant]

J6 committee has 'loaded gun' evidence against Trump: legal expert



The select committee investigating Donald Trump's coup attempt has two new critical categories of evidence against the former president, a legal expert argued on MSNBC on Saturday.

"As we learn more about potential witness tampering during the Jan. 6 committee's investigation, this week's testimony of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson could explain why those in Trumpworld were so worried about what she might have to say," MSNBC's Cori Coffin reported.

For analysis, Coffin interviewed former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner.

"According to Hutchison, Trump knew that some of his supporters would be armed that day, sent them to the Capitol anyway, even hoping to join them," she noted. "So, does this open up the former president to be criminally liable?"

"Yeah, this is what I would call smoking gun evidence," Kirschner replied.

"And interestingly, at the last J6 public hearing, we got both smoking gun evidence, and we got loaded gun evidence," he continued. "And what I mean by that is, as you just played in your lead-in, Cori, the president knew. He was briefed that his crowd was armed with assault rifles and pistols and knives and brass knuckles and bear spray, etc."

"And you would think a reasonable response from a president would be, oh my goodness, let's make sure the metal detectors are operating properly," he explained. "He said just the opposite, take them down, let the armed members of the group in, and they can march to the Capitol from there. To do what? To stop the certification of his political opponent's election win. So in a very real sense, that smoking gun evidence that Donald Trump wanted to lead what we now know is an armed attack on the Capitol. The loaded gun evidence is, the witness tampering information, and you know, witness tampering just strikes at the very heart of the integrity of investigations, whether congressional or criminal."

Watch: