Trump lunged for steering wheel, Secret Service agent in bid to reach Capitol, former aide testifies
Key updates
- Trump physically attacked security aide who wouldn’t drive him to Capitol, Hutchinson testifies
- Trump told advisers about armed crowd, ‘They’re not here to hurt me’
- Top Meadows aide recalls him saying, ‘Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6’
Jan. 6 committee holds public hearing
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The House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack holds a hearing to review findings of the events of Jan. 6, 2021. (Video: The Washington Post)
By John Wagner, Jacqueline Alemany, Amy B Wang, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Rosalind S. Helderman, Eugene Scott and Matt Brown
Updated June 28, 2022 at 2:24 p.m. EDT|Published June 28, 2022 at 6:33 a.m. EDT
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Former president Donald Trump was so “irate” that he wasn’t being driven to the Capitol following his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, that he attempted to grab the steering wheel of his limousine and lunged at a member of his Secret Service detail, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in a House hearing Tuesday, citing the account of a senior-ranking colleague.
“I’m the f-ing president! Take me up to the Capitol now!” Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, quoted Trump as saying in testimony to the House select committee. She also described an outburst by Trump at his former attorney general in which he threw dishes, leaving ketchup streaming down the wall.
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Aide testifies Cipollone fretted: ‘Going to get charged with every crime imaginable’
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By Rosalind Helderman2:21 p.m.
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Donald Trump repeatedly expressed a desire to march or drive to the Capitol after his speech on Jan. 6, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified. Hutchinson said she first heard Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani raise the idea and was part of several conversations about it leading up to Jan. 6. Among those who were opposed, she said, was White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Hutchinson said Cipollone told her on Jan. 3 or 4 that it would be a bad idea and that he had legal concerns about it.
Then, Hutchinson said, as she set out to hear Trump’s speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, Cipollone pulled her aside. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” she said Cipollone told her. She testified that he feared the possibility of charges such as obstruction and inciting a riot.
Trump physically attacked security aide who wouldn’t drive him to Capitol, Hutchinson testifies
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By Amy Wang2:10 p.m.
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After his speech on the Ellipse, President Donald Trump was under the impression he would still be able to travel to the Capitol with his supporters. However, when he entered his presidential limo — also dubbed “The Beast” — Trump was told by his security officials that the trip was no longer possible, according to testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, top aide to his chief of staff.
“It’s not secure. We’re going back to the West Wing,” Robert Engel, head of Trump’s Secret Service detail, told Trump, according to Hutchinson’s testimony Tuesday.
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Key update
Trump told advisers about armed crowd, ‘They’re not here to hurt me’
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By Eugene Scott2:04 p.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday that President Donald Trump was aware of how armed his supporters were while heading to the Capitol, but he seemed unconcerned about his safety.
“I was part of a conversation — I was in, I was in the vicinity of a conversation — where I overheard the president say something to the effect of: ‘You know, I don’t even care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,’” she said.
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Analysis: Trump was ‘f---ing furious’ about size of Ellipse crowd, Meadows aide says
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By Josh Dawsey2:00 p.m.
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Donald Trump was angry that the crowd on the Ellipse at the rally that preceded the Capitol attack wasn’t large enough, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Mark Meadows, testified. “F---ing furious,” she said. The Washington Post has previously reported that detail. “They’re not here to hurt me,” Hutchinson quoted Trump as saying when informed that some of those Jan. 6 rallygoers had weapons. Trump reportedly called for Capitol security to disregard the magnetometers and wave his supporters through.
Trump has long obsessed over crowd size as a sign of political strength, demanding that aides fill his rallies to the gills; his aides even moved “social distancing” signs at an arena in Tulsa amid the coronavirus pandemic. Since leaving office, the former president has repeatedly bragged about the crowd size at the Ellipse rally that day, calling it his biggest ever.
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Analysis: Cheney’s questioning speaks to her legal background
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By Jacqueline Alemany1:57 p.m.
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You can hear Jan. 6 committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney’s voice questioning Cassidy Hutchinson in the videotaped depositions complementing her live testimony. Cheney is not an investigator, but she’s a trained lawyer and has been central to guiding the direction of the investigation. She has participated in many of the depositions and interviews committee investigators conducted with witnesses. Her pointed, prosecutorial line of questioning to Hutchinson ultimately gets Mark Meadows’s top aide to paint a picture of the former president encouraging an armed march to the Capitol.
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Hutchinson said she tried to tell Meadows ‘Capitol Police officers were getting overrun’
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By Amy Wang1:55 p.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, testified that on the morning of Jan. 6 — while she and other White House aides were with President Donald Trump at the Ellipse — it became clear that the security at the Capitol would not be sufficient to contain the crowds that would soon march over to the complex.
Hutchinson testified she had “two or three phone conversations” with Anthony Ornato, who oversaw physical protection of events at the White House, along with several others on the ground — including those who were part of Meadows’s security detail.
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Analysis: Hutchinson’s bona fides on display
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By Jacqueline Alemany1:31 p.m.
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Like some of the previous hearings, the sixth televised hearing has started with biographical information — but this time about the star witness: Cassidy Hutchinson. The committee is preemptively establishing her credibility with visuals of a White House seating chart — her desk was a five-second walk to the Oval Office — and pictures of her sitting in on big meetings with lawmakers and top GOP officials. Hutchinson might have been only in her early 20s, with little career experience, but the committee is making clear that she was privy to sensitive and important meetings and discussions, serving as chief of staff Mark Meadows’s close aide.
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update
Top Meadows aide recalls him saying, ‘Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6’
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By Isaac Stanley-Becker1:29 p.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told the House committee that she recalled her boss saying on Jan. 2, 2021, “Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.”
The comment came after a White House meeting involving Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Hutchinson said. Giuliani, as he was leaving the White House on Jan. 2, asked her if she was “excited” for Jan. 6, she said. When she asked what was happening on that day, Hutchinson testified that Giuliani told her, “We’re going to the Capitol.”
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Hutchinson opens with reminder of her Republican roots
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By Rosalind Helderman1:25 p.m.
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Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson opened her testimony to the Jan. 6 committee with a reminder that she has been a committed Republican. Before working for President Donald Trump, she testified, she was an aide on Capitol Hill, working for Republican Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).
She then sought out a job in the White House and worked there, rising in responsibilities, from 2019 through January 2021. The committee displayed photos to demonstrate how close Hutchinson was to Republicans. One showed her smiling with Scalise. Another showed her walking at the White House with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), as well as Mark Meadows.
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Key update
Thompson, Cheney open hearing with praise for Hutchinson
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By Amy Wang1:20 p.m.
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The surprise Tuesday hearing by the Jan. 6 committee opened with praise for Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Committee leaders said Hutchinson planned to relate firsthand observations about Donald Trump’s conduct and the actions of his senior advisers on Jan. 6, 2021.
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee chairman, said he and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee’s vice chairwoman, called this hearing because they had obtained new information about what Trump and his top aides were doing in the critical hours leading up to and during the Capitol attack.
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Analysis: Committee’s strength is using Trump’s own people to build case
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By Josh Dawsey1:19 p.m.
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The point Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) keeps making at these hearings: The people providing some of the most damning testimony are all Republicans, and most were handpicked or appointed by President Donald Trump. Trump and his orbit have tried to undercut the committee’s work by saying it is a partisan witch hunt, led by Democrats and Republicans who despise Trump. But it’s more challenging to attack the taped, or live, testimony from Trump’s own aides and family members, and that has grown to annoy Trump.
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Analysis: A secretive build-up adds drama to hearing
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By Paul Kane12:51 p.m.
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There’s nothing historically unusual about a congressional committee getting called back from a planned recess to hold a hearing. Earlier this month, the House Judiciary Committee got summoned back to Washington to consider a broad package of legislation to deal with gun violence. That panel held an emergency hearing in June 2020 to consider an overhaul of laws relating to police brutality after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis officer. But Tuesday’s hearing is different because of the nature of it — the secretive buildup.
It has some echoes of a May 2007 Senate hearing in which James B. Comey, then in the private sector, appeared for a second time in weeks before a congressional panel investigating George W. Bush-era Justice Department abuses. Few knew why Comey needed a second go-round — but from the opening moments, he provided a riveting account of a constitutional clash that occurred in 2004 over terrorist surveillance laws. All at the George Washington University Hospital room where then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was recovering from surgery.
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Hutchinson was ‘so plugged in,’ former colleague says
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By John Wagner12:49 p.m.
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Alyssa Farah, a former White House communications director, sought to push back Tuesday against anticipated arguments from Republicans that Cassidy Hutchinson was merely a “low-level staffer.”
“She was anything but,” Farah said during an appearance on CNN ahead of the expected testimony from the aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
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Analysis: Hearing witnesses in their own words delivers a punch
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By Jacqueline Alemany12:01 p.m.
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For all of the expectation-setting and comparisons to Watergate’s John Dean, what the past few hearings have taught us is that even without what some might consider a “smoking gun” piece of evidence, hearing witnesses in person and in their own words is revelatory in and of itself.
Yes, Cassidy Hutchinson has been prominently featured already in previous hearings via videotaped depositions, but the most powerful moments of the hearings so far have come during live, unscripted moments. During the past two hearings, for example, much of what was presented had already been reported, but hearing Trump’s requests and actions spelled out in real time by people who worked with him — and the consequences of those actions — painted an even more damning picture.
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Hutchinson interned for Scalise and Cruz before joining White House
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By Eugene Scott and John Wagner11:55 a.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson, who is expected to testify Tuesday before the House Jan. 6 committee, had internships with two well-known Republicans — Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — before joining the Trump White House.
Hutchinson, a New Jersey native, attended Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va.
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Still no official word from the committee on Tuesday’s agenda
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By John Wagner11:17 a.m.
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With less than two hours remaining before the start of Tuesday’s hearing of the Jan. 6 committee, the panel has still yet to formally release an agenda or witness list.
This represents a sharp break with the past five hearings this month, when information was released at least a day before the hearings and committee members went on television in the hours before the hearing was gaveled in.
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Analysis: Tucker Carlson’s bizarro Jan. 6 hearings aim to indict the government
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By Philip Bump10:54 a.m.
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What Tucker Carlson hopes to do is not complicated.
Since Joe Biden was inaugurated as president, the Fox News host has cast his administration as actively hostile to the political right in broad, often racially focused terms. On Jan. 20, 2021, the day of the inauguration, Carlson chose to focus on Biden’s denunciation of white nationalist and domestic extremism, casting it as a condemnation of any Republican.
This is an excerpt from a full story.
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Key update
Hutchinson’s video testimony on pardon-seekers featured in last hearing
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By John Wagner and Devlin Barrett10:30 a.m.
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Video testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson — an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — was seen in the Jan. 6 committee’s last hearing; in it, she detailed allegations of pardon-hunting by Republican lawmakers.
Recorded testimony, presented at the end of the hearing, named Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (Tex.) and Scott Perry (Pa.) as the lawmakers who allegedly sought preemptive pardons after or, in at least one case, before the Capitol breach. They were among the most active and outspoken supporters in Congress of President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
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Cassidy Hutchinson draws comparisons to John Dean
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By John Wagner9:56 a.m.
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More than three weeks ago, before the Jan. 6 committee began its public hearings, Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, compared the potential testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson to a key Watergate figure.
“Cassidy Hutchinson might turn out to be the next John Dean,” Eisen, who served as counsel to House Democrats for Trump’s first impeachment trial, told The Washington Post.
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Hutchinson previously described talk of delaying Joint Session of Congress
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By Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey9:35 a.m.
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In previous closed-door testimony, Cassidy Hutchinson has recalled for the committee various episodes in the chaotic scramble to sustain President Donald Trump’s election-fraud falsehood. A former mid-level aide, she kept detailed schedules of movements in the West Wing and had extensive conversations with her boss, Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Court filings show Hutchinson detailing a meeting in the lead-up to Jan. 6 between Meadows and House Republican lawmakers in which they discussed delaying the Joint Session of Congress set to confirm Joe Biden’s victory — or altogether preventing the counting of electoral votes — so that state legislatures could select different electors.
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Hutchinson switched lawyers earlier this month
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By John Wagner8:57 a.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson switched lawyers ahead of the hearings this month by the Jan. 6 committee, a move widely seen as a signal that the aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was willing to cooperate with the panel.
Her previous lawyer, Stefan Passantino, had deep connections to those around former president Donald Trump. Passantino served as a White House ethics lawyer early in Trump’s tenure before leaving in 2018 to join a law firm that also included Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff.
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Key update
Hutchinson has said that Meadows was warned about threat of violence
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By Jacqueline Alemany and John Wagner8:26 a.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson has already provided the Jan. 6 committee with testimony that her boss, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, was warned before the insurrection about the threat of violence that day as supporters of President Donald Trump planned to mass at the U.S. Capitol.
Hutchinson, one of Meadows’s top aides, told congressional investigators she recalled Anthony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official who also held the role of a political adviser at the White House, “coming in and saying that we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th. And Mr. Meadows said: All right. Let’s talk about it.”
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A move straight out of the Watergate playbook
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By Gillian Brockell7:57 a.m.
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This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, a bungled crime at a D.C. hotel on June 17, 1972, that two years later led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.
Perhaps members on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have been reading some of the recent Watergate retrospectives, because on Monday afternoon, they pulled a move straight out of the Watergate playbook: They announced a surprise hearing to “present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.”
This is an excerpt from a full story.
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Video: Rep. Raskin on Cassidy Hutchinson
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By John Wagner7:26 a.m.
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Before the Jan. 6 committee’s decision to summon Cassidy Hutchinson as a witness on Tuesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the panel, was asked about the value of her testimony in closed-door sessions.
Raskin, appearing in a Washington Post Live interview with Leigh Ann Caldwell on June 6, said, “She is certainly someone who rendered truthful testimony to our committee.”
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Details of today’s hearing have been shrouded in secrecy
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By Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey7:02 a.m.
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While the expected testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, has been reported by multiple news outlets, the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the Capitol has yet to make its plans public.
When the hearing was announced Monday, its details were shrouded in secrecy, with staff and committee members explicitly asked to go dark and not speak with the news media, according to two people involved with the investigation.
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Key update
Who is Cassidy Hutchinson?
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By Amber Phillips and John Wagner6:27 a.m.
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Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, has become one of the most useful witnesses for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
She has spoken to investigators on the committee multiple times behind closed doors. In the absence of testimony from Meadows — he refused, and the committee held him in contempt — Hutchinson appears to be key to understanding the scope of his actions.
Key update
Committee remains in negotiations with other potential witnesses
By Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey6:19 a.m.
With the hearings underway, the Jan. 6 committee has remained in negotiations with potential witnesses to appear publicly.
At its last hearing, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the panel’s vice chairwoman, made an appeal to former White House counsel Pat Cipollone after revealing that the committee had evidence that he and “his office tried to do what was right” and “tried to stop a number of” President Donald Trump’s plans for Jan. 6.
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Last hearing focused on pressure on Justice officials, alleged pardon-hunting from lawmakers
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By Devlin Barrett6:15 a.m.
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The Jan. 6 committee’s last hearing featured gripping testimony from former Justice Department officials describing President Donald Trump’s efforts to undo the 2020 election results. The committee also identified five Republican lawmakers who allegedly sought pardons — suggesting not just their own fear of criminal exposure, but a belief that the outgoing president would preemptively protect them from the investigations that followed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.
Videotaped testimony presented at the end of the hearing named Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (Tex.) and Scott Perry (Pa.) as the lawmakers who sought preemptive pardons after or, in at least one case, before the Capitol breach. They were among the most active and outspoken supporters in Congress of Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
This is an excerpt from a full story.
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Key update
Agents seize phone of John Eastman, lawyer who pushed Trump’s false claims
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By Devlin Barrett6:10 a.m.
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Federal agents last week seized the cellphone of John Eastman, a lawyer who pushed false claims that mass voter fraud tainted the 2020 election and who urged President Donald Trump and other Republicans to block Joe Biden from becoming president.
Eastman’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, filed papers in federal court in New Mexico on Monday asking a judge to order authorities to return the cellphone to Eastman. It was seized pursuant to a search order when he left a restaurant on Wednesday — a day when federal agents around the country delivered subpoenas, executed search warrants and interviewed witnesses in a significant expansion of the criminal probes surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, on the Capitol.
This is an excerpt from a full story.
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JAN. 6 COMMITTEE HEARINGS
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The Jan. 6 insurrection
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is holding a series of high-profile hearings this month.
Congressional hearings: The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has conducted more than 1,000 interviews over the last year. It’s sharing its findings in a series of hearings starting June 9. Here’s what we know about the hearings and how to watch them.
The riot: On Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Five people died on that day or in the immediate aftermath, and 140 police officers were assaulted.
Inside the siege: During the rampage, rioters came perilously close to penetrating the inner sanctums of the building while lawmakers were still there, including former vice president Mike Pence. The Washington Post examined text messages, photos and videos to create a video timeline of what happened on Jan. 6.
Charges: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants have been charged with seditious conspiracy, joining Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes and about two dozen associates in being indicted for their participation in the Capitol attack. They’re just some of the hundreds who were charged, many of which received punishments substantially lighter than what the government requested.
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