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Cheney: Trump attempted to contact Jan. 6 witness
LISA MASCARO and FARNOUSH AMIRI
Mon, July 11, 2022 at 9:02 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — revealed Tuesday that Donald Trump had attempted to contact a person who was talking to the panel about its investigation of the former president and the 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. She said the committee had notified the Justice Department.
The person Trump tried to contact declined to answer or respond to his call, Cheney said. Instead the person alerted their lawyer who contacted the committee.
The disclosure by Cheney was not the first time the panel has raised concerns about witnesses being contacted by Trump's team in ways that could reflect or at least create the appearance of inappropriate influence. It divulged examples last week of other times witnesses have received outreach from Trump allies, some suggesting he was aware they were talking to the committee, ahead of testimony before the panel.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The hearing Tuesday was the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee. Over the past month, the panel has created a narrative of a defeated Trump “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat. It all culminated with the attack on the Capitol, the committee says.
Tuesday's session revealed details of an “unhinged” late night meeting at the White House with Donald Trump’s outside lawyers suggesting the military seize state voting machines in a last-ditch effort to pursue his false claims of voter fraud before the defeated president summoned
The committee investigating last year's attack at the Capitol is working to show how far-right extremists answered Trump's call to come for a big rally in Washington. As dozens of lawsuits and his claims of voter fraud fizzled, Trump met late into the night of Dec. 18 with attorneys at the White House before tweeting the rally invitation — “Be there, will be wild!” Members of the groups are now facing rare sedition charges over the siege.
“This tweet served as a call to action -- and in some cases a call to arms.” said one panel member, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.
The panel featured , Trump's former White House counsel, recalling the explosive meeting at the White House when Trump's outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize states' voting machines — a “terrible idea,” he said.
“That's not how we do things in the United States,” Cipollone testified.
Another aide called the meeting “unhinged.”
Cipollone and other White House officials scrambled to intervene in the late-night meeting Trump was having with attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, retired national security aide Michael Flynn and the head of the online retail company Overstock. It erupted in shouting and screaming, another aide testified.
“Where is the evidence?" Cipollone demanded of the false claims of voter fraud.
"What they were proposing, I thought, was nuts," testified another White House official, Eric Herschmann.
"I liek Trump, cuz he not Politician" Trumptardery writ large.
LISA MASCARO and FARNOUSH AMIRI
Mon, July 11, 2022 at 9:02 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — revealed Tuesday that Donald Trump had attempted to contact a person who was talking to the panel about its investigation of the former president and the 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. She said the committee had notified the Justice Department.
The person Trump tried to contact declined to answer or respond to his call, Cheney said. Instead the person alerted their lawyer who contacted the committee.
The disclosure by Cheney was not the first time the panel has raised concerns about witnesses being contacted by Trump's team in ways that could reflect or at least create the appearance of inappropriate influence. It divulged examples last week of other times witnesses have received outreach from Trump allies, some suggesting he was aware they were talking to the committee, ahead of testimony before the panel.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The hearing Tuesday was the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee. Over the past month, the panel has created a narrative of a defeated Trump “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat. It all culminated with the attack on the Capitol, the committee says.
Tuesday's session revealed details of an “unhinged” late night meeting at the White House with Donald Trump’s outside lawyers suggesting the military seize state voting machines in a last-ditch effort to pursue his false claims of voter fraud before the defeated president summoned
The committee investigating last year's attack at the Capitol is working to show how far-right extremists answered Trump's call to come for a big rally in Washington. As dozens of lawsuits and his claims of voter fraud fizzled, Trump met late into the night of Dec. 18 with attorneys at the White House before tweeting the rally invitation — “Be there, will be wild!” Members of the groups are now facing rare sedition charges over the siege.
“This tweet served as a call to action -- and in some cases a call to arms.” said one panel member, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.
The panel featured , Trump's former White House counsel, recalling the explosive meeting at the White House when Trump's outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize states' voting machines — a “terrible idea,” he said.
“That's not how we do things in the United States,” Cipollone testified.
Another aide called the meeting “unhinged.”
Cipollone and other White House officials scrambled to intervene in the late-night meeting Trump was having with attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, retired national security aide Michael Flynn and the head of the online retail company Overstock. It erupted in shouting and screaming, another aide testified.
“Where is the evidence?" Cipollone demanded of the false claims of voter fraud.
"What they were proposing, I thought, was nuts," testified another White House official, Eric Herschmann.
"I liek Trump, cuz he not Politician" Trumptardery writ large.
