destroyed paperwork suggestions for forgiving aggressive rioters. Cabinet members have private discussions regarding the possibility of impeaching then-President Donald Trump.
Further than 100 interview transcripts have been made public recently, providing more information about the January 6, 2021 uprising and the days before it as Trump attempted to avenge his loss in the presidential election.After delivering a final report last week, a nine-member committee in the US House of Representatives conducted more than 1,000 interviews. The lawmakers are now progressively making hundreds of transcripts public. When the new Republican-led House takes office on Tuesday, the panel will be disbanded.
Even though some of the witnesses were more candid than others, the interviews as a whole tell the full tale of Trump's unprecedented plotting, the bloody assault on Capitol Hill, and the concerns lawmakers and the former president's own aides had as he attempted to overthrow democracy and the will of the people.
Highlights from the interviews that have been published thus far include:All revealed by a White House aide
Cassidy Hutchinson, a previously unknown White House assistant, gained widespread notice this summer when she testified in a sudden hearing. She provided information regarding Trump's remarks and deeds leading up to the attack on January 6: his wrath after Capitol security prevented him from being there that day and how he came to know that some of his followers were armed.
Four of her private interviews with the committee have so far been made public, providing fresh information on what she claimed to have seen while working as a personal assistant to Mark Meadows, the then-White House chief of staff. Hutchinson revealed before the committee, among other things, that she had witnessed Meadows "about a dozen times" after the 2020 election burning papers in his office fireplace.
She said that she had no idea what the documents were or whether they were things that were required by law to be kept. Meadows' spokesman declined to respond to questions.
Hutchinson went into great detail about her moral quandary on how much information to provide. She even looked up others involved in the Watergate scandal who had similarly testified about their time spent working in Richard Nixon's White House.
After three interviews and a new attorney, Hutchinson appeared before the committee in June and declared, "My character and my integrity mean more to me than anything."
Please forgive everyone?
Trump proposed a sweeping pardon for all participants after the uprising. However, according to testimony from Johnny McEntee, an aide who had previously served as the director of the presidential personnel office, Pat Cipollone, the White House attorney at the time, resisted the proposal.
The panel questioned McEntee in March.
Later, Trump questioned whether pardons should only be granted to people who entered the Capitol without taking part in the violence. However, McEntee recalled that there was considerable opposition to that proposal as well. Trump seemed to be convinced by the counsel, according to him, and he denied knowing that the subject was ever brought up again.
Separately, McEntee claimed that Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz informed him that he planned to ask President Trump for a pardon in advance of a federal probe into child sex trafficking. Gaetz was not granted such a pardon and has not been charged in relation to the investigation.
Hutchinson stated that after Trump's presidency, Meadows' office was flooded with pardon requests, and some of them went to his son-in-law Jared Kushner for assistance.Twenty-fifth Amendment
The panel questioned a number of Trump's cabinet members over discussions of using Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which would have resulted in the removal of Trump from office by his own cabinet, forcibly. Even while some people acknowledged that it had been considered, it seems that they did not believe the scenario to be plausible.
After the uprising, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claims he briefly discussed the idea with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
When called to testify in July, Mnuchin said, "It came up very quickly in our chat. "We both thought that the ideal result would be a regular transfer of power, which was happening, and neither of us seriously considered the 25th Amendment."
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley, testified to the committee that he overheard the words "25th Amendment" during a brief conversation between the two cabinet secretaries in the White House. Although his transcript has not yet been made public, during their interrogation of Pompeo and Mnuchin, investigators cited Milley.Pompeo admitted to the committee that he couldn't remember the exchange. I would have thought it completely absurd if someone had mentioned the possibility of using the 25th Amendment, he said.
Later, in a letter to California Democrat and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Mike Pence rejected the notion, arguing that the mechanism should only be used in cases where a president is physically or psychologically incapable.
Marc Short, Pence's former chief of staff, told the panel that he believed the discussion to be "a political game." He claimed that the procedure would have taken weeks to complete and that Democrat Joe Biden's inauguration was scheduled for January 20.
Trump family witnesses
The committee questioned Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, two of the former president's children, about their talks with their father before, during, and after the attack on January 6.
Many of the committee's inquiries went unanswered by Trump Jr., who regularly claimed he couldn't remember conversations or occurrences. He did give an explanation for why, on the afternoon of January 6, while the attack was taking place, he texted Meadows to urge his father to immediately "condemn this s**t" and to complain that Trump's tweets had been insufficient.
Trump Jr. stated, "My father doesn't text.
Ivanka Trump, who was present in the White House on January 6 with her father, gave several evasive responses as well. She told the committee how she helped her father compose his tweets on that particular day and pushed him to use them to make a bold statement when the rioters broke into the Capitol.
She also stated that she overheard Trump's side of a "heated" phone discussion that morning with Pence, during which her father attempted to get Pence to raise a protest against the congressional certification. Pence rebuffed the request.
She further testified that while the Capitol was under siege, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine called and texted her. Collins advised her, "The president needs to send out a really strong tweet ordering people to go home and to halt the violence right away."
Five dead voters, please.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close confidant of Trump, reportedly requested some of the former president's advisers for proof of election fraud so he could "promote" it when the results were announced, according to testimony by Trump attorney Christina Bobb.
Trump falsely asserted there had been widespread fraud, in defiance of court decisions and denials from election officials in all 50 states.Graham reportedly said, "Don't tell me everything; it's too overwhelming," according to Bobb. "Just show me five deceased voters; show me an instance of an illegal voting." Just provide me with a tiny snapshot that I can adopt and promote.
According to Bobb, he did nothing with the information that was provided. Graham cast a ballot on January 6 to ratify Biden's victory in the presidential race.National Guard displeasure
Retired Army Major General William Walker, who oversaw the DC National Guard at the time, said in court that had the mob that attacked the Capitol been primarily made up of African Americans, it would have been dealt with by law enforcement considerably more harshly. Walker is currently serving as House sergeant at arms.
"My name is African American. "Child of the 1960s," Walker claimed in court. "I believe that if there were African Americans attempting to breach the Capitol, the reaction would have been significantly different. The law enforcement response would have been different if the person had been a career law enforcement officer or part-time military.
Police officers were overwhelmed as a result of the National Guard's delayed arrival to the Capitol, according to Pentagon officials, who said they were gathering the required approvals. As Trump's fans pummeled and ran over the officers to gain in, more than 100 of them suffered injuries, many of them severe.
Walker claims that he pondered bypassing the line of command and allowing the troops to enter after expressing extreme dissatisfaction with the delays. Lawyers severely cautioned him against doing so, he claimed.
He claimed that the fact that the insurrectionists were primarily white did not account for the Pentagon hold-up.
In his April interview, he stated, "I don't think race was part of the military's decision paralysis. I think they just didn't want to do it."Leaders of the hardline group Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to some inquiries from investigators, and his attorney occasionally insisted that his client did not belong to the hardline group, whose members are currently being charged with a rare form of seditious activity.
Tarrio, however, admitted to investigators that he assumed the position of chairman.
On the eve of the uprising, Tarrio had been let out of jail, but he was not there for the attack. But according to the prosecution, he maintained control over the Proud Boys who attacked Congress while encouraging them from a distance. Some of the first rioters to enter the Capitol's perimeter were the Proud Boys.
A member of the Proud Boys must first be a "Western chauvinist" and "refuse to apologise for establishing the modern world," he told the panel, in order to be admitted.The night of January 5, just before the attack, Tarrio met Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the hardline group Oath Keepers, in a garage. Tarrio stated, "I still don't like Stewart Rhodes.
The panel also interviewed Rhodes, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in November for allegedly planning an armed uprising to prevent the transfer of presidential authority, according to the prosecution. They claimed Rhodes raised the possibility of a "bloody" civil war and enlisted his supporters to defend Trump.
Rhodes refused to respond to any inquiries about his participation on January 6 and the collection of firearms during his February hearing before the panel. He claimed that he feels imprisoned by politics.
Frankly, I feel like a Jew in Germany," Rhodes admitted to the committee.
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