Five most interesting moments from Jan. 6 transcripts

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is closing up its business with the release of thousands of pages of transcripts.

The interviews with various figure surrounding former President Trump have included a number of bombshells.

Here are five of the most interesting things mentioned in the interviews.

Hutchinson: Meadows burned documents during transition

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, speaks at a hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. (Peter Afriyie)

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the House Jan. 6 committee that then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows regularly burned documents during the transition period, saying she saw him do it “maybe a dozen” times.

The panel conducted several interviews with Hutchinson, one of the committee’s star witnesses. In one of the interviews she recalled Meadows frequently burning documents, though she did not pin down a specific number.

“I mean, it’s hard — I want to say once a week or twice,” Hutchinson said. “Maybe a dozen, maybe just over a dozen, but this is over a period December through mid-January too, which is when we started lighting the fireplace.” 

Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Meadows, said she was in Meadows’s office a number of times when he burnt documents. This included an instance when Hutchinson said Meadows was in a meeting with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Meadows “put a few things in the fireplace.”

“His door was propped open,” Hutchinson said. “But I don’t know what the documents were or if they were original copies.”

Trump considered blanket pardons for Capitol breach

Former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., when he announced he’ll seek the White House again in 2024. (Associated Press)

In his final days in office, Trump weighed the possibility of a “blanket pardon” for the Capitol breach, according to Trump’s former director of personnel, Johnny McEntee.

“One day when we walked into the Oval, I remember it was being discussed, and I remember the President saying, ‘well, what if I pardoned the people that weren’t violent, that just walked in the building?’” McEntee told the committee.

But the idea was shot down by Pat Cipollone, who served as White House counsel, according to McEntee. Cipollone pushed back on the idea of pardoning Capitol breachers as well as White House staff, according to the transcript.

“I know he had hinted at a blanket pardon for the January 6th thing for anybody, but I think he had, for all the staff and everyone involved — not with January 6th, but just before he left office, I know he had talked about that,” McEntee told the committee.

“Cipollone said no,” McEntee said. “I remember Cipollone questioning on that, ‘Well, why does anyone need a pardon?’”

Jan. 6 committee agreed to shield testimony from DOJ

The House Jan. 6 committee holds a business meeting on Monday, December 19, 2022, to vote on criminal referrals and give a final presentation prior to releasing their report. (Greg Nash)

The Jan. 6 committee indicated that it agreed to shield the testimony of a number of witnesses from the Department of Justice (DOJ) — even those dealing with criminal proceedings stemming from the Capitol breach. 

The committee agreed to keep the testimony from the DOJ unless it described additional crimes or the committee suspected the witness of perjury, according to the transcripts.

For example, the committee told Stephen Ayers, who was sentenced to two years probation in September for actions related to the Jan. 6 riot but interviewed with the committee in June, that it had agreed with his attorney to “not to share the substance of what you say with the DOJ prior to your sentencing.”

The committee has had a rocky relationship with the DOJ, as the department sought transcripts from the panel in the summer but was rebuffed by committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who told investigators they would have to wait for the public release of the documents.

The committee agreed in July to share 20 witness transcripts with the DOJ, but Thompson said they never delivered those documents.

QAnon conspiracies in the White House

Supporters of QAnon conspiracy theories have been vocal supporters of Trump. (Getty)

Hutchinson’s testimony also revealed that discussions about QAnon, a far-right political conspiracy theory, were taking place in the White House.

Hutchinson told the committee that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) brought up QAnon multiple times directly with Trump and Meadows as adherents spread conspiracy theories about the outcome of the 2020 election.

“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene bringing QAnon up several times, though, in the presence of the president, privately with Mark,” Hutchinson said to the committee. 

In another interview with the panel, Hutchinson detailed an interaction she and Meadows had in Georgia with Green. Hutchinson said Greene approached Meadows and told him that she had many QAnon supporters who were traveling to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop The Steal” rally.

“Ms. Greene came up and began talking to us about QAnon and QAnon going to the rally, and she had a lot of constituents that are QAnon, and they’ll all be there,” Hutchinson said. “And she was showing him pictures of them traveling up to Washington, D.C., for the rally on the 6th.”

Donald Trump Jr. pushed White House to condemn riot

A transcript of the committee’s interview with Donald Trump Jr. revealed that the president’s son was pressuring Meadows to get the former president to condemn the Capitol riots on Jan. 6. (Getty)

The transcript details text messages between Donald Trump Jr. and Meadows in which the president’s eldest son tried to influence Meadows to get his father to come out against the violence at the Capitol. 

The texts have been previously seen, but the transcript provided more information on Trump Jr.’s mindset when he sent them.

“He’s got to condemn this (expletive) asap,” Trump Jr. texted Meadows. “They will try to f— his entire legacy on this if it gets worse.”

Meadows responded to Trump Jr. that he was “pushing it hard. I agree.”

Trump Jr. said in the interview that the former president does not text, so he could not reach him directly. But even in his overtures to Meadows, Trump Jr. said he wasn’t sure there were Trump supporters in the riot.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there were people in this group functioning as agitators,” Trump Jr. told the panel.