The 7th hearing of the January 6th Committee today laid out the case that the white supremacist domestic terrorists involved in the deadly terrorist insurrection were of course there at Trump's bidding.
The day after an explosive Oval Office meeting in which a motley crew of outside advisers clashed with White House lawyers over a plan to seize voting machines, then-President Donald Trump turned his focus to riling up his supporters for the Jan. 6 push to stop the counting of electoral votes, according to evidence presented in Tuesday's House committee hearing.
Two longtime Trump advisers, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, were in contact with leaders of the violent extremist groups The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers, according to text messages and photographs produced by the committee — though Stone, through a lawyer, disputed participating in a group chat. The two groups began working together for the first time after Trump issued his call for a Jan. 6 rally in Washington, the panel said.
One witness, Stephen Ayres, who has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after entering the Capitol Jan. 6, said he didn't plan to march until Trump called on the crowd at a "Stop the Steal" rally to march to the Capitol to encourage Republican lawmakers to block certification. Ayres said he went thinking that Trump would accompany the mob.
"We basically just followed on what he said," Ayres said. "I think everybody thought he was going to be coming down. ... I believed it."
The evidence presented by the committee Tuesday is designed to fit into its broader case that Trump resorted to inciting violence after learning that he had lost the election and had no legal means to prevent a peaceful transfer of power. In that effort, the panel portrayed the weeks after the November 2020 election as a time of desperation for Trump, during which he considered strategies his own lawyers viewed as detrimental to the nation and his close confidants encouraged the extremist groups that led the attack on the Capitol.
Trump's own inner circle told him that the game was up on several occasions. Trump turned around and tweeted a call to armed insurrection.
On Dec. 19, just hours after the meeting ended, Trump tweeted to his followers that they should come to the nation’s capital.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Be there, will be wild!”
That turned into a “call to action” for some and a “call to arms” for others, said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., a member of the committee.
Some Trump supporters came to see Jan. 6 as the last chance to stop his ouster by voters — and a moment that begged for violence, according to videos and online posts the committee played.
There was at least one reference to a “red wedding” — the scene from the HBO show “Game of Thrones” in which members of a leading family are slaughtered by enemies.
“I’m ready to die for my beliefs,” one person posted on social media in reference to Jan. 6. “Are you ready to die police?”
In a group chat dubbed “The Ministry of Defense” Proud Boys and Oath Keepers discussed strategic and tactical plans for Jan. 6, including pinpointing police locations, according to the committee. Kelly Meggs, a leader of the Oath Keepers, directly discussed security with Stone on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Raskin said.
And at the end of the day's testimony, Rep. Liz Cheney hinted at what's coming next.
The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 revealed that they told the Department of Justice that former President Donald Trump contacted one of its witnesses who hasn’t publicly testified yet.
“After our last hearing. President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings,” Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said on Tuesday.
“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,” she added.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.
The Committee has now referred Trump to the Justice Department for investigation into federal witness tampering, folks. Already, the info from this hearing has pushed Thursday's prime time hearing back until next week.
We'll see.
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