Melissa Velasquez Loaiza
(CNN) – The House Select Committee investigating the Jan.6 attack on Capitol Hill has information from multiple sources, with first-hand knowledge, describing what then-President Donald Trump did during the insurrection, according to one person. familiar with the investigation.
“There is a group of people with relevant information,” said the source.
A key witness who has testified is Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence. Kellogg was with Trump in the White House when the attack on the Capitol unfolded. This witness, whom journalists saw entering his December interview, told CNN on Sunday that he testified under oath before the commission. But, he declined to comment on the merits of his testimony.
The commission also has texts and other documents that shed light on what Trump was doing, according to the source. Some of those messages come from Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House secretary general, who delivered them to the panel. The House voted last month to refer Meadows to the Justice Department in contempt of Congress, after he failed to appear for a statement.
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“Trump did nothing,” some messages show
Commission chair Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney revealed some of those details Sunday. In that sense, they argued that the information highlights how Trump did nothing to stop the violence, which they consider a breach of duty.
“We have significant testimony that leads us to believe that the White House had been told to do something,” Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
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“We want to verify everything so that when we produce our report and when we have the hearings, the public has the opportunity to see it for themselves,” he added. “All I can say is that it is very unusual for someone in charge to observe what is happening and do nothing.”
Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, said the panel has “first-hand testimony” that during the attack on the Capitol, Trump’s daughter and then-senior adviser Ivanka Trump asked him to intervene.
“We know your daughter … We have first-hand testimony that her daughter Ivanka came at least twice to ask her to ‘please stop this violence,'” Cheney told ABC News on “This Week.”
Some of these interactions were previously reported by CNN, described in the books I Alone Can Fix It, by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, and Peril, by Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Ivanka Trump repeatedly tried to intervene by speaking to her father three times. “Drop this,” he told her. “Let it go,” he said, according to the Danger book.
“Any man who did not do it, any man who provoked a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the electoral vote counting, any man who watched television while police officers were being beaten, while his supporters were invading the United States Capitol, is clearly not fit for a future position, clearly he will never be near the Oval Office again, “added Cheney on ABC.
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Donald Trump Jr.’s messages about his father during the attack on the Capitol
The House select committee also previously revealed text messages from former President Donald Trump Jr.’s son to Meadows, stating that his father needed to “condemn” the insurrection as it unfolded.
“He has to condemn this shit as soon as possible. The tweet from the Capitol Police is not enough, ”Trump Jr. wrote in a message to Meadows that Cheney read aloud last month as the commission met to advance the contempt report against Meadows for a vote in the plenary session of the House.
When Meadows agreed, Trump Jr. said, according to Cheney: “We need a statement from the Oval Office. He has to lead now. This has gone too far and has gotten out of hand. “
Only after pleas from congressional aides and allies inside the besieged Capitol on January 6, the then-president released a recorded video urging the mass of his supporters to “go home,” while continuing to fan their grievances out of place. About a stolen election
“I could just have walked a few feet to the White House meeting room. He could have immediately gone on live TV and asked his followers to stop what was happening, ask them to go home. He didn’t, ”Cheney said on CBS News’s“ Face the Nation ”this Sunday. “At the same time that the violent assault was taking place, he was watching television and he was also calling a senator to urge that the electoral vote be delayed.”
CNN previously reported that Trump spoke with Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville as the deadly riots unfolded, trying to convince him to make further objections to the Electoral College vote, in a futile effort to block Congressional certification of the election’s victory. President Joe Biden, according to a source familiar with the call.
The commission has interviewed dozens of Trump allies and former officials as it works to publish an interim report with initial findings for the summer, a commission aide previously told CNN.
Members of the commission have said they hope to present more of their work in a public setting this year. Which would include public hearings describing the timeline of what happened on January 6. The specific timing of these hearings has yet to be established.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt and Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.
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