Lou

The House select committee reconvened Tuesday for a hastily scheduled hearing, featuring blockbuster testimony from Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Hutchinson has cooperated extensively with the investigation, having sat for four closed-door depositions. She revealed how then-President Donald Trump and his inner circle were warned about the potential for violence on January 6, and how Trump wanted to join the rioters at the US Capitol.

The testimony bolstered the narrative that the committee has been driving toward over the last few weeks: That Trump incited and supported the insurrection as part of a desperate power grab to steal a second term, and that many of his top advisers thought his schemes were illegal.

Trump and his chief of staff were warned about violence — including armed attendees of rally

Hutchinson really moved the ball forward in terms of establishing that Trump was personally aware of the potential for violence, yet forged ahead on January 6 with his attempts to rile up his supporters to interfere with the joint session of Congress to certify President Joe Biden’s victory.

She said Trump was told that morning that weapons were being confiscated from some of his supporters who came for his rally. Later, when Trump and his team were at the Ellipse — the large oval lawn on the south side of the White House. Trump was irate over the small side of the crowd. He was told that they were not entering because they didn’t want to go through the metal detectors and have their weapons confiscated. Before his speech, Trump barked out orders to his staffers to “take the mags away” — referring to the metal detectors — because the people in the crowd, “they’re not here to hurt me.”

Trump apparently wanted the mags to be taken down so his supporters could keep their weapons as they marched on the US Capitol.

Trump also said, “I don’t f**king care that they have weapons,” according to Hutchinson. This is particularly shocking, because Trump then encouraged the same crowd to march to the Capitol while lawmakers were affirming Biden’s win. (Hundreds of Trump’s diehard supporters soon stormed the Capitol, many carrying knives, bear spray, metal poles, tasers and a few guns.)

When Hutchinson told her boss, Meadows, about early reports of weapons getting confiscated, Meadows didn’t even look up from his phone, according to Hutchinson. Two days earlier, he told her that “things might get real, real, bad on January 6.”

“The potential for violence was learned or known before the onset of the violence, early enough for President Trump to have taken steps to prevent it,” said Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s GOP vice chair. She added that Trump could have urged his supporters not to march to the Capitol, or condemned the violence more quickly, but didn’t, because he “had something else in mind.”

Previous to the Jan 6 Committee hearings, the thought was that this was a protest that got out of hand. The evidence shows that this was not the case. Trumps plan was to unleash armed people on the Capitol to stop the transfer of power.

The question is, Why was Trump so adamant about going to the Capitol and what was he going to do once he got there? Was he going to enter with the armed mob behind him demanding that he be confirmed as President?

Trump intended to go the Capitol and pushed to do so until the last minute

The select committee effectively proved by featuring a mix of damning witness testimony and White House records that show Trump intended to join his supporters at the Capitol and was pushing to do so just minutes before the violence began to escalate.

It was previously known that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol, but Hutchinson’s testimony established for the first time that people around Trump had advance knowledge of this plan.

The reality of Trump’s intentions became clear to national security officials in real time as they learned the Secret Service was scrambling to find a way for the former President to travel to the Capitol while he was on stage urging his followers to march, according to National Security Council chat logs from that day that were revealed for the first time during Tuesday’s hearing. 

The NSC chat logs provide a minute-by-minute accounting of how the situation evolved from the perspective of top White House national security officials on January 6 and, along with witness testimony delivered on Tuesday, contradict an account by Meadows in his book where he says Trump never intended to march to the Capitol. 

“MOGUL’s going to the Capital … they are clearing a route now,” a message sent to the chat log at 12:29 p.m. ET on January 6 reads — referring to the former President’s secret service code name.  “MilAide has confirmed that he wants to walk,” a 12:32 p.m. message reads. “They are begging him to reconsider.” “So this is happening,” a message sent at 12:47 p.m. states. 

Hutchinson also testified that some in Trump’s orbit had made clear days before January 6 that Trump wanted to travel to the US Capitol.

She told the committee Tuesday that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told her on January 2 — four days before the US Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters — that “we’re going to the Capitol” on January 6, and that Trump himself was also planning to be there.

Trump reached for steering wheel

Hutchinson testified Tuesday that she heard a secondhand account of how Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on January 6 he lunged to the front of his presidential limo and tried to turn the wheel. 

Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff, told Hutchinson that Robert Engel, who was the Secret Service agent in charge on January 6 that repeatedly told Trump on their way back to the White House after Trump’s Ellipse speech that it wasn’t safe to go to the Capitol. 

According to Hutchinson, Ornato recounted Trump screaming, “I’m the f**king President. Take me up to the Capitol now.” 

Trump then “reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel,” Hutchinson remembered learning. She added that, according to Ornato, Trump used his other hand “lunge” at Engel up near his clavicle.. 

Engel and Ornato have both testified to the committee behind closed doors, but their statements were not used in the hearing Tuesday.

This anecdote came up as the committee questioned Hutchinson about Trump’s state of mind after losing the election. Hutchinson recounted a separate Trump tantrum after then-Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press in December 2020 there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. “I remember hearing noise coming from down the hallway,” Hutchinson began. She saw the President’s valet in the dining room, changing the tablecloth, ketchup dripping down the wall, and a porcelain plate shattered on the floor. “The President was extremely angry at the attorney general’s … interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall,” Hutchinson said. “I grabbed a towel and started wiping the ketchup off the wall.”

Cipollone warned: ‘People are going to die and the blood’s gonna be on your f**king hands’

Trump defended the rioters chanting for the hanging of then-Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, according to Hutchinson.

Hutchinson relayed a conversation she observed between White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Meadows after they discussed with Trump the chants to inflict violence on Pence.

“I remember Pat saying something to the effect of ‘Mark, we need to do something more. Meadows said that Trump was in the dining room and didn’t want to do anything. They’re literally calling for the vice president to be f**king hung,'” Hutchinson recalled. Meadows replied, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” according to Hutchinson.

Cipollone responded, “This is f**king crazy. We need to be doing something more.”

Hutchinson testified that Cipollone had previously rushed into Meadows’ office after rioters breached the Capitol and told Meadows what had happened, and said they needed to go meet with Trump. 

“Mark, something needs to be done, or people are going to die and the blood’s gonna be on your f**king hands,” Cipollone told Meadows, according to Hutchinson. “This is getting out of control.”

Trump delivered a speech on January 7, 2021, finally acknowledging that Biden would be inaugurated in part because there was a “large concern” by the White House that Pence and the Cabinet could invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from power, according to Cassidy’s testimony. While Trump gave the speech effectively conceding the election, he wanted to remove calls for “prosecuting the rioters or calling them violent” from early drafts of his January 7 speech, according to Hutchinson, but wanted to float pardons to his supporters. “He didn’t want that in there,” Hutchinson said. “He wanted to put in that he wanted to potentially pardon them.” “He didn’t think that they did anything wrong,” said Hutchinson, referring to the pro-Trump rioters. “The people who did something wrong that day-or-the person who did something wrong that day was Mike Pence, by not standing with him.”

Cassidy Hutchinson told the House Select committee Tuesday that her one-time boss, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, indicated he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to Jan. 6.  She also told the panel that Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former attorney, also expressed similar interest in a pardon. 

Trump was already bracing for an explosive day of testimony from Hutchinson, who previously told the House select committee that the former President approved of rioters chanting violent threats against Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021.

“This is a bombshell. It’s stunning. It’s shocking. The story about ‘The Beast’ — I don’t have words. It’s just stunning,” said one Trump adviser, referring to the presidential limousine. 

“This paints a picture of Trump completely unhinged and completely losing all control which, for his base, they think of him as someone who is in command at all times. This completely flies in the face of that,” the adviser added. 

Most taken from CNN report June 27 – opinions and questions are part of CNN article.

The January 6 hearing on Thursday told things not previously known concerning Trump’s attempts to weaponize the Justice Department as part of his plot to overturn the 2020 election and stay in power.

The hearing began mere hours after federal investigators raided the home of Jeffrey Clark, who Trump wanted to install as Attorney General replacing Jeffrey Rosen who had replaced William Barr just days before.

The witnesses were acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, his deputy, Richard Donoghue and Steven Engle who led the department’s Office of Legal Council. They join a growing list of Republicans who have gone under oath to provide damning information about Trump’s coup plot.

As he did with state officials testifying on Tuesday, Donald Trump hounded the Justice Department to pursue his false election fraud claims, striving in vain to enlist top law enforcement officials in his desperate bid to stay in power and hosting a dramatic Oval Office showdown in which he weighed replacing the agency’s leader with a more compliant lower-level official , Jeffrey Clark.

Three Trump-era Justice Department officials recounted a relentless pressure campaign from the president, including day after day of directives to chase unsupported allegations that the election won by Democrat Joe Biden had been stolen. It appeared that Trump spent his days scouring the internet for election fraud conspiracy theories. The officials described the constant contact as a stark breach of protocol for a department that cherishes its independence from the White House but said they swatted away each demand because there was zero evidence of widespread voter fraud.

“For the department to insert itself into the political process this way, I think would have had grave consequences for the country that very well may have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis,” said Richard Donoghue, the acting No. 2 official in the final days of the Trump administration. The president, he said, had this “arsenal of allegations. I went through them piece by piece to say, no, they were not true.”

Jeffrey Rosen, who was acting attorney general, said he was called by Trump or met with him basically every day from the time he ascended to the post in late December 2020 through early January 2021, with the common theme being “dissatisfaction about what the Justice Department had done to investigate election fraud.”

It all added up to a “brazen attempt” to use the Justice Department for his own political gain, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and co-chairman of the Jan. 6 committee. “Donald Trump didn’t just want the Justice Department to investigate,” Thompson said. “He wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies, to basically call the election corrupt” and to appoint a special counsel. The Justice Department resisted each demand.

Trump was introduced by a Republican congressman, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, to Clark, who’d joined the department in 2018 as its chief environmental lawyer and was later appointed to run its civil division. Clark, according to statements from other Justice Department officials, met with Trump despite being ordered not to by bosses at the department and presented himself as eager to aid the president’s efforts to challenge the election results.

A draft of the letter had been provided to Clark by a newly arrived Justice official, Ken Klukowski. Liz Cheney said Thursday that Klukowski had been assigned “to work under Jeffrey Clark” and that he helped draft the letter to key states. In addition, Cheney said that Klukowski “also worked with John Eastman,” the Trump legal adviser who was involved in other plans seeking to overturn the election. Cheney said the letter echoed some of Eastman’s theories. In my view, Trump/Eastman placed Klukowski under Clark to guide the incompetent Trump follower. Two sources said Klukowski has cooperated with the committee, but it did not release his testimony; his lawyer declined to comment on Thursday night. Eastman and his lawyer could not be reached.

Clark took ownership of the letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session to reconsider the election results. Clark wanted the letter sent, but superiors at the Justice Department refused.

In one phone conversation with Trump, according to handwritten notes taken by Donoghue and highlighted at Thursday’s hearing, Trump directed to Rosen to “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.”

(The panel played recorded interviews of Trump aides saying that multiple Republican members of Congress requested pardons in the days after the violent riot at the Capitol. Representatives Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Scott Perry, and Marjorie Taylor Greene asked for pardons, testimony showed.)

The situation came to a head on Jan. 3, 2021, a Sunday, when Clark informed Rosen in a private meeting at the Justice Department that Trump wanted to replace him with Clark as acting attorney general. Clark was willing to use the powers of federal law enforcement to encourage state lawmakers to overturn the election. Rosen resisted, contacted senior Justice Department officials to inform them of the situation and his intent to resign and also requested a White House meeting.

That night, Rosen, Donoghue and Engel, along with Clark, gathered with Trump and top White House lawyers for a contentious, hours-long Oval Office meeting .

According to testimony given by Rosen, Trump opened the meeting by saying, “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election.”

Donoghue eviscerated Clark’s credentials explaining that Clark was woefully under qualified and incompetent to serve as attorney general. Clark responded saying, ‘Well, I’ve done a lot of very complicated appeals and civil litigation, environmental litigation, and things like that,’” Donoghue said. “And I said, ‘That’s right. You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.’”

Donoghue and Engel made clear to Trump that they and large numbers of other Justice Department officials would resign if Trump fired Rosen. White House lawyers said the same. Pat Cipollone, then the White House counsel, said the letter that Clark wanted to send was a “murder-suicide pact.”

“Steve Engel at one point said, ‘Jeff Clark will be leading a graveyard. And what are you going to get done with a graveyard,’ that there would be such an exodus of the leadership,” Donoghue told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “So it was very strongly worded to the president that that would happen.”

In a White House phone log 2 hours before the meeting, it recorded Jeffery Clark as acting Attorney General appearing that Trump had made the decision but backed off after the meeting. In my view, because the blowback from this would upset his plans for January 6.

Trump didn’t care if there was real fraud or not, he just wanted the Justice Department to issue a letter to lend some doubt about the election to b ouster his supporters and put things into chaos.

Thanks to Rosen, Donoghue, Herschman and Cipollone, Trump didn’t follow through on his plan, which would have put the country into uncharted waters, and would have increased the chances of Trump successfully pulling off the coup attempt.

Lawmakers on Thursday played a videotaped deposition showing Clark invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination 125 times.

The raid by federal investigators of Clark’s northern Virginia home preceded the revelations go Clarks actions at the hearing. Lawmakers were caught off-guard. It seemed like federal investigators may have finally heeded their public calls fro action. In order for the FBI to obtain a search warrant they must have evidence of a crime and convince a guard that evidence could be destroyed.

More than 100 people gathered in the Danvers High School Auditorium Tuesday morning to say goodbye to to Wayne Marquis. Wayne was a long time town manager who left an unforgettable mark on the community.

Wayne died on June 8 following a battle with cancer. The sudden loss, his friends and former colleagues said, is insurmountable.

“He has to be the most influential person in the history of the town,” said Town Moderator Patricia Fraizer.

Marquis started his career in town government in 1975, when he was a volunteer intern in the town manager’s office and reorganized community development, health recreations and the senior center into the town’s Planning and Human Services Department.

He was appointed interim assistant town manager from 1976 to 1977, then became assistant town manager in 1977. Two years later, he was hired as the town manager, a role he served in until his retirement in 2014.

“Wayne was a gentleman, a professional, and we were lucky to have such strong leadership,” state Rep. Sally Kerans said. “You cannot overstate the many ways in which he left his mark on Danvers.”

He brought the town’s municipal light division into the 21st century, stopping outages that had become all too familiar to Danvers residents. The town saw every one of its municipal buildings and athletic fields either constructed or renovated under his tenure, and his vast knowledge gave Danvers a sense of financial security that remains today, said Michael Landers, a member of the town’s Finance Committee and a former Danvers Select Board member.

His accomplishments are too long to list in full. But what his colleagues remember the most, they said, was the calm and honest way he served the residents of Danvers.

Select Board member Gardner Trask said he remembered seeing this in action after the Danversport chemical explosion in 2006, which destroyed more than 20 homes in the neighborhood just a day before Thanksgiving.

“I remember going down to the port immediately after it happened and he was already there in command, directing action to minimize the impact on the neighbors,” Trask said. “His first concern was the residents.”

Marquis treated everyone with kindness and respect no matter who they were, Kerans said. Landers added that it would be hard to find a former Select Board member who would have a negative thing to say about him.

“Even those people who disagreed with his policy decisions, they knew he was doing what he thought was best for the town,” Landers said.

Marquis’ presence was a calm one. He never raised his voice and always respected everyone’s opinions, Trask said.

“He did what he felt was the right thing to do and often the right thing is not popular, and the popular thing is not right, but he always guided Danvers through those waters,” Trask said.

Select Board member Daniel Bennett said he often saw this during meetings with different groups over the years.

“He was a calming presence to help build consensus,” Bennett said. “He was always very helpful in seeing both sides of an issue and finding a solution.”

Marquis was never one to make a political stance or take part in partisan squabbles. He led with a strong moral compass and was an honest man to his core, former Select Board member Bill Clark said.

“He wouldn’t even take a cup of coffee without paying for it. He led a very honest town government,” Clark said.

Landers was a selectman when his father, Richard Landers, was appointed as Danvers’ police chief in 1999 at Marquis’ recommendation.

“Nobody questioned my dad’s appointment as a political appointment because no one thought Wayne would be affected by political pressure,” he said.

This even trickled into his sense of humor, Landers added.

“The police chief at the time when I was on the board dealt with dog issues in town,” Landers said. “I went to Wayne and said that since my dad is technically the prosecutor of this, I’m going to have to recuse myself, and he said, ‘Of course you are.’

“He had an interesting sense of humor, a dry sense of humor, but it was warm nonetheless,” Landers said.

Marquis was more than a politician. He was a family man who loved his wife Nancy, his daughters Jennifer and Kathryn and his grandchildren, and lived in Danvers all of his life.

He even was the lead singer of a rock band called “Tyler Mudge” when he was at Danvers High School, which he graduated from in 1971.

“Sometimes I’d bring up that he had been in the band and I would get a chuckle out of him,” Kerans said.

Marquis loved Tom Brady and the Patriots, so much so that he would often text or call town Recreation Director David Mountain before, during and after games to talk about their thoughts on the team.

“He was just a really special person,” Mountain said. “He was my boss, my mentor and my friend.”

He added that Thursday was “a sad day at Town Hall.” Danvers Select Board member David Mills agreed.

“In my entire life, I’ve seen no one in government that has been more respected than Wayne Marquis,” Mills said.

Current Town Manager Steve Bartha said Marquis was always there to support him after taking over the role in 2014, and would gladly lend an ear when Bartha needed someone to talk through issues with.

“It’s an enormous loss,” Bartha said. “It’s really hard to think about Danvers without thinking about Wayne, his legacy and his accomplishments.”

Taken from Salem News of June 13 – reporting by Caroline Enos – staff writer

The House January 6 committee heard chilling, tearful testimony Tuesday that Donald Trump’s relentless pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election provoked widespread threats to the “backbone of our democracy”— election workers and local officials who fended off the defeated president’s demands despite personal risks.

The panel focused on Trump’s personally leaning on local officials in key battleground states to reject ballots outright or to submit alternative electors for the final tally in Congress.

“A handful of election officials in several key states stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American democracy,” Chairman Bennie Thompson said, praising them as heroes and the “backbone of our democracy.”

The committee’s vice chair, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, implored Americans to pay attention to the evidence being presented, declaring, “Donald Trump didn’t care about the threats of violence. He did not condemn them, he made no effort to stop them.” “We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence,” she said.

Trump was directly involved in the scheme to put forward slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states won by Joe Biden. The committee played a deposition video from Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, who testified that Trump had personally called her about helping further the scheme. Trump put his lawyer John Eastman on the phone with McDaniel “to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors” she testified.

Arizona Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a stanch Trump supporter rejected Trumps pressure to promote fake electors and said, as a result, he was subjected to a public smear campaign, including relentless bull-horn protests at his home and a pistol-wielding man taunting his family and neighbors.

Bowers walked through what started with a Trump phone call on a Sunday after he returned from church. The defeated president laid out his proposal to have the state replace its electors for Biden with others favoring Trump. “I said, ‘Look, you’re asking me to do something that is counter to my oath,’” Bowers testified. Bowers insisted on seeing Trump’s evidence of voter fraud, which he said Trump’s team never produced beyond vague allegations. He recalled Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani at one point told him, “‘We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.’”

Trump wanted Bowers to hold a hearing at the state Capitol, but the Republican leader said there was already a “circus” atmosphere over the election. The panel showed video footage of protesters at the Arizona statehouse including a key figure, the horned hat-wearing Jacob Chansley, who was later arrested at the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Trump nevertheless pressed the Arizona official, including in a follow-up call, suggesting he expected a better response from a fellow Republican.

But Bowers said that because of his faith, including a belief the U.S. Constitution is divinely inspired, what the president was asking him to do was “foreign to my very being.”

Bowers testimony reminds me of the story of the snake. A woman takes in a sick snake and after nursing him back to health the snake bites her. She asks why he did that and the snake replies: Hey you knew I was a snake.

Officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states told similar stories of having their cellphone numbers and home addresses spread publicly after they refused Trump’s demands.

Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, testified about Trump’s phone call asking him to “find 11,780″ votes that could flip his state to prevent Biden’s election victory, and his deputy Gabe Sterling, who became a notable figure during Georgia’s long recount in 2020 when he urged Trump to tone down the rhetoric as someone was going to get killed. He and Sterling, his chief operations officer, detailed their painstaking efforts to count the Georgia vote, investigating one false claim after another of fraud. After a hand recount of 5 million ballots, Biden’s victory was unchanged. “The numbers don’t lie,” said Raffensperger, who said that some 28,000 Georgia voters simply bypassed the presidential race but voted down ballot for others. “At the end of the day, President Trump came up short.

At one gripping moment, two Georgia election workers, a mother and daughter, testified that they lived in fear of saying their names aloud after Trump wrongly accused them of voter fraud. “There were a lot of threats wishing death upon me,” said Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, a former state election worker.

Giuliana and Trump accused Moss and her mother by name of taking ballots out of suitcases hidden under a table and counting them multiple times based on a video. Moss testified about what happened after Giuliani falsely accused her and her mother of passing around USB drives like “vials of heroin or cocaine” and meddling with votes. In truth, Moss’ mother had passed her a ginger mint, she testified. Raffensperger explained, if you watched the entire video you would see the ballots were in approved ballot boxes and no mishandling of the ballots occurred. This did not deter Trump.

In in-person testimony, Moss, who had worked for Atlanta’s Fulton County elections department since 2012, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, a temporary election worker who spoke earlier to the panel, gripped the audience with their accounts of the fallout from the smear campaign by Trump and Giuliani.

It turned my life upside down, Moss said of the lies which led to threats against her, her mother, and her septuagenarian grandmother, who at one point called her in a panic saying people had come to her home to make a “citizens arrest.”

The FBI advised Ruby Freeman to leave her house before January 6 which she did for 2 months. “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere,” Freeman testified. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not to target one. But he targeted me.”

The select committee worked to untangle the elaborate “fake electors” scheme that sought to have representatives in as many as seven battlegrounds — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico — sign certificates stating that Trump, not Biden, had won their states.

Conservative law professor John Eastman, a lawyer for Trump, pushed the fake electors in the weeks after the election. Trump and Eastman convened hundreds of electors on a call on Jan. 2, 2021, encouraging them to send alternative slates from their states where Trump’s team was claiming fraud.

The fake electors idea was designed to set up a challenge on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress met in joint session, with Vice President Pence presiding in what is typically a ceremonial role to accept the states’ vote tallies. But the effort collapsed, as Pence refused Trump’s repeated demands that he simply halt the certification of Biden’s win — a power he believed he did not possess in his role. That’s the certification the Capitol mob tried to stop.

The committee showed a text message sent from an aide to Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to an aide for Vice President Mike Pence the morning of Jan. 6 saying Johnson wanted to give Pence an “alternate slate of electors for MI and WI.” “Do not give that to him,” Pence aide Chris Hodgson replied. And Johnson didn’t, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Reporters caught Sen. Johnson leaving the Capitol following the hearing. Walking quickly, he put his phone to his ear and told the reporters that he couldn’t talk, he was on the phone. The reporter replied, I can see your screen, you are not on a call. 🙂 Johnson went on to say he didn’t know about this. One is to believe that his staff was going to give him documents to give to the Vice President of the United States and Johnson didn’t know what they were!

Cheney calle out the more than 30 witnesses who have refused to cooperate with the committee. including several who invoked the Fifth Amendment. She challenged Pat Cipollone, Trumps White House counsel to testify.

Largely taken from The Boston Globe front page of June 22.

The January 6 Committee put Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat into ever-clearer focus Thursday. As in the previous hearings, the testimony was a combination of live and video from Trump’s and Pence’s advisors and staff. The testimony described the constant and increasing pressure by Trump and his lawyer John Eastman on his Vice President starting right after the election. He pressured Pence in vulgar private taunts and public entreaties, bordering on threats, in Trump’s effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory on January 6. The president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, testified about the “heated” phone call he had with Pence that morning, as the family joined in the Oval Office. Another aide, Nicholas Luna, said he heard Trump call Pence a “wimp.” Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, said she was told the president called Pence “the p-word.”

Having lost the election, failed in the 62 court lawsuits and in all attempts to get the Secretary of States to change the vote counts, Trump latched onto conservative law professor John Eastman’s obscure plan to defy historical precedent of the Electoral Count Act and reverse Joe Biden’s victory.

Thursday’s hearing unpacked the Eastman plan. They selected their own slate of “uncertified” electors for the states which Trump was disputing, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With competing elector slates for Trump or Biden, they wanted Pence to reject them outright and throw them out. This would give Trump more electoral votes than Biden thus throwing the election to Trump immediately. Failing this they would return the electoral votes back to the states to be recounted., This would throw the election into chaos. In his mind, chaos would provide the current President an opportunity to establish martial law and nullify the election.

Trump’s closest advisers viewed his last-ditch efforts to halt congressional certification of his loss as “nuts,” “crazy” and even likely to incite riots if Pence followed through, witnesses revealed in stark testimony Thursday.

The panel heard from Greg Jacob, the vice president’s counsel who fended off Eastman’s ideas for Pence. Jacob said it became clear to Pence from the start that the founding fathers did not intend to empower any one person to affect the election result, and he “never budged.”

The panel also heard from retired federal judge Michael Luttig. Judge Luttig is a well respected conservative judge and legal advisor to Mike Pence. Judge Luttig stated that the Constitution was clear that the Vice President has no authority to impact the electoral count. He called the plan from Eastman, his former law clerk, “incorrect at every turn.” Luttig said in a halting voice but firm terms that had Pence obeyed Trump’s orders, declaring “Trump as the next president would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America.”

“Are you out of your effing mind?” Eric Herschmann, a lawyer advising Trump, told Eastman in recorded testimony shown at the hearing. You’re going to turn around and tell 78-plus million people in this country that your theory is, this is how you’re going to invalidate their votes?” Herschmann said. He warned, “You’re going to cause riots in the streets.”

Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said those around Trump called the plan “crazy.”

The committee has said the plan was illegal, and a federal judge has said “more likely than not” Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification.

The panel revealed how Trump put his vice president in danger as Pence was presiding over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, when the defeated president sent his supporters to the Capitol to “fight like hell” over his false claims of a fraudulent election. When it was clear to Trump that Pence was not going to go along with the scheme. Trump sent out a tweet informing the rioters that Pence would not change the election. The rioters surged following the tweet into the Capitol. In my view, Trump turned the rioters onto Pence to threaten his life.

Thursday’s session presented new dramatic evidence about the danger Pence faced as rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” with a makeshift gallows outside the Capitol.

“He deserves to be burned with the rest of them,” one rioter is heard saying on video as the mob prepares to storm the iconic building.

“Pence betrayed us,” says another rioter, wearing a Make America Great Again hat in a selfie video inside the Capitol.

A DOJ informant embedded within the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, reported that these groups were ready to kill Mike pence and Nancy Pelosi if given the opportunity.

Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob testified that he could “hear the din” of the rioters nearby. Asked if Trump ever checked on Pence during the siege, Jacob said, “He did not.”

Rioters came within 40 feet of Pence as Pence was being led from his office to a safe place in the Capitol. 40 feet was how close we came to loosing our democracy and have the country plunged into chaos.

Jacob testified that Pence was determined to stay at the Capitol that night and finish the job, even as his security team prepared for him to leave. Jacob testified that the Secret Service instructed Pence to get into the car. Jacob and most of the staff obeyed but Pence did not. Pence told the Secret Service officer in charge that he was not leaving the building and he did not trust the person driving. In my view, Pence feared that someone in the Secret Service could have an order from a higher authority (i.e. Trump) to remove him from the Capitol so the electoral count could not be completed. Never-before-shown photos showed Pence and his team sheltering.

With live testimony and other evidence from its yearlong investigation, the panel held its third hearing this month aiming to demonstrate that Trump’s repeated false claims and desperate attempt to stay in power led directly to the Capitol insurrection.

All told, the committee is pulling together a dark portrait of the end of Trump’s presidency as the defeated Republican was left grasping for alternatives as courts turned back dozens of lawsuits challenging the vote.

Trump aides and allies warned bluntly in private about his efforts, even as some publicly continued to stand by the president’s false election claims. Nine people died in the insurrection and its aftermath.

The committee has said the plan was illegal, and a federal judge has said “more likely than not” Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification.

Eastman later sought to be “on the pardon list,” according to an email he sent to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, shared by the committee.

The panel played video showing Eastman repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination while being interviewed by the committee.

In a social media post Thursday, Trump decried the hearings anew as a “witch hunt,” lambasted coverage by “the Fake News Networks” and exclaimed, “I DEMAND EQUAL TIME!!!” In my view, the January 6 Committee would welcome Donald Trump to testify under oath and explain his actions on January 6.

On Capitol Hill, panel Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., cited Pence’s own words that there was “almost no idea more un-American” than the one he was being asked to follow — reject Americans’ votes.

By refusing Trump’s demands, Pence “did his duty,” said the panel’s vice-chair, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

The panel’s yearlong investigation is showcasing Trump’s final weeks in office as the defeated president clung to “the big lie” of a rigged election even as those around him — his family, his top aides, officials at the highest levels of government — were telling him he simply had lost.

IN his closing remarks, Judge Lettig stated “I have written that today, almost two years after that fateful day in January of 2021, that still, Donald Trump and his law allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”

With gripping testimony from Republicans and Trumps campaign staff, the panel is laying out in step by step fashion how Trump ignored his own campaign team’s data as one state after another flipped to Joe Biden, and instead latched on to conspiracy theories, court cases and his own declarations of victory rather than having to admit defeat.

The witnesses described in blunt terms and sometimes exasperated details how Trump refused to take the advice of those closest to him, including his family members. As the people around him splintered into a “team normal” headed by former campaign manager Bill Stepien and team crazy led by Rudy Giuliani, the president chose his sides.

On election night, Stepien said, Trump was “growing increasingly unhappy” and refusing to accept the “grim outlook.” Stepien and senior adviser Jason Miller described how the festive mood at the White House on election night turned grim as Fox News announced Trump had lost the state of Arizona to Joe Biden, and aides worked to counsel Trump on what to do next. But he ignored their advice, choosing to listen instead to Giuliani, who was described as inebriated by several witnesses. Guiliani told Trump to claim victory which he ultimately did knowing he was losing.

William Barr, who had also testified in last week’s blockbuster hearing, said that Trump was “as mad as I’d ever seen him” when the attorney general later explained that the Justice Department would not take sides in the election. “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” testified former Attorney General William Barr in his interview with the committee. He called the voting fraud claims “bull——,” “bogus” and “idiotic,” and resigned in the aftermath. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

Monday’s hearing also featured live witnesses, including Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News Channel political editor who declared on Election Night that Arizona was being won by Biden. Stirewalt said that based on their data, it was clear that Trump was going to lose. Trump was enraged and he was fired. Also appearing was the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, BJay Pak, who abruptly resigned after Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperge to find enough votes overturn his defeat.

The panel also heard from elections lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg who discussed the norms of election campaign challenges and the 62 failed court cases and former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, the only Republican on the city’s election board, who told the panel that regardless of how “fantastical” some of the claims that Trump and his team were making, the city officials investigated. He discussed facing threats after Trump criticized him in a tweet.

Trump’s “big lie” of election fraud escalated and transformed into marching orders that summoned supporters to Washington and then sent them to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to block Biden’s victory.

The panel also provided new information about how Trump’s fundraising machine collected some $250 million with his campaigns to “Stop the Steal” and others in the aftermath of the November election, mostly from small-dollar donations from Americans. One plea for cash went out 30 minutes before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The emails claimed the donations were to Stop the Steal going into a General Election Fund but there was no such fund and money went to friends and family.

“Not only was there the big lie, there was the big ripoff,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

From today’s testimony, it is clear that Trump was told by his attorney general, his campaign staff, multiple other republicans, the courts and his family that there was no fraud. He listened only to team crazy, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. He knew there was no fraud but constantly claimed there was to try and stay in power and to fund raise off it.