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Before January 6, 2021, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was warned of the threat of violence that day as supporters of President Donald Trump planned to interfere in the Capitol, according to a new testimony released late Friday by a House committee. of representatives. investigation of the uprising.
One of Meadows’ top aides, Cassidy Hutchinson, told congressional investigators that he remembered Anthony Ornato, a senior secret service official who also served as a political adviser to the White House, “and said we have intelligence there could potentially be violence on the 6th. And Mr. Meadows said, “Okay.” Let’s talk about it. “
Hutchinson added, “I’m not sure if he did what he did with this information internally.”
The new details came in documents claiming that a federal court must reject Meadows’ claim to executive privilege and force him to appear before a House of Representatives committee on Jan. 6, which continues to build a case that Trump deliberately misled his followers about the election, and pressured Pence to break the law in the weeks and hours before the attack.
In the proposal, the commission outlines seven “discrete categories of information” that Meadows seeks to question and argues that his claims to executive privilege should not prevent him from testifying about those categories.
These categories include testimony and documents related to communication with members of Congress; the plan to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark; Trump’s efforts to “direct, persuade or pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally refuse to count the January 6 vote”; and the White House activities “immediately before and during the events of January 6.”
The Commission presented new examples of warnings that Meadows received before January 6, 2021, along with an in-depth understanding of his involvement in planning and coordinating efforts to disrupt the vote count in Congress.
Perhaps the most significant new evidence presented by the commission is the testimony of Hutchinson, who told investigators that her boss was informed “before the January 6 proceedings about the potential for violence that day,” according to the documentation.
Hutchinson told investigators: “I know there were concerns about Mr Meadows. I don’t know – I don’t want to speculate whether they perceived them as real worries, but I know that people provided him with information that indicated that there could be violence on the 6th. “
Investigators also found evidence that Meadows had repeatedly communicated with GOP representatives Scott Perry (R-Pa.) And Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) before and on January 6, 2021. Hutchinson identified Perry, Jordan, and Marjorie representative Taylor Green (R-Ga.) And Lauren Boubert (R-Colo.) As leading supporters in Congress, “who raised the idea that the vice president should do something other than just count the votes in the Jan. 6 election.
Asked by investigators if Perry supported the idea of sending people to the US Capitol that day, Hutchinson said he did, but that members attending a planning call before Jan. 6 were “more likely to follow White House guidelines.” “.
Hutchinson also spoke about a strategic meeting on December 21, 2020 at the White House before the election certification, which was attended by Jordan, Green and representatives Jody Hayes (R-Ga.), Paul A. Gossar (R-Ariz.), Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) And Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). Other GOP members joined the meeting, according to Hutchinson.
“They thought he had the power – excuse me if my expression is incorrect on this issue, but – to send votes back to the United States or voters back to the United States, rather through [John] Eastman’s theory, “Hutchinson said of the meeting, citing a legal theory put forward by Eastman, a conservative lawyer.
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