Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland and a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, said Tuesday that the Dec. 18 meeting was “critical because President Trump spent several hours closely watching his White House counsel and other lawyers White House. destroyed the baseless factual claims and ridiculous legal arguments offered by Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn and others.” White House aides who attended the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and adviser Pat Cipollone, also strongly rejected a proposal to name Powell as special counsel to investigate allegations of voter fraud, CNN reported at the time. “I was strongly opposed — I didn’t think he should be appointed to anything,” Cipollone told the committee during his closed-door interview, according to a video of that meeting played Tuesday. Flynn had suggested before the meeting that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden — an idea that came up again during the Oval Office meeting, he said previously a source. CNN. At the time, it was unclear whether Trump approved the idea, but others in the room pushed back and shot it down. Another idea floated at the meeting was an executive order that would allow the government to access voting machines to inspect them, CNN reported. CNN first reported that Trump allies drafted more than one executive order to seize the voting machines. Soon after, one person called the meeting “ugly,” as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the president as he worked to overturn the election results. “It was heated — people were really fighting it out at the Oval, very strongly about it,” one of the sources previously said.

“I thought it was crazy”

The select committee on Tuesday released unseen testimony from six participants in the Oval Office meeting, playing videos of their interviews. Among those interviewed was former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who told the panel he was “not happy” to see the likes of Powell, Flynn and Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in the Oval Office with the former president. “I don’t think any of these people were giving good advice to the President, so I don’t understand how they got in,” Cipollone said in his testimony, according to a video released Tuesday by the committee. Others in the room described how the hours-long meeting erupted into shouting matches as outside Trump allies such as Flynn and Powell accused White House advisers of abandoning the president after he disputed their baseless claims of voter fraud and strange plans to overturn the results. .
Powell accused White House lawyers of showing “nothing but contempt and disdain for the President,” according to a video of her testimony. “It wasn’t a casual meeting. At times there were people yelling at each other, cursing at each other. It wasn’t just some people sitting on the couch like chatting,” former White House adviser Derek Lyons told the panel, according to a video of his deposition. “The four outsiders in the room claim they have ample evidence to support the findings and others, including myself, dispute that and then there’s a discussion about, well, we don’t have it now, but we will or whatever,” he said. . added. White House counsel Eric Hersman also told the committee that the meeting got to the point where “the yelling was completely — completely out.” “It was really unprecedented … I thought he was crazy,” he said in the deposition video, acknowledging that he told Trump’s team of outside allies to “shut the ‘F.’ This story has been updated with additional details.