Jan 6 Committee Hearings

[Pappywinkle]

January 6 committee 'in discussions' with Trump over testifying: Cheney

The January 6 committee is “in discussions” with lawyers for Donald Trump about whether the former president will comply with the lawmakers’ subpoena for his testimony about the attack on the Capitol, CNN reports vice-chair Liz Cheney said today.

At what was expected to be its last public hearing, the January 6 committee last month voted to issue a subpoena to Trump for documents related to the attack and for him to testify under oath. He has not yet said whether he would comply with their summons, but in the past has cheered instances where his allies have defied the committee, and fought aggressively against other investigations into his conduct.

According to CNN, Cheney said Trump “has an obligation to comply” with the panel. She said the format of his testimony has not yet been decided but, “It’ll be done under oath. It’ll be done, potentially, over multiple days,” and the committee is not at the “mercy of Donald Trump.” She was speaking in Cleveland, Ohio at an event about the threat of political violence.

Trump faces a Friday deadline to turn over documents requested in the subpoena, and a 14 November deadline for his testimony.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/liv ... ve-updates

[Pappywinkle]

It's so great that the Jan 6 commission is uncovering all of the evil and disgusting corruption within the GOP!

Supreme Court allows Jan. 6 committee to access Arizona GOP chair’s phone records

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the House’s Jan. 6 select committee to obtain the phone records of Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward, a key ally during Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election.

The justices, with noted opposition from Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, on Monday denied Ward’s emergency motion to block the panel from enforcing a subpoena against T-Mobile to obtain Ward’s records.

The panel is seeking evidence related to Ward’s coordination with Trump and his allies to assemble a slate of pro-Trump presidential electors intended to help disrupt the transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021. Ward, who served as one of those pro-Trump electors, pleaded the Fifth when interviewed by the panel in March.

In the brief order issued late Monday morning, none of the justices offered any public rationale for their stances on the dispute, nor did the court explain why it took three weeks to dispose of the emergency application, which had been filed back Oct. 24.

Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 9th Circuit, which includes Arizona, had blocked the subpoena temporarily while the high court considered the issue. But the newly released order said that temporary stay had been dissolved.

Critics have called on Thomas to recuse himself from all matters related to Jan. 6 and the 2020 presidential election because of the involvement of his wife, Ginni Thomas, in efforts to advocate that Trump persist in trying to contest or dispute the election results. However, the notation in the court’s order Monday that Justice Thomas would have granted Ward’s requests suggests that the longest-serving member of the current court did not see a need to step back from the case.

The Jan. 6 committee declined to comment on the decision. But the House’s victory — in one of the only lawsuits facing the panel to reach the high court — opens up a trove of potential new leads for the panel as it works to finalize its investigation of Trump’s effort to subvert the election. The panel is expected to dissolve at the end of the current Congress, shortly after releasing a final report of its findings.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/1 ... s-00066746

[Pappywinkle]

Cheney hits back as Pence says January 6 committee has ‘no right’ to testimony

The chair and vice-chair of the January 6 committee hit back after Mike Pence said they had “no right” to his testimony about the Capitol attack, and claimed they presided over a “partisan” investigation.

Testimony presented to the panel and to the nation in a series of dramatic public hearings was “not partisan”, Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney said. “It was truthful.”

Pence was speaking to CBS, to promote a new book in which he sets out his version of events on the day supporters of his president, Donald Trump, attacked Congress, some chanting that Pence should be hanged.

Pence previously said he would consider testifying. But to CBS, he said: “Congress has no right to my testimony on separation of powers under the constitution of the United States.

“And I believe it will establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice-president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”

Trump supporters attacked Congress after he told them to “fight like hell” to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win, in service of the lie that it was the result of electoral fraud. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including suicides among law enforcement.

Trump was impeached a second time but acquitted when Senate Republicans stayed loyal. On Tuesday, he announced a third consecutive presidential run.

Pence is also eyeing a run for the Republican nomination. In doing so he must balance promoting his record as vice-president to Trump, thereby appealing to Trump’s supporters, with distancing himself from a former president whose standing is slipping after Republican disappointment in the midterm elections.

Pence said he was “closing the door” on the prospect of testifying.

“But I must say again, the partisan nature of the January 6 committee has been a disappointment to me. It seemed to me in the beginning, there was an opportunity to examine every aspect of what happened on January 6, and to do so more in the spirit of the 9/11 Commission, non-partisan, non-political, and that was an opportunity lost.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -testimony

[Pappywinkle]

Final January 6 committee report expected to focus on issues beyond Trump efforts

Members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection are in active discussions about what to include in the panel’s final report but expect it will focus on issues beyond how former President Donald Trump’s efforts to prevent the peaceful transfer of power fueled the violence that day.

The report, which is slated for release by the end of the year, will effectively serve as the committee’s closing statement but with less than two months left before the panel expires, members are still deliberating over what it will contain and how those findings will be presented.

“I would like to see our report be as broad and inclusive as possible. We are discussing as a committee among the members what belongs in the body of the report, what belongs in the appendices of the report, what is beyond the scope of our investigation, and we’ll reach those decisions in a collaborative manner,” committee member Rep. Adam Schiff told CNN on Sunday.

Schiff’s comments come after The Washington Post reported that staffers leaving the committee were frustrated with vice chair GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, suggesting that she is pushing to focus on Trump at the expense of leaving out other key findings not related to the former president.

CNN has not independently reported that dynamic.

It is unclear what the committee will do with the thousands of pages of documents and transcribed interviews it has compiled throughout its investigation. Sources say there could even be a digital component to accompany the final written report.

But some staffers have voiced concerns about how their work would factor into the committee’s presentation plans dating back to earlier this summer when the panel opted to focus its series of public hearings solely on Trump and his culpability in the attack, multiple sources have told CNN.

On Sunday, Schiff was asked about the recently reported tension surrounding Cheney, including a quote in the Post story citing one former staffer who said people working for the committee became “discouraged” when they felt the investigation had become a “Cheney 2024 campaign affair.”

“I’ve never viewed it that way,” Schiff said, defending Cheney. “And I think her role on the committee has been indispensable. I have tremendous respect for her and for Adam Kinzinger. They’ve shown a lot of courage and backbone, something in very short supply in the GOP these days. So the committee would not have been the same without both of their participation and I have nothing but respect for both of them.”

When asked about a statement from Cheney’s spokesperson accusing staffers of trying to slip “liberal biases” into the report, Schiff defended the committee.

“I don’t think the back and forth is particularly helpful to the committee and I don’t want to engage in it. We’re gonna get to consensus on the report. We’re very close to that now. We’re close to the putting down the pen,” Schiff said.

As part of that process, the committee has been reviewing the work of its five investigative teams, each with their own color designation and area of expertise.

The “green” team, for example, was tasked with tracking money, including the funding behind the rallies, as well as untangling the complex web of financial ties between rally organizers and entities affiliated with Trump or his campaign, CNN previously reported.

Some of the other teams, such as the “red” “blue” and “gold” teams, examined everything from the motivation of participants, whether there was coordination between groups, and whether Trump used his executive authority to pressure lawmakers, former Vice President Mike Pence and the Justice Department, according to the sources familiar with the committee’s work.

But after more than a year of investigative work, which included approximately 1,000 witness interviews and analyzing tens of thousands of documents obtained from various entities, it became clear that the committee’s final product may not reflect the totality of its findings.

Still, Cheney has previously said that the panel’s upcoming report will include information uncovered about members of Congress who ultimately refused to comply with the subpoenas issued to them.

“I think that the report will certainly indicate information that the committee has gathered with respect to the conduct of a number of those members,” Cheney said during an interview with Washington Post Live. “And ultimately, you know, the American people get to decide, you know, who represents them. And we want to make sure the American people have all the information.”

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/28/politics ... index.html

[Pappywinkle]

Former White House deputy chief of staff meeting with January 6 committee Tuesday

The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot is interviewing former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato on Tuesday, a potentially key witness whose testimony could shed new light on former President Donald Trump’s movements leading up to and on January 6, 2021, according to two sources familiar with the panel’s work.

Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified back in June that Ornato, who transitioned back to his post at the US Secret Service after Trump left office and retired earlier this year, told her the former president lashed out in anger and lunged at a member of his protective detail as he demanded to be taken to the Capitol on January 6.

Tuesday’s virtual interview is the first time Ornato has met with the panel since Hutchinson’s testimony. Ornato met with the committee twice prior to his expected interview on Tuesday, once in January and again in March.

Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her that Trump got so angry when informed he could not go to the Capitol after his speech at the White House Ellipse on the morning of January 6 that he lunged at the lead agent of his motorcade, Robert Engel, and said something to the effect of “I’m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now.”

“The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said ‘Sir; you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’ Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel,” Hutchinson testified.

Hutchinson said that Ornato told her the story of Trump being “irate” back at the White House office later that day with Engel present. She said Engel, whom CNN previously reported has also interviewed with the committee in recent weeks, “did not correct or disagree with any part of the story.”

Hutchinson’s testimony of Ornato’s description of the altercation was under oath during the committee’s public June 28 hearing and has become a key event in the timeline of Trump’s movements on January 6. The panel interviewed Engel for the first time since Hutchinson’s public testimony on November 17.

Neither Ornato and Engel have denied Hutchinson’s testimony on the record. A Secret Service official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, previously told CNN that Ornato denies telling Hutchinson that the former president grabbed the steering wheel of his presidential SUV or an agent on his detail.

Members of the panel have long said they want to call Ornato back in for further questioning.

“We’re in a position in the very near future to call the witnesses from the Secret Service back in for a few additional questions,” Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a committee member, told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “CNN Newsroom” in October.

Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, told CNN in September that members of the panel believe Ornato was personally involved in efforts to discredit Hutchinson’s testimony while he was still at the agency and said unnamed Secret Service officials and others simply adopted his side of the story.

“I just think it’s so important to keep in mind that, through quote, anonymous sources, which we believe to be actually Tony Ornato himself, he pushed back against Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony and said, it’s just not true and Tony will testify under oath,” he told CNN. “And then of course, has not come in to testify under oath.”

In addition to the motorcade incident, Ornato could also be key to helping investigators fill in other blanks pertaining to the Secret Service.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/politics ... ndex.html?