1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

7 shocking revelations from a real bad afternoon for Donald Trump

Mark Meadows warned Cassidy Hutchinson that “things might get real, real bad” on January 6. That was just the beginning of her bombshell testimony.



White House chief of staff Mark Meadows warned one of his top aides on January 2, 2021, that “things might get real, real bad” on January 6, that aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said in the opening moments of her bombshell testimony before the House January 6 committee on Tuesday.

The testimony she provided over the next two hours included a litany of details about Meadows’s, Trump’s, and other White House officials’ knowledge of the danger the January 6, 2021, rally participants posed, their activities as the Capitol riot happened, and what they did in the days after it.

Although clips of the nearly 20 hours of depositions that Hutchinson gave the committee had previously played in public hearings, this was the first time that a White House staffer has appeared in person during the hearings, and it surpassed the hype stoked by the committee’s last-minute announcement of a hearing.

Hutchinson was a key conduit between the White House and dozens of members of Congress, and the committee previously aired part of her deposition where she named members of Congress who had sought pardons from Trump after January 6. She also was in countless meetings with figures who played key roles in the plot to overturn the election, including Meadows and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and has played a vital role in the committee’s effort to piece together the events leading up to January 6.

Here are the seven most shocking revelations Hutchinson disclosed on Tuesday:

1) Trump attacked a Secret Service agent

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541845690107699205

Hutchinson revealed that Trump was so intent on going to the Capitol following his speech during the Stop the Steal rally at the Ellipse on January 6 that, according to a colleague who talked to her shortly after he saw the incident, he grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine and then got physical with the Secret Service agent who tried to restrain him.

She said that Trump had believed he was going to the Capitol after his speech that day, and only discovered that those plans had been blocked once he returned to the motorcade afterward. According to Hutchinson’s second-hand account, Trump was so enraged that he shouted “I’m the f-ing president, take me up to the Capitol now” before trying to drive himself there. When a Secret Service officer restrained him, Trump then “lunged at his clavicle.”

2) Trump was repeatedly warned about going to the Capitol

Hutchinson said White House counsel Pat Cipollone repeatedly warned Trump and other top officials that going to the Capitol as protesters were marching there to disrupt the counting of electoral votes would create criminal liability.

“We are going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Hutchinson said he told her of the plans for Trump to show up there on January 6. The top White House lawyer specifically cited obstruction of justice and obstructing the electoral count as crimes that Trump might commit by appearing at the joint session of Congress.

3) ) Trump was blasé about the armed mob

Trump was unhappy that the crowd at his Ellipse rally before his speech was too small, and displeased that many rallygoers were watching from beyond the security perimeter, Hutchinson recounted.

January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte

Trump was furious the Secret Service was screening people at his rally for weapons.

"They're not here to hurt me. Take the F'ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541840643676426241

When he was told it was because many of the people at the National Mall were armed and didn’t want to go through security to get closer to the stage, Trump was enraged.

“I don’t care that they have weapons, they are not here to hurt me, take the f’in mags away, and they can march to the Capitol,” he said, according to Hutchinson.

4) The White House knew it would get bad

Hutchinson testified at length about her former boss, Meadows, and the warnings he and White House officials got in the days leading up to January 6, including that January 2 comment.

January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte

On January 2, 2021, Rudy Giuliani met with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Hutchison was told that things on January 6 might get "real bad."

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541836855003561986

The conversation in which Meadows warned things could get “real bad” occurred minutes after Rudy Giuliani told Hutchinson, “We are going to the Capitol, it’s going to be great, the president is going to be there, he’s going to look powerful.”

5) “Mike deserves it”

Hutchinson testified that she heard Meadows tell Cipollone that Trump agreed with the mob shouting “Hang Mike Pence” at the Capitol. “You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it, he doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” Meadows said, according to Hutchinson.

January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte

"Mark had responded something to the effect of, 'You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong.'"

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541853629975609346

She went on to describe Trump’s mindset on January 7 — that the rioters didn’t do anything wrong. Instead, Trump believed, “The people who did something wrong that day was Mike Pence not standing with him.”

6) Pardons were on the table — and Mark Meadows wanted one

We knew from prior testimony that a half-dozen members of Congress inquired about pardons after January 6. Hutchinson on Tuesday testified that both Meadows and Giuliani reached out to Trump about potential pardons after the attack on the Capitol.

In addition, she testified that Trump wanted to promise a pardon to everyone who stormed the Capitol in his January 7 speech and was encouraged to do so by Meadows. However, White House counsel made clear that “they didn’t think it was a good idea.”

7) A witness-tampering chaser

Hutchinson’s revelations were so numerous, it often seemed there was a new bombshell every few minutes. And when she wrapped up her testimony, Rep. Liz Cheney, in her closing statement, offered a bombshell of her own: There had been efforts to intimidate witnesses called to testify before the committee.



https://www.vox.com/2022/6/28/23186748/cassidy-hutchinson-january-6-hearing-committee

[Rick Plant]

WATCH: White House aide says Trump's tweets about Pence on Jan. 6 were 'unpatriotic'

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified on June 28 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public.

In a video the committee played, Hutchinson recalled on Jan. 6 2021 how Meadows was alone in his office as the rioters were getting closer to the Capitol.

“It sort of felt like I was watching, not a great comparison, but a bad car accident that was about to happen,” she said in the video.

In a tweet the president made on Jan 6., shown during the hearing, Trump said then-Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have the “courage” to overturn the 2020 election. As a staffer, Hutchinson said seeing that tweet made her feel “frustrated” and “disappointed.”

“As an American, I was disgusted, it was unpatriotic, it was unAmerican," she said. “We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.”

The hearing was unexpectedly announced a week after the Jan. 6 committee said they were taking a break until the month of July. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.

[Rick Plant]

John Eastman loses effort to keep his call records from the Jan. 6 committee: report



The controversial author of Donald Trump's "coup memo" to overturn the 2022 presidential election lost a bid to keep his phone records from the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"In a late Tuesday filing, Eastman voluntarily dismissed the suit, claiming that he’d been assured the committee was only seeking his call logs — not the content of any messages held by his carrier, Verizon. The select committee has long contended that it lacks the authority to obtain message content," Politico reported Tuesday.

Although Eastman ultimately lost, he was successful at tying the issue up in court for more than six months.

"Eastman’s move comes, however, as the legal threats he’s facing have begun to mount. Last week, FBI agents seized Eastman’s phone as part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation related to the 2020 election. Earlier this month, a federal judge forced Eastman to turn over hundreds of Trump-related emails to the Jan. 6 select committee, rejecting many of his claims of attorney-client privilege. That judge, David Carter, had already determined that Eastman and Trump 'likely' entered into a criminal conspiracy to obstruct Congress on Jan. 6, 2021," Politico reported.

The select committee says Eastman was also emailing with Ginni Thomas as she sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

"The select committee has issued dozens of subpoenas to phone companies like Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T for witnesses’ phone logs. More than a dozen witnesses have sued to block the committee from obtaining those records, and many of those suits are still pending," Politico reported.

Read More Here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/eastman-phone-records-from-jan-6-committee-00043072

[Rick Plant]

Liz Cheney ratchets up pressure on Pat Cipollone to testify after explosive Cassidy Hutchison hearing

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is ratcheting up pressure on former White House counsel Pat Cipollone after former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson leveled a number of explosive claims during her testimony at a House Select Committee hearing.

Writing on Twitter, Cheney implored Cipollone to stop hiding behind executive privilege claims and formally testify about what he knows about former President Donald Trump's actions before, during, and after the January 6th Capitol riots.

"As we heard yesterday, WH counsel Pat Cipollone had significant concerns re. Trump’s Jan 6 activities," Cheney wrote. "It’s time for Mr. Cipollone to testify on the record. Any concerns he has about the institutional interests of his prior office are outweighed by the need for his testimony."

During her testimony, Hutchinson said that Cipollone desperately tried to get her to stop then-President Donald Trump from marching to the United States Capitol with his followers, on the grounds that "we’re going to get charges of every crime imaginable if we make that move."

Hutchinson said specifically that Cipollone feared getting charged with the crimes of obstruction of justice and interference with an official congressional act.

So far, Cipollone has met informally with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th riots, but has so far refused to sit down to testify under oath.

Last week, former Trump Department of Justice officials testified under oath that Cipollone had helped them resist Trump's efforts to get the DOJ involved in disputing the results of the 2020 election, and they said he called former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark's proposed letter to state election officials a "murder-suicide pact."

https://twitter.com/RepLizCheney/status/1542083025261002753

[Rick Plant]

Cassidy Hutchinson just changed everything

The January 6 hearings have been damning. Hutchinson’s testimony took them to a new level.



In one fell swoop, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson transformed the story of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Hutchinson, who was a top deputy to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, revealed a series of stunning details about the events of the Capitol riot during her testimony to the January 6 committee. Hutchinson’s testimony suggests that the president knew in advance that violence was a possibility that day, and may very well have approved of it. He instructed his supporters to go to the Capitol, knowing that they were armed, and planned to join them personally once they arrived. After he was prevented from going personally, he told top aides that his vice president deserved the “hang Mike Pence” chants and that the rioters weren’t doing anything wrong.

Just a few days ago, Donald Trump attempted to downplay the day’s events, describing them as “a simple protest that got out of hand.” This was never credible, but Hutchinson’s testimony has simply demolished it. What once may have plausibly been described as an inchoate violent mob egged on by the president now looks much more like an attempted coup.

How Hutchinson’s testimony changed what we knew about January 6

To understand how Hutchinson changed what we knew about the Capitol attack, it’s helpful to focus on four key moments in her testimony.

1) In a January 2, 2021, conversation, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani told Hutchinson that “we are going to the Capitol, it’s going to be great, the president is going to be there.” When she asked Meadows about what Giuliani said, her boss warned that “things might get real, real bad on January 6.” In the following days, the White House received repeated warnings from intelligence agencies that the rally might turn violent; neither Trump nor Meadows did anything.

This not only indicates that the White House had warning of a very serious risk of violence at the rally, but raises the question of whether the violence was actually planned — that is, what specifically “real, real bad” referred to.

2) On the morning of the attack, when Trump was informed that people in the crowd for his speech had weapons, Hutchinson heard the president say, “I don’t care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”

This is the strongest evidence we’ve had that the president had direct and advance warning on the day of the attack that his crowd was prepared for violence, and that he then proceeded to instruct these people to march on the Capitol, indifferent at best that those weapons might be used there. “They’re not here to hurt me” could be read a couple of ways: It could simply be downplaying any threat to Trump’s person, but it could also suggest he believed that they were there to hurt someone else.

3) After his speech, Trump had planned to personally travel to the Capitol with the rioters. Hutchinson was informed by another White House aide that Secret Service agents attempted to take the car back to the White House instead, citing ongoing violence. In response, Trump reportedly tried to physically seize control of the wheel from a Secret Service agent in a failed attempt to drive to the Capitol.

This is the one key detail that Hutchinson herself did not witness, so we can’t be as confident that it happened as described. Nevertheless, the story — together with other evidence, including National Security Council chat logs released by the committee — provides new and strong reasons to believe that the president was set on leading the Capitol mob, even after it turned violent.

4) When the president returned to the White House, he met with Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone and discussed the rioters chanting “hang Mike Pence” in the halls of the Capitol. Hutchinson heard Meadows say, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

Hutchinson is not the first committee source to describe Trump as approving the idea of Pence’s execution. But hearing more confirmation, together with testimony that he believed that the crowd assaulting police officers and ransacking the Capitol was doing nothing wrong, paints an even clearer picture of a president who not only condoned the violence, but actively approved of it.

Put together and, assuming the details are true, we now have good reason to believe that the violence of the day was not accidental but intentional: that Trump wanted a violent mob to attack the Capitol on his behalf, to use force to disrupt Congress’s certification of the election results and thus give him a chance at illegally holding on to the presidency.

It appears, in short, to be a kind of attempted regime change: a coup that we would have no problem describing as such in any other country but our own.

Legal commentators are already suggesting that the evidence presented by Hutchinson could fuel criminal charges against Trump, such as seditious conspiracy — with one calling it “the smoking gun” necessary to go after the former president. Whether Attorney General Merrick Garland chooses to act on this evidence is an open question; so far, he has appeared very reticent to pursue former Trump officials on issues relating to January 6.

I don’t have much faith that the gravity of this charge will change the way Republicans think and act about Donald Trump. Perhaps this time will be different, and it will prove too much for rank-and-file Republicans — and even for craven power-seekers like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. When it comes to Trump’s offenses, “this time will be different” has a poor track record.

Yet those of us in the press should not judge the import of Hutchinson’s testimony purely by its likely legal and political consequences. One of the most important roles of the press is to tell the truth: to inform the public about what is happening in their country, describing it accurately and honestly to the best of our ability.

And to that end, it is important to be as clear as possible about what Cassidy Hutchinson has done. She told us, in no uncertain terms, that the sitting president at the very least condoned a violent attack that he knew ahead of time was likely — behavior that is, itself, an assault on the foundations of American government. What we do with that, as a democracy, is up to us.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/6/28/23186934/cassidy-hutchinson-trump-january-6-hearing

[Rick Plant]

J6 followed the money and may have discovered more evidence of witness tampering: Zoe Lofgren

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California on Wednesday revealed a fascinating detail uncovered by her colleagues on the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Lofgren worked for the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate and is the only member of the select committee to have participated in all four modern presidential impeachments.

She was interviewed on Wednesday evening by Anderson Cooper.

"The messages shown by Vice-Chair Cheney at the end of yesterday's hearing seemed to open the door to potential witness tampering," Cooper said. "Is the committee in possession of more messages along those lines? Has that evidence been shared with the Justice Department?"

"Let's just say, we're concerned," Lofgren replied.

"As you know, in a prior hearing, we talked about the hundreds of millions of dollars that the former president raised. Some of that money is being used to pay for lawyers for witnesses and it's not clear that that arrangement is one that is without coercion potential for some of those witnesses," she revealed.

"So, let's just say this," she continued. "It's a concern and anyone who is trying to disway or tamper a witness should be on notice that that's a crime and we are perfectly prepared to provide any evidence we have to the proper authorities."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

J6 committee officially subpoenas Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone



Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone was officially subpoenaed on Wednesday by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The subpoena compels Cipollone to testify on July 6.

"The inquiry includes examination of former President Trump's awareness of and involvement in activities undertaken to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including the submission of fake electoral ballots to Congress and the executive branch, and the attempted appointment of Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general, and efforts to interfere with the Congressional certification of the electoral results on Jan. 6, 2021," the select committee wrote in a letter to Cipollone.

"Our investigation has revealed credible evidence that you have information concerning these and other issues with the scope of the select committee's inquiry," Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MI) wrote.

In announcing the subpoena, Thompson said, “The Select Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded."

Cipollone held the same position in the Trump administration on Jan. 6 that John Dean held in the Nixon administration during Watergate.



Cipollone represented Trump in his first impeachment trial.

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1219694109692190721