January 6th Committee reveals it has first hand witness to nail Donald Trump
Why did the January 6th Committee spend months slogging through interviews with lower level cooperating witnesses behind the scenes? Because that kind of evidence-gathering sets the stage for being able to pressure more central witnesses into coming clean. and giving up the biggest of fish.
We all saw a reminder of this on Sunday morning when January 6th Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney appeared on CNN. She revealed that the committee has “first hand testimony” that Donald Trump sat at a table and watched the Capitol siege on television, and refused to budge even after his daughter Ivanka Trump came in and asked him on two separate occasions to intervene. This is crucial for two reasons.
First, the obvious. The committee has previously leaked to the media that it’s looking to make a criminal referral to the DOJ against Donald Trump, on charges including obstruction of Congress. This would presumably be based on the fact that he publicly told the rioters to go to the Capitol, and then after they invaded the Capitol, he declined to speak up for several hours.
If Trump tries to argue reasonable doubt by insisting that he didn’t know the rioters would invade the Capitol once he sent them there, his subsequent inaction does a lot to undermine his argument. Even if Trump’s lawyers want to claim that he didn’t understand what was going on, or that he was in a blood sugar coma, or whatever else, the committee now has proof that he was in fact watching the whole thing and that his own daughter told him to call it off. This comes after separate reporting late last year that Donald Trump Jr. also texted Mark Meadows during the siege, asking Meadows to ask Trump to call it off.
The second part of this new revelation may prove to be more intriguing. “First hand testimony” means that the cooperating witness was in the room when Ivanka Trump came in and told Donald Trump to call off the Capitol attack. How many people could have been in that room? At least one of them is clearly cooperating with the January 6th Committee. So who is this key inside witness, and what other information has that key witness given up? We’re all about to find out.
