Characterizing excerpts of nearly a dozen depositions from top aides to Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, the committee described a president who had been informed repeatedly that he lost the election and that his claims of fraud were unfounded — only to reject them and continue to mislead the American public.
He then pushed top advisers to continue strategizing ways to overturn the election results.
The panel released its findings as part of a legal push to force John Eastman, an attorney who was a key driver of Trump’s strategy to subvert the 2020 election, to produce crucial emails tying together elements of the scheme they described.
In 16 accompanying exhibits, the panel showcased testimony it received from key figures in Trump-world, including campaign adviser Jason Miller, White House communications aide Ben Williamson, Pence national security adviser Keith Kellogg, Pence counsel Greg Jacob and Pence chief of staff Marc Short. Top Justice Department officials also provided crucial testimony revealed by the panel Wednesday night, including Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and his top adviser, Richard Donoghue.
A deposition of Eastman himself reveals that the Trump ally invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination nearly 150 times in declining to answer the committee’s questions.
Other documents include a page from Trump’s private Jan. 6 schedule, released to the Jan. 6 select committee by the National Archives in recent weeks. The schedule includes an 11:20 a.m. call with Pence, as well as a call with then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.).
Although the evidence offers insight into the contours of what is likely to be the committee’s final report, it is only a small window into the 650-plus interviews the panel has conducted.
Determining whether Trump violated criminal law on Jan. 6 is a complex undertaking, though the panel’s findings may drive up pressure on the Justice Department to reveal its own thinking on the matter. Prosecutors have charged hundreds of Trump supporters who breached the Capitol with seeking to obstruct Congress’ effort to count electoral votes, but applying that law to the former president presents a trickier calculus.
The panel says the evidence supports an “inference” that Trump knew he had lost the election — Miller described a blunt conversation with Trump in which campaign aides told him he had lost — “but the President nevertheless sought to use the Vice President to manipulate the results in his favor.”
The bulk of the committee’s legal filing focused on reconstructing Eastman’s efforts to justify ordering Pence to overturn the election single-handedly when he presided over Congress’ electoral-vote-counting session on Jan. 6, 2021.
Eastman, however, didn’t relent even after a violent mob — egged on by Trump — stormed the Capitol and sent Pence and Congress fleeing for safety. Eastman continued to press Pence to overturn the election.
“Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege,” Jacob, Pence’s counsel, emailed Eastman, along with a lengthy refutation of his argument.
“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman replied, according to emails obtained by the panel.
Jacob subsequently apologized for his language, attributing it to the stress of being moved to a safe location while his wife and three children were watching the news and he was fearing for his safety.
Even after this exchange, Eastman made one final plea to convince Pence to stop the counting of electoral votes, acknowledging it would amount to a “relatively minor” violation of the federal law known as the Electoral Count Act.
“Plaintiff knew what he was proposing would violate the law, but he nonetheless urged the Vice President to take those actions,” the committee wrote in its filings.
Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said in a statement later Wednesday that their fact-finding strongly suggested that “Dr. Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power.”
The select committee revealed its evidence as part of a bid to convince a federal judge to require Eastman to provide more of his own emails — held by his former employer Chapman University — to congressional investigators. Eastman sued to block the panel from accessing his Chapman emails, claiming they would reveal records protected by attorney-client privilege.
But the panel’s emphasis on potential crimes may convince U.S. District Court Judge David Carter — who has repeatedly ruled against Eastman — that none of Eastman’s records are protected by privilege.
Carter, who is based in California, has rejected Eastman’s attempts to shield his records, citing the urgency and significance of the select committee’s work. Instead, Carter has ordered Eastman to quickly review 90,000 pages of emails and attachments and to itemize any he thinks should be withheld because of attorney-client privilege. He has repeatedly sided with the committee’s demands, such as requiring Eastman to prioritize emails sent between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021, and to force him to disclose his legal relationship with Trump, which had never been publicly revealed.
But the committee indicated that Eastman’s purported relationship with Trump fails to prove he had a legitimate claim of attorney client privilege.
Eastman, according to the panel, produced a letter identifying his client as Trump’s campaign, but the letter was left unsigned. “This unsigned and unauthenticated engagement letter is insufficient to establish an attorney-client relationship during the period at issue,” the House’s lawyers wrote.
Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/02/jan6-trump-obstruction-justice-00013440
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The National Guard of Ukraine says Sunday’s cease-fire was broken and the evacuation plans have been halted after Russian forces opened fire.
It was the second day in a row a cease-fire to allow the evacuation of civilians from the port city of Mariupol has failed.
Civilian evacuations from the city of Mariupol were scheduled to begin at noon local time during a 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. local cease-fire, according to The Associated Press.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko says the planned evacuations were stalled due to an ongoing assault.
“There can be no ‘green corridors’ because only the sick brain of the Russians decides when to start shooting and at whom,” Gerashchenko said on Telegram, according to the AP.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/06/1084818850/russia-ukraine-cease-fire-mariupol
Washington — The family of Michigan’s Paul Whelan was “astonished” Wednesday after President Joe Biden called the wife of WNBA star Brittney Griner but did not also call the Whelans.
Both Whelan and Griner are imprisoned in Russia, but Griner was arrested in February, while Whelan has been held for 3.5 years. His family has sought a meeting with Biden for months and months, with his sister, Elizabeth Whelan, putting in four requests that have not been granted, she said.
The Whelans suggested the disparate treatment is due to Griner’s celebrity. The two-time Olympic gold medalist plays for the Phoenix Mercury and faces possibly 10 years in prison in Russia.
“We are astonished at this development and feel badly for our elderly parents, and in particular for Paul,” Elizabeth Whelan told The Detroit News on Wednesday. “Does this mean he is going to be left behind yet again?”
She was referring to a prisoner swap negotiated earlier this year that led to Russia releasing Texan Trevor Reed. Reed, like Whelan, is a former U.S. Marine arrested after traveling to Russia as a tourist, but Reed was included in the prisoner swap, and Whelan was not.
The White House said Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke Wednesday to Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, to “reassure” her that his administration is is working to secure her release, as well as the release of Whelan and other U.S. nationals who are wrongfully detained. Griner’s trial on drug charges began Friday in Moscow.
Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Wednesday that Griner has been “top of mind” for Biden and that he receives daily updates about the status of negotiations to her release.
“I am crushed. If he wants to talk about securing Paul’s release, he needs to be talking to the Whelans!” Elizabeth Whelan tweeted Wednesday. “What are we to think?!”
Biden also read Cherelle Griner a draft of a letter that he is sending to Brittney in Russia, according to a readout of the call. Griner had written to Biden in a letter delivered Monday, urging him not to “forget about me and the other American detainees.”
“I’m terrified I might be here forever,” she wrote to Biden.
Notably, Biden’s call to Griner’s wife, Cherelle, came after a national CBS interview she did Tuesday, arguing that the president needed to do more to help and noting that she had not yet heard from Biden.
Whelan’s twin brother, David, said the episode says a lot about how a detainee’s family resources matter.
“I don’t begrudge Ms. Griner and her supporters their success in getting the president’s attention while he ignores so many other families,” David said.
“It suggests the only way to get the White House’s attention, under President Trump or President Biden, is to have celebrity and wealth and resources that most wrongful detainees do not have.”
David said his family will have to “wait and see” what happens, noting that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told the family that Paul’s case remains a priority.
“At some level, we take that at face value,” David said. “Unfortunately, if it unfolds that Ms. Griner is released and Paul isn’t, again, we’ll be faced with the same question we were with the release of Trevor Reed: Is the White House only working on the cases when the president takes the time to call? And how do families explain that to their loved ones?”
Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence of hard labor at a prison camp in Mordovia. U.S. officials and lawmakers have long labeled his detention “wrongful” and pressed for his release.
In the wake of Reed’s return, State Department representatives advised the Whelan family to “make more noise” or “be a squeakier wheel,” David said.
He pointed out that they’d done 40 media interviews after Reed’s release and that Elizabeth took part in a rally outside the White House. She also has made nearly 20 visits to Capitol Hill to talk to lawmakers.
“We cannot stop talking about Americans detained abroad. My constituent Paul Whelan has been wrongfully detained since the start of 2019 — his family is desperate for his return,” U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Waterford, said Wednesday.
“I urge the Biden administration to continue to work to secure the releases of Paul and Brittney.”
Elizabeth’s last high-level meeting with the Biden administration was a May 4 sit-down with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The family has received no new information in the two months since then, she said.
She would even skip the meeting with Biden if instead his effort would be put into getting her brother home, she said.
“I do want his staff to understand that there are many other detainee families who would also like this personal involvement in their cases,” Elizabeth Whelan said,” and that we can’t be expected not to feel concerned when the attention to families is so uneven.”
mburke@detroitnews.com
Source Article from https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/06/whelan-family-astonished-after-biden-calls-griners-wife/7823793001/