1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

Legal expert lays out 6 crimes Trump may have committed — according to testimony in shocking Jan. 6 hearing

Donald Trump committed six crimes that were newly revealed during Tuesday's public hearings of the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to at least one legal expert.

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace interviewed former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman on Tuesday about Trump allegedly thinking that Vice President Mike Pence deserved to be hanged for not participating in his coup attempt.

"I mean, it's a crime to threaten the president or the vice president," Wallace said. "You've now got a president celebrating a pledge to hang his own number two. What is the exposure on that?"

"In a day of huge fireworks, Nicolle, I think this was one of the two or three most incendiary," Litman replied. "It's almost like a law school exam, I counted six new crimes potentially."

Litman also served as a U.S. Attorney and teaches constitutional law at the University of California San Diego and the University of California, Los Angeles.

"But look, to date, the inquiry has all been, 'Is he aware of the violence? Does he know what could happen?' We have a completely different portrait of him now," he explained. "It's someone who is not just aware of it, he's eager for it, he's fomenting it. He's grabbing Secret Service people by the clavicle and trying to grab the wheel so that he can orchestrate it."

"So, we're way past, 'Might he be aware?' And very much into the territory of, he wants this to happen, and as you say, the 'this' here is literally the tearing from limb to limb of his vice president. That's maybe, you know, maybe the most crystalline sociopathic, not to mention criminal moment in a hearing that was chock-full of them," Litman said.

"All right, give us the other five, Harry," Wallace said.

"They already knew about the two ones we've been talking about, which are messing with the proceeding and defrauding the U.S. But I have now: he destroys U.S. property; I think seditious conspiracy is now in play, and that's very, very serious; inciting a riot is now in play and that's very, very serious; assaulting a Secret Service officer," he said. "But the two big-ticket items that are now very much in the DOJ's can: seditious conspiracy; incitement of a riot," Litman said. "Because as I say, it's now clear that he wants the force to occur, and that brings the two most serious charges down on his head, potentially."

Watch the segment below:

[Rick Plant]

Top takeaways From Jan. 6 ‘Surprise Witness’ Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, is the star witness of Tuesday’s surprise hearing from the Jan. 6th Committee. NBC News Reporter Julie Tsirkin, former FBI Senior Official Chuck Rosenberg and NBC News Contributor Carol Leonning dive into how Hutchinson is the “connective tissue” into learning what the former president did on Jan. 6th.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Cassidy Hutchinson testifies some White House aides were worried about legal implications of Jan. 6

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that there was concern in the White House about the implications of going to the Capital on Jan. 6 as the insurrection was underway. Hutchinson spoke to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on June 28 as they presented its findings to the public.

Hutchinson said former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, mentioned to her that he had “serious legal concerns.”

“In the days leading up to the sixth, we had conversations about obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count,” she said.

The hearing was unexpectedly announced a week after the Jan. 6 committee said they were taking a break until the month of July. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

WATCH: 25th Amendment fears helped persuade Trump to make Jan. 7 speech, aide says

Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide for Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified on June 28 that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had reached out to Meadows to say that Cabinet secretaries behind the scenes were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office. Hutchinson said Pompeo also expressed concern for Meadows' “positioning with this.”

In a public hearing before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Hutchinson also shared details about efforts to persuade Trump to speak out the next day and what the president wanted and didn’t want in the remarks -- including wanting to avoid talking about prosecuting the rioters or calling them violent.

Trump spoke on Jan. 7 at the urging of some of his advisers, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, she said. They argued that his previous statement on Jan. 6 was not strong enough, that his legacy was being damaged and that the 25th Amendment could be used to unseat him from power.

“‘Think about what might happen in the final 15 days of your presidency. If we don't do this, there's already talks about invoking the 25th Amendment. You need this as cover’,” Hutchinson recalled their thinking in an earlier deposition.

She also testified that Trump wanted to include language in that speech about pardoning those who took part in the attack, an idea that she said Meadows encouraged but that the White House counsel’s office disagreed with. According to Hutchinson, both Giuliani and Meadows suggested or sought presidential pardons for themselves, as well.

The hearing was unexpectedly announced a week after the Jan. 6 committee said they were taking a break until the month of July. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.

[Joe Elliott]

Trump wasn’t much of a strong man. If Putin wanted to march on Red Square, do you think his security could have stopped him?

Hitler managed to lead in person his insurrection at Munich. Mussolini managed to lead in person his insurrection onto Rome. But, maybe deep down, Trump really wanted to watch from the White House.

[Rick Plant]

7 shocking revelations from a real bad afternoon for Donald Trump

Mark Meadows warned Cassidy Hutchinson that “things might get real, real bad” on January 6. That was just the beginning of her bombshell testimony.



White House chief of staff Mark Meadows warned one of his top aides on January 2, 2021, that “things might get real, real bad” on January 6, that aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said in the opening moments of her bombshell testimony before the House January 6 committee on Tuesday.

The testimony she provided over the next two hours included a litany of details about Meadows’s, Trump’s, and other White House officials’ knowledge of the danger the January 6, 2021, rally participants posed, their activities as the Capitol riot happened, and what they did in the days after it.

Although clips of the nearly 20 hours of depositions that Hutchinson gave the committee had previously played in public hearings, this was the first time that a White House staffer has appeared in person during the hearings, and it surpassed the hype stoked by the committee’s last-minute announcement of a hearing.

Hutchinson was a key conduit between the White House and dozens of members of Congress, and the committee previously aired part of her deposition where she named members of Congress who had sought pardons from Trump after January 6. She also was in countless meetings with figures who played key roles in the plot to overturn the election, including Meadows and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and has played a vital role in the committee’s effort to piece together the events leading up to January 6.

Here are the seven most shocking revelations Hutchinson disclosed on Tuesday:

1) Trump attacked a Secret Service agent

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541845690107699205

Hutchinson revealed that Trump was so intent on going to the Capitol following his speech during the Stop the Steal rally at the Ellipse on January 6 that, according to a colleague who talked to her shortly after he saw the incident, he grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine and then got physical with the Secret Service agent who tried to restrain him.

She said that Trump had believed he was going to the Capitol after his speech that day, and only discovered that those plans had been blocked once he returned to the motorcade afterward. According to Hutchinson’s second-hand account, Trump was so enraged that he shouted “I’m the f-ing president, take me up to the Capitol now” before trying to drive himself there. When a Secret Service officer restrained him, Trump then “lunged at his clavicle.”

2) Trump was repeatedly warned about going to the Capitol

Hutchinson said White House counsel Pat Cipollone repeatedly warned Trump and other top officials that going to the Capitol as protesters were marching there to disrupt the counting of electoral votes would create criminal liability.

“We are going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Hutchinson said he told her of the plans for Trump to show up there on January 6. The top White House lawyer specifically cited obstruction of justice and obstructing the electoral count as crimes that Trump might commit by appearing at the joint session of Congress.

3) ) Trump was blasé about the armed mob

Trump was unhappy that the crowd at his Ellipse rally before his speech was too small, and displeased that many rallygoers were watching from beyond the security perimeter, Hutchinson recounted.

January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte

Trump was furious the Secret Service was screening people at his rally for weapons.

"They're not here to hurt me. Take the F'ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541840643676426241

When he was told it was because many of the people at the National Mall were armed and didn’t want to go through security to get closer to the stage, Trump was enraged.

“I don’t care that they have weapons, they are not here to hurt me, take the f’in mags away, and they can march to the Capitol,” he said, according to Hutchinson.

4) The White House knew it would get bad

Hutchinson testified at length about her former boss, Meadows, and the warnings he and White House officials got in the days leading up to January 6, including that January 2 comment.

January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte

On January 2, 2021, Rudy Giuliani met with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Hutchison was told that things on January 6 might get "real bad."

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541836855003561986

The conversation in which Meadows warned things could get “real bad” occurred minutes after Rudy Giuliani told Hutchinson, “We are going to the Capitol, it’s going to be great, the president is going to be there, he’s going to look powerful.”

5) “Mike deserves it”

Hutchinson testified that she heard Meadows tell Cipollone that Trump agreed with the mob shouting “Hang Mike Pence” at the Capitol. “You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it, he doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” Meadows said, according to Hutchinson.

January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte

"Mark had responded something to the effect of, 'You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong.'"

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1541853629975609346

She went on to describe Trump’s mindset on January 7 — that the rioters didn’t do anything wrong. Instead, Trump believed, “The people who did something wrong that day was Mike Pence not standing with him.”

6) Pardons were on the table — and Mark Meadows wanted one

We knew from prior testimony that a half-dozen members of Congress inquired about pardons after January 6. Hutchinson on Tuesday testified that both Meadows and Giuliani reached out to Trump about potential pardons after the attack on the Capitol.

In addition, she testified that Trump wanted to promise a pardon to everyone who stormed the Capitol in his January 7 speech and was encouraged to do so by Meadows. However, White House counsel made clear that “they didn’t think it was a good idea.”

7) A witness-tampering chaser

Hutchinson’s revelations were so numerous, it often seemed there was a new bombshell every few minutes. And when she wrapped up her testimony, Rep. Liz Cheney, in her closing statement, offered a bombshell of her own: There had been efforts to intimidate witnesses called to testify before the committee.



https://www.vox.com/2022/6/28/23186748/cassidy-hutchinson-january-6-hearing-committee

[Rick Plant]

WATCH: White House aide says Trump's tweets about Pence on Jan. 6 were 'unpatriotic'

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified on June 28 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public.

In a video the committee played, Hutchinson recalled on Jan. 6 2021 how Meadows was alone in his office as the rioters were getting closer to the Capitol.

“It sort of felt like I was watching, not a great comparison, but a bad car accident that was about to happen,” she said in the video.

In a tweet the president made on Jan 6., shown during the hearing, Trump said then-Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have the “courage” to overturn the 2020 election. As a staffer, Hutchinson said seeing that tweet made her feel “frustrated” and “disappointed.”

“As an American, I was disgusted, it was unpatriotic, it was unAmerican," she said. “We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.”

The hearing was unexpectedly announced a week after the Jan. 6 committee said they were taking a break until the month of July. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.

[Rick Plant]

John Eastman loses effort to keep his call records from the Jan. 6 committee: report



The controversial author of Donald Trump's "coup memo" to overturn the 2022 presidential election lost a bid to keep his phone records from the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"In a late Tuesday filing, Eastman voluntarily dismissed the suit, claiming that he’d been assured the committee was only seeking his call logs — not the content of any messages held by his carrier, Verizon. The select committee has long contended that it lacks the authority to obtain message content," Politico reported Tuesday.

Although Eastman ultimately lost, he was successful at tying the issue up in court for more than six months.

"Eastman’s move comes, however, as the legal threats he’s facing have begun to mount. Last week, FBI agents seized Eastman’s phone as part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation related to the 2020 election. Earlier this month, a federal judge forced Eastman to turn over hundreds of Trump-related emails to the Jan. 6 select committee, rejecting many of his claims of attorney-client privilege. That judge, David Carter, had already determined that Eastman and Trump 'likely' entered into a criminal conspiracy to obstruct Congress on Jan. 6, 2021," Politico reported.

The select committee says Eastman was also emailing with Ginni Thomas as she sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

"The select committee has issued dozens of subpoenas to phone companies like Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T for witnesses’ phone logs. More than a dozen witnesses have sued to block the committee from obtaining those records, and many of those suits are still pending," Politico reported.

Read More Here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/eastman-phone-records-from-jan-6-committee-00043072