Raskin: Jan. 6 panel to highlight voting machine seizure meeting

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2011 attack on the Capitol, said on Sunday that the panel in an upcoming hearing will focus on a White House meeting during which allies of former President Trump reportedly proposed seizing voting machines.

“One of the things that people are going to learn is the fundamental importance of a meeting that took place in the White House on December the 18th,” Raskin told CBS “Face the Nation” guest moderator Robert Costa. 

Attorney Sidney Powell, former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and others reportedly met with Trump on that day to discuss a proposal for the military to seize voting machines as part of the group’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Politico in January published a draft executive order that spelled out the proposal, which the outlet reported would have also given the Defense secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the election potentially as part of a scheme to keep Trump in power past Inauguration Day. 

“On that day, the group of outside lawyers who’ve been denominated ‘Team Crazy’ by people in and around the White House came in to try to urge several new courses of action, including the seizure of voting machines around the country,” Raskin said on Sunday, adding that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was also involved in parts of the discussion.

“Against this ‘Team Crazy’ were an inside group of lawyers who essentially wanted the president at that point to acknowledge that he had lost the election and were far more willing to accept the reality of his defeat at that point,” he added.

The committee on Friday heard testimony from former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who other witnesses have described as opposing many of the former president’s actions surrounding the Capitol riot.

Raskin and other members of the panel said on Sunday they are planning to leverage Cipollone’s testimony in its upcoming hearings, but Raskin declined to say who would appear in person as witnesses.

The panel is slated to hold its next hearing on Tuesday morning.

“There will be other witnesses, and I’m afraid I’m not authorized to disclose who those witnesses are at this point,” Raskin said.