Each presentation to date has carefully contextualized the circumstances surrounding the attack, while strengthening the Commission’s mission to link election lies with bad consequences.
However, the sheer volume of new details can make it difficult to follow the work of the committee, even if it keeps up with all the presentations.
Here’s everything we’ve learned from this month’s panel hearing.
At the third hearing in June, the Commission elaborated on how former President Donald Trump tried to pressure the Vice President to join his plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election. rice field.
The presentation featured live testimony from two witnesses, former Pence lawyer Greg Jacob and former Republican judge J. Michael Lutig. Through hearings, the panel explained how conservative Trump lawyer John Eastman advocated the legal theory that then Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally prevent elections from being recognized.
Here are three key points from Thursday’s presentation:
Trump was told that Eastman’s plan was illegal, but he tried it anyway. The former president was repeatedly told that Pence’s plan to overturn the January 6 elections was illegal, but he tried to do it anyway.
Witnesses testified that Pence himself and the lawyer who created the plan advised Trump directly that the plan was unconstitutional and violated federal law. Committee members argued that this was an indication of Trump’s corrupt intentions and could lay the groundwork for potential prosecution.
The Commission said Eastman had made an email request to Giuliani, a former Trump lawyer.
“If it’s still in progress, I’ve decided that I should be on the amnesty list,” read an email from Eastman to Giuliani.
Pence was very close to the mob. The former Vice President was only 40 feet away from the crowd of Trump supporters in the Capitol on January 6, shortly after Trump tweeted about him, the House Select Commission said Thursday.
“It was clear that it was escalating and escalating rapidly. When the tweet was sent, Mike Pence’s tweet was sent,” former Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews testified on tape. I testified in the recording.
“I felt like he was pouring gas on the fire,” she added.
What I learned in a previous inquiry
In that tweet, Trump criticized Pence for not overturning the outcome of the 2020 elections while Pence presided over a joint session of Congress to prove Joe Biden’s victory. ..
Trump didn’t want to stop the riot. The commission also revealed in its first hearing this month testimony from Trump White House officials that the former president did not want to stop the attack on the U.S. Capitol and urged him to stop the mob. Angry and resisting his own adviser, he considered his own Vice President, who “deserves” to be hanged.
Pence, not Trump, sought help. In another new video aired at the first hearing this month, the panel said it was Pence that General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ordered the National Guard to respond to violence on January 6. showed that. He was told by the White House that it was Trump.
The staff escaped from McCarthy’s office. Another video from the commission showed that Republican lawmaker Kevin McCarthy’s office staff were desperately rushing after the riot broke through the Capitol.
- Former Attorney General William Barr said Trump’s allegations of fraudulent voting were “random.”
- Ivanka Trump said she respected the bar and “accepted what he was saying” about the election.
- Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, told campaign data officers “in pretty straightforward terms that he would lose.”
“I was called a lot on January 6, 2021 and in the days that followed,” Edwards said. “I was called Nancy Pelosi’s dog, incompetent, hero and villain. I was called my country, my house, and a traitor to my constitution. In fact. , I wasn’t one of them. “
“I’m an American standing facing other Americans, and I’ve been asking myself many times. -Many times-How did you get here? I had been called by name before, but I wasn’t challenged with patriotism or obligations, “Edwards added.
The commission delved into Giuliani and his state of mind on election night and played a video from Miller’s deposit that Giuliani said he “drinked too much.”
“That is, the mayor was definitely drunk,” Miller said. “But I didn’t know the level of his addiction, for example when he talked to the president.”
What’s next?
The panel will hold two hearings next week, June 21st and June 23rd. Both start at 1:00 pm ET.
Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, Vice-Chairman of the Commission, has broadly presented these themes for future hearings.
Put pressure on state legislators. The hearing provides “evidence that President Trump has fraudulently pressured state legislators and election authorities to change election results.”
Incitement riots. At the final hearing in June, “Trump summoned a violent mob and instructed him to march illegally to the U.S. Capitol,” “stopping violence and instructing supporters to leave the Capitol.” Could not take immediate action for. “
what else?
The sources that spoke with CNN did not provide details of the content of the email or state whether they were direct messages between two or part of a larger group communication. The Washington Post first reported on email.
CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb, Alex Rogers, Zachary B. Wolf and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.
Source: www.cnn.com
