The hearing on Capitol Hill insurrection on January 6th: Why Trump is the man who invented it, not why he did it
The hearing on Capitol Hill insurrection used new evidence and testimony to show how the ex-president tried to overturn the result of the election even though he had lost the election.
The committee’s hearing used new records obtained from the Secret Service and new deposition footage from former Trump Cabinet secretaries and White House officials to bolster the argument that Trump still remains a danger to democracy heading into the 2024 election.
During the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin talked about how the footage shows how congressional leaders and the Trump administration worked together to quell the riot that he had instigated. The new material will be shown to the public from January 6.
The top Republican in the panel said that they were obligated to seek answers from the man who started it. “And every American is entitled to the answers, so we can act now to protect our republic.”
Trump is the person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6th, according to Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson. We want to hear from him.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/october-jan-6-hearing-takeaways/index.html
Special edition of Anderson Cooper 360°: Oct. 6 Hearing Take Away from a Demonstration of the Birth of the United States
Taking on Trump directly is a notable escalation in taking on. There are rarely congressional subpoenas to sitting or former presidents. If Trump defies the subpoena, the committee could proclaim that it tried to get him to speak to the panel, but he refused.
That’s because if Republicans take back control of the House, which they’re favored to do, the January 6 committee as it’s currently constructed will cease to exist – giving the panel less than three months to issue a final report of its findings.
Additional footage from Fort McNair was not shown by the committee. The exclusive footage will air on CNN on Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET, during a special edition of “Anderson Cooper 360°.” The footage shows congressional leaders after they got out of the Capitol trying to figure out what was going on, and begging for help as they scrambled to quell the insurrection.
The footage shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top officials working the phones and coordinating with Trump Cabinet members and other officials to secure the resources needed to quell the insurrection and secure the Capitol.
The footage also showed two phone calls between Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who took on an impromptu leadership role on January 6, coordinating the emergency response.
The new footage showed Schumer dressing down then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. During their phone call, Schumer called on him to tell Trump to call off the mob. Pelosi said that the rioters were breaking the law at the direction of the President of the United States.
When she gave testimony to the committee about her disgust at the attack on her, Elaine Chao spoke in terms that were personal to her.
“And at a particular point, the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy. I came as an immigrant to this country. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in a free and democratic society. She said that she made the decision on her own.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/october-jan-6-hearing-takeaways/index.html
Hearing Takeaway: A New Testimony of Pence, Trump, and the Senate Judgment in a White House
Cassidy Hutchinson gave new testimony to the committee in which she told anecdotes of Trump acknowledging he had lost the election.
I told Mark that we could not possibly think we were going to pull this off. That call was crazy. And he looked at me and just started shaking his head. He knows that it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying,’” Hutchinson told the committee.
Hutchinson said that she witnessed a conversation where Trump was angry that the Supreme Court had rejected his lawsuit to overturn the election result.
“The President said … something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is dumb and embarrassing. It’s time to figure it out. We need to figure it out. Hutchinson does not want people to know that we lost.
The committee says that a Secret Service agent wrote on January 6 that they wondered how many weapons were unknown. It is possible that could be sporty after dark.
During the days prior to January, Trump’s communication adviser, Miller boasted to Meadows that he “got the base fired up” and shared a link to a pro- Trump website with hundreds of threatening comments about killing lawmakers.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said in Thursday’s hearing that that the Secret Service received alerts of online threats made against Vice President Mike Pence ahead of the Capitol insurrection, including that Pence would be “‘a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing.’”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/october-jan-6-hearing-takeaways/index.html
A Hearing on Vice President Biden and the 2020 Supercommission on Subpoenas to the White House: The High-Court Court Apportioned to a Phone Hearing of the Senate Select Committee
“It was a premeditated plan by the President to declare victory no matter what the actual result was,” committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren said during Thursday’s hearing. “We also interviewed Brad Parscale, President Trump’s former campaign manager. He told us he understood that President Trump planned as early as July that he would say he won the election, even if he lost,” she added.
After their conversation on November 3, 2020, Jacob drafted a memo to Short, which the committee said it obtained from the National Archives and presented for the first time on Thursday.
The memo says that it is essential that the public do not see Vice President Biden as having decided questions regarding disputed electoral votes before all the facts are known.
The committee also revealed new emails conservative legal activist Tom Fitton sent to two Trump advisers a few days before the election. On election night, there is an email that contains a draft statement for Trump.
The committee members sat down with Thomas last month, but her testimony was not used as part of the last hearing before the election.
But her absence was notable considering the panel did use testimony from several other high-profile witnesses who had been interviewed since the committee’s most recent hearing earlier this summer.
The Supreme Court gave the go-ahead on Monday for the House select committee to get the phone and text records of the Republican Party Chair in Arizona.
She tried to organize a phone call between Trump and the board of supervisors in the state of Arizona, as well as telling officials in Arizona to stop counting ballots after the 2020 election.
The subpoena was too intrusive and may have exposed political connections. The committee has asked Ward about his testimony. She invoked her Fifth Amendment rights during the deposition.
The justices declined Ward’s request to freeze the subpoena and lifted a temporary order earlier put in place Justice Elena Kagan, who supervises the appeals court that ruled in the case.
The conservative-leaning court will hear the latest dispute on January 6. The high court allowed the release of presidential records from the Trump White House to the committee. Only Thomas publicly noted a vote in favor of Trump.
In response, lawyers for the select committee articulated they sought the phone records because Ward was at the center of several efforts after the election to undermine the popular vote and “aided a coup attempt.”
The records don’t have anything that is relevant to location or content. A district court judge ruled against Ward and the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
Ward’s lawyers, the subpoena, and the January 6 attack in Washington, DC, the court of appeal and the case before the Supreme Court
The court stated that the subpoena is related to the government’s interest of investigating the causes of the January 6 attack and protecting future elections.
In their emergency application, Ward’s attorneys argued the case was unprecedented and had precedential implications for congressional investigations and political associational rights.
The records obtained by the lawyers will reveal the extent to which Dr. Ward interfered with the smooth transition of power and the attack on the Capitol.