The Senate Select Committee on Capitol Hill Propagation and Investigations, CNN Exclusive Video from a January 6 Reaction by the Deputy Attorney General John Pelosi
New testimony and evidence was used by the House select committee to show how President Donald Trump went ahead with attempts to overturn the results of the elections even though he lost the election.
The committee voted Thursday to subpoena Trump for documents and testimony, marking an escalation in the panel’s efforts to obtain testimony from the former President.
The footage depicts how Trump administration officials and congressional leaders worked together to put down the riot that he had inciting. The committee showed these clips to the public to fulfill its promise to introduce new material to the public.
Liz Cheney is the top Republican of the panel and she said they were obligated to ask the man who set this all in motion. Every American has the right to the answers so that we can act to protect our republic.
Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Select Committee, argued that Trump is at the core of what happened on January 6th. So we want to hear from him.”
The panel is issuing the subpoena just as they are about to be recognized as a select committee, which is an acknowledgment that Trump won’t comply. Should Trump object to the subpoena, it could lead to a lengthy court fight that outlives the committee.
If Republicans take control of the house, the January 6 committee that is currently constructed will no longer exist, so it will not have as much time to issue a final report.
CNN has obtained additional footage from Fort McNair that wasn’t shown by the committee. The exclusive footage will air on CNN on Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET, during a special edition of “Anderson Cooper 360°.” The footage shows congressional leaders, after evacuating from the Capitol, gathering at Fort McNair working the phones, trying to figure out what was going on at the overrun Capitol, and begging for help as they frantically scrambled to quell the insurrection.
The footage shows Pelosi and Schumer working together with other government officials to secure the resources needed to quell the uprising and protect the Capitol.
The phone calls between Pelosi and the vice president were shown in the footage.
Schumer dressing down the Attorney General. During their heated phone call, Schumer told Rosen to intervene with Trump and tell him to stop the mob. During the call, Pelosi told Rosen that the pro-Trump rioters were “breaking the law… at the instigation of the President of the United States.”
According to a statement from one of the former members of the Cabinet, the events at the Capitol were shocking and he could not put aside what he had just said.
The events made it impossible for me to continue because of my personal values and my philosophy. I came as an immigrant to this country. I believe in the nation that we live in. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in a democratic system of government. And so I was – it was a decision that I made on my own,” she said.
The White House Ethics Committee Investigating the Corrupt Crimes of President Mike Pence and the Chief of Staff of the House Judiciary Committee on Elections
Trump acknowledging he had lost the election was told by Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to the White House chief of staff.
I told Mark he could not possibly think that we were going to pull this off. That call was crazy. He was shaking his head after he looked at me. And he’s like, ‘No, Cass, you know, he knows it’s over. He is aware he lost. We are going to keep trying. Hutchinson told the committee.
Hutchinson also said that she witnessed a conversation between Meadows and Trump where he was furious the Supreme Court had rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the election result.
The President said that he did not want people to know that we lost. This is embarrassing. It’s time to figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know we lost, Hutchinson said.
The panel obtained messages and emails showing the Secret Service receiving warnings about the potential for violence as well as reports of weapons in the crowd before Trump spoke at the El.
According to the story, before the inauguration, Trump’s communication adviser shared a link to a pro-Trump website with hundreds of threatening comments about killing lawmakers, and bragged about getting the base fired up.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said in Thursday’s hearing that that the Secret Service received alerts of online threats made against Vice President Mike Pence ahead of the Capitol insurrection, including that Pence would be “‘a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing.’”
The committee played previously unseen video from its deposition of Pence’s counsel, Greg Jacob. Jacob describes how he and Short prepared to allow Trump to make a victory announcement regardless of the outcome of the election.
After their conversation on November 3, 2020, Jacob drafted a memo to Short, which the committee said it obtained from the National Archives and presented for the first time on Thursday.
According to the memo, it is important for the public to not view the vice president as having made a decision about the disputed electoral votes before all the facts are known.
The committee showed new emails that conservative activist Tom Fitton sent to two Trump advisers shortly before the election. One email contains a draft statement for Trump to declare victory on Election Night.
Despite saying for months that they wanted to hear from Thomas, members of the panel downplayed the significance of her testimony, and it was clear that she was not expected to be a central part of the hearing that was focused on Trump.
The fact that she was absent was notable since the panel had used testimony from several other high-profile witnesses after their most recent hearing.
Summary of the House Select Committee on a House Committee Investigation of Trump’s Cosmic Fraud, and Implications for an Immigration Rule
The records the panel obtained provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business — by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits.
The records show that Mr. Trump’s son provided a false account of what his company was charging.
The committee laid out a ton of evidence in order to show why the former president should be charged with multiple crimes. It’s also begun handing over evidence it collected during the investigation to special counsel Jack Smith – the seasoned lawyer appointed to head up two Trump-related probes, including the January 6 investigation, at the Justice Department.
The DOJ investigation being led by Smith is examining Trump in its extensive probe into January 6, and it appears that federal investigators are already looking at much of the conduct that the select committee has highlighted.
The report would come three days after the final business hearing in which the panel members referred former President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for his involvement in an insurrection.
The transcripts of witness interviews have begun to be shared by the panel, as well as information on false slates of electors and the pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results.
The committee referred Trump to the Department of Justice on four charges: obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by assisting, aiding or comforting those involved in an insurrection.
Garland will make the ultimate call on charging decisions, if the facts and evidence are sufficient to support a prosecution.
The release of the House committee’s final report, the surprise visit to the White House by the President of the Ukrainian Republic, and the fate of an immigration rule are just some of the items on the agenda for the end of the year.
Biden is expected to announce an additional $1.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, a significant boost in aid headlined by the Patriot missile systems within the defense assistance package, a US official told CNN.
Zelensky meets with the White House on January 6: Immigrant Spending in the Presence of an Angular Conflict
Though the visit might last only hours, the two are expected to convene a White House news conference before Zelensky addresses members of Congress on Capitol Hill in prime time.
A summary of the report released on Monday states that the committee’s conclusion was based on what it had seen and heard. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
The Senate is expected to take procedural steps Wednesday and send a year-long spending bill to the House later this week.
A controversial Trump-era border restriction known as Title 42 that was set to expire Wednesday will remain in place until the Supreme Court issues an order – which can come at any time, although the court has no deadline.
The Biden administration told the Supreme Court Tuesday that the justices should reject an emergency bid by a group of GOP-led states to keep the restriction in effect while legal challenges play out. It asked the court to delay the end of Title 42 until at least December 27, citing an upcoming holiday weekend and influx of migrants.
The rule has allowed border officials to immediately turn away migrants who have crossed the southern border illegally, all in the name of Covid-19 prevention. The Biden administration has been bracing for the arrival of more than 2 million expulsions if the authority is lifted.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/21/politics/washington-biden-zelensky-january-6-trump-immigration-spending-bill/index.html
Timing of Sam Bankman-Fried, the Founder of the FTX Company, to an Extradition Hearing at 11 a.m. ET
The IRS failed to properly audit Trump’s taxes when he was in office, according to the House Ways and Means Committee. It released a report that gave a six year history of the former president’s taxes, including claims that his tax burden was reduced.
The extradition hearing for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to be scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET, according to Nassau Magistrate Court administrator Alpha Grant.
Grant confirmed the timing of Wednesday’s hearing shortly after Jerone Roberts, Bankman-Fried’s Bahamian attorney, spent several hours in the courthouse Tuesday afternoon and then left amid a swarm of unanswered questions from reporters.
Bankman-Fried was arrested a day before he was to appear before the House Financial Services Committee, at his beach house in the middle of the ocean.
Nearly two years after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the Democratic-led House committee investigating the attack is set to release its full report Thursday.
The House Ethics Committee referred four Republican House members to it for not complying with subpoenas.
It will include additional evidence and detail about the scheme pushed by Trump and his allies to overturn the election in the full report, which was scheduled for Wednesday. It will also have citations from the more than 1,000 interviews the committee members conducted over the course of their 18-month investigation.
After the end of the year, transcripts of non-sensitive interviews will be made public, according to Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee.
Summary of the Mueller Investigation Committee’s Report to the Senate Select Committee on Investigations of the 2016 Trump-Momentum Count Act
Whether the Justice Department will take any action is unclear. Since Trump announced another run for the presidency, the DOJ appointed special counsel Jack Smith to lead the department’s investigations into the former president.
Pelosi praised the committee’s work but did not give any details of what she sees as next steps for the referral of four House members.
I respect the conclusions that the Committee has reached and the evidence it has developed. Our founding fathers made it clear that there is no room for moral superiority in the United States of America. “This bedrock principle does not change and justice must be done,” Pelosi said.
A bill updating the Electoral Count Act has bipartisan backing and has been attached to the omnibus spending bill moving through Congress in the coming days.
Trump Jr. said he did not know that he was paid $30,000 each by Turning Point Action for his speeches at the rally. He thought the money was for an event at the Palm BeachHilton, according to the transcript released Thursday.
“You’re done for life with me because I won’t pay you a $60,000 speaking fee for an event you aren’t speaking at?” The heir to the Publix supermarket fortune who donated millions to put on the Trump rally was thanked by a Trump fund-raiser. This poor woman gave $1 million to Don’s Senate campaign and $3 million to this rally and you will have to thank her for five minutes in your day. It’s so humiliating. And then you have the audacity to ask me why I won’t have her pay you $60,000?”
Some witnesses and their lawyers took combative stances when they were questioned. For instance, a lawyer for the white nationalist Nick Fuentes repeatedly challenged the committee’s investigators and accused them of grandstanding.
Over the past week, the select committee has dropped a stream of transcript drops, as well as the sweeping report. The latest release comes as the panel winds down its work with the House majority set to change hands from Democrats to Republicans next week at the start of the new Congress.
Since the released transcripts have provided insights into the final weeks of the presidency of Donald Trump, there have been reports from federal and state officials who resisted pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Donald Trump Jr. told the committee that the reason he texted Meadows a detailed plan about how to ensure his father would get a second term two days after the 2020 presidential election was because he thought the ideas were “the most sophisticated” and “sounded plausible.”
The strategy proposed by the former President’s allies in the text message is nearly identical to what they attempted later in the year. Trump Jr. makes specific reference to filing lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results, as well as having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake “Trump electors.”
“Perhaps in reading it, it was the most sophisticated, you know, and detailed, and again, about things I don’t necessarily, you know, know too much about, but it sounded plausible and I wanted to make sure that we were looking into the issues brought up in the text,” Trump Jr. said.
Meadows did not initially respond to the original November 5 text, but when Trump Jr. followed up the next day to make sure he saw, Trump’s then-chief of staff texted, “much of this had merit. Working on this for PA, so Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina already.”
Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle told the court that they didn’t remember certain conversations about rally planning and that they weren’t aware of some particulars as it was put together.
“My recollection was that we had spoken for them prior to Christmas at an event that we did annually and always got sort of paid for speaking fees to show up,” Trump Jr. said.
The interviews they had with the House select committee detailed how they distanced themselves from the events that led to the January 6 attack. When investigators asked if he ever received any money, Trump Jr. said, “I don’t recall specifically.” They asked if Guilfoyle ever got paid, and he said, “I don’t know.”
Correspondence with Lindsey Graham on the January 6 Committee on Investigations of a Candidate Against Donald J. Trump
“I was not involved in any of that certification stuff. She said she didn’t know about the significance of the rally on January 6.
According to an account given to the January 6 committee, Lindsey Graham would become a champion of election fraud claims if Trump’s staff would give him information about dead voters.
According to a transcript of Bobb’s House testimony released Thursday, Graham received a memo from the legal team working with Trump, titled “Chairman Graham dead votes memo for your consideration.”
“Give me, you know, an example of illegals voting. Bobb told Graham what he wanted to take, and what he said at the time.
On January 6, 2021, Trump thought the rioters looked very trashy, but was happy that they were fighting for him, according to a former White House press secretary and chief of staff.
Grisham told the committee: “I heard from several people in the West Wing, more on the military aide or Secret Service side, and then a couple just people, but that he was sitting in the dining room, and he was just watching it all unfold, and that a couple of his comments – some of his comments were that these people looked very trashy, but also look at what fighters they were.”
“Certainly when it came to the kids, especially Don Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, she never trusted that they were doing things in the best interest of their – of Don Jr.’s father,” Grisham told the committee.
Grisham said Melania also distrusted “people that she thought were giving her husband bad advice,” like lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and campaign staffers. She would say that she doesn’t think this is smart, and that they are giving him bad advice.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/politics/january-6-committee-transcripts/index.html
The State of the State and the Admissibility of the National Guard in the U.S. Senator’s Special Session (Extended Abstract)
The mayor of Washington, DC, would have the same authority to deploy the national guard as a governor under a proposal being considered by Congress. Because the District of Columbia is not a state, the authority to deploy is delegated to the Army secretary by the defense secretary and president.