1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

House Select Jan 6 Committee subpoenas House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep Scott Perry (R-PA), Rep Mo Brooks (R-AL), Rep Andy Biggs (R-AZ) as part of its growing investigation

[Rick Plant]

Capitol attack panel subpoenas five Republicans in unprecedented step

Chair Bennie Thompson says panel has been ‘forced to take this step’ as Kevin McCarthy complains investigation ‘not legitimate’



The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has issued unprecedented subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, seeking to compel their cooperation with the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The select committee empowered the chairman, Bennie Thompson, to move ahead with subpoenas to the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama.

The five congressmen flatly refused to accept invitations to provide voluntary assistance to the investigation, sources said.

Thompson said: “Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily. Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning January 6th.”

The subpoena letters indicate that the select committee is seeking testimony from the five House Republicans about some of the most sensitive details about Trump’s unlawful efforts to overturn the election, including their contacts with Trump.

The Guardian reported earlier this week that the panel was moving closer to issuing subpoenas to Republicans in Congress, appalled at their refusal to assist in any way despite prima facie connections to the events of 6 January.

What changed for members of the committee, according to sources familiar with internal deliberations, was that they could no longer ignore what appeared to be deep involvement in Trump’s unlawful schemes to overturn the 2020 election results.

After the announcement, McCarthy told reporters that “I have not seen a subpoena” and repeated his previous attacks on the committee. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation,” he said. “Seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.” Meanwhile, Perry called the investigation a “charade”.

The voluntary cooperation letters outlined in damning detail the reasons that the select committee wanted to depose the five Republicans, as House investigators prepare to wrap up their work ahead of public hearings in June.

From McCarthy, the select committee said it wanted to learn more about his communications with Trump before, during and after January 6, including a conversation in which the former president admitted he was partly at fault for the Capitol attack.

The panel is keenly interested in what McCarthy believes prompted Trump to make such an admission, the sources said, since it could offer evidence that the former president had a guilty conscience for a possible future justice department criminal investigation.

From Biggs, the former chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, the select committee said it wanted to learn more about meetings House Republicans had with Trump at the White House in the days and weeks leading up to January 6.

The panel is focusing on a 21 December 2020 meeting that took place in the Oval Office with Trump, the letter indicated, since those attending appeared to strategize ways to unlawfully delay or stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place and return Trump to power.

The select committee also wants to depose Jordan to learn more about that meeting with Trump and other communications he had with the former president, his letter said.

In the letter to Perry, the select committee said he was directly involved with efforts to corrupt the justice department and install a pro-Trump DoJ official, Jeffrey Clark, as acting attorney general if he opened investigations into baseless claims of election fraud.

The panel also subpoenaed Brooks since he spoke at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse that preceded the Capitol attack, where he notably wore a bulletproof vest under his shirt, and has spoken publicly about Trump pressuring him to “rescind” his election loss.

One notable and unexplained exception from the list was congressman Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former White House doctor, whose name surfaced in text messages among members of the Oath Keepers militia group that stormed the Capitol, some of whom were indicted for seditious conspiracy.

Biggs’ possible contacts with far-right activist Ali Alexander are of special interest to the investigation, sources said.

The committee is trying to untangle claims by Alexander that he “schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting” with Brooks, Biggs and Paul Gosar, another Arizona Republican, and his testimony that he spoke to Biggs’s staff and the congressman himself.

Alexander obtained a permit to hold a rally at the Capitol on 6 January but that event never took place. Alexander was instead filmed going up the Capitol steps in a “stack” formation with members of the Oath Keepers militia.

Thompson said the panel wanted to ask Biggs about his efforts to pressure legislators to create “alternate” slates of electors for Trump in states he lost, as well as an alleged request he made to Trump for a pardon in the days after the Capitol attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/12/capitol-attack-panel-subpoenas-five-republicans-mccarthy

[Rick Plant]

Oath Keepers Boss’ Kids Say They Thought He Would ‘Kill All of Us’



The three adult children of Oath Keepers boss Stewart Rhodes have detailed what it was like growing up with the libertarian-turned-violent militiaman, from being home-schooled on nothing but the American Revolution to having no food on the table while he was jet-setting around the country.

Rhodes, a Yale-educated lawyer and former paratrooper, has been charged with seditious conspiracy after the feds said he “spearheaded” the most coordinated and serious effort to overthrow the U.S. government on Jan. 6. He and 10 other members of the far-right militia group worked together to recruit, train, and prepare for an attack, and Rhodes continued to call for the overthrow of the government even after the failed insurrection, prosecutors allege.

Rhodes didn’t storm the Capitol himself and instead remained in a D.C. hotel room communicating with other members and even getting on the phone to a Trump intermediary in an effort to speak to the president, one member said.

The day after his arrest this year, Rhodes’ ex-wife Tasha Adams called him a “complete sociopath” who terrorized and physically abused her and their six children for years until she finally got a divorce.

Speaking for the first time to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch, his three adult children (the other three kids are still minors) said that, on the day Adams filed for divorce in 2018, they packed their bags and tried to sneak out of the house at 4 a.m. by telling their dad, who was already up and “in a mania,” that they were going to buy food.

“We thought that if he is here and we are here when [the divorce papers] are delivered, he would kill all of us. We felt that we were running for our lives,” Sequoia Adams, 19, said.

The couple’s children grew up being home-schooled but the only history Rhodes taught them was the American Revolution, they said. He “brainwashed” them into thinking the world was ending, and constantly moved the family around the country as he “burned everyone around him,” Sequoia said.

“You could tell that he wanted to be George Washington,” said daughter Sedona Adams, 23.

All the kids were born at home and Sequoia said she never got a birth certificate so therefore couldn’t get a passport or social security number later in life. Rhodes used the possibility of getting her birth certificate to psychologically abuse her and force her to maintain contact with him, she said.

Rhodes was initially involved with Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who ran three failed presidential campaigns as both a libertarian and Republican candidate. Rhodes threatened to leave the country if Paul lost in 2004, Sequoia said, and then said he’d do the same if Obama won in 2008.

But when Obama did win, Rhodes instead realized he could bring together other terrified, angry libertarians into some sort of movement, they said. At first it was a supposedly bipartisan group to educate people about their constitutional rights. But when people started donating, the Oath Keepers quickly turned into something darker—and shoddier.

“What he wanted was collapse, so he could be the king of the collapse, with his own little army, so it was always going to go the way it did,” Sequoia said.

As money flooded in, he started jet-setting around the country to give talks, eating at fancy restaurants, and buying top-of-the-line survivalist gear. Meanwhile, his wife and kids had no food on the table and resorted to selling silver to pay the bills, they said.

Rhodes realized “disaster relief” or emergency appeals were the most lucrative, so he’d always be on the phone saying, “We need to create an emergency,” Sedona recalled.

“Anything that they could put up a GoFundMe for—anything that gets a GoFundMe link in front of the mailing list,” his 24-year-old son Dakota Adams said.

The children didn’t mention specific fundraisers Rhodes ran; one of the group’s earlier efforts involved recruiting members and resources to guard rooftops in Ferguson, Missouri, during the 2014 riots sparked by Michael Brown’s death.

When Trump was elected, Rhodes was initially critical and wanted to release an open letter to “school Trump” on the Constitution, the kids said. But he grew paranoid that a Democratic president would give the FBI the green light to charge him over his participation in anti-government militant Ammon Bundy’s infamous standoff with federal authorities on a Nevada ranch in 2014.

By the time Trump lost in 2020, Rhodes was all in on the deluded belief that the election had been stolen and people like him needed to take part in a bloody fight to save the republic.

He is still behind bars awaiting trial after a federal judge shot down claims by his lawyers in February that he should be bailed as he’s “no longer a danger” with Trump out of office.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oath-keepers-boss-stewart-rhodes-kids-say-they-thought-he-would-kill-all-of-us

[Rick Plant]

Former Meadows aide hit with subpoena as Jan. 6 committee looks to interview her a third time

An aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has been hit with a subpoena by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots despite the fact that she has already given two separate interviews to the committee.

Politico reports that Cassidy Hutchinson is being subpoenaed to come in for a third round of questioning by the committee, which spoke to her in both February and March.

It is not known why the committee wants to speak with her yet again, but Politico notes that the committee has relied on her to be a key witness to fill in gaps left by Meadows's refusal to further cooperate.

"Hutchinson told investigators that a top Secret Service official warned Meadows that Jan. 6 could turn violent, according to court filings," Politico writes. "She also said the White House Counsel’s Office pushed back against Trump allies’ legal theories -- including theories promoted by members of Congress -- regarding the election results. Both topics are key focuses for investigators."

The request to speak with Hutchinson comes even though the first public hearings for the January 6 committee are slated to begin next month.

https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/05-13-2022/jan-6/

[Rick Plant]

'Remember Jan. 6': Conservative warns of complacency as GOP continues threat to democracy



MSNBC "Deadline: White House" host Nicolle Wallace on Friday warned that America is in danger of losing our democracy.

Wallace interviewed conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot about his latest column.

"It has been stirring to see so many Americans come together to support Ukraine’s fight for freedom. But it is dismaying to see that there is no similar consensus on defending democracy at home. Indeed, much of the country remains in denial about the threat," Boot warned. "The only way to save democracy is to vote for Democrats in the fall. And I say that as an ex-Republican turned independent. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with Democrats on some issues. The overriding issue is the preservation of our democracy."

Boot expanded on his column.

"Our rights are fundamental to living in a democracy," Wallace noted. "Are you really pessimistic that that conversation isn't take place or is it your observation the message isn't being conveyed?"

"I don't think the message is being conveyed to most ordinary voters," Boot replied. "In some ways, I think it's kind of circular, because Democrats are doing polls in focus groups which show that there is not enough alarm out there about the threat to our democracy, so therefore the pollsters are saying focus on other things in the election. Well, there could be more alarm about it, if President Biden and other leading Democrats are talking about it in the way they should be talking about it."

"But they're not and it's kind of falling off the agenda and the threat is growing," he continued. "And I just, you know, I can't believe that we have to sit here and say the threat is real. Remember Jan. 6th!"

"It's unbelievable. what more is it going to take?" Boot wondered.

Watch the segment below:

[Rick Plant]

GOP House coup plotters stand firm — but DOJ and the Jan. 6 committee are closing in



Back in December of 2020, according to notes taken by then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donohue, Donald Trump tried to pressure Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to falsely assert that the presidential election had been corrupt and illegal even though the Justice Department had found no evidence of voter fraud. Donohue's notes said Trump told them, "Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen." The "R" is shorthand for —well, you know what for. Trump had a plan — and he had accomplices.

Rosen refused to play ball and one of those "R congressmen," Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, had lined up a replacement for him, a relatively obscure DOJ official named Jeffrey Clark who was ready and willing to carry out the plan. Clark allegedly attempted to coerce Rosen to sending a letter to Georgia election officials claiming that DOJ had identified "significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election," telling Rosen that Trump was about to fire him but Clark would refuse to take the job if Rosen sent the letter. Rosen didn't comply, and the White House counsel's office finally told Trump that if he followed through on his plan to fire Rosen and install Clark as acting AG, the entire top level of the Justice Department would walk out. Even Trump could grasp that that wouldn't go well, so he backed off that plan and moved on to the next one.

According to the interim report on the Jan. 6 insurrection by the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was Scott Perry — who was involved in strategy meetings at the White House, along with other members of the House Freedom Caucus — who introduced Jeffrey Clark to Trump. He also took it upon himself to call Donohue, the no. 2 official at the Department of Justice, and demand that he investigate debunked election fraud allegations in Pennsylvania, effectively reading him the riot act for not pursuing all these ludicrous claims. (I can't imagine it's common for congressmen to harangue leading law enforcement officials and importune them to lie. Maybe under the Trump administration it happened all the time.)

Perry, who is a retired general, is now chairman of the Freedom Caucus and one of the five Republican congressmen subpoenaed on Thursday by the House Jan. 6 select committee. His response was as measured and dignified as one might expect:

That they leaked their latest charade to the media ahead of contacting targeted members is proof once again that this political witch hunt is about fabricating headlines and distracting Americans from their abysmal record of running America into the ground.

It doesn't sound as if he's going to cooperate, does it? Whether or not the committee will hold him and the other members in contempt, as they have done with former Trump staffers Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, is unclear. It's interesting to note that Perry's comrade in coup-plotting, the aforementioned Jeffrey Clark, was threatened with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee and after much wrangling he finally showed up — only to pleaded the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during his deposition. Clark was obviously concerned that he could be held criminally liable for something. He's a lawyer, after all.

Former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark finally showed up before the Jan. 6 committee — and took the Fifth more than 100 times. Is he the only one who understands how serious this is?

The other members of Congress subpoenaed were Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Kevin McCarthy of California, the current minority leader and aspiring speaker. Brooks, of course, is most famous for giving a big speech at the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally in which he said it was time to "take names and kick ass." According to a former McCarthy staffer Ryan O'Toole, Brooks could be heard cheering on the mob from inside the Capitol during the insurrection.

Brooks and Biggs were name-checked by rally organizer Ali Alexander as having been part of the planning for that day, and Biggs was involved in the White House strategizing and also attempted to persuade state legislators to overturn election results. Jim Jordan famously can't remember how many times he spoke to Trump on Jan. 6, but since the committee may already know that, I imagine they'd like to know what he and the president talked about. Similarly, they are no doubt interested in hearing more about McCarthy's conversations with the president and how much he knew about House members plotting with the White House to overturn the election. McCarthy's loose-lipped phone recordings have shone some light on that, but the committee would almost certainly like to hear more about Trump's supposed admission that he bore "some responsibility" for what happened that day.

Will any of these people show up to testify? If they don't, will the committee recommend they be held in contempt of Congress and will the congress then refer them to the Department of Justice? That's anyone's guess. When asked what would happen if they refuse to show up before public hearings begin in June, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said:

We would present at the June hearing what we found in the investigation. I would hope that those members who have been identified as having information will come forward. If they don't then we get to present the findings of our investigation — without their response.

It appears committee members believe they have ample evidence of what these people did to help plot and carry out the attempted coup. They have heard from more than 1,000 witnesses and obtained more than 100,000 documents. They think they can make the case without the testimony of any of these people, but believe they needed to make the gesture, to allow Perry and other accused renegades to give their side of the story.

We know that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows exchanged text exchanges with more than 40 current and former GOP members of Congress during the period between the November election and the Jan. 6 attack. Some of these members were actively involved in the coup plotting, and 147 Republican members voted to overturn the election results just hours after the Jan. 6 insurrection. They are all implicated in the coup attempt, every last one of them.

Whether or not the Department of Justice will ever bring charges against anyone is still unclear. If an investigation is underway, it has been completely buttoned up. But nobody should believe that it cannot happen. During the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, 69 government officials were charged with crimes and 48 were found guilty, including the former attorney general, the White House chief of staff, a White House domestic affairs adviser, the White House Counsel, the Secretary of Commerce and various others, mostly on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. It can happen. It appears that Jeffrey Clark, who took the Fifth more than 100 times, may be the only Trump co-conspirator who understands that.

https://www.rawstory.com/house-coup-plotters-stand-firm-but-doj-and-the-jan-6-committee-are-closing-in/

[Rick Plant]

'Brace for more bombshells': More Jan. 6 subpoenas on the way before next month's 'blockbuster TV hearings'

According to a report from Axios, the chiefs of staff to lawmakers sitting on the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot were alerted in a conference call late Friday to expect some big news early next week.

With public hearings expected to start in June, and following the bi-partisan committee issuing subpoenas for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), along with four other Republican House members on Thursday, Axios is now reporting that there is more information forthcoming that will likely make waves with other, as of yet, unnamed members of Congress.

According to the report, "The Jan. 6 committee may seek testimony from additional lawmakers as soon as next week, ahead of blockbuster TV hearings that kick off next month."

As Axios' Andrew Sollender and Alayna Treene wrote, staffers were warned to "brace for more bombshells."

According to two sources who listened in on the call, "The briefers did not say which lawmakers will be contacted."

The report adds, "A U.S. Capitol Police security briefing for members and their chiefs of staff, to prepare for the June hearings, is scheduled for May 20."

https://www.axios.com/2022/05/14/more-bombshells-for-jan-6-committee-before-june-hearings

[Rick Plant]

Members of the Republican Party were key figures in Trump's coup and continue to be. They helped push the election fraud lies, incite insurrectionists with their violent rhetoric, had contact with insurrectionists, helped plan and coordinate the attempted coup with Trump. Now they need to appear before the committee and tell us what they know. The only reason these right wing treasonous traitors were subpoenaed is because they refuse to voluntarily come forward when the committee asked them to. They feel they are above the law and refuse to testify to what they know. Another reason they don't want to appear is that they know they were involved and don't want to tell Americans about the treason they committed to steal the election from us.   

Subpoenas to GOP members marks escalation in 1/6 committee probe
The decision may set a new modern precedent in the House, one expert said.

The decision to subpoena House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and other sitting GOP lawmakers by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack marked a sharp escalation in the panel’s inquiry – and the potential setting of a new modern precedent in the House.

While congressional ethics committee empowered to investigate misconduct have subpoenaed sitting lawmakers, there are few modern instances of other committees issuing subpoenas to members of the body, Irv Nathan, the former House counsel during Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s first two terms leading the chamber, told ABC News.

“It’s unprecedented, but it’s certainly within their authority,” Nathan said of the Jan. 6 committee.

“The crucial matter is what the subpoenas are for,” Charles Tiefer, another former House counsel and law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, told ABC News. “I don't really see why the Justice Department can accumulate evidence about Jan. 6 but the House cannot.”

Committee members argued that McCarthy, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Mo Brooks of Alabama all had information that could help the committee’s investigation into the Capitol attack and efforts by former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the last election.

He was in contact with Trump during the riot, and recalled to another member that Trump told him that “these people are more upset than you are” about the election results, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Washington, revealed last year.

The New York Times also reported that in the days after the attack, McCarthy told other Republican leaders he would urge Trump to resign, which he later claimed was a hypothetical comment. The California Republican initially criticized Trump but has since embraced him as Republicans work to regain the House.

Jordan, Perry and Brooks were involved in discussions with Trump and some advisers about how to contest the certification of election results on Jan. 6, and involved in the weekslong legal campaign to challenge the results in key states.

Jordan and Perry were also in constant communication with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who turned over text messages to the committee before refusing to cooperate.

Perry was also involved in an effort to replace the leader of the Justice Department after the 2020 election with another attorney who would more aggressively investigate unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud pushed by Trump, attorney Rudy Giuliani and other senior Republicans.

For months, the committee had debated whether to subpoena the sitting members after voluntarily requesting their cooperation, mindful of the practical, political and legal hurdles the effort to compel their testimony would face.

"It was not a decision that was taken lightly,” committee vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, told reporters on Thursday. “It’s a reflection of how important and serious the investigation is and how grave the attack on the Capitol was.”

“It's not a game, this is not parcheesi, this is not checkers,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, a member of the committee and a constitutional scholar, said Thursday. “This is a serious investigation into an attack on the government of the United States and we're going to proceed the way we have been proceeding.”

Still, with all five Republicans signaling plans to ignore or reject the subpoenas, it’s not clear whether Democrats can effectively force them to cooperate with the committee or secure their testimony before the panel releases a report on its investigation in the fall, or the end of the year.

Several committee members declined to say what steps the committee would take to respond to noncompliance.

Nathan told ABC News that the “speech and debate” clause of the U.S. Constitution protects members of Congress from being taken to court over their official duties – since it states that members "shall not be questioned in any other place" besides the House and the Senate.

That could make a referral to the Justice Department unlikely, Tiefer said.

But the House could decide to hold McCarthy and the other members in contempt of Congress in a simple majority vote of the chamber, after voting in committee to do so.

“While I don't think they can go to court to enforcement, they have internal mechanisms to enforce it,” Nathan said.

“The most draconian would be proposing they be expelled from Congress, but obviously you need two thirds [of the House] for that so that's not going to happen,” he added. “But there are a lot of options along the way for proportionate sanctions.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/subpoenas-gop-members-marks-escalation-16-committee-probe/story?id=84696447