Suddenly raising the issue of witness tampering, the Jan. 6 committee revealed Tuesday that Donald Trump had tried to contact a person who was speaking to the committee about its investigation into the former president and the 2021 attack on Capitol Hill. “We will take any attempt to influence testimony very seriously,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. He said the committee had informed the Ministry of Justice. The person Trump tried to reach refused to answer or return his call, Cheney said. Instead, the individual notified his lawyer who contacted the committee. Cheney’s disclosure was not the first time the committee has raised concerns about witnesses being contacted by the Trump team in ways that could reflect or at least create the appearance of improper influence. He revealed examples last week of other times witnesses received communications from Trump allies, some suggesting he knew they were talking to the committee, before testifying before the committee. A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tuesday’s hearing was the seventh for the Jan. 6 commission. Last month, the committee created a narrative of a defeated Trump “distracted from reality,” clinging to false allegations of voter fraud and working feverishly to overturn his election loss. It all culminated in the attack on the Capitol, the committee says. Tuesday’s hearing revealed details of a “surprise” late-night meeting at the White House with outside lawyers for Donald Trump who suggested the military seize state voting machines in a last-ditch effort to pursue his false claims of voter fraud before the defeated president call a mob. the US Capitol. The committee investigating last year’s attack on Capitol Hill is working to show how far-right extremists responded to Trump’s call for a large rally in Washington. As his dozens of lawsuits and allegations of voter fraud collapsed, Trump met late on the night of Dec. 18 with lawyers at the White House before tweeting out the rallying call — “Be there, you’ll be wild!” Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups now face rare sedition charges over the siege. “This tweet served as a call to action — and in some cases a call to arms.” said a committee member, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla. The panel presented new video testimony from Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, recalling the explosive meeting at the White House when Trump’s outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize state voting machines — a “terrible idea,” he said. . “That’s not how we do things in the United States,” Cipollone testified. Another associate called the meeting “uninteresting.” Cipollone and other White House officials tried to interfere with Trump’s late-night meeting with lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, retired national security aide Michael Flynn and the head of online retailer Overstock. He burst into yelling and screaming, another aide testified. “Where’s the evidence?” Cipollone pleaded guilty to false allegations of voter fraud. “What they proposed, I thought, was crazy,” testified another White House official, Eric Hersman. But Trump was intrigued and essentially told his White House lawyers that at least Powell and foreign allies were trying to do something. “You’re not tough enough,” Giuliani recalled in videotaped testimony the president told White House lawyers. “You’re a p—–,” he said, using dumb language. As night turned to morning, Trump tweeted a call for supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, when Congress will count the results of the Electoral College. “Be there. It’s going to be wild,” Trump wrote. Immediately the extremists reacted. The panel showed graphic and violent text messages and played videos of right-wing figures, including Alex Jones, and others saying January 6 would be the day they fight for president. In vulgar and often racist language, the messages broadcast on far-right forums planned for the big day were said to be Trump’s demand in Washington. It would be a “red wedding,” said one, a reference to mass murder. “Bring handcuffs.” Several members of the US Capitol Police who fought the mob that day sat stone-faced in the front row of the committee room. “The problem of politicians resorting to mob violence to destroy fair elections is the oldest domestic enemy of constitutional democracy,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said in his opening remarks. On the witness table to testify in person was Jason Van Tatenhove, an ally of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. Another witness was Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty last month to disorderly and disruptive behavior in a prohibited building. He has said that on January 2, 2021, he posted an image stating that Trump was “inviting us to come back to Washington on January 6th for a big protest.” The committee is investigating whether extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and QAnon followers who have rallied for Trump in the past, coordinated with White House allies for Jan. 6. The Oath Keepers denied that there was a plan to invade the Capitol. The committee began the second half of the hearing by drawing connections between Trump allies Flynn and Roger Stone and extremist groups preparing to come to Washington. It showed a photo of Rhodes, the Oath Keeper leader, walking with Flynn, Trump’s former national security aide, outside the Capitol at one point. This was the only hearing this week as new details emerged. Thursday’s expected prime time hearing has been postponed for now. This week’s meeting comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson provided stunning testimony under oath about an angry Trump who knowingly sent armed supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and then refused to quickly withdraw them as violence erupted, siding with rioters as they menacingly sought out Vice President Mike Pence. Trump said Cassidy’s account is not true. But Cipollone in Friday’s private session did not contradict the earlier testimony. Raskin said the committee planned to use “a lot” of Cipollone’s testimony. The Proud Boys have said their participation increased after Trump, during his first debate with Biden, refused to condemn the group outright but instead told them to “stand back and stand by.” Oath Keepers were also organizing for Jan. 6 and set up a “quick response force” at a nearby hotel in Virginia, according to court records. The panel also noted that many of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol appeared to be QAnon loyalists. Federal authorities have specifically linked at least 38 rioters to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, according to an Associated Press review of court records. One of the most recognizable figures from the attack was a shirtless Arizona man who called himself “QAnon Shaman,” carried a spear and wore face paint and a Viking hat with fur and horns. The panel showed, during fast-paced hearings and testimony from those close to the former president, that Trump was told “over and over again,” as Vice President Liz Cheney, R-R, said, that he had lost the election and his claims about voter fraud just weren’t true. Nevertheless, Trump called supporters to Washington and then sent them to Capitol Hill in what committee chairman Benny Thompson, D-Miss., called an “attempted coup.” —— Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland, contributed to this report.
