Live coverage: Jan. 6 committee turns to alleged link between Trump tweet, extremists

Full story • DOJ alerted after Trump called unseen Jan. 6 witness, says Cheney →

The committee stands adjourned. Complete coverage and context to follow shortly at The Hill.

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Former President Trump tried to call a witness expected to appear at a future hearing for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday, raising further questions about potential witness tampering.

“After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings,” Cheney said at the conclusion of Tuesday’s hearing. “That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call, and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us, and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.”

“We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney added.

At a hearing late last month with former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Cheney displayed a text message sent to one undisclosed witness that read: “[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”

Cheney also showed a statement at the previous hearing from a witness in which the person recalled being told that as long as they remained loyal to Trump and his team, “I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceeded through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”

One of the witnesses involved in the previous messages is reportedly Hutchinson.

But Cheney’s comments on Tuesday are the first public confirmation that Trump had personally reached out to those who are communicating with the committee.

The committee has kept the identity of witnesses at future hearings under wraps, partly due to increased security concerns.

— Brett Samuels

Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s (D-Fla.) closing remarks: “Members of the angry mob had been lied to by a president and other powerful people who tried to convince them, without evidence, that the election was stolen from them. … Our committee’s overriding objective is to fight fiction with facts… to make recommendations so it never happens again. To me, there’s nothing more patriotic than that.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-Md.) closing remarks: “This is not the problem of one party. It is the problem of the whole country now. American democracy, Mr. Chairman, is a precious inheritance. We need to defend both our democracy and our freedom with everything we have and declare that this American carnage ends here and now.”

Former Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale blamed then-President Trump’s rhetoric in his Ellipse speech for inciting the Capitol riot, according to text messages presented at Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing.

Just after 7 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, Parscale texted former Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson, “This is about trump pushing for uncertainty in our country.”

“A sitting president asking for a civil war,” he wrote in a separate message. “This week I feel guilty for helping him win.”

Pierson responded, writing, “You did what you felt right at the time and therefore it was right.”

Parscale then reflected on the fact that a woman had died in the chaos — Ashli Babbitt was shot by a police officer in the Capitol amid the riot.

“Yeah. But a woman is dead,” Parscale wrote to Pierson, to which she responded, “You do realize this was going to happen.”

“Yeah. If I was trump and knew my rhetoric killed someone,” he wrote.

Pierson, however, objected to the idea that Trump’s rhetoric contributed to Babbitt’s death, writing, “It wasn’t the rhetoric.”

But Parscale disagreed.

“Katrina,” he wrote in a message, “Yes it was.”

Parscale stepped away from the Trump campaign in September 2020, citing an “overwhelming stress” that needed to be dealt with.

– Mychael Schnell

Full story • Bannon predicted ‘all hell is going to break loose tomorrow’ after Jan. 5 call with Trump →

Remarks from Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesperson for the far-right militia group Oath Keepers:

“We need to quit mincing words and talk about truths. What it was going to be was an armed revolution. People died that day … there was a gallows set up. … This could have been the spark that started a new civil war.”

Remarks from Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesperson for the far-right militia group Oath Keepers:

“The Oath Keepers are a very dangerous military organization. … We saw a vision of what the Oath Keepers is on Jan. 6. It doesn’t necessarily include the rule of law. … It includes violence … trying to get their way through lies, deceit and intimidation.”

Former President Trump spoke on the phone with his former White House adviser and political strategist Steve Bannon at least twice on the day before the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, the select committee revealed on Tuesday.

After the first call on the morning of Jan. 5, which lasted 11 minutes, according to White House call logs, Bannon went on a right-wing talk show and predicted the next day would be eventful.

“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said in a clip of his appearance that was played during Tuesday’s hearing. “It’s all converging and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.”

“I’ll tell you this, it’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen,” he added. “It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different, and all I can say is strap in.”

Bannon had refused to comply with a select committee subpoena for testimony and documents. He is slated to go to trial on Monday on two misdemeanor counts of criminal contempt of Congress over his defiance.

– Harper Neidig

Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager, showed remorse for any role he may have indirectly played in the events of Jan. 6 via text messages to Katrina Pierson: “A sitting president asking for civil war …. This week I feel guilty for helping him win.”

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the Jan. 6 select committee that then-Vice President Pence “didn’t have legal authority” to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election during the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.

“My view is that the vice president didn’t have the legal authority to do anything except what he did,” Cipollone testified to the committee behind closed doors, according to a clip presented at Tuesday’s hearing.

“I thought that the vice president did not have the authority to do what was being suggested under a proper reading of the law. I conveyed that,” he added at a different point in his testimony.

During his closed-door meeting with the panel last week Cipollone was asked about previous testimony from former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, who told the committee that he heard Cipollone characterize the theory that Pence could overturn the election results as “nutty.” Miller also said Cipollone confronted conservative lawyer John Eastman, who was pushing the theory, “with the same sentiment.”

The former White House counsel said he would not refute Miller’s characterization.

“I don’t have any reason to contradict what he said,” he said.

– Mychael Schnell

Recorded remark from a former Twitter employee: “I think when people are shooting themselves tomorrow, I will try to rest in the knowledge that we tried … if nothing was done about what I saw [I knew] people were going to die.”

— Rebecca Beitsch

Texts and a drafted presidential tweet displayed during Tuesday’s hearing indicated that calls for Trump supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were not spontaneous.

The committee obtained a draft tweet from the National Archives that former President Trump reviewed but never sent that read: “I will be making a Bid Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House).Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!”

The panel also displayed a text message sent from Kylie Kremer, one of the organizers of the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse near the White House, to Mike Lindell, a Trump supporter who has pushed false claims of election fraud.

“We are having a second stage at the supreme court again after the ellipse. Potus is going to have us march there/the capitol,” Kremer wrote. “It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and Sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”

The committee also showed a text from Ali Alexander, a far-right provocateur who was behind the “Stop the Steal” movement, dated Jan. 5, 2021, that read: “Tomorrow: Ellipse then US capitol. Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech but we will see.”

The evidence presented at Tuesday’s hearing indicates that Trump’s call for supporters to march to the Capitol during his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 was not spontaneous but instead was something organizers and supporters were expecting him to do.

That argument will be key as the committee builds its case that Trump was aware that attendees had weapons but encouraged them to head to the Capitol anyway, where throngs of rioters stormed the complex and clashed with police in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win.

— Brett Samuels

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone says former Vice President Pence should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

“I think the VP did the right thing, I think he did the courageous thing. I have great deal of respect for VP Pence…I think he understood my opinion, and I think he did a great service to this country.”

—Rebecca Beitsch