As former Trump administration staffer Sarah Matthews was still testifying before the House January 6 committee on Thursday evening, the official House Republican Twitter account fired off a nasty attack against her, even though she works for them.
“Just another liar and pawn in Pelosi’s witch-hunt,” the House Republican account tweeted, referring to Sarah Matthews, an aide who was working in the White House during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
She is currently the Republican communications director for the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
Oops! Nothing quite like slamming one of your own.
It should be noted that during her testimony Thursday, Matthews corroborated what former top aide Cassidy Hutchinson had told the Jan. 6 committee when she appeared last month.
A spokesperson for the House GOP told Politico that the tweet was deleted because, “The tweet was sent out at the staff level and was not authorized or the position of the conference and therefore was deleted.”
The real reason, however, was probably the chiding the GOP received online, including this one from another former member of the Trump administration:
Hey geniuses, you realize this gives @SarahAMatthews1 more credibility? She’s there because she wanted to serve Trump. She believed in him like millions Americans. On 1/6 he let her & our entire country down. pic.twitter.com/W2M6VIbQ6d
10 Republican members of Congress were called out by name for their role in former president Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and stage a coup by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
During a presentation being made by committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), the congresswoman said:
“Another part of the president’s strategy involves certain members of Congress who amplified his unsupported assertions that the election had been stolen. In the weeks after the election, the White House coordinated closely with President Trump’s allies in Congress to disseminate his false claims and to encourage members of the public to fight the outcome on Jan 6. We know that the president met with various members to discuss Jan. 6 well before the joint session.
“The president’s private schedule for Dec. 21, 2020 shows a private meeting with Republican members of Congress. We know Vice President Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani also attended the meeting.”
And then Murphy named names, and the 10 people she mentioned had better hope they have some damn good attorneys on retainer:
“At this point, you may recall testimony given in our earlier hearing by Richard Donoghue who said that the president asked the Department of Justice to say ‘that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.’ According to White House visitor logs obtained by the committee, members of Congress present at the White House on Dec. 21 included Congressmen Brian Babin (R-TX), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Andy Harris (R-MD), Jody Hice (R-GA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Scott Perry (R-PA).
These are the known insurrectionists and traitors who remain in Congress to this day. They need to be brought before the House Ethics Committee, placed in front of a federal grand jury, indicted, and booted from office. If they aren’t, what took place on Jan. 6 is likely to happen again.
When the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol convenes again tomorrow at 1 p.m. for a public hearing, part of their focus will be to identify the Republican members of Congress who conspired with former president Donald Trump to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Aides to the Jan. 6 committee told reporters during a phone call Monday afternoon that of specific interest to the committee is to lay out how some in the GOP actively assisted Trump in his harebrained scheme to subvert the will of the voters by pressuring then-vice president Mike Pence to refuse certification of the Electoral College votes.
Hugo Lowell of The Guardiannotes that there will also be extensive testimony on the nexus between Trump and domestic terrorist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers:
The House January 6 select committee is expected to make the case at its seventh hearing Tuesday that Donald Trump gave the signal to the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol to target and obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win.
The panel will zero in on a pivotal tweet sent by the former president in the early hours of the morning on 19 December 2020, according to sources close to the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the forthcoming hearing.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump said in the tweet. “Be there, will be wild!”
That tweet, the committee contends, led domestic terror groups to begin actively planning for Jan. 6. The panel plans to show a detailed chronology of what happened after Trump’s marching orders had been issued on social media:
On 20 December 2020, prosecutors have said, the former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio created an encrypted group chat called “MOSD Leaders Group” – described by Tarrio as a “national rally planning” committee that included his top lieutenants.
Top members of the Oath Keepers militia group led by Stewart Rhodes, who have also been indicted for seditious conspiracy, made similar plans as they prepared to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s election win, the panel intends to show.
The select committee will then focus on how the Oath Keepers stockpiled weapons and created an armed quick reaction force ready to deploy to the Capitol, and how the group ended up as the security detail for far-right activist Roger Stone and other Trump allies.
What members of Congress will likely hear their names called by the committee on Tuesday? Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Josh Hawley (R-MO), along with Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), although others may also be mentioned as co-conspirators who could be facing criminal referral the Justice Department and punishment from the Senate and House Ethics committees.
The New York Times reports that since she testified before the January 6 House Select Committee on on June 28, former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson has been forced to go into hiding for her own safety.
Now unemployed and sequestered with family and a security detail, Ms. Hutchinson, 26, has developed an unlikely bond with Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and onetime aide to former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during the George W. Bush administration — a crisis environment of another era when she learned to work among competing male egos. More recently, as someone ostracized by her party and stripped of her leadership post for her denunciations of Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney admires the younger woman’s willingness to risk her alliances and professional standing by recounting what she saw in the final days of the Trump White House, friends say.
That revelation is part of a deeper look at Hutchinson’s life, including her fast rise through the ranks of Trump administration where she eventually became one of former White House Chief Of Staff Mark Meadows’ most trusted staffers.
After receiving a subpoena from the Jan. 6 panel, Hutchinson secured the services of attorney Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House ethics lawyer who was paid by Trump’s Save America PAC.
However, it soon became clear to Hutchinson that Passantino was trying to protect Trump, not her, so she dumped him and found a better counselor:
Jody Hunt, the former head of the Justice Department’s civil division under Jeff Sessions — Mr. Trump’s former attorney general and another pariah in Mr. Trump’s world — offered to represent her pro bono. Mr. Hunt accompanied Ms. Hutchinson to her fourth deposition in late June, when she felt more comfortable talking about Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6. Everyone agreed it was time to speed up her public testimony.
Though it remains unclear if Hutchinson will provide further testimony, what she has told the Jan. 6 committee so far is considered essential to the overall case the panel is building against Trump and others who took part in the Capitol insurrection that left five people dead.
Cassidy Hutchinson is a true American hero. She deserves the praise she has already received for her testimony.
Footage found in a trailer for the documentary “Unprecedented” was acquired by Politico and contains new and damaging evidence that will likely be used against failed former president Donald Trump and members of his family.
The documentary was made by British director Alex Holder and will be seen on Discovery+ as a series.
Politico notes that the new footage shows just how much access Holder was given by the ex-president and also provides insight into how the Trump family dealt with the horror of the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection:
Ivanka frets about a line on her dress, and jokes about covering it with a pet roaming about. “Can I borrow your dog?” she asks her makeup artist. Kushner nervously repositions his tie and asks “Is that OK?” Don Jr., seen at a rally, screams, “We will make liberals cry again!” Eric is caught on a phone call, mysteriously saying, “For the sake of this country, we’re going to get these guys.”
When the film turns to the day of the Capitol riots, we see Trump instructing his supporters to march on the seat of government, along with footage of his acolytes doing as he instructed:
It all builds to Jan. 6, when the Vivaldi suddenly stops and a wide shot of Trump at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington appears. “Let’s all walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he tells the crowd.
Then Holder’s cameraperson joined the crowd as it marched on the Capitol. “We’ve got to get the roaches out, all of them,” a protester yells straight to camera as he appears to motion toward Congress. Next up is a montage of scenes from the frontlines as the rioters breach the Capitol and police in riot gear are attacked.
As the Vivaldi fades and the movie’s title appears, Trump’s faint voice can be heard from the distance: “Do you miss me yet?”
Holder has turned over hours of footage he shot for “Unprecedented” to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
