Jan. 6 panel probes Trump's 'call to arms' to extremists
WASHINGTON — The Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday focused on ways violent far-right extremists answered Donald Trump’s tweet for a big Washington rally as a “call to arms,” as the panel probed whether they coordinated with White House allies in the deadly U.S. Capitol attack and effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol siege is delving into what it calls the final phase of Trump's multi-pronged effort to halt Joe Biden's victory. As dozens of lawsuits and false claims of voter fraud fizzled, Trump met late into the night of Dec. 18 with attorneys at the White House before tweeting the rally invitation — “Be there, will be wild!” Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups who are now facing rare sedition charges readily answered.
“This tweet served as a call to action -- and in some cases a call to arms.” said one panel member, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.
Tuesday's hearing is the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee. Over the past month, the panel has created a narrative of a defeated Trump “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat. It all culminated with the attack on the Capitol, the committee says.
The panel featured new video testimony from Pat Cipollone, Trump's former White House counsel, recalling the explosive late-night meeting at the White House when Trump's outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize states' voting machines — a “terrible idea,” he said.
“That's not how we do things in the United States,” Cipollone testified.
Cipollone and other White House officials scrambled to intervene in the late-night meeting Trump was having with attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, retired national security aide Michael Flynn and the head of the online retail company Overstock. It erupted in shouting and screaming, another aide testified.
“Where is the evidence?" Cipollone demanded of the false claims of voter fraud.
"What they were proposing, I thought, was nuts," testified another White House official, Eric Herschmann.
But Trump was intrigued and essentially told his White House lawyers that at least Powell and outside allies were trying to do something.
“You guys are not tough enough,” Giuliani in video testimony recalled the president telling the White House attorneys. “You guys are p——-,” he said, using crass language.
As night turned to morning, Trump tweeted the call for supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, when Congress would be tallying the Electoral College results. “Be there. Will 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 laying out that Jan. 6 would be the day they fight for the president.
In vulgar and often racist language the messages beaming across the far-right forums planned for the big day that they said Trump was asking for in Washington. It would be a “red wedding,” said one, a reference to mass killing. “Bring handcuffs."
Several members of the U.S. Capitol Police who fought the mob that day sat stone-faced in the front row of the committee room.
“The problem of politicians whipping up mob violence to destroy fair elections is the oldest domestic enemy of constitutional democracy,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., in opening remarks.
Expected to testify in person was Jason Van Tatenhove, an ally of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. Another witness was to be Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty last month to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building. He has said that on Jan. 2, 2021, he posted an image stating that Trump was “calling on us to come back to Washington on January 6th for a big protest.”
The committee is probing whether the extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and QAnon adherents who had rallied for Trump before, coordinated with White House allies for Jan. 6. The Oath Keepers have denied there was any plan to storm the Capitol.
It's the only hearing set for this week, as new details emerge. An expected prime-time hearing Thursday has been shelved for now.
This week's session comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson provided stunning accounts under oath of an angry Trump who knowingly sent armed supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and then refused to quickly call them off as violence erupted, siding with the rioters as they searched menacingly for Vice President Mike Pence.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: