WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 repeatedly told 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, urging his supporters, some of them violent, in Washington on January 6, 2021, not only to protest but to “go wild” when Congress certifies the victory of President Joe Biden.
“A CALL TO ACTION … A 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 said the tweet “served as a call to action and in some cases a call to arms.” She said the president had “summoned support” as he argued that Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans did not have the guts to try to block President Joe Biden’s victory in the Jan. 6 joint session.
The tweet “electrified and galvanized” Trump supporters, said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, especially “dangerous extremists from Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other far-right racist and white nationalist groups ready to fight.”
Raskin said Trump has encouraged the groups around a common goal.
“Never before in American history has a president called for a crowd to come out to compete in the counting of electoral votes by Congress,” he said.
ONE “PERFECT” MEETING
The commission compiled interview videos to describe a meeting from 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 that evening to another Trump aide. Other aides described “screaming” during 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 screaming is totally, totally out there.”
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 Cipollone and Powell said in interviews that Cipollone, the White House counsel, 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 a subpoena, said he didn’t think the group gave good advice to Trump and said he and other White House lawyers were simply 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 — a rioter 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 Tatenhove, 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… That could be 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 commission also touched on what happened in the White House during the attack and after.
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”.
“It wasn’t the rhetoric,” Pearson replied.
“Katrina,” wrote Parscale, who still participates in a weekly strategy call with Trump aides. “Yes, this is it.”
The panel showed a draft of an undated tweet that showed Trump had plans well in advance to tell supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6. The tweet, which was never sent, read “Please arrive early, huge crowds expected. March to the Capitol afterwards. Stop the theft!”
The committee also looked at Trump’s rally speech this morning and some of his ad libs for Vice President Mike Pence that surfaced later. 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.
ADVICE NOT FOLLOWED
As they have done several times before, 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. Many 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, the labor secretary at the time, said he told the president during a call that it was time to say Biden had won.
WITNESS TAMPERING?
At the end of the hearing, Cheney revealed new information: Trump had tried to subpoena a prospective witness, and the committee had alerted the Justice Department to 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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