WASHINGTON –
A presidential tweet that some saw as a “call to arms.” A “casual” meeting at the White House. Violent extremists plan to storm the Capitol as President Donald Trump pushes lies about election fraud.
In its seventh hearing on Tuesday, the House panel on Jan. 6 showed further evidence that Trump has been told repeatedly that his fraud claims are false — yet he continues to push them. And at the same time, he reached out to the widest possible audience on Twitter, calling his supporters, some of them violent, to Washington on January 6, 2021, to not only protest, but to “go wild” while Congress certifies the victory of President Joe Biden.
“CALL TO ACTION, CALL TO ARMS”
A major focus of the hearing was Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet about a “big protest” at an upcoming joint session of Congress: “Be there, it’s going to be wild!”
Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Democratic member of the committee, said the tweet “has served as a call to action and in some cases a call to arms.” She said the president was “calling for support” as he argued Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans lacked the courage to try to block Biden’s certification while he presided over the joint session.
The tweet “electrified and galvanized” Trump supporters, said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, another Democratic committee member, especially “dangerous extremists from Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other far-right racist and white nationalist groups ready to fight.” “
The committee showed a montage of videos and social media posts after the tweet as supporters reacted and planned trips to Washington, some of them using violent rhetoric and talking about killing police officers.
ONE “PERFECT” MEETING
The commission compiled interview videos to describe a chaotic meeting on Dec. 18, in the hours before Trump’s tweet, almost minute by minute.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified live before the panel two weeks ago, called the meeting between White House aides and unofficial advisers pushing the fraud allegations “unsubstantiated” in a message tonight to another Trump aide. Other aides described “yelling” and profanity at the meeting as advisers floated wild theories about election fraud without evidence to back them up and as White House lawyers aggressively pushed back.
The videos included testimony from attorney Sydney Powell, who had floated some of the wildest theories, including broken voting machines and hacked thermostats, which she somehow linked to the false fraud claims.
White House counsel Eric Hershman, one of the aides who pushed back, said the theories were “crazy” and “it’s getting to the point where the screams are totally, totally out.”
Aides described a chaotic six hours of back-and-forth, beginning with Trump speaking to a group of informal advisers without White House aides. Both Pat Cipollone, a White House adviser, and Powell said in interviews that Cipollone rushed to prevent the gathering. Powell said sarcastically that she thought Cipollone set a new “land speed record” by getting there.
Cipollone, who sat down with the committee for a private interview last week after being subpoenaed, said he didn’t think the group had given Trump good advice and said he and other White House lawyers just kept asking them “where’s the evidence? But they didn’t get good answers, he said.
Hours later, at 1:42 a.m., Trump sent out a tweet urging his supporters to come to Washington on January 6.
REBEL AND FORMER OATH GUARDIAN
Two witnesses were in the hearing room for testimony — an insurgent who pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol and a former sworn officer who described his experiences with the group.
Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty last month to a disorderly conduct charge and is scheduled to be sentenced in September, said he was in Washington on Jan. 6 at Trump’s behest and that he had left the Capitol when Trump — hours later — said tweet them to leave. “Basically, we just followed what the president said,” Ayres said.
He said his arrest less than a month later “changed my life, but not for the better” and angered him that he hung on Trump’s every word and that some people still do. Asked by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney if he still believed the election was stolen, Ayres said, “Not so much now.”
Jason Van Tattenhove, a former ally of Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes who left the group years before the rebellion, said the group was a “violent militia”.
“I think we need to stop mincing words and just talk about truths and what was going to be an armed revolution,” he said. “I mean people died that day ΓǪ That might have been the spark that started another civil war.”
Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers, along with another far-right group, the Proud Boys, have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the most serious cases brought by the Justice Department so far over the Jan. 6 attack.
INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE
The committee revealed that Trump had planned for days to have his supporters march on the Capitol — and that he would join them.
The panel showed a draft of a tweet, undated and never sent, which said: “Please arrive early, huge crowds expected. March to the Capitol afterwards. Stop the theft!” And they showed text messages and email exchanges between organizers and White House aides about a secret plan for the march.
“This is just between us, we have a second leg at the Supreme Court” after Trump’s rally, one of the rally’s organizers, Kylie Kremer, wrote to a Trump confidant. “POTUS will have us march there/Capitol.” People will try to “sabotage” him if they find out, she said.
Murphy said the president’s call for the march at his rally “was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather a deliberate strategy taken in advance by the president.”
Hutchinson’s testimony last month also focused on Trump’s willingness to march with the protesters and his anger at security officials who wouldn’t let him in.
The committee looked at Trump’s speech at the rally this morning and some of his ad-hoc comments about Vice President Mike Pence that were not in the original drafts of the speech. He would end up mentioning the vice president eight times, telling the crowd he hoped Pence would “do the right thing” and try to block Biden’s certification in a joint session of Congress.
PRE-ELECTED COUNCIL AND STAFF REGRET
As in several hearings, lawmakers on the committee showed video testimony from White House aides who said they did not believe there was widespread fraud in the election and told the president so. Several aides said they were firmly convinced that Biden’s victory was a done deal after states certified voters on Dec. 14 and after dozens of Trump campaign lawsuits failed in court.
Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, said she believed the election was over after Dec. 14 and “probably before that.” Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said she was planning her life after the White House at that point. Eugene Scalia, Trump’s labor secretary, said he told the president during a call that it was time to say Biden had won.
And then there were regrets. In one text message exchange uncovered by the panel, former Trump campaign aide Brad Parscale wrote to aide Katrina Pearson: “This week I feel guilty for helping him win” and “If I were Trump and I knew my rhetoric was killed someone”.
“That wasn’t the rhetoric,” Pearson replied.
“Katrina,” wrote Parscale, who still participates in a weekly strategy call with Trump aides. “Yes, this is it.”
WITNESS TAMPERING?
At the end of the hearing, Cheney revealed new information: Trump had tried to subpoena a prospective witness and the committee alerted the Justice Department about the call.
According to Cheney, the witness did not pick up the call. She did not identify the witness, but said it was someone the public had not yet heard of.
The committee previously said people in Trump’s orbit contacted witnesses in ways that could reflect or at least create the appearance of improper influence.
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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Michael Kunzelman, Jill Colvin, Amanda Seitz and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
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