Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Rachel Maddow sounds the alarm on today's new shocking Jan. 6 revelations

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow opened her Monday show by talking about the 1950s activist Gerald L.K. Smith, who promoted Christian Nationalism. It's the same kind of Christian Nationalism that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) promoted over the weekend and that Doug Mastriano (R-PA) promotes as part of his gubernatorial campaign.

After calling out Mastriano and the latest alliances between the GOP and Christian Nationists, Maddow brought up the revelation that former President Donald Trump's draft of his Jan. 7 speech was part of the House Select Committee's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and attempt to overthrow the election.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) posted a video online that revealed the excerpt and the questions that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were asked about it.

Maddow ran the text of the speech along with the video shown last Thursday of Trump rewriting the comments in real time.

"I don't want to say the election is over. I don't want to say the election is over," Trump repeated.

Kushner testified that he was talking with Stephen Miller about remarks to deliver on Jan. 7, and Ivanka Trump said that those conversations began on the evening of Jan. 6. That conflicts considerably with the ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whose book, Betrayal said that Kushner arrived back in Washington from Saudi Arabia.

"His plane landed at Joint Base Andrews at about four p.m., but he went straight home, later telling people the Secret Service had told him it would be dangerous to go to the White House. He made no public statement about the riot," said Karl's book.

Eric Herschman, former White House senior adviser said that they were discussing the need for a speech on Jan. 7 and then pivot to the transition.

"I sat with her, I spoke to Miller about putting together some remarks for the 7th that we were going to present to the president to try to say, uh, we felt like it was important to further call for de-escalation, " testified Kushner.

"So, right after the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, there's this draft speech written for him to give the next day, and he only gives it to try to avert himself from being forcibly removed from office by the cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment," Maddow continued. "In that speech, the draft of the speech says you don't represent me. You don't represent our movement. You belong in jail. He cuts all that and inside says you will pay, and by the time he's talking about it at his rallies, not only is no one supposed to be paying any more, now they are unfairly persecuted patriots who are all getting pardons if he gets to be president again."

She played the clip where Trump promises to pardon everyone from the Jan. 6 attack. He never did.

Maddow then cited former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short, who revealed that there is a grand jury investigation happening about Jan. 6 and the attempt to overthrow Congress and the election. It was known that there was a probe into the fake electors and some of the campaign specifics, but Short didn't work on the campaign.

“Grand jury subpoenas were sent to those who assisted in the organizing and planning of former President Donald Trump’s 'Save America' rally on the Ellipse near the White House," ABC News reported on Monday, citing a source. They went on to say that "prosecutors [are] seeking multiple records and documents related to the rally, including text messages and emails, as well as potential communications with other individuals regarding the logistics of the event."

Short also wasn't part of organizing the Jan. 6 rally nor did he have anything to do with it.

Maddow explained that all of this comes together for an extensive news day that all reveals shocking information from inside the GOP.

See the intro below:

[Rick Plant]

Editorial: Trump should be charged for crimes against the United States



Charging a former president with crimes would be an extraordinary development in American history and carries the risk of forever reshaping our politics as well as the very future of the nation. It should not be undertaken lightly.

But former President Trump’s multifaceted attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election that culminated with him inciting violent mobs to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s victory, was also an extraordinary development in American history — one that nearly destroyed our democracy. The country is already in uncomfortable, uncharted waters navigating the wreckage Trump left in his wake.

What’s needed now is not genteel deference to political norms but an unflinching pursuit of justice. Over the last two months the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has meticulously presented with video clips and firsthand testimony ample evidence that the former president led a dangerous, mendacious plot to block the peaceful transfer of power and hang on to the presidency despite being voted out of office. At a minimum, the Department of Justice should prosecute him for conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, the electoral vote count. These crimes carry maximum sentences of five and 20 years in prison, respectively.

Of course, prosecutors may have evidence the public hasn’t seen that merits additional charges, and the House panel appears likely to reveal more over the coming months. But already the first eight hearings have shown that Trump was told many times, by several close and well-informed advisors, that there was no evidence of voter fraud or ballot irregularities that would have altered the outcome of the election. “Bullspombleprofglidnoctobuns” is what Atty. Gen. William Barr called Trump’s claim that the election was stolen.

And yet Trump continued to perpetuate the lie, using the misplaced trust of many Americans to continue the con. He fleeced his followers for $250 million supposedly to fight his bogus lawsuits (but actually funneled to a political action committee). He invited them to come to Washington for a “wild” demonstration at which he gave an inflammatory speech to a crowd he knew was armed — and then directed them to march to the Capitol.

And then, for three hours after he left the rally, Trump refused to take steps to quell the violence as rioters battled with police, stormed into the Capitol and disrupted the electoral vote count. As the House panel demonstrated in painstaking detail during Thursday’s hearing, Trump watched the rampage unfold on TV from the comfort of a White House dining room, rebuffing pleas from aides who wanted him to publicly condemn the violence and call off the mob. He never called for any law enforcement or military support even as members of Congress feared for their lives. In the end, more than 100 police officers were injured, four people in the crowd died and five police officers who served at the Capitol Jan. 6 died in the days and weeks that followed.

“We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation,” committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said in her closing remarks Thursday.

Trump knew there was no legitimate reason to challenge the election results but pressured officials at many levels of government to take illegal actions to preserve his power. Thankfully, they didn’t acquiesce to his demands, but the testimony detailing how Trump bullied officials in the U.S. Department of Justice, state legislatures and local election offices was truly chilling.

An election worker described facing racist death threats after Trump baselessly accused her of processing fraudulent ballots. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified that Trump called him and said, “I need 11,000 votes, give me a break.”

And then there is the jaw-dropping evidence of Trump menacing his own vice president. As the violence mounted on Jan. 6, Trump lobbed a tweet saying Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” by rejecting electoral votes for Biden. The tweet further inflamed the frothing crowd that chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” Secret Service agents protecting Pence at the Capitol described being so afraid they called loved ones to say goodbye. Trump, though, thought Pence deserved it and didn’t think the rioters “were doing anything wrong,” White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that she heard Trump’s chief of staff say.

Altogether it demonstrates a tyrannical pattern in which Trump wielded the power of the presidency to work numerous channels to overthrow the will of the voters. That’s evidence of criminal behavior that must be evaluated in court.

One of the arguments against prosecuting Trump is that it violates American norms because impeachment by Congress is the proper venue for holding a president accountable, not a criminal courtroom, and the Senate failed to muster the two-thirds majority required to find him guilty of inciting an insurrection. This is a flimsy argument. Trump’s misconduct took place in the period between losing the November election and inciting the riot on Jan. 6. By that point, only two weeks remained of his presidency, so Congress didn’t have time to mount a thorough impeachment proceeding with the benefit of the evidence the House panel has gathered over the last year and a half. Besides, Trump’s entire political persona — from his campaign through his presidency — was about breaking norms. Why would it be taboo now to take an unprecedented step in response to unprecedented conduct? It’s not.

Another argument against prosecution is that it could backfire and wind up empowering Trump instead of imprisoning him. Trump will be in the spotlight as the case drags on. He would likely cast it as political retribution by Biden’s Justice Department, and use the process to develop a new arsenal of conspiracies with which to stoke his fans’ grievances. Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is difficult. If the prosecution is unsuccessful and Trump is acquitted, he could gain more currency than he has now as a political loser.

This seems like a legitimate risk, but not a sufficient reason to back away from the pile of evidence that points toward Trump’s culpability. Justice is much larger than political considerations, and extending this argument more broadly would be akin to saying it’s too risky to try someone who tells a lot of lies and has a solid fan base. That shouldn’t be how we determine which Americans are held to answer for potential crimes. Being famous or incendiary should not shield anyone from justice.

The lesser-known players in this horrid plot are already being held to account. Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against more than 850 people who participated in the Jan. 6 mob, including charges for assaulting police officers with deadly weapons, entering a restricted building with deadly weapons, destroying and stealing government property, and obstructing an official preceding. Three participants have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. Some 99 Jan. 6 rioters have been incarcerated.

Prosecuting the foot soldiers is only partial justice for this grave attack on American democracy. To restore the nation’s standing in the world, and among its citizens, it’s critical that the ringleader of this shameful chapter in history be held accountable as well. Prosecuting Trump will demonstrate that the bedrock principles of the United States remain firm: The voters decide who holds power, and no one is above the law.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-07-24/prosecute-trump-criminal-charges-jan-6

[Rick Plant]

Just like Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis won't condemn his Nazi supporters. All these neo nazis and hate groups support GOP candidates and politicians. The GOP as a whole refuses to condemn them. GOP members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar support them. What a disgrace.   

Why Won’t Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Denounce His Neo-Nazi Supporters?

Sen. Rick Scott was the only featured speaker at Turning Point USA’s conference who openly condemned the display of swastikas and other Nazi imagery by a group of pro-DeSantis protestors



Florida politicians and local Jewish leaders are demanding Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis condemn a group of neo-Nazis who congregated outside a Tampa convention center over the weekend, passing out anti-Semitic propaganda and displaying swastikas alongside flags that read “DeSantis Country.”

The gathering occurred Saturday outside the Tampa Convention Center, where the conservative youth-oriented group Turning Point USA was hosting its Student Action Summit, just one day after DeSantis addressed the conference.

"We may disagree on policies, but if we as leaders don’t denounce neo-Nazis and white supremacists in our state, in our country, what are we doing here?” said Florida Agriculture Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried, who is Jewish, during a press conference. “I am asking you, Ron DeSantis, to denounce the Nazis that were here, here to celebrate you speech inside this convention center. They were holding your pictures yesterday.”

"addition to DeSantis, other high-profile Student Action Summit attendees — including former President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — have also stayed silent on the matter.

“I’ll be dammed if Nazis and Proud Boys waltz through our City and spew such repulsive speech,” Florida state Sen. Janet Cruz wrote on Twitter. “Words have power and we will NOT accept this in our backyard. All of us must stand up and make clear that we reject this bigoted display.”


Screen capture from video of nazi demonstrators outside the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, July 23, 2022.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was the only featured speaker at the conference who openly condemned the group’s presence outside the convention center. “This is a disgusting act of hateful anti-Semitism and doesn’t belong in Florida, our nation or anywhere across the world,” he tweeted. “We stand with our Jewish community and against this hate. It must end.” (Meanwhile, alt-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who also attended, bizarrely claimed the neo-Nazis were, in fact, liberal protestors. “There are now actual Neo-Nazis outside of Turning Point protesting the event,” he wrote on Twitter. “Got a little closer and yup, they are definitely leftists.”)

The display also drew comment from Florida Holocaust Museum chairman Mike Igel. “Carrying the Nazi flag, or that of the SS, the unit responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust, is an indefensible act of pure hatred,” Igel said in a statement. “This isn’t about politics or religion. It’s about humanity.”

According to Tampa-based media outlet Creative Loafing, flyers handed out by the group were published by the Goyim Defense League — an organization the Anti-Defamation League describes as a “small network of virulently antisemitic provocateurs led by Jon Minadeo II of Petaluma, California” known for spreading “antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories” through social media and highly coordinated public stunts.

In a statement, Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said the group “condemns those ideologies in the strongest of terms” but claimed there was little event organizers could do to remove the racist protesters from the vicinity. “Since these individuals were located on public property, our security attempted to, but was not permitted to remove them,” Kolvet said, adding: “They have nothing to do with TPUSA, our event, or our students.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ron-desantis-neo-nazi-turning-point-usa-florida-conference-1388015/

[Rick Plant]

The GOP is nothing but a far right wing radical religious cult that peddles conspiracies, racism, and hate. Donald Trump destroyed the Grand Old Party and it's been infiltrated by MAGA lunatics.     

GOP Should Be Party of Christian Nationalism, Greene Says at Conservative Summit



Christian nationalism was on full display at a far right conservative conference this weekend, with some Republicans who took part in the event openly embracing the extremist ideology.

The Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, featured a number of speakers, including former President Donald Trump. During his speech, Trump promoted the idea that a belief in God was requisite to truly be a part of the nation, disregarding the millions of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated or agnostic.

“We are Americans and Americans kneel to God, and God alone,” Trump said.

The former president wasn’t the only one peddling Christofascist ideals at the conference. During an interview at the event, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a far right lawmaker who has espoused racist and conspiratorial views in the past (and who has appeared at events hosted by white nationalists before), pushed for the Republican Party to become the party of Christian nationalists.

“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” Greene said.

The Georgia lawmaker went on to lament that the GOP has had to “chase down certain identities or chase down certain segments of people” in order to win elections, something she said the party should no longer try to do.

“We just need to represent Americans and most Americans, no matter how they vote, really care about the same things and I want to see Republicans actually do their job,” she said.

Far right nationalist sentiments were also on display outside the event. Neofascists demonstrated outside of the building holding flags with Nazi swastikas and references to the SS (the “Schutzstaffel,” political soldiers for the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany) and shouting racist slurs at passersby. They also held pictures of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, declaring the area to be “DeSantis Country.”

Officials from Turning Point condemned the imagery and the actions of the neofascists, but DeSantis hasn’t responded to his image being included in the demonstration. DeSantis did, however, engage in the same Christofascist rhetoric as Greene and Trump, telling attendees at a separate state party event near Hollywood, Florida, that they needed to “put on the full armor of God” to oppose progressive ideas.

“You will face fire from flaming arrows but the shield of faith will protect you and ultimately keep the state of Florida free,” DeSantis said in his speech.

Although Trump hasn’t commented on the fascist elements outside the event, he did thank attendees of the event, writing that “the crowd & ‘love’ was AMAZING” on his Truth Social account.

Trump has called himself a nationalist in the past, using the word to describe himself and his beliefs in a speech in 2018, a little more than a year after white nationalists attacked the city of Charlottesville, Virginia; at the time, Trump downplayed the right-wing violence, which killed one person and injured dozens of others.

Nationalism of any kind is a dangerous ideology that prioritizes the individual’s devotion to a nation-state. Nationalism is routinely used to push one segment of society’s interests as being supreme to all others, often to their extreme detriment. As author George Orwell explained in his essay, “Notes on Nationalism,” the belief:

....is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

Mike Igel, chair of the Florida Holocaust Museum, spoke out against the prescence of the neofascist protesters.

“Carrying the Nazi flag, or that of the SS, the unit responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust, is an indefensible act of pure hatred,” Igel said in a statement. “This isn’t about politics or religion. It’s about humanity.”

https://truthout.org/articles/gop-should-be-party-of-christian-nationalism-greene-says-at-conservative-summit/

[Rick Plant]

Adam Kinzinger face palms after CNN plays footage of Trump supporters blaming Antifa for Capitol riots



Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) face palmed on Tuesday after CNN showed him footage of Trump supporters who still believe that Antifa was responsible for the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol.

During a wide-ranging interview, Kinzinger was asked about Republican voters who are refusing to even watch the committee's hearings and he was then shown an example of some during a recent Trump event in Arizona.

"We saw it when it all went down and saw a lot of the [Black Lives Matter] and Antifa people in the building as well, and it is just, it is just nonsense!" one Trump supporter told CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.

The camera then cut back to Kinzinger, who had his hand in his face and was seemingly trying to suppress laughter.

"Your face says it all," commented host Brianna Keilar.

Kinzinger went on to address criticisms made by some Trump supporters that the hearings were too one-sided, and he pointed out that the vast majority of witnesses who testified were Republicans who served in the Trump administration.

"It only has been Republicans, mainly Republicans appointed by Donald Trump that have testified," he said. "We haven't had a Democratic witness, maybe one or two, I don't know what their personal political affiliation. But it is only Republicans coming in and testifying."

He then went on to address the Trump supporters shown in the video.

"They are being lied to and manipulated," he said. "They are told that somehow Nancy Pelosi or Muriel Bowser controls the National Guard. The only person with control of the D.C. National Guard, by the way, is the president of the United States."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Breaking News: The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter. https://wapo.st/3owJ8Tf



https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1552067190404382721

[Rick Plant]

Criminal Donald's Fake Electors. A few excellent articles. 

'They’re all getting indicted': Legal experts respond to new emails exposing Trump's lawyers
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fake-electors-emails-exposed/

Trump Efforts to Create Fake Electors Probed by US Prosecutors
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-27/trump-s-election-actions-probed-by-doj-washington-post-says

Emails show an intriguing new detail on Trump’s fake electors
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/26/trump-fake-electors-arizona/

Fake Electors May Provide Easiest Path for DOJ to Charge Trump
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-23/fake-electors-may-provide-easiest-path-for-doj-to-charge-trump

Emails reveal Trump campaign efforts to subvert Electoral College certification: ‘We would just be sending fake electoral votes’
Emails reviewed by The New York Times show a frantic effort to organise “fake” electors
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-electoral-college-vote-b2131816.html

Advocates for Arizona's 'fake electors' plan had legal doubts, new report finds


Fake electors cast votes for Trump Arizona Republican Party

Some of those involved in submitting presidential electors for President Donald Trump in Arizona after he had lost the state in 2020 knew their plan was legally dubious and want to keep its low public profile as long as possible, according to a report published Tuesday.

Citing previously undisclosed emails, the New York Times painted the picture of an effort in key swing states, including Arizona, the closest contest in the country, that was both desperate and probably wouldn't pass legal scrutiny.

Their plan was to submit papers to Congress suggesting Trump won the states, even though certified results showed then-President-elect Joe Biden had won them. Trump's allies hoped the dual slates of electors would serve as a justification for slowing or reversing the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Biden's victory.

After Vice President Mike Pence refused to consider the "fake electors," a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, halting the process for hours.

shaky ground, the Times reported. People familiar with the plan at the time have told The Arizona Republic that while the strategy was legally questionable, they didn't view their activity as criminally wrong.

“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,” wrote Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix lawyer who helped convene the Trump electors for Arizona.

The Dec. 8, 2020, email went to Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to Trump's campaign who served as a bridge between the Trump campaign and John Eastman, a California law professor who helped devise the legal strategy.

In a follow-up email, Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” the Times reported Tuesday.

Wilenchik also seemed to acknowledge in an email that they should submit the fake electors "even though the votes aren't legal under federal law — because they're not signed by the governor."

Pence and his legal team rejected the alternate electors legal strategy even before Jan. 6, 2021.

Wilenchik and Epshteyn declined to comment about the matter to the Times and The Republic.

Wilenchik has ties to key figures involved in the Arizona Republican Party efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

He represents Cyber Ninjas, the firm hired to lead the Senate’s partisan review of ballots in Maricopa County, in a months-long battle to prevent thousands of documents from public disclosure. 

Wilenchik also has represented state Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, an election denier who led "Stop the Steal" rallies and who was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

Christina Bobb, a lawyer and former reporter for the conservative One America News Network, wrote an email four days after Wilenchik's, saying that Doug Mastriano, the man heading the alternate electors' effort in Pennsylvania, had been told their plan may be illegal, the Times reported.

Mastriano now is the GOP's gubernatorial nominee in that state.

The Times also reported that correspondence about the fake electors wasn't shared with the White House Counsel's Office, which had already rejected the idea as legally unsound.

Wilenchik wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email that Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward wanted “to keep it under wraps until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6th (so we can try to ‘surprise’ the Dems and media with it) — I tend to agree with her.”

Ward did not immediately respond to The Republic's request for comment. Last month, she and her husband, Michael, were subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department in connection with the alternate electors plan, according to Politico.

Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor who worked as deputy solicitor general in the Clinton administration, said Wilenchik's emails were troubling.

"If they are submitting documents they know are false in order to delay Congress from doing something, ... it's clearly unethical for a lawyer to do that," Bender said.

"It's different than making invalid arguments," he said. "If you submit a document that you know is not what it purports to be, that strikes me as not only unethical but probably criminal as well."

Arizona's would-be Trump electors met at the state GOP headquarters and signed the paperwork to submit to Congress on Dec. 14, 2020. They tweeted about their effort, which included a video of them taking part. 

All of Arizona's Republican slate of electors participated in the effort.

They included:

Tyler Bowyer, a top executive with Turning Point USA and a committeeman for the Republican National Committee;

Nancy Cottle, who chaired the Arizona Trump electors;

Jake Hoffman, a state representative;

Anthony Kern, a former state representative now running for the state Senate;

Jim Lamon, a U.S. Senate candidate; Robert Montgomery, chair of the Cochise County Republican Committee;

Samuel Moorhead, second vice chair of the Gila County Republican Party;

Loraine Pellegrino, the secretary of the Arizona Trump electors;

Greg Safsten, executive director of the Arizona Republican Party;

Kelli Ward, the state GOP chair; and Michael Ward, Kelli Ward's husband and a GOP activist.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2022/07/26/report-shows-arizona-electors-knew-fake-election-legal-doubts/10156901002/

[Rick Plant]

DOJ is looking past J6 and are on to something much bigger — Trump's attempt to overthrow American democracy: Adam Schiff



It was revealed on Tuesday evening by the Washington Post that the Justice Department is looking into former President Donald Trump and his actions in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

The report came out not long after NBC News host Lester Holt posted his full interview with Attorney General Merrick Garland in which he reiterated that attempting to overthrow an election is a crime. Holt asked Garland specifically about Jan. 6, but in his response, Garland pivoted to talk about how important it is for the DOJ to hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which is a fundamental part of our democracy."

Speaking to MSNBC's Chris Hayes, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 said that the report from the Post doesn't say that witnesses are being asked about Trump's role in the attempt to overthrow American democracy. So, the Post report "doesn't necessarily mean the [former] president is under investigation."

"You would expect that witnesses would be asked of interactions with anyone involved in the plot to overturn the election," said Schiff. "But look, I think the attorney general today was saying all the right things. And I notice a difference at least I perceived a difference between what he had been saying earlier about focusing on all those involved in the attack on Jan. 6 and now talking more broadly about the overall plot to overturn the election. So, I would hope that if the department is truly following the evidence wherever it leads, it will recognize it is leading to Donald J. Trump."

He went on to explain that the piece that caught his ear was that he has moved on from talking about the violence on Jan. 6 and onto talking about the overall attempt to overthrow the United States.

"Frankly this was the main criticism I had previously about the department, that is yes, it was doing an expansive investigation in 50 states of all of those who participated in the attack, those who conspired in a seditious way about the attack," Schiff continued. "But it was very focused on the violence of Jan. 6, which is obviously a key and important but they are multiple lines of efforts to overturn the election. And some of those other lines of efforts, the president on the phone with a secretary of state in Georgia. pushing him to find 11,780 votes that don't exist. The president telling people, 'just say the election is corrupt. Let me and the Republican members of congress do the rest.' You know, that says that there are other actions beyond the violence of that day that need to be investigated and today it sounded like that is what the department is doing."

Watch: