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Former President Donald Trump has asked many of his aides and advisers claim privilege and oppose the summons of the House of Representatives committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But not his daughter and son-in-law.
“I said, ‘Whatever you want to do is fine with me.’ I didn’t even talk to them about it,” Trump told The Washington Post in an April interview. “I do not care what they said. Let them tell the truth. I told them, “Just tell the truth.” ”
But when the public saw for the first time on Thursday night what Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner had to say, the former president seemed less generous, a statement that dismissed her testimony.
“Ivanka Trump was not involved in reviewing or studying the election results,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “She had long since left.”
Trump reacts to a short video of Ivanka Trump, which was released during the introductory statement by Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), In which the daughter of the former president said she accepted the conclusion of Attorney General William P. Barr that he was not there was widespread fraud affecting the outcome – even when her father continued to publicly falsely claim that she had been stolen.
“It affected my point of view,” Ivanka Trump said in the video. “I respect Attorney General Bar, so I accepted what he said.
The rift marks a new turning point in the close father-daughter relationship, which spans the family, business and politics, revealing a rift that opened up after the 2020 election, according to other Trump advisers. Before January 6, Ivanka Trump broke up with her father and siblings to avoid baseless accusations of fraud and attempts to overturn election results. On the day of the Capitol riot, she repeatedly tried to persuade the president to make a statement or video, urging her supporters to stop the attack, writes The Post.
This tension may increase as the commission has more hearings this month. Ivanka Trump’s descriptions of her efforts to pressure her father into action on January 6th made her a key witness for investigators, people familiar with her testimony said. The commission interviewed both Ivanka Trump and Kushner for hours and also said it would release transcripts.
“You will probably get a large dose of Jared and Ivanka in the future,” said a lawyer representing other witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity, as these discussions are confidential. According to many advisers, sources on the committee see Ivanka Trump and Kushner as sometimes helpful and sometimes frustrating, but especially helpful in understanding Trump’s psyche.
Trump told the Post in an interview that he had not been told in advance what they planned to say in the testimony, and that he saw the committee’s focus on Ivanka as “harassment.”
The impact of the testimony was heightened Thursday by the use of a video clip – a bold move to investigate Congress, which came as a surprise even to people who are closely following the investigation. The video is about one of the most dramatic moments of the first hearing, which attracted a television audience of almost 19 million Americans.
“I don’t know if anyone came in thinking they would be showing prime-time videos,” said a former Trump White House adviser who, like others interviewed for the report, spoke on condition of anonymity to broadcast private discussions.
Representatives of Ivanka Trump, Kushner and Donald Trump did not respond to requests for comment. But another former Trump adviser has argued that Trump is angry with his daughter over the testimony. The purpose of his statement, the former adviser said, was to emphasize that Ivanka had not participated in legal discussions.
The commission also released a short clip of Kushner’s testimony, in which he appears to reject threats from White House adviser Pat Chipolon to resign in protest of some pardon discussions.
“Somehow I started whining about it to be honest with you,” Kushner said in the video.
Trump has not given any public response to Kushner’s testimony. In private, he complained about Kushner’s role in the re-election campaign and the many White House efforts Kushner tried to take credit for, according to three people who spoke to Trump.
Since leaving office, his daughter and son-in-law have not attended meetings on political travel, spending or other parts of his political operation, and have rarely spoken to other advisers. The couple reportedly bought a mansion on the exclusive island of Miami-Dade. An adviser who is regularly around the president said: “I saw Jared once. But the former president still talks regularly with Ivanka Trump.
His post on Friday also seems to defend his daughter’s testimony by “just trying to be respected by Bill Bar,” about whom Trump had much harsher words.
Some other conservatives have criticized the use of video as a cheap shot. “Ivanka Trump’s video has attracted a lot of attention, but its inclusion was completely unreasonable and was clearly intended to embarrass her,” National Review Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry said on Twitter.
Deciding to cooperate with the commission, Ivanka Trump and Kushner may have considered the aggressive use by investigators of crimes of disrespect to witnesses who refuse to appear.
“They did not want to be in the same category as Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro,” said the lawyer, who represented other witnesses, referring to former Trump advisers who were indicted after opposing the commission’s summons.
Ivanka Trump has long been involved in her father’s business ventures, including a recent New York apartment project that caught the attention of prosecutors but no charges, and a hotel in Washington at the center of numerous conflict of interest investigations and lawsuits during his time. presidency. She also branched out to launch her own clothing line, and Kushner brought her own wealth, media ventures and a family real estate empire.
As the couple circumvented anti-nepotism rules to take jobs at the White House, Ivanka Trump initially introduced herself as a moderating force. A former Democrat who supported gay rights and abortion rights, she later announced that she had become a “Trump Republican” and opposed abortion, sparking speculation about her own political ambitions. The couple’s special attitude as the only advisers who can stake their own positions and cannot be fired is often a sore point for other employees.
“They could go in and out whenever they wanted, while others didn’t have that luxury,” said the former White House official. “They sold the whole thing in the beginning as people who can moderate it. They obviously couldn’t do that. After all, they knew they wouldn’t change his mind, so why have fun with a bunch of things like that?
Another sign of the couple’s troubled independence is that in the past they have shown a rare willingness among Trump insiders to cooperate with investigators. During the Special Prosecutor’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Kushner worked with respected lawyers who made conciliatory public statements, in contrast to the more combative tone of Donald Trump’s legal team.
It is not clear what other information Ivanka Trump has given to investigators, who may appear at the upcoming hearings. The commission’s letter asking for testimony cites Trump’s plan to block the vote count, whether he sought to block the National Guard’s deployment, and what he did in the days after the attack on ongoing threats of violence. .
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