Tag Archives: Steve Bannon

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Hunter Biden seeks federal probe of Trump allies over laptop

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, asked the Justice Department in a letter Wednesday to investigate close allies of former President Donald Trump and others who accessed and disseminated personal data from a laptop that a computer repair shop owner says was dropped off at his Delaware store in 2019.

In a separate letter, Hunter Biden’s attorneys also asked Fox News host Tucker Carlson to retract and apologize for what they say are false and defamatory claims made repeatedly about him on-air, including implying without evidence that he had unauthorized access to classified documents found at his father’s home.

The request for a criminal inquiry, which comes as Hunter Biden faces his own tax evasion investigation by the Justice Department, does not mean federal prosecutors will open a probe or take any other action. But it nonetheless represents a concerted shift in strategy and a rare public response by the younger Biden and his legal team to years of attacks by Republican officials and conservative media, scrutiny expected to continue now that the GOP has taken over the House.

It also represents the latest salvo in the long-running laptop saga, which began with a New York Post story in October 2020 that detailed some of the emails it says were found on the device related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. It was swiftly seized on by Trump as a campaign issue during the presidential election that year.

The letter, signed by prominent Washington attorney Abbe Lowell, seeks an investigation into, among others, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, Trump’s longtime lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani’s own attorney and the Wilmington computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who has said Hunter Biden dropped a laptop off at his store in April 2019 and never returned to pick it up.

The letter cites passages from Mac Isaac’s book in which he admitted reviewing private and sensitive material from Biden’s laptop, including a file titled “income.pdf.” It notes that Mac Isaac sent a copy of the laptop data to Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, who in turn shared it with Giuliani, a close ally of Trump’s who at the time was pushing discredited theories about the younger Biden.

Giuliani provided the information to a reporter at the New York Post, which first wrote about the laptop, and also to Bannon, according to the letter. Hunter Biden never consented to any of his personal information being accessed or shared in that manner, his lawyer says.

“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information,” the letter says, adding, “Politicians and the news media have used this unlawfully accessed, copied, distributed, and manipulated data to distort the truth and cause harm to Mr. Biden.”

Mac Isaac declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press on Wednesday evening. Costello, asked to comment on behalf of him and Giuliani, called the letter “a frivolous legal document” and said it “reeks of desperation because they know judgment day is coming for the Bidens.”

A lawyer who represented Bannon at a trial in Washington, D.C., last year did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A Fox News representative had no immediate comment.

The letter to the Justice Department was addressed to its top national security official, Matthew Olsen. It cites possible violations of statutes prohibiting the unauthorized access of a computer or stored electronic communication, as well as the transport of stolen data across state lines and the publication of restricted personal data with the intent to intimidate or threaten.

It also asks prosecutors to investigate whether any of the data was manipulated or tampered with in any way.

“The actions described above more than merit a full investigation and, depending on the resulting facts, may merit prosecution under various statutes. It is not a common thing for a private person and his counsel to seek someone else being investigated, but the actions and motives here require it,” Lowell wrote in the letter.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Separate letters requesting investigations were also sent to the Delaware state attorney general’s office and to the Internal Revenue Service. Spokespeople there did not immediately return emails seeking comment.

_____

Associated Press writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP



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Taylor Greene says Jan. 6 Capitol attack ‘would’ve been armed’ if she planned it  

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Saturday that the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol “would’ve been armed” if she and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had planned it.  

Speaking at a gala for the New York Young Republicans Club, the far-right lawmaker appeared to hit back at claims that she was somehow involved in plotting the Capitol riot.

“Then Jan. 6 happened. And next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with Steve Bannon here. And I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed,” Taylor Greene told the audience.

“See that’s the whole joke, isn’t it. They say that whole thing was planned and I’m like, are you kidding me? A bunch of conservatives, second amendment supporters, went in the Capitol without guns, and they think that we organized that?” Taylor Greene added, per footage shared online.

Greene, an outspoken ally of former President Trump, has long espoused his false claims of fraud during the 2020 presidential election. She was questioned earlier this year by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 over her role in efforts to stop the certification of President Biden’s win.

Many supporters of Trump who came to Washington on Jan. 6 did bring weapons, and leaders of the Oath Keepers militia group were found guilty last month for seditious conspiracy. Members of the group allegedly stockpiled suitcases full of weapons at a Virginia hotel as part of its planning around that day.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Trump reportedly complained that some of his armed supporters were unable to join the crowd at his speech at the Ellipse, and then called on those same supporters to march to the Capitol, according to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republicans Club, told the audience at Saturday’s gala that Republicans “want war” against the left. 

“We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets,” Wax said, as reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

“This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power,” Wax added.

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Live updates: Steve Bannon’s sentencing hearing

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Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on Oct. 4 to set a motion schedule and possible trial dates for a corruption case.

Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon will be sentenced on Friday after a federal jury found him guilty of contempt of Congress in July for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

Federal prosecutors want Bannon be sentenced to six months in prison and be fined $200,000 — harsher than the minimum sentence of 30 days in jail, according to federal law. Bannon is seeking probation and is asking for the sentencing to be delayed pending his appeal.

Here are the key things to know about the case and conviction:

The verdict: After nearly two days of hearing evidence and witness testimony, the jury reached a unanimous verdict on the two contempt charges in less than three hours.

Bannon smiled as the verdict was read, looking back and forth between the courtroom deputy and the foreperson. Bannon’s team did not mount a defense during the trial, and he did not take the stand. Speaking to reporters after the conviction, his attorney David Schoen said they planned to appeal the verdict, calling it a “bullet-proof appeal.”

In a Justice Department news release touting the conviction, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said that the “subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored.”

Why the conviction matters: It was a victory for the House Jan. 6 select committee as it continues to seek the cooperation of reluctant witnesses in its historic investigation. It was also a victory for the Justice Department, which is under intense scrutiny for its approach to matters related to the Jan. 6 attack.

Bannon is one of two uncooperative Jan. 6 committee witnesses to be charged so far by the Justice Department for contempt of Congress. Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro was indicted by a grand jury last month for not complying with a committee subpoena and has pleaded not guilty.

Why the committee wanted Bannon’s cooperation: In demanding his cooperation, the committee pointed to Bannon’s contacts with Trump in the lead-up to the Capitol assault, his presence in the so-called war room of Trump allies at the Willard Hotel in Washington the day before the riot, and a prediction he made on his podcast before the riot that “all hell” was going to “break loose.”

The role of executive privilege in the case: When the House committee was demanding his cooperation, Bannon’s lawyer claimed that Trump’s stated assertions of executive privilege prevented Bannon from testifying or producing arguments — an argument the committee roundly rejected. Lawmakers noted that Bannon had for years not been a government official and pointed to their interest in topic areas not involving conversations with Trump.

At the trial, however, Bannon’s arguments about executive privilege were not a central focus — even as his lawyers found ways to bring attention to the issue. They did so in the face of rulings from the judge deeming it largely irrelevant, under appellate precedent, to the elements of the contempt crime.

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Steve Bannon indicted on state charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud related to border wall effort

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CNN
 — 

Former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon was indicted on state charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud related to an alleged online scheme to raise money for the construction of a wall along the southern US border, according to an indictment obtained by CNN.

Bannon surrendered Thursday morning to authorities and is expected to plead not guilty when arraigned, his attorney Robert Costello told CNN.

The state charges are based on the same conduct Bannon was charged with by federal prosecutors in 2020 that alleged he and three others had defrauded donors in the border wall effort, which raised more than $25 million.

Presidential pardons do not apply to state investigations, however.

According to the indictment, one of Bannon’s associates who isn’t named created an online fundraising platform to raise money to build a wall on the border. In order to receive the money from donors, the organizer promised that “100% of the funds” would go towards building a boarder wall, and he would not be taking a salary from the project, prosecutors say.

Bannon’s associates discussed telling the public that no one involved in the “We Build The Wall” project would take a salary, according to the indictment. In a text message, one of the associates told Bannon that the claim “removes all self interest taint on this” and it “gives [the CEO] saint hood,” the indictment says.

Bannon publicly claimed he was acting “kind of as a volunteer” for We Build The Wall, prosecutors said in the indictment. Behind the scenes, Bannon allegedly helped to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to himself and his associates.

Bannon appeared to blame his situation on political motivations.

“This an irony, on the very day the mayor of this city has a delegation down on the border, they are persecuting people here, that try to stop them at the border” he told reporters outside the DA’s office Thursday.

“This is all about 60 days from the day,” he said later, referencing the November election.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office launched a criminal investigation into Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” crowd-fundraising activities early last year after then-President Trump pardoned Bannon on federal fraud charges relating to the same alleged scheme.

Bannon had been federally charged with diverting more than $1 million to pay an alleged co-conspirator and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses. Prosecutors alleged that the donors, including some in New York, were falsely told that all the money contributed would go toward the construction effort.

In recent months, several people close to Bannon were brought before the state grand jury.

Manhattan prosecutors subpoenaed bank records and quietly worked on the investigation over the past year as they investigated Trump and his real estate business, sources familiar with the matter previously told CNN. But the district attorney’s office deferred a charging decision on Bannon until federal prosecutors concluded their case against his three co-defendants, who were not pardoned.

Bannon issued a statement late Tuesday, in part calling the indictment “phony charges” and “nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”

“I am proud to be a leading voice on protecting our borders and building a wall to keep our country safe from drugs and violent criminals,” he said in the statement, adding: “They are coming after all of us, not only President Trump and myself. I am never going to stop fighting. In fact, I have not yet begun to fight. They will have to kill me first.”

A federal jury in July found Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces a minimum sentence of 30 days in jail, according to federal law.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Trial expected to begin for ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of Steve Bannon, a one-time adviser to former President Donald Trump who faces criminal contempt of Congress charges after refusing for months to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Bannon is charged in Washington’s federal court with defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee that sought his records and testimony. He was indicted in November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, one month after the Justice Department received a congressional referral. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.

The trial follows a flurry of activity in the case since July 9. Over a week ago, the former White House strategist notified the committee that he is now willing to testify. His lawyer, Robert Costello, said the change was because Trump has waived his executive privilege claim from preventing the testimony.

Bannon, 68, had been one of the most prominent of the Trump-allied holdouts in refusing to testify before the committee. He has argued that his testimony is protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege.

Trump has repeatedly asserted executive privilege — even as a former president — to try to block witness testimony and the release of White House documents. The Supreme Court in January ruled against Trump’s efforts to stop the National Archives from cooperating with the committee after a lower court judge noted, in part, “Presidents are not kings.”

The committee has also noted that Trump fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the riot.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols declined motions to delay the trial in separate hearings last week, including Thursday when Bannon’s lawyers raised concerns about a CNN report that has since aired about their client and what they said were prejudicial comments made during a hearing last week held by the House committee investigating the riot.

“I am cognizant of current concerns about publicity and bias and whether we can seat a jury that is going to be appropriate and fair, but as I said before, I believe the appropriate course is to go through the voir dire process,” Nichols said Thursday, referring to the questioning of individual jurors before they are selected. The judge said he intended to get a jury that “is going to be appropriate, fair and unbiased.”

While the judge allowed the trial to move forward, Nichols left open the possibility that the letters about Trump waiving his privilege and Bannon’s offer to cooperate with the committee could be referenced at trial, saying the information was “at least potentially relevant” to Bannon’s defense.

Roscoe Howard Jr., the former U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., said the best case for Bannon is if the information on his cooperation offer gets to the jury. Even if it does, claiming that executive privilege stopped him from cooperating earlier will be a hard argument to make because Bannon refused to answer the subpoena, Howard said.

“You have to show up to invoke the privilege claim. You can’t phone it in,” he said.

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Jan. 6 committee notifies DOJ that Trump tried tampering with one of its witnesses, Cheney says

US Representative Jamie Raskin, with Representative Liz Cheney (L), speaks during a hearing on “the January 6th Investigation,” on Capitol Hill on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

The committee has notified the Department of Justice that former 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.

— Brian Schwartz

Oath Keepers chief wanted deck of cards for targets — Hillary Clinton as ‘Queen of Hearts’

Jason Van Tatenhove, who served as national spokesman for the Oath Keepers and as a close aide to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, appears before a full committee hearing on “the January 6th Investigation,” on Capitol Hill on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Oath Keepers chief Stewart Rhodes wanted to produce a deck of cards inspired by ones that had been used by the U.S. military in the Middle East as a “‘Who’s Who’ as kind of the key players on the other side that they wanted to take out,'” a former spokesman for the far-right militia group testified.

“Stewart was very intrigued by that notion, and influenced by it, I think,” ex-spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove told the committee.

“He wanted me to create a deck of cards that would include different politicians, judges, including up to Hillary Clinton as The Queen of Hearts,” Van Tatenhove said. “This was a project that I refused to do.”

Van Tatenhove’s disclosure came after he was asked by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., if he ever heard Rhodes discuss committing violence against elected political leaders.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“That went back to the very beginning of my tenure,” Van Tatenhove then said, describing the deck of cards of “one of the first assignments that he brought to me.”

– Dan Mangan

Ex-Trump campaign manager Parscale said Trump’s ‘rhetoric’ killed Capitol rioter

Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale addresses the crowd before U.S. President Donald Trump rallies with supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S. August 15, 2019.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale wrote in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot that he felt “guilty” for helping Trump win the presidency, and blamed him directly for a death that occurred during the attack on the Capitol.

“This is about trump pushing for uncertainty in our country,” Parscale said in texts to Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign official who was reportedly involved in organizing Trump’s pre-riot rally.

Text from former Campaign Manager Brad Parscale during a January 6th investigation hearing on July 12th, 2022.

“A sitting president asking for civil war,” Parscale wrote. “This week I feel guilty for helping him win.”

Pierson replied: “You did what you felt was right at the time and therefore it was right.”

Parscale responded, “Yeah. But a woman is dead,” adding with apparent shock, “Yeah. If I was trump and knew my rhetoric killed someone.”

Text from former Campaign Manager Brad Parscale during a January 6th investigation hearing on July 12th, 2022.

Courtesy: January 6th Select Committee

Pierson told him, “It wasn’t the rhetoric.”

But Parscale shot back: “Katrina. Yes it was.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Jan. 6 rally organizers knew beforehand that Trump would call for march to the Capitol, evidence shows

Michael J. Lindell, the My Pillow Guy, speaks on stage during an event hosted by former U.S. President Donald Trump at the county fairgrounds in Delaware, Ohio, U.S., April 23, 2022. 

Gaelen Morse | Reuters

Pro-Trump figures involved in the events of Jan. 6 appeared to know in advance that Trump would call on his supporters to march to the Capitol following a rally outside the White House, evidence shows.

The committee showed a text from Kylie Kremer, who organized the Jan. 6 rally in D.C., telling pro-Trump MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Jan. 4 that Trump “is going to have us march” to the Capitol and that he is “just going to call for it unexpectedly.”

The panel also showed a picture of an undated draft of a tweet in which Trump would tell his supporters to “arrive early” to the Jan. 6 rally and that they would “march to the Capitol after.” The tweet was not sent.

Another screenshot showed a Jan. 5 text from “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, who wrote, “Tomorrow: Ellipse then US capitol. Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech but we will see.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Cipollone: ‘I don’t think I don’t think any of these people were providing the President with good advice’

Pat Cipollone, former White House counsel to President Donald Trump, walks through a hallway during a break from a meeting with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, in O’Neill House Office Building in Washington, July 8, 2022.

Sarah Silbiger | Reuters

Cipollone described his displeasure at learning that a group of leading election fraud conspiracy theorists was meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, without any White House staff being present, on Dec. 18, 2020.

“I opened the doors and walked in, I saw Gen. [Michael] Flynn, Sidney Powell sitting there,” Cipollone said in his videotaped testimony. “I was not happy to see the people who were in the Oval Office.”

In addition to those two, Cipollone saw former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne at the meeting, whom he did not recognize. The session soon disintegrated into participants shouting at and insulting each other as Cipollone and other staff challenged Powell and the others to produce evidence of election fraud, attendees testified.

“I don’t think any of these people were providing the president with good advice, so I didn’t understand how they had gotten in,” Cipollone said.

— Dan Mangan

‘The west wing is UNHINGED,’ Hutchinson texts during White House clash over election

An evidence document is shown on a screen during a full committee hearing on “the January 6th Investigation,” on Capitol Hill on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

A top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows wrote that things had become unhinged as Trump’s allies clashed with administration officials in a mid-December meeting on his 2020 election loss.

Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn advocated for Trump to take drastic actions to try to overturn his loss to Biden.

They met fierce resistance from Cipollone, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and others in an hourslong meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, that featured bitter argument, screaming and insults, according to witnesses.

Hutchinson texted another White House aide, Tony Ornato, “the west wing is UNHINGED.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump considered naming Sidney Powell as a “special counsel” to investigate alleged election crimes

A video featuring Sidney Powell, President Trump’s Campaign Attorney, is played during the fifth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 23, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Trump had an executive order drawn up that would have directed the Pentagon to seize voting machines and installed Trump lawyer Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate election-related crimes.

“As you can see here, this proposed order directs the Secretary of Defense to cease voting machines, quote, effective immediately, but it goes even further than that,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, who showed a copy of the Dec. 16, 2020 proposed order. “Under the order, President Trump would appoint a special counsel with the power to seize machines and then charge people with crimes with all resources necessary to carry out her duties.”

Raskin said Powell “spent the post election period making outlandish claims about Venezuelan and Chinese interference in the election.”

– John Rosevear

Eugene Scalia, son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told Donald Trump the 2020 election was over

Eugene Scalia, U.S. secretary of labor, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, July 8, 2020.

Joshua Roberts | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, who is also the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, said he told Trump the election was over.

The committee played testimony on Tuesday of Scalia telling committee investigators that he called Trump in mid-December, and attempted to encourage him to concede that Joe Biden was the duly elected president.

“I put a call to the president, we spoke on the 14th, in which I conveyed to him that I thought that it was time for him to acknowledge that President Biden had prevailed in the election,” Scalia said.

Trump would go on to continue to make false claims about the election being stolen, including on Jan. 6, 2021, in the buildup to Trump’s supporters rioting at the Capitol.

– Brian Schwartz

Cipollone: ‘I agree’ that there was no evidence of election fraud

Former White House counsel during a January 6th Committee Interview.

Courtesy: January 6th Congressional Select Committee

In the first video clip to be shown from his long-sought deposition last week, Cipollone said he agreed that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud that could have overturned the 2020 election results.

The clip shows Cipollone being asked by an investigator if he agrees with the conclusion drawn by other ex-Trump officials, including former Attorney General William Barr, that “there is no evidence of election fraud sufficient to undermine the outcome in a particular state.”

“Yes, I agree with that,” Cipollone replied.

In another clip, Cipollone said he thought that Trump should concede the election.

He noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had said on the Senate floor in mid-December that the election process was done. “That would be in line with my thinking on these things,” Cipollone told the committee.

— Kevin Breuninger

‘President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child,’ Cheney snaps

US Representative Liz Cheney speaks at the opening of a hearing on “the January 6th Investigation,” on Capitol Hill on July 12, 2022, in Washington, DC.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Cheney scoffed at what she said was a “new strategy” to blame Trump’s lawyers and others for pushing false claims of election fraud in the 2020 contest, instead of holding him accountable for that narrative.

“The strategy is to blame people his advisors called ‘the crazies’ for what Donald Trump did,” Cheney said. “This new strategy is to try to blame only John Eastman or Sidney Powell or Congressman Scott Perry or others and not President Trump.”

Cheney said it was “nonsense.”

“President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child,” she said.

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a rally endorsing Republican candidates Adam Laxalt and Joe Lombardo (not pictured) July 8, 2022, in Las Vegas. 

Ronda Churchill | AFP | Getty Images

“Just like everyone else in this country, he is responsible for his own actions, and his own choices,” Cheney said.

– Dan Mangan

Cipollone’s testimony ‘met our expectations,’ Cheney says

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Vice Chairwoman of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, delivers remarks during the seventh hearing on the January 6th investigation in the Cannon House Office Building on July 12, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Select committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said that former White House counsel’s closed-door testimony last week “met our expectations.”

Cipollone, a sought-after witness who testified under subpoena for hours on Friday, is expected to feature prominently in the hearing.

Cipollone’s actions before and during Jan. 6 have been referenced by numerous witnesses, including ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump spurred mob to ‘wage a violent attack on our democracy,’ Thompson says

Missouri Democratic congressional candidate Cori Bush casts her ballot on August 4, 2020 at Gambrinus Hall in St Louis, Missouri.

Michael B. Thomas | Getty Images

Select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that today’s hearing will demonstrate how Trump “summoned a mob” to Washington, D.C., and “ultimately spurred that mob to wage a violent attack on our democracy.”

Thompson kicked off the hearing by explaining some basic principles of American elections: Differences in opinion must be settled at the ballot box, and force, harassment and intimidation are unacceptable.

Trump having lost the 2020 election, was required to say, “‘We did our best, but we came up short,'” Thompson said. “He went the opposite way.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump fumes at committee ahead of hearing

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a rally endorsing Republican candidates Adam Laxalt and Joe Lombardo (not pictured) July 8, 2022, in Las Vegas. 

Ronda Churchill | AFP | Getty Images

Trump raged at the select committee in a series of posts on his social media platform Tuesday morning, calling the investigators “lunatics” and attacking one of its star witnesses as a “female scam artist.”

The former president, who now posts on Truth Social after being permanently banned from Twitter in the wake of the Capitol riot last year, once again spread false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him through widespread fraud. Those false fraud claims spurred many of Trump’s supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump also claimed that the testimony of key witness Cassidy Hutchinson has been “largely debunked” — though Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told NBC News that recent testimony from ex-White House counsel Pat Cipollone did not contradict Hutchinson.

Trump challenged Hutchinson’s testimony that a White House aide told her that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent after being told his security would not drive him to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

In between salvos against the select committee, Trump posted his congratulations to retired pro golfer Jack Nicklaus on receiving an award in Scotland.

— Kevin Breuninger

Former Oath Keepers spokesman to appear as a witness

Jason Van Tatenhove, a member of the Oath Keepers, puts on camouflage face paint during a tactical training session in western Montana, U.S. April 30, 2016.

Jim Uruqart | Reuters

To shed light on the far-right extremist organizations that plotted to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, the committee will bring in a former spokesman for one of those groups to appear as a witness, NBC News reported.

The panel will hear testimony from Jason Van Tatenhove, who worked as a spokesman for the Oath Keepers until 2017, a source familiar with the hearing plans told NBC on Sunday.

Van Tatenhove already spoke with the panel behind closed doors back in March. He was not involved with the Capitol riot, but he was associated with the Oath Keepers for multiple years and has spoken out about the “serious danger that such violent extremist groups pose,” his lawyer has said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Committee to show how Qanon, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are tied to Jan. 6

The Q-Anon conspiracy theorists hold signs during the protest at the State Capitol in Salem, Oregon, United States on May 2, 2020.

John Rudoff | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The hearing will plumb the dark corners of the internet and examine fringe right-wing movements, including Qanon, linked to an “extremist coalition” involved in the storming of the Capitol, a committee aide told reporters.

The committee will look at the Proud Boys, a far-right street fighting group said to have led the Jan. 6 invasion and planned out the attack. Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the group, and some other members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in relation to the Capitol riot.

The panel will also look at the Oath Keepers, which the aide described as “a group of violent militia extremists who promote a wide range of conspiracy theories and seek to act as a private paramilitary force in assistance of an authoritarian strongman.”

Enrique Tarrio, Chairman of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, attend a meeting in a garage in Washington, U.S. in a still image taken from video January 5, 2021, the day before the January 6 riot.

Saboteur Media | via Reuters

That group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, has also been charged with seditious conspiracy.

The hearing will also look at Qanon, the outlandish set of internet-born conspiracy theories framing Trump as a hero fighting a shadow war against a powerful cabal of deep-state cannibals and pedophiles, the aide said.

The aide said that some of the groups linked to the Capitol riot “had ties to Trump associates,” including Republican operative Roger Stone and former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump ‘called in additional support’ before Jan. 6, panelist says before hearing on violent extremists

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.

Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

As he ramped up the pressure on various groups to overturn the 2020 election results, Trump sought the assistance of violent extremists and his allies in Congress, according to a committee member who will be co-leading the hearing.

“The focus of this next hearing will be on the domestic violent extremists, as well as members of Congress, people that the president called in to assist him in this pressure campaign,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., on Sunday on MSNBC’s “Meet The Press.”

“And this pressure campaign is a follow-on to the previous hearings where talked about how the president pressured the vice president, pressured the Department of Justice, pressured state election and electors to just call the race in his favor,” Murphy said.

With those options failing to reverse Biden’s wins in any state, Trump “in the waning days leading up to January 6th called in additional support,” Murphy said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Sunday that Trump’s attention turned toward Jan. 6 as “lots of doors were closing on him, if not all the way at least part of the way.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Cipollone testimony ‘corroborated almost everything that we’ve learned,’ Raskin says

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) listens during a meeting of the House Rules Committee at the U.S. Capitol June 7, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Raskin told NBC that Cipollone did not contradict last month’s bombshell testimony from Hutchinson, who aired incendiary details about how the Capitol riot played out inside Trump’s White House.

“I certainly did not hear him contradict Cassidy Hutchinson,” said Raskin, who is co-leading Tuesday’s hearing alongside Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla. “He had the opportunity to say whatever he wanted to say, so I didn’t see any contradiction there.”

Raskin also noted that, while the committee is expected to wrap up its public hearing series this month, the investigation remains ongoing.

“One thing I’ve learned over the course of the Select Committee is that we never say ‘finally the research and investigation are over.’ Because we are continuing to learn astounding new things on a daily basis,” he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Desperate Trump ‘summoned the mob’ to D.C. ahead of Jan. 6, committee aide says

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021.

Jim Bourg | Reuters

The select committee will show how Trump “grew more desperate” in the weeks before Jan. 6 and “summoned the mob to Washington,” an aide to the panel told reporters Monday in a conference call previewing the hearing.

“We’ll give the American public a more complete understanding of the final phase of President Trump and his supporters’ use of radical measures to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and overturn the 2020 election,” the aide said.

The hearing will also offer more details about a key moment that Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., touched upon briefly last month: a Dec. 19, 2020, tweet from Trump inviting his supporters to come to D.C. on Jan. 6, promising that it “will be wild!”

President Donald Trump is seen on a screen speaking to supporters during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, in Washington, January 6, 2021.

Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

That tweet came just over an hour after a meeting in which Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and other Trump allies considered taking drastic actions to reverse Trump’s loss, such as seizing voting machines or appointing a special counsel to investigate the race, the aide said.

Trump’s tweet beckoning his fans to D.C. marked “a pivotal moment that spurred a chain of events,” the aide said, “including a pre-planning” by the Proud Boys, the group said to have led the Capitol invasion.

— Kevin Breuninger

‘A lot’ of Pat Cipollone’s testimony will be used in Tuesday’s hearing, committee says

Pat Cipollone, former White House counsel, during a break while appearing before the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., US on Friday, July 8, 2022.

Ting Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Cipollone’s hourslong interview before the investigators on Friday will help shape today’s hearing, multiple committee members confirmed.

“I imagine that you will be hearing things from Mr. Cipollone, but also from others that were in the White House,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., on MSNBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday morning.

“We’re gonna get to use a lot of Mr. Cipollone’s testimony to corroborate other things we’ve learned along the way,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., in another television appearance Sunday.

“He was the White House counsel at the time. He was aware of every major move, I think, that Donald Trump was making to try to overthrow the 2020 election and essentially seize the presidency, and so I considered his testimony valuable,” Raskin said of Cipollone.

Numerous witnesses who spoke in prior public hearings testified about Cipollone’s efforts to push back on the plans by Trump and his allies to reverse the election.

In bombshell testimony last month, for instance, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Cipollone warned staff not to let Trump go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, where lawmakers had convened to confirm Biden’s electoral victory.

“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump followed through on those plans, Hutchinson recalled Cipollone saying, because “It would look like we were obstructing justice.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Committee won’t release witness list due to safety concerns

Jason Van Tatenhove, a member of the Oath Keepers, practices archery at his home in northern Montana, U.S. September 25, 2016.

Jim Uruqart | Reuters

The committee declined to reveal the names of witnesses who will appear in Tuesday’s hearing, citing security concerns.

“We’re not planning to announce any witness names ahead of tomorrow,” a committee aide told reporters Monday afternoon in a conference call previewing the hearing.

That decision is due to the “same concerns we’ve had for some of our witnesses’ security and potential for harassment,” the aide said.

But NBC News and other outlets have nevertheless reported two witnesses expected to appear in the hearing: former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove, and Jan. 6 defendant Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty last month to charges stemming from him entering the Capitol.

— Kevin Breuninger

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Steve Bannon’s Gambit May Have Just Put Him in New Legal Jeopardy

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What started as a Steve Bannon public relations stunt may have just ended as a spectacular self-own.

After nine months of refusing to answer the House Jan. 6 Committee’s questions—and fighting off related criminal contempt charges in court—the right-wing provocateur is suddenly dangling an offer to finally testify. The gambit is supposed to make the Justice Department look bad. But doing so on the eve of trial risks having him incriminate himself before Congress, then get convicted the very next week.

On Saturday, after what inside sources described as a week-long effort to convince former President Donald Trump’s inner circle, Bannon’s legal team managed to convince Trump to issue a letter waiving executive privilege. The letter allows his former White House chief strategist to testify before the Jan. 6 committee. (Never mind that a federal judge, an appellate panel, and even the Supreme Court have already said the ex-president doesn’t have any executive privilege to assert or waive anyway.)

The letter was a last-minute attempt to throw a curveball at the Justice Department just a week before Bannon’s criminal contempt of Congress trial for refusing to show up before that very committee.

But on Monday afternoon, a D.C. federal judge knocked down every conceivable defense the right-wing media personality could present at his criminal trial.

When Bannon’s lawyers argued that the politicians on the Jan. 6 committee must be forced to testify at trial, the judge questioned why Bannon’s lawyers couldn’t just ask committee staffers. When his lawyers asked for permission to tell a future jury that Bannon was just following his lawyer’s advice when he didn’t show up to Congress, the judge said no. And when they argued that the trial should be delayed, the judge told them to come back prepared for the final showdown next week.

Now Bannon is barreling toward a trial while dangling potential testimony before the congressional panel—a prime opportunity to perjure himself or explain why he broke the law—and lawyers say there’s practically nothing he can do that won’t land him in even more legal jeopardy.

“It’s going to make it very hard for him to figure out what he could say that won’t incriminate him. I think he’s going to land in trouble. It just seems inevitable,” said Michael J. Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina.

It’s unclear if the nine-member House Select committee led by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has any appetite for putting Bannon on the stand—much less on live TV, as he apparently demands. Committee staff did not answer The Daily Beast’s questions about the offer on Monday.

But from now until the trial that is set to start next week, Bannon is in limbo.

If the committee accepts his tenuous offer, Bannon is in the awkward position of putting himself in one hot seat just days before he’s in yet another. For example, committee members could ask him why he never showed up last fall—and whatever Bannon says under penalty of perjury could appear at trial just days later. If he contradicts himself on anything at any point, prosecutors can argue that he lied to Congress—yet another crime—or is lying at trial.

There’s an obvious expectation that Bannon would try to use his congressional testimony to essentially put on an episode of his MAGA-raging, daily War Room: Pandemic podcast—to grandstand, attack the committee’s work, and spew conspiracy theories. But that’s an act of self-immolation, because pissing off federal prosecutors is the last thing Bannon should be doing, lawyers said.

“If he’s calculating that he can make a better plea deal, it would undermine those strategies… he could make his situation worse if he perjures himself or is seen as an extremely uncooperative witness,” said George Washington University law school professor Catherine J. Ross.

His options at the moment: ​​Show up and play nice or face the wrath of the Department of Justice.

In a text message to The Daily Beast, David Schoen, one of Bannon’s defense lawyers, described the team’s offer to the Jan. 6 Committee as “no game.”

He reiterated his argument that Bannon truly operated on the belief that Trump retained some kind of executive power after leaving the White House—and the committee should have sued Bannon in civil court and have a judge officially declare Trump’s executive privilege claims as invalid and force Bannon to testify instead of having the DOJ pursue criminal charges.

“Bannon is true to his word and to his principles,” Schoen wrote. “It was not his privilege to waive and his hands were tied. However, he also said he absolutely would comply if they resolved privilege with former President Trump or a judge ordered that privilege wasn’t valid. That was the only reason he didn’t comply.”

“For the committee’s part of course they should have respected that and should have told the government to drop the criminal charges; but as we suspected from the start they never really wanted his testimony. They wanted to set him up for contempt,” he added.

In recent days, Bannon’s legal team has tossed one Hail Mary after another at U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, perhaps expecting a receptive audience from the Trump appointee who once clerked for the conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Schoen and Bannon’s other defense attorney, Evan Corcoran, have tried to use the criminal case to search for documents that might show how political forces at the Biden administration or Justice Department have chosen to target Bannon and make an example out of him for defying the congressional panel loathed by Trump-loyal Republicans. They tried to claim that DOJ memos protecting a president’s staff gave Bannon permission to ignore the Jan. 6 panel’s congressional subpoena. They tried to fall back on the idea that Bannon was merely following the advice of his other attorney, Bob Costello. And they tried to drag House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other members of Congress into court to testify.

However, Nichols summarily shot down every one of those defensive maneuvers, leaving an exasperated Schoen to blurt out in court on Monday, “What’s the point of going to trial if there are no defenses?”

The three federal prosecutors trying the case, who have repeatedly insisted in court filings and in person that this case is a one-day slam dunk, have come out on top.

“He got a subpoena. He didn’t honor it. That’s illegal. That’s contempt. He’s being prosecuted for that. He doesn’t have any defenses. This is an open-and-shut case, so he has legal jeopardy,” Ross told The Daily Beast.

Bannon’s eleventh-hour offer to testify before the Jan. 6 committee also doesn’t technically absolve him of the crime for which he’s on trial, lawyers said. The DOJ prosecutors working on his case have already said in court filings that they plan to go after him no matter what.

“The Defendant’s last-minute efforts to testify, almost nine months after his default—he has still made no effort to produce records—are irrelevant,” prosecutors wrote in a filing early Monday morning, saying that jurors shouldn’t even hear about “his eleventh-hour efforts.”

“The criminal contempt statute is not intended to procure compliance; it is intended to punish past noncompliance,” they wrote.

“It’s futile, because the judge in his criminal trial ruled that it doesn’t get him off the hook. He still refused to comply with the subpoena at the time when he should have complied, and it doesn’t erase his illegal act of not showing up,” Ross said.

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Steve Bannon says he’s willing to testify before Jan. 6 panel after Trump waives claims of executive privilege

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Former President Trump said he has waived executive privilege to allow Steve Bannon to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, according to a letter sent he sent his former adviser on Saturday.

What’s new: The Justice Department said Trump’s attorney Justin Clark told the FBI in a June 29 interview “that the former President never invoked executive privilege over any particular information or materials” related to Bannon, per a motion filed in the District Court in D.C. early Monday and obtained by the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell.

Why it matters: Last November, a federal grand jury indicted Bannon on two counts of contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a subpoena issued by the Jan. 6 panel.

Driving the news: In the letter, Trump recounted how he had invoked executive privilege when Bannon first received his subpoena from the committee.

  • However, he said he decided to reverse his stance after watching “how unfairly” Bannon and others had been treated, “having to spend vast amounts of money on legal fees, and all of the trauma you must be going through for the love of your Country.”
  • If a time and place could be agreed upon for testimony, Trump wrote that he would waive executive privilege, “which allows for you to go in and testify truthfully and fairly, as per the request of the Unselect Committee of political Thugs and Hacks.”

In a letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the Jan. 6 committee, a lawyer for Bannon wrote that his client would be willing to testify and would prefer to do so at a public hearing.

  • “Mr. Bannon has not had a change of posture or of heart,” Robert Costello wrote, but he noted that “circumstances have now changed,” in reference to Trump’s decision to waive executive privilege.

What they’re saying: The DOJ said in its Monday court filing that Bannon’s “last-minute efforts to testify, almost nine months after his default — he has still made no effort to produce records — are irrelevant to whether he willfully refused to comply in October 2021 with the Select Committee’s subpoena.”

  • Any evidence or argument “relating to his eleventh-hour efforts should, therefore, be excluded at trial,” the motion added.

State of play: Damning testimony from the Jan. 6 committee has been drawing in millions of viewers and seeking to emphasize the direct ties between Trump and the violence on Jan. 6.

  • Representatives for Trump and Bannon did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with details from the DOJ’s court filing.



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Trump mulling waiver of executive privilege claim for Bannon: report

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Former President Trump is considering waiving his claims of executive privilege to allow his former top adviser, Steve Bannon, to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, The Washington Post reported Friday. 

Citing three sources familiar with the matter, the paper reported that Trump may send Bannon a letter stating the former president is willing to give up his claim if Bannon reaches an agreement with the committee to testify.

Bannon first received a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee in September, but was charged with contempt for refusing to appear. 

The Justice Department filed two charges against Bannon in November: one for refusing to testify and another for refusing to turn over related documents for the panel to review.

His trial is set to begin later this month, but he requested a delay on the grounds that too much publicity would deny him a fair trial. 

The Post reported that some advisers are urging Trump not to send the letter.

Trump has repeatedly asserted executive privilege to prevent current and former staff members from testifying.

A spokesperson for Trump and an attorney for Bannon did not immediately return requests for comment from The Hill. 

The report comes following bombshell testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson who provided comment on Trump’s temperament and knowledge about what was happening at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Hutchinson, who served as top aide to former chief of staff Mark Meadows, asserted during public testimony in front of the Jan. 6 panel, that Trump lunged at the wheel of his SUV and was told by Secret Service that he could not go to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Some involved in the situation have disputed Hutchinson’s remarks, though they have not testified publicly.

The committee’s next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

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McCarthy, GOP lawmakers escalate standoff with Jan. 6 panel

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is making it clear that he will likely defy a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, escalating a standoff with the panel over his and other GOP lawmakers’ testimony.

In an 11-page letter to the panel Friday, an attorney for McCarthy argued that the select committee does not have the authority to issue subpoenas to the lawmakers under House rules and demanded answers to a series of questions and documents if his client were to comply.

Attorney Elliot Berke requested a list of “topics that the Select Committee would like to discuss with the Leader, and the constitutional and legal rationale justifying the request.”

“I expressly reserve Leader McCarthy’s right to assert any other applicable privilege or objection to the Select Committee’s subpoena,” Berke wrote.

Committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey responded Friday evening, “Leader McCarthy and other Members who have been served subpoenas are hiding behind debunked arguments and baseless requests for special treatment.”

He added, “The refusal of these Members to cooperate is a continued assault on the rule of law and sets a dangerous new precedent that could hamper the House’s ability to conduct oversight in the future.” Mulvey said committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., “will formally respond to these Members in the days ahead.”

The House panel believes testimony from the Republican lawmakers is crucial to their investigation as each of the men was in contact with then-President Donald Trump and his allies in the weeks and days leading up to the Capitol insurrection. Some participated in meetings and urged the White House to try to overturn the 2020 presidential results.

McCarthy has acknowledged he spoke with Trump on Jan. 6 as Trump’s supporters were beating police outside the Capitol and forcing their way into the building. But he has not shared many details. The committee requested information about his conversations with Trump “before, during and after” the riot.

His apparent defiance presents a new challenge for the committee after lawmakers decided to take the extraordinary and politically risky step of subpoenaing their own colleagues.

“For House Republican leaders to agree to participate in this political stunt would change the House forever,” the California lawmaker wrote Thursday in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal with GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

The committee now must decide whether to enforce the subpoenas even as it looks to wrap up the investigation and prepare for a series of public hearings in early June. It could refer the lawmakers to the House ethics committee or take steps to hold them in contempt.

The subpoenas were issued to McCarthy, Jordan, and Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama in mid-May. The panel has already interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 100,000 documents as it investigates the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries.

“I have no relevant information that would advance any legitimate legislative purpose,” Jordan said in a letter detailing his reasons for not cooperating. The others indicated after the subpoenas were issued that they too would not cooperate.

Perry’s lawyer sent the committee a letter earlier this week saying he could “not in good conscience comply” with the subpoena because he does not believe it is valid under House rules.

Requests for comment from Biggs and Brooks were not immediately returned.

The panel had previously asked for voluntary cooperation from the five lawmakers, along with a handful of other GOP members, but all refused to speak with the panel, which debated for months whether to issue the subpoenas.

McCarthy and the others were summoned to testify in front of investigators this week and next week. McCarthy, who aspires to be House speaker if Republicans take over the majority next year, indicated that the committee’s decision will have a lasting impact.

“Every representative in the minority would be subject to compelled interrogations by the majority, under oath, without any foundation of fairness, and at the expense of taxpayers,” he wrote in the op-ed.

In a separate move, McCarthy and the No. 2 House Republican, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, filed a court brief in support of Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon, who is facing criminal contempt charges for defying a subpoena from the committee. In the brief, lawyers for the two write that the committee does not have the authority to issue subpoenas, an argument that has been dismissed in other court proceedings.

The lawyers also wrote that McCarthy and Scalise filed the brief “out of concern for the potential damage to House institutional” rules and order.

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