Behind the Scenes: Tom Fitton’s Story of a Right-Wing Campaigner and the Idea of Re-election
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The stunning behind the scenes look came as the panel delivered what amounted to a closing argument of an investigation that began 15 months ago. The members laid out a story that went on until the summer of 2020 and is still being told.
Tom Fitton, a right-wing activist who heads the group and who was re-elected to the presidency by the deadline, said that the American people had bestowed on him the honor of re-election to the presidency.
Mr. Fitton, who offered the advice days before the election, indicated in a text message presented by the panel that he had discussed the idea with Mr. Trump.
The Dramatic Moments of Jan. 6: Donald J. Trump and the House Select Committee on Correlation with the Watergate Controversy
The Democrats said that President Trump started lying before the election results even came in. “It was intentional, it was premeditated, it was not based on election results or any evidence of actual fraud affecting the results or any actual problems with voting machines.”
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is an author of 24 books, including “The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” Follow him on social media. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
The House select committee broke new ground on Thursday with two very dramatic moments. One was the extraordinary ending: the unanimous vote to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify about his role in the riot. “We must seek the testimony under oath of Jan. 6’s central player,” Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney said.
Cheney explained that the committee is “obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion. Every American is entitled to the answers, so we can act now to protect our republic.
When they saw little sign of help on the way, they all exploded. “Why don’t you get the President to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility,” Schumer barked at Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. The legislative leaders’ frantic efforts to restore peace were in marked contrast to Trump’s failure to take action as he watched the riot unfold from the confines of the West Wing of the White House.
In public hearings during the past four months, the bipartisan panel attempted to reveal the full context of what happened that day and who was responsible.
The Watergate scandal in 1974 was one of the most notable differences between Trump’s campaign to overturn the election and that of Nixon in 2020, it occurred in broad daylight.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/14/opinions/dramatic-moments-january-6-hearing-zelizer/index.html
The Story of Dramatic Moments Jan 6, 2021: Steven Bannon and the Trump/Rody Giuliani-Trump Campaign
The committee was able to fill out the story in a number of important ways, including providing shocking evidence and details of how dangerous those months were.
Intentionality: The committee demonstrated that January 6 was not some sort of one-off, unintended day of chaos where events unexpectedly spun out of control. It was premeditated.
As viewers could hear, Steve Bannon said to a group of non-identified associates that the former president would declare victory, which didn’t mean he was victorious, just that he would say he was. “If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit,” Bannon predicted.
On the day of the “Stop the Steal” rally, January 6, 2021, Trump knew that the protesters were armed and dangerous but did nothing to stop them. He wanted to go to Capitol Hill, but wasn’t allowed by a Secret Service agent. The former president lunged towards a Secret Service agent when he was told he could not leave the country, according to a former aide.
The Trump administration embarked on a systematic “multi-part” plan, as Chairman Bennie Thompson said, to overturn the election. The violence of January 6 was just one piece of a larger strategy.
Trump and his attorneys, such as Rudy Giuliani, probed to see if various state officials would do their bidding. Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a staunch conservative who backed the administration, was unsettled as Giuliani and Trump pressured him during a phone call in late November 2020 to have the state legislature reconvene and invalidate the results in his state. The road map for their attempted election steal was written by the president’s lawyer and he tried to persuade the vice president to reject the results.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/14/opinions/dramatic-moments-january-6-hearing-zelizer/index.html
The 2020 January 6 Committee Presented to the Committee on ‘Nearly Left Behind’ by Donald Trump and J.D. Pelosi
Continuum: January 6 was just one piece of a much larger story. The panel is not known as January 6 committee but a committee to investigate the campaign to overturn the 2020 election. Between November 2020 and January 2021, the reframing is essential.
To convey his state of mind, committee members made clear that Trump was not “duped” or “irrational,” as Cheney said Thursday. He was aware of what he was doing. After the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit backed by the former president in December 2020, Trump, who the Secret Service said was “pissed,” was heard saying he didn’t “want people to know we lost.”
Then on January 6, Trump purposely ignored many warnings of violence. He wanted to lead the troops to Capitol Hill. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland reminded viewers that he sat passively, watching television, as the attacks against Congress unfolded and as staunch allies pleaded with him to call off the troops. It wasn’t that Trump didn’t act on January 6; it was that he didn’t want to act. “Can you believe this?” Pelosi was heard saying something to Thompson.
Ongoing Threat: In its pivotal hearing Thursday, the committee wanted to make one thing clear, the danger is not over in 2022. There is a danger to our electoral system and to democratic institutions, and will come through in our final hearing. This is not ancient history we’re talking about; this is a continuing threat.” That continued threat exists on many levels. There is a rhetoric of election denialism that has taken hold of many Republican candidates.
In addition to being the Republicans who subscribe to this agenda, they are running for several important offices, such as the governor of Pennsylvania and secretary of state in Arizona, who will have a key role in overseeing future elections. The former president has been the top contender for the Republican nomination for a long time.
During her opening remarks on Thursday, Cheney made this point clear when she asked why Americans should assume that “those institutions won’t falter next time” if the wrong people were in positions of power the next time around. Many officials, many of whom were Republicans, refused to be a part of the scheme on January 6. She reminded the nation that our institutions “only hold when men and women of good faith” make sure that they are strong regardless of the political consequences.
Cheney said the committee is considering making criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but it will be up to prosecutors to decide what, if anything, will result. We will find out if Congress can complete work on reforms, such as the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, that renders some of the mechanisms Trump was counting on incapable of doing damage in the future. We will watch to see if the voters send a message to Washington that messing with democracy won’t be accepted. January 6 has not been a big issue in most of the campaigns.
The committee was successful in unpacking the dark days that followed the election. They have been exposed in clear detail right in front of our eyes. The biggest mystery is whether we will close our eyes, and just move forward without demanding accountability, justice and reform.
With Mr. Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue, also on the line, Mr. Trump launched into the same tired, disproved and discredited allegations he had propagated so often at rallies, during news conferences and on social media. Mr. Donoghue told him that it was not true. According to Mr Donoghue, Mr. Trump was incensed that his own appointees at the Justice Department were not going to confirm his baseless accusations of election fraud.
It was a remarkable statement, even for a president who had serially abused the powers of his office. The acting attorney general and his deputy were told that the fraudulent claims Mr. Trump had made were not true and he told them to lie about it.
That Mr. Trump was willing to lie so baldly about a matter at the heart of our democracy — whether the American people can rely on elections to ensure the peaceful transfer of power — now seems self-evident, even unremarkable, when we consider the violent attack on the Capitol he incited days later. But Americans shouldn’t lose sight of how this behavior indicts the former president, and not just the former president but the Republican members of Congress whom he knew would go along with his big lie.
The new drop, which complements the panel’s sweeping 845-page report and is among a steady stream of transcripts released over the past week, includes interviews with some of the most intriguing figures in the committee’s probe into the US Capitol attack.
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told the Committee that she regretted texting MarkMeadows encouraging them to change their mind about the election.
The committee questioned Tony Ornato’s credibility in its report, but Tony Ornato pushed back on her claim that he had told her a tale involving Trump in his motorcade.
The Senate Committee on Trademark Laws and the 2020 Democratic Primary: A Mea culpa to the House Select Committee after the Meadows Text
Then-President Donald Trump wanted to trademark the phrase “Rigged Election!” In the days after Election Day 2020, emails were given to the House select committee by the advisor to President Donald Trump.
“Hey Jared! According to the transcript of the testimony, which was released by the committee, the president wants to trademark/own rights to below, although he doesn’t know who to ask or see.
Kushner forwarded the request and discussed it on an email chain that included Eric Trump, the president’s son; Alex Cannon, a Trump campaign lawyer; Sean Dollman, the chief financial officer of Trump’s 2020 campaign; and Justin Clark, a Trump campaign lawyer.
Eric Trump responded, saying: “Both web URLs are already registered. Save America PAC was founded in October this year. Was that done by the campaign?
Rudy Giuliani told the committee earlier this year that courts felt they weren’t comfortable withTrump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election, which led to the team’s pivot to state legislatures.
Rudy Giuliani told investigators that he believed the US constitution would allow state legislators to intervene in the presidential election results. But he and then-fellow Trump attorney Jenna Ellis looked more closely at the idea when the lawsuits challenging the results weren’t getting traction.
“We just got a bad feeling that these judges didn’t – they didn’t want to hear witnesses, citizens, American citizens, and that if American citizens could get up and testify, there were so many of them that it would make a very big difference,” Giuliani said in his May deposition.
Thomas’ mea culpa to the committee, captured in a transcript of her September interview that was released publicly Friday, marks a rare moment of public reflection from one of the more intriguing avenues the House panel pursued, after obtaining Meadows’ texts. Conservative activist Thomas was sending messages to liberals about challenges to the election results. At her interview, she told the committee that she was concerned about a concession before accusations of fraud were fully explored.
She insisted that she was not interested in the Vice President’s role on January 6th, despite the previously reported text about how he handled the day.
She did not know anything about any specific evidence but she did hear from people who had seen suspicious things at polling places.
She didn’t know specific instances. “But certainly I think we all know that there are people questioning what happened in 2020, and it takes time to develop an understanding of the facts.”
The committee had only limited questions about Thomas’ interactions with her husband and his role on the Supreme Court – an area she would likely be able to decline to answer questions about, given the confidentiality allowed for married couples.
“He first learned of my text messaging with Mark Meadows in March when he was in the hospital and this committee released them,” she said in her interview.
I think my language is in poor taste and my choices of the context of the emails are unfortunate.
It was an emotional time. She said in response to a question from the committee member that she was probably emoting. “Some of these are just things I was showing were moving through the movement and I’m regretting that they became public … I did not want my texts to a friend to be made available.
“Her minimal activity was focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated,” attorney Mark Paoletta said in the statement. She didn’t have a role in any events after the 2020 election. On January 6, she condemned the violence.
One of the key witnesses in the House committee’s investigation, former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, told the panel he couldn’t recall details from January 6, amid what he called “the fog of war” during the US Capitol attack.
It was a very chaotic time in trying to get the information, that it was usually late or it was incorrect, it was misrepresented, and it was the fog of war. And it was very – a very chaotic day, so I don’t recall those specific details,” Ornato said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/politics/january-6-transcript-release-latest/index.html
Reply to a Jan. 6 Committee Subpoena Release Latest on Mass Fraud and Elections: An Attorney for Donald Trump Interrogated by a White House Audition
Hutchinson testified during a public hearing that Ornato told her Trump was angry he could not go to the Capitol after his speech and that during the ride back to the White House, he reached for the front of the car.
While watching Hutchinson testify on TV, Ornato called Mr. Engel and asked what she was talking about.
Robert Engel, the lead Secret Service agent in the motorcade on the day of the US Capitol attack, did not know what Hutchinson was talking about, Ornato said. Hutchinson testified that Ornato relayed the story about Trump’s outburst to her back at the White House, while Engel was in the room.
According to a January 6 committee transcript released Friday, an attorney for Donald Trump questioned some of the statistics being used to support claims of mass fraud, pointing out that many supposedly dead voters in Georgia likely sent in their ballots before they died.
The committee read an email from the attorney, Katherine Friess, to Giuliani during the panel’s interview with him. A chart was being prepared for Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican.
Friess said in her email that she was raising the issue so that everyone is aware of “what the data actually says.” Hundreds of names on the list were of people who had died after their ballot was received, according to the committee’s description of the chart.
An attorney who represented Friess in litigation she brought to block a committee subpoena of her phone records did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiry about her email.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/politics/january-6-transcript-release-latest/index.html
The 2020 2020 Democratic Campaign: How a Candidate in the Trump White House Accused of Trying to Access Election Information Uncovered by a Trump Official Known as Barr
A Trump administration official who was accused of trying to access sensitive Justice Department election-related information denied in testimony to the committee that she was barred from entering the DOJ’s building, as was reported at the time.
Heidi Stirrup, who was working as the White House liaison to the DOJ during the 2020 election, said that her badge to enter in the building was deactivated briefly in November 2020, but that after a day or two it was reactivated and she was able to reenter the building.
Stirrup said she spoke with Barr and another official about the voter fraud investigation after the 2020 election. She told congressional investigators that she took it upon herself to talk to Department of Justice officials about what was going on after being asked by acquaintances not in the federal government what was going on.
Robert Sinners, who worked on the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations in Georgia in 2020 and helped organize the slate of alternate GOP electors there, told congressional investigators that his “intent was never to be aligned with team crazy.”
Sinners said he was ashamed to have helped organize the fake electors, after more fully understanding the plot to overturn the election and the reservations Trump attorneys had.