WASHINGTON – Ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump White House officials and members of the House’s right-wing caucus have devised a plan to direct thousands of angry protesters to the building, according to recent testimony from a House of Representatives committee and the efforts of former President Donald J. Trump to cancel the election.
On a planning call that included Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff; Rudolf W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer; Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican; and other members of Freedom Caucus, the group is discussing the idea of encouraging supporters to march to the Capitol, according to a witness.
The idea was backed by Representative Scott Perry, a Republican in Pennsylvania who now leads the Freedom Faction, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mr Meadows, and none of the call came against the idea.
“I don’t think there is a participant in the conversation who has necessarily discouraged the idea,” Ms. Hutchinson told committee investigators.
The nearly two-mile march from Ellipse’s Presidential Stop Theft rally to the Capitol, where parts of the mob became a violent mob, became the focus of both the House of Representatives committee and the Justice Department as they investigated who was responsible for the violence.
Mr Meadows and members of the Caucasus for Freedom, who were deeply involved in Mr Trump’s efforts to cancel the 2020 elections, condemned the violence in the Capitol on 6 January and defended their role in spreading the lie about stolen elections.
Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony and other materials revealed by the commission in Friday’s 248-page lawsuit added new details and texture to what is publicly known about discussions in Mr. Trump’s inner circle and among his allies in recent weeks. before January. 6 attack.
The statement is part of the commission’s efforts to seek the dismissal of a case brought against him by Mr Meadows. It reveals that Mr Meadows was told that plans to attempt to cancel the 2020 elections with the help of so-called alternative voters were not “legally sound” and that the events of 6 January could turn in violence. However, he moved on with the rally that led to the Capitol march, according to documentation.
The document also reveals new details about Mr Meadows’ involvement in trying to put pressure on Brad Rafensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to lose Mr Trump there.
At rallies in Washington in November and December 2020, Mr. Trump’s supporters did not march to the Capitol and refrained mostly from violence. But on January 6, Mr. Trump encouraged a crowd of thousands to march on the building, telling them, “You will never return our country with weakness. You have to show strength. “He did so after the White House chief of operations told Mr Meadows about” intelligence reports that there could be potential violence on the 6th, “according to the documentation.
Two rally organizers, Dustin Stockton and his fiancée Jennifer L. Lawrence, also provided evidence to the committee that they were concerned that the March 6 Capitol march would mean “possible danger” and that “Mr. Stockton’s urgent concerns” were handed over to Mr Meadows, according to the committee.
In his book, Chief Boss, Mr Meadows said Mr Trump “imposed a line no one had seen before” when he told the crowd to march, adding that the president “knows as well as anyone else” that we would not organize such a trip in such a short time. “
Ms Hutchinson’s testimony contradicts those allegations.
She said Mr Meadows said “in a casual conversation”: “Oh, we’re going to have this big rally. People talk about it on social media. They will go up to the Capitol.
Speaking about a planning conversation involving Mr Meadows and members of Freedom Caucus, a committee investigator asked her if Mr Perry supported the “idea of sending people to the Capitol on January 6”.
“He did,” Ms. Hutchinson replied.
A spokesman for Mr Perry, who declined to speak to the committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Ministry of Justice and the commission are investigating how the crowd moved from the Ellipse to the Capitol.
The investigative committee, for example, obtained draft copies of Mr Trump’s speech. This month, they pressured the author, Stephen Miller, a former senior White House adviser, to say Mr Trump’s repeated use of the word “we” was an attempt to persuade his supporters to join him in the Capitol movement to stop Congress. by certifying his defeat.
Rally organizers, such as the well-known Stop theft organizer Ali Alexander, also had a hand in directing people from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Mr. Alexander, at the request of Mr. Trump’s aides, left the speech before it was over and marched near the head of the crowd, which was moving toward the building.
That day, Mr. Alexander was joined by Alex Jones, the founder of the conspiracy-led media media Infowars, which encouraged the crowd by shouting about 1776.
On Wednesday, Mr Jones revealed that he had recently asked the Ministry of Justice for a deal to give a formal interview to the government about his role in the events of January 6th in return for not being prosecuted.
Consequences of Capitol Riot: Key Developments
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Signs of progress. The federal investigation into the January 6 attack appears to be gaining momentum. The Justice Department has recruited a respected new prosecutor to help conduct the investigation, while a high-ranking witness – far-right TV cameraman Alex Jones – is seeking an immunity agreement to provide information.
Weighing the changes in the Uprising Act. On January 6, some members of the House of Representatives committee began discussions on rewriting the Uprising Act in response to the events that led to the Capitol riot. The law currently gives presidents the power to deploy the military to respond to riots, and some fear it could be abused by a president trying to incite a riot.
Discussion of criminal referral. The composition of the House of Representatives was divided on whether to refer former President Donald J. Trump to the Ministry of Justice, although he concluded that he had enough evidence of this. The debate focuses on whether the referral would have the opposite effect by politically tarnishing the expanding federal investigation.
Continuing election doubts. More than a year after trying and failing to use the final count of congressional votes on January 6 to cancel the election, some of Trump’s allies have been pushing false legal theories to “desertify” the 2020 vote and continue to fuel a fake story that resonates with Mr. Trump’s supporters.
Two weeks earlier, Mr Alexander revealed that he had been summoned by a federal grand jury seeking information on a wide range of people – rally organizers, members of Congress and White House officials – who had played roles in political events. which preceded the Capitol attack.
Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony shows that members of the Freedom Group were also involved in plans to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to cast votes in the state election won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. and to accept fake credentials. in which these states allegedly voted for Mr. Trump. .
She said members of Congress involved in the discussions included Mr. Jordan; Mr. Perry; Representatives Andy Biggs, Paul Gossar and Debbie Lesko from Arizona; Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama; Representative Matt Goetz of Florida; Representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Jody Hayes of Georgia; Representative Louis Homert of Texas; and representative Lauren Boubert of Colorado. (In the end, 147 Republicans in Congress voted to oppose Mr. Biden’s victory in at least one state.)
“They thought he had the power to – excuse me if my expression was incorrect on this issue, but – to send votes back to the states or voters back to the states,” Ms. Hutchinson testified, adding that they seemed to have been embrace a plan promoted by conservative lawyer John Eastman, which members of both parties likened to a coup plan.
Ms Hutchinson suggested that White House lawyers had found the plan “not legally sound,” but Mr. Meadows allowed it to move forward.
The commission’s note also contained an email revealing that a pro-Trump lawyer named Cleta Mitchell also played a role in promoting the alternative voter scheme.
The email Ms. Mitchell sent to Mr. Meadows on December 6, 2020, included a list of “key points” about the plan, noting, for example, that the U.S. Constitution empowers state legislatures to appoint presidential voters. “
Ms. Mitchell sent a version of the email a day earlier to Sen. Mike Brown, an Indiana Republican, before the senator appeared on television. When Ms Mitchell forwarded the email to Mr Meadows, she wrote: “I prepared this and sent it to Sen Braun last night to help him prepare for ABC’s appearance this morning. Can the WH press center receive and start using ?? ”
The documentation also shows that Mr. Meadows was in contact with Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel with training in psychological operations, who was among a group of conspirators who pushed through final plans to persuade Mr. Trump to use its national security apparatus to take control of the country’s voting machines in an attempt to stay in power.
Working with others such as pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and Michael T. Flynn, a former Trump national security adviser, Mr. Waldron spread a conspiracy theory that foreign actors hacked voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems in an attempt to turn voices from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.
In a newly opened email sent to Mr. Meadows in December …
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