Sarah Silbiger | Reuters Cipollone described his dismay upon learning that a group of leading election fraud conspiracy theorists was meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, with no White House staff present, on December 18, 2020. “I opened the doors and went in, I saw Jen. [Michael] Flynn, Sidney Powell is sitting there,” Cipollone said in his videotaped testimony. “I was not happy to see the people who were in the Oval Office.” In addition to those two, Cipollone saw former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne at the meeting, whom he did not recognize. The session soon disintegrated into participants yelling and insulting each other as Cipollone and other staff challenged Powell and the others to produce evidence of voter fraud, attendees testified. “I don’t think any of these people were giving the president good advice, so I don’t understand how they got in,” Cipollone said. — And manganese
“The West Wing is SECRET,” Hutchinson wrote during the White House conflict over the election
An evidentiary document is displayed on a screen during a full committee hearing on the “January 6 Investigation” on Capitol Hill July 12, 2022 in Washington, DC. Saul Loeb AFP | Getty Images A top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows wrote that things had become stale as Trump allies clashed with administration officials in a mid-December meeting about his 2020 election loss. Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn argued that Trump needs to take drastic measures to try to reverse his loss to Biden. They met stiff resistance from Cipollone, White House counsel Eric Herschmann and others in an hours-long meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, that included heated arguments, yelling and insults, according to witnesses. Hutchinson texted another White House aide, Tony Ornato, that “the West Wing is ABSOLUTE.” — Kevin Breuninger
Trump considered naming Sidney Powell as ‘special counsel’ to investigate alleged election crimes
A video of Sidney Powell, President Trump’s campaign attorney, is played during the fifth hearing by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol at the Cannon House office building on June 23, 2022 in Washington , DC. Alex Wong | Getty Images Trump had drafted an executive order that would have ordered the Pentagon to seize voting machines and installed Trump lawyer Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate election-related crimes. “As you can see here, this proposed order directs the Secretary of Defense to stop the voting machines, to provide citations, effective immediately, but it goes even further than that,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, who showed a copy of the December 16, 2020 proposed order. “Under the order, President Trump would appoint a special counsel with the power to seize machines and then charge people with crimes with all the resources necessary to carry out her duties.” Raskin said Powell “spent the post-election period making outlandish claims about Venezuela and China interfering in the election.” – John Rosevear
Eugene Scalia, son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told Donald Trump the 2020 election is over
Eugene Scalia, U.S. Secretary of Labor, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the Department of Education in Washington, DC, U.S., Wednesday, July 8, 2020. Joshua Roberts | Bloomberg | Getty Images Former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, who is also the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, said he told Trump the election was over. The committee testified Tuesday that Scalia told committee investigators that he called Trump in mid-December and tried to encourage him to admit that Joe Biden was the duly elected president. “I have called the president, we spoke on the 14th, in which I conveyed to him that I thought it was time for him to acknowledge that President Biden had won the election,” Scalia said. Trump will continue to make false claims about the election being stolen, including on January 6, 2021, at the rally of Trump supporters rioting on Capitol Hill. – Brian Schwartz
Cipollone: ”I agree” that there was no evidence of electoral fraud
Former White House counsel during an interview with the Commission on January 6. Courtesy: Congressional Select Committee January 6 In the first video clip aired of his much-anticipated testimony last week, Cipollone said he agreed there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have overturned the 2020 election results. The video shows Cipollone being asked by an investigator whether he agrees with the conclusion reached by other former Trump officials, including former Attorney General William Barr, that “there is insufficient evidence of voter fraud to sway the outcome in a particular state ». “Yes, I agree with that,” replied Cipollone. In another clip, Cipollone said he believed Trump should concede the election. He noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had said on the Senate floor in mid-December that the election process was over. “That would be consistent with my thinking about these things,” Cipollone told the committee. — Kevin Breuninger
“President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He’s not a flashy kid,” Cheney says
U.S. Representative Liz Cheney speaks at the start of a hearing on the ‘January 6th Inquiry’ on Capitol Hill July 12, 2022 in Washington, DC. Saul Loeb AFP | Getty Images Cheney derided what she said was a “new strategy” to accuse Trump’s lawyers and others of pushing false allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 race, rather than holding him accountable for that narrative. “The strategy is to blame people that his advisers called ‘crazy’ for what Donald Trump did,” Cheney said. “This new strategy is to try to blame only John Eastman or Sidney Powell or Congressman Scott Perry or others and not President Trump.” Cheney said it was “nonsense.” “President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He’s not an impressionable kid,” he said. Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally supporting Republican candidates Adam Laxalt and Joe Lombardo (not pictured) on July 8, 2022, in Las Vegas. Rhonda Churchill | AFP | Getty Images “Like everyone else in this country, he is responsible for his actions and his own choices,” Cheney said. – And manganese
Cipollone’s testimony “met our expectations,” Cheney says
Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), Vice Chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, delivers remarks during the seventh hearing on the January 6 investigation at the Cannon House Office Building on July 12, 2022 in Washington . Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images Select committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the former White House adviser’s closed-door testimony last week “met our expectations.” Cipollone, a wanted witness who testified under subpoena for hours Friday, is expected to feature prominently in the hearing. Cipollone’s actions before and during January 6 have been reported by multiple witnesses, including former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. — Kevin Breuninger
Trump incited the mob to “carry out a violent attack on our democracy,” Thompson says
Missouri Democratic congressional candidate Cory Bush votes on August 4, 2020 at Gambrinus Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. Michael B. Thomas | Getty Images Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said today’s hearing will show how Trump “invited a mob” to Washington, D.C., and “ultimately incited that mob to launch a violent attack on our democracy.” Thompson began the hearing by explaining some basic principles of American elections: Differences of opinion must be settled at the ballot box, and violence, harassment and intimidation are unacceptable. Having lost the 2020 election, Trump had to say, “We did our best, but we made it,” Thompson said. “He went the opposite way.” — Kevin Breuninger
Trump fumes at committee before hearing
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally supporting Republican candidates Adam Laxalt and Joe Lombardo (not pictured) on July 8, 2022, in Las Vegas. Rhonda Churchill | AFP | Getty Images Trump lashed out at the select committee in a series of posts on his social media platform Tuesday morning, calling the investigators “crazy” and attacking one of the star witnesses as a “woman scam artist.” The former president, who now posts on Truth Social after being permanently banned from Twitter following last year’s Capitol Hill riot, has once again spread false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him through widespread fraud. These false allegations of fraud spurred many of Trump’s supporters to the Capitol on January 6. Trump also claimed that key witness Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony has been “largely debunked” — though Vice President Jamie Raskin told NBC News that recent testimony by former White House counsel Pat Cipollone does not contradict Hutchinson. Trump disputed Hutchinson’s testimony that a White House aide told her that Trump ran into a Secret Service agent after being told his security would not take him to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Amid backlash against the select committee, Trump tweeted his congratulations to retired professional golfer Jack Nicklaus for receiving the award in Scotland. — Kevin Breuninger
The former representative of the Oath Keepers will appear as a witness
Jason Van Tatenhove, a member of the Oath Keepers, applies camouflage face paint during a tactical training exercise in western Montana, U.S., April 30, 2016. Jim Uruqart | Reuters To shed light on the far-right extremist organizations that were planning to attack…
