A “heated and profane” fight at the White House – including searing insults, threats of violence and a hot-zone that moved from meeting rooms to the presidential residence – raged for six hours between competing factions of Donald Trump and his most notorious advisers late one night in late December, according to multiple witnesses who testified Tuesday.
The point of Tuesday’s hearing was to point the finger at Trump himself, painting him as the sole engine of the Capitol attack – not the web of advisers upon whom they say the former president is now trying to distribute blame. In any case, those advisers were clearly not getting along behind the scenes on Dec. 19 – and the result, the committee said, was Trump’s “Will be wild!”Tweet the tweets from the Jan. 6th ball.
Videotaped witnesses included former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Sydney Powell (sipping Diet Dr. Pepper while she spoke), and Cassidy Hutchinson who also testified last week. Each witness painted a picture that showed a White House meeting where the group quickly split between them. “concede” “fight at all costs” factions, went late into the night – then got extremely ugly.
Cipollone stated that he was summoned by the White House for a meeting and felt a gloomy feeling about what and who he saw in Oval Office.
“I opened the door and I walked in … I saw General Flynn, I saw Sydney Powell sitting there … I was not happy to see the people in the Oval Office,”He stated. “I don’t think any of these people were providing the President with good advice.”
Those people – including the former CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani – were firmly on the side of trying to stop the election from being certified. Cipollone was on the other side, as was Eric Herschmann (ex-Trump attorney and senior advisor), whose testimony was also included Tuesday. The six-hour-long fracas was described by everyone present in the same manner.
“It was not a casual meeting,”Derek Lyons was the former White House staff secretary. “At times there were people shouting at each other, throwing insults at each other. It wasn’t just people sitting around a couch chit-chatting.”
“It got to the point where the screaming was completely … completely out there,”Cipollone spoke.
Before any witnesses took the stand, committee co-chairs Rep. Benny Thompson (D-Mississippi) and Sen. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) laid out the committee’s intended task: to show that without Trump’s iron will to disrupt and delay the certification of the vote, the riots would not have happened.
“This new strategy is to try to blame only Eastman, Scott Perry or others and not Donald Trump,”Cheney spoke. “This is nonsense. President Trump a 76 year old man. He is not an impressionable child.”
They pointed to Trump’s tweets summoning a “wild”Washington, DC that day and the decision-making that was emerging from his meetings leading up to certification.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida) said Trump’s continued insistence flew in the face of everything he was being told, even from deep inside his administration.
“We know beyond a shadow a doubt that the President lost in free and fair election and … insisted that it was due to fraud in the election process,”She spoke. “This was the big lie and millions of Americans were deceived by it. It’s corrosive to our country and damaging to our democracy.”
This story is developing …
Highlights from previous hearings:
Day 6 On June 28, Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, an ex-top White House aide, was presented to the committee. “furious”Donald Trump, who threw food at the wall and ordered that all rallygoers with guns be allowed to his speech. He also fought with his security guards who refused to take him to the Capitol Building as the riot was progressing. Here are the highlights of Day 6.
Day 5on June 23 included testimony showing that Trump pressured on his own attorney general’s office to overturn the 2020 election – an effort one dissenting Justice Department official called a “murder-suicide pact.” The committee was expected to hear from a documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who chronicled the final six weeks of the Donald Trump presidency, but Holder’s appearance was delayed. Find out more about Day 5 highlights.
Day 4 on June 21 included Republican state officials from around the country telling the committee how Trump tried to pressure them to overturn election results, including sending supporters to officials’ homes, waving weapons and shouting insults and threats of violence. Here are the highlights from Day 4.
Day 3The June 16th hearing featured testimony that focused on the intense pressure President Trump placed on Vice President Mike Pence in order to reverse the election. John Charles Eastman was an attorney and campaign adviser to Donald Trump and his election teams. He emerged as the key architect of this plan. You can read about Day 3 highlights.
Day 2 testimony on June 13 included new allegations of Trump campaign-donor fraud, former Attorney General Bill Barr saying Trump’s claims of a stolen election were “complete nonsense,”stories of Rudy Giuliani drunkenly offering election night advice. “Team Rudy” “Team Normal.”Learn more about Day 2 Highlights here.
Day 1 Trump was shown how he behaved on June 7, “summoned a violent mob”To press lawmakers to change the election results. Nick Quested (documentary maker) testified about the Proud Boys’ assault on the Capitol. Caroline Edwards, Capitol Police Officer, testified to how she tried fighting violent protestors Jan. 6. Read Day 1 highlights.