Changes have arrived to a redesigned Causes: Check out new.causes.com!

Civic Register
| 7.12.22

January 6th Committee Hearing Features Testimony From WH Counsel Pat Cipollone & Former Members of Extremist Groups

How do you feel about the January 6th select committee’s hearing?

What’s the story?

  • The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol held its seventh public hearing on Tuesday that featured excerpts of former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s deposition last week, along with testimony regarding the role played by extremist groups and social media in the events of January 6th.
  • At the end of the hearing, Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that after the committee’s last hearing, former President Donald Trump “tried to call a witness in our investigation” and that the witness declined the call and notified their lawyer, who alerted the committee and the Dept. of Justice about the attempt to contact their client. Cheney warned, “We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously.”
  • You can watch the full hearing here. Read on for a recap of key moments from Tuesday’s hearing.

Cipollone’s Deposition

  • The select committee played several video excerpts of former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s eight hour deposition a week ago. Cipollone was precluded by executive privilege from answering all of the select committee’s inquiries, but was able to respond to a number of questions posed to him. 
  • Cipollone told the committee that he agreed with the findings of former Attorney General Bill Barr and others who investigated Trump’s election fraud claims and found no evidence of fraud to a degree sufficient to undermine the outcome in a particular state.
  • He also testified that he believed Trump should have conceded that he lost the election and that after the Electoral College results were officially counted on December 14, 2020, the president’s attempt to overturn results should’ve ended: 

“I believe Leader McConnell went onto the floor of the Senate I believe in mid-December and basically said, you know, the process is done. That would be in line with my thinking on these things.”

  • Cipollone was asked about a December 18th meeting at the White House in which Trump said he wanted to give Sidney Powell, who was part of the president’s team pushing claims of widespread election fraud, a security clearance and make her a special counsel tasked with investigating election fraud. Under that scheme, federal agencies would’ve seized voting machines as evidence. 
  • Former AG Bill Barr testified, “I said absolutely not,” to requests to seize voting machines, and Cipollone said he was “vehemently opposed” to the idea, adding “it’s a terrible idea for the country”. 
  • Cipollone testified that at the conclusion of the heated White House meeting on December 18th where it was proposed Powell would become a special counsel, “In my view, she hadn’t been appointed to anything and ultimately wasn’t appointed to anything because there had to be other steps taken.” He went on to say that Powell was still seeking an appointment or was asserting that she had been appointed as special counsel following the December 18th meeting.
  • Cipollone also testified about Vice President Mike Pence and said that he thought Pence “did the right thing” and that he suggested to somebody that Pence “should be getting a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his actions.”
  • The videos played by the select committee of Cipollone’s deposition didn’t include any questions about testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, that Cipollone said that if Trump was allowed to go to the Capitol on January 6th, “We’ll get charged with every crime imaginable.” Reporting by CNN about Cipollone’s deposition indicates the select committee didn’t ask him about that exchange following Hutchinson’s testimony. 

Extremist Groups & Social Media on January 6th

  • The committee referenced Trump’s December 19th tweet urging his supporters to attend a protest in D.C. on January 6th, which concluded, “Be there, will be wild!” Trump’s message was echoed by supporters like Alex Jones and other far-right media personalities, and picked up steam among far-right groups as the date approached.
  • An ex-Twitter employee testified anonymously before the committee that, “For months, I had been begging… and attempting to raise the reality that… if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.” He said that on January 5th, “I realized no intervention was coming.”
  • The select committee heard live testimony on Tuesday from two individuals who were previously associated with far-right groups known as the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers. Leaders of those organizations have been charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government in connection with the January 6th riot.
  • Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oathkeepers, said that the group “may not like to call themselves a militia, but they are. They’re a violent militia.” He said that the “best illustration for what the Oathkeepers are, happened January 6th when we saw that stacked military formation going up the steps of our Capitol.” 
  • Stephen Ayres, who was part of the Proud Boys and pled guilty to charges related to the attack on the Capitol, said that he “was pretty hardcore into the social media” and followed Trump on the major platforms. He said that when Trump “put out you know ‘come to stop the steal rally’, I felt like I needed to be down here.”
  • Ayres said the following about Trump’s tweet urging his supporters to leave the Capitol after the riot had been underway for several hours:

“Basically when President Trump put his tweet out, we literally left right after that came out. To me, if he would have done that earlier in the day… maybe we wouldn’t be in this bad of a situation.”

Committee Controversy

  • The January 6th select committee has been a source of controversy since its inception in the summer of 2021. Earlier efforts to form a 9/11-style independent commission fell apart after Democrats wanted to retain the power to appoint all of its staffers and Republicans blocked the bill in the Senate. 
  • That led the House to create the select committee and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appointed Democrats plus Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who had been an outspoken critic of Trump’s efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the election. 
  • Pelosi then rejected two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) GOP picks for the committee ― Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) ― which was contrary to prior precedent in the House. In retaliation, McCarthy withdrew the remaining GOP members of the committee and declined to name new ones. 
  • The speaker then added Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who is also a Trump critic, to the committee which then began its work with just her selections on the committee and no lawmakers chosen by Republican leadership.
  • With no GOP lawmakers who were chosen by their party’s leadership on the panel, the select committee’s public hearings have lacked the sort of adversarial cross-examination that you see in typical congressional committee hearings.

What’s next?

  • The select committee is expected to hold another hearing next week on Thursday next week in primetime that will focus on a minute-by-minute recounting of the events of January 6th and Trump’s role in them. Cheney indicated it will feature more testimony from Cipollone and others.
  • Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said after Tuesday’s hearing that “it’s the last one at this point” but that there could be additional hearings after that given the information the select committee continues to receive.


RELATED READING


— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Tyler Merbler via Flickr / Creative Commons)