(NEW YORK) — With the first full week of hearings for the House select committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol now complete, nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the incident, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.
Six in 10 Americans also believe the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation, according to the poll.
In the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, 58% of Americans think Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot. That’s up slightly from late April, before the hearings began, when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52% of Americans thought the former president should be charged.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll that asked a similar question days after the attack in January 2021 found that 54% of Americans thought Trump should be charged with the crime of inciting a riot.
Attitudes on whether Americans think Trump is responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol remain relatively stable. In the new ABC News/Ipsos poll, 58% of Americans think Trump bears a “great deal” or a “good amount” of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol. This is unchanged from an ABC News/Ipsos poll in December 2021 and similar to the findings of an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted just after the attack in January 2021.
The poll divides along party lines, with 91% of Democrats thinking Trump should be charged with a crime compared to 19% of Republicans. On whether Trump bears a “great deal” or a “good amount” of responsibility for the attack, 91% of Democrats and 21% of Republicans say he does.
Among self-described independents, 62% think Trump should be charged and 61% think he bears a “great deal” or a “good amount” of responsibility.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted after the committee held its third of seven public hearings scheduled for this month, which detail what the committee says was a “sophisticated, seven-part plan” by Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
On Friday, Trump lambasted the hearing, calling the panel “con artists,” while continuing to air false claims about the 2020 election.
“There’s no clearer example of the menacing spirit that has devoured the American left than the disgraceful performance being staged by the unselect committee,” Trump said at a conference hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Nashville, Tennessee.
Overall, 60% of Americans think the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation while 38% say it is not, the new ABC News/Ipsos poll found. That was evenly divided at 40% in the April ABC News/Washington Post poll, which also found that 20% of Americans had no opinion on the matter just two months ago.
When it comes to the fairness of the committee, Americans are again divided along party lines in the latest poll, with 85% of Democrats finding the investigation fair and impartial, compared to 31% of Republicans. Independents’ views fall in-between at 63%.
Democrats are more likely to be following the hearings. Overall, 34% of Americans are following the hearings very or somewhat closely, with 43% of Democrats and 22% of Republicans saying so. In a reminder of where political attention is, just under one in 10 (9%) Americans say they are following the hearings very closely.
On whether the investigation will have an impact at the polls, just over half (51%) of Americans say that what they’ve read, seen or heard about the hearings has made no difference in who they plan to support in this November’s election. Meanwhile, 29% say they are more likely to support Democratic candidates and 19% say they are more likely to support Republican candidates.
The bipartisan committee, led by chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice-chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is in the midst of summing up its 11-month-long investigation into the attack. So far the hearings have largely focused on how Trump pushed the “big lie” of a stolen 2020 race and the pressure campaign on then-Vice President Mike Pence.
The panel has also shared never-before-seen footage from the riot and interviews with Trump administration and White House officials.
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs‘ KnowledgePanel® June 17-18, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 545 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 28-26-40 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.
ABC News’ Dan Merkle and Ken Goldstein contributed to this report.
Ty O’Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As the Jan. 6 committee continues to lay out its evidence surrounding the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge on Thursday ruled that a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion — a voting machine company at the heart of a number of “Big Lie” conspiracy theories — against far-right news outlet Newsmax is allowed to proceed.
Judge Eric M. Davis denied Newsmax’s motion to dismiss the $1.6 billion civil suit. In the original complaint filed in August, Dominion said Newsmax “helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs have wings, and Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud to steal the presidency from Donald Trump by rigging the vote.”
At the first Jan. 6 hearing last week, former Attorney General Bill Barr said the baseless allegations that Dominion machines switched votes from Joe Biden to Trump were “complete nonsense” and “amongst the most disturbing.”
“I told them it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on it, and they were doing a great disservice to the country,” Barr said of the Dominion conspiracy theories, which were consistently pushed by Trump and his allies. “I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people.”
Dominion has filed a number of defamation suits against those it says helped pushed the false accusations that it helped rig the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani and Fox News. Last year, a judge similarly denied requests from Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to throw out the Dominion suits against them.
Dominion, in its complaint against Newsmax, alleged that Newsmax “manufactured, endorsed, repeated, and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion.”
In a statement responding to the ruling, a Newsmax spokesperson said they were “not surprised by the judge’s decision as this was a preliminary motion and he made a very similar ruling in the Fox News case,” then went on to defend its coverage of the 2020 election.
“Newsmax reported on both sides in the election dispute without making any claim about the results other than saying they were ‘legal and final,'” the statement said. “We are confident that Newsmax will ultimately prevail given the strong First Amendment protections provided to ensure free speech and a free press.”
Last year, Newsmax retracted some its reporting surrounding the 2020 election as part of a settlement after it was sued by a Dominion employee in a separate suit.
Referring to allegations that Dominion had schemed to rig the election in favor of Biden, the network reported that it “subsequently found no evidence that such allegations were true.”
(WASHINGTON) — It’s been more than a month since a dozen civil rights and religious groups say they sent a letter to the White House calling on President Joe Biden sign an executive order to study reparations by Juneteenth, or this Sunday, June 19, marking the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
So, this week, because Biden hasn’t yet done so, activists began staging a first-of-its-kind visual installation on the Ellipse, near the White House, to get Biden’s and the public’s attention leading into America’s newest federal holiday, being observed on Monday.
The study activists wants comes after a decades-long push to establish a 13-person reparations commission in Congress.
The installation on the Ellipse includes a giant Pan-African flag, made of red, black, and green flowers alongside mulch provided by Black farmers — what activists say is a visual reminder of the need for reparations.
Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Union leaders promised formerly enslaved families “40 acres and a mule” — a promise never fulfilled.
However, a reminder of the centuries-old promise has languished in Congress for decades. H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, has been introduced in every legislative session since 1989.
The measure seeks to establish a commission to study “and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, legal and other racial and economic discrimination, and the impact of these forces on living African Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies …”
In recent years, the bill has gained some political traction.
In 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hundreds of members of Congress and over 350 organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors, NAACP and ACLU publicly announced support for reparations.
At the Tribeca Film Festival, “The Big Payback,” a documentary examining reparations, directed by “Living Single” actress Erika Alexander, premiered at the legendary festival in early June.
H.R. 40 passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021 but has failed to come to a vote in the House or Senate.
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated in 2021 that President Biden supported the study of reparations. However, when asked if he would support a bill on reparations Psaki said, “We’ll see what happens through the legislative process.”
Asked if Biden supports an executive order on the study of reparations, Psaki said at the time, “it would be up to him, he has executive order authority, he would certainly support a study, and we’ll see where Congress moves on that issue.”
A White House official told ABC News on Thursday, President Biden still “supports a study of reparations and the continued impacts of slavery but he is very clear that we don’t need a study to advance racial equity.”
The official added, “he is taking comprehensive action to address the systemic racism that persists today, including an executive order on his first day in office establishing a whole-of-government approach to addressing racial inequality and making sure equity is a part of his entire policy agenda.”
Nkechi Taifa is director of the Reparation Education Project, and has been calling for reparations for moire than 50 years. In 1987, she was one of the founders of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), an organization that worked closely with Democratic Rep. John Conyers to draft the introduction of H.R. 40 in 1989. She says now is the time for Biden to sign an executive order so the commission can be up and running before the end of Biden’s presidency.
Taifa says she hopes the display at the ellipse sends a message that reparations advocates need to be paid attention to, and Black people should not be taken for granted.
She told ABC News, “If they think they’re gonna rest on Juneteenth because it’s a holiday and a watered down policing reform bill — that’s not enough. Black people have been run roughshod over, you know, for centuries, and it just, it just cannot continue.”
Joan Neal, deputy executive director and chief equity officer at NETWORK, a social justice advocacy group founded by U.S. religious sisters tells ABC News, that “Slavery was a sin, that was the original sin of this country, and we believe that unless you acknowledge your sin and you make a firm determination to never do it again, and then make restitution for what was lost. You still have not been forgiven.”
She added, “All parties have to be willing to stand up and face the sin in order for the sin to be forgiven and in order for things to be whole again.”
(WASHINGTON) — In its third hearing Thursday, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack outlined former President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against then-Vice President Mike Pence — and demonstrated just how close he came to danger in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The committee detailed what it calls just one part in a “sophisticated seven-part plan” then-President Donald Trump and his allies to unlawfully overturn the 2020 election — with Thursday’s focus on Trump’s attempted coercion of Pence as a desperate last effort to accomplish their goal.
Members focused on a theory espoused by Trump’s White House attorney John Eastman — though they said Eastman never believed the theory was lawful himself — that Pence could unilaterally reject electors on Jan. 6 as Congress met to certify the 2020 election results, as well as the “relentless pressure campaign” against Pence by Trump in private and public — even as White House aides were telling Trump the scheme was illegal.
The committee argued, “that pressure campaign directly contributed to the attack on the Capitol” and put Pence’s life at serious risk, and one witness, a former federal judge and respected conservative, warned against the ongoing threat to democracy saying Trump allies are “executing a blueprint” to overturn 2024 election.
Here are some of the key arguments from the committee Thursday’s hearing:
40 FEET FROM THE MOB
The committee released never-before-seen photos of Pence on Jan. 6 showing the vice president and his family just steps from angry rioters who entered the Capitol to disrupt the electoral vote count.
“Vice President Pence and his team ultimately were led to a secure location where they stayed for the next 4 1/2 hours,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who led the hearing.
“Approximately 40 feet, that’s all there was, 40 feet between the vice president and the mob,” he said.
Greg Jacob, the vice president’s lawyer who was with him that day, told the committee he could “hear the din of rioters in the building” but was not “aware that they were as close as that.”
In a photo reported by ABC News Wednesday night, Pence and his family are seen hiding from rioters in his ceremonial Senate office just steps from the Senate chamber. Second lady Karen Pence was captured closing the window curtains — presumably afraid rioters outside the building could see her and her family.
“When Mike pence made it clear that he wouldn’t give in to Donald Trump’s scheme, Donald Trump turned the mob on him,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Thursday. “A mob that was chanting ‘hang Mike pence.’ A mob that had built a hanging gallows just outside the Capitol.”
PENCE REPEATEDLY TOLD TRUMP THE PLAN WAS ILLEGAL
The committee revealed evidence that Trump was repeatedly told that his demand for Pence to reject the certified slates of electors from key states won by Biden to block his victory was illegal — but that he and his allies continued to pressure Pence to do so on Jan. 6.
Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short told the panel that Pence had told Trump that “many times” and that he had been “very consistent.”
Short also told the committee in a videotaped interview that he believed Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, also understood that Pence lacked the power to overturn the election results.
“I believe that Mark did agree,” Short said. “I believe that’s what he told me. But as I mentioned, I think Mark told so many people so many different things that it was not something that I would necessarily accept as … resolved.”
Other figures around Trump — including White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and campaign adviser Jason Miller — told the committee that people around the president at the time believed the plan to stop the counting of Biden electors was “nuts” and “crazy.”
“You’re going to turn around and tell 78-plus million people in this country that your theory is this is how you’re going to invalidate their votes?” Herschmann said in videotaped testimony, recalling his conversation with Trump lawyer Eastman.
Herschmann said he told Eastman, “You’re going to cause riots in the streets.”
“They thought he was crazy,” Miller told the committee when asked what Trump’s lawyers thought of Eastman’s idea.
Jacob told the committee there was “no way” Pence had the authority to determine who would be the president of the United States, laying out how his team examined 230 years of history and found no such instance of this happening “since the beginning of the country.”
‘I REMEMBER THE WORD WIMP’
During Thursday’s hearing, the committee played a video of Trump aides recounting what they overheard in the Oval Office of Trump’s Jan. 6 phone call with Pence ahead of his rally on the National Mall — his last-ditch attempt to pressure Pence to block the electoral results.
The recollections confirmed contemporaneous reporting on the tenor of the heated phone call and of Trump’s anger with Pence.
“I remember the word ‘wimp,'” Trump aide Nick Luna testified to the committee. “Wimp is the word I remember.”
“The conversation was pretty heated,” Ivanka Trump told the committee in her interview. “It was a different tone than I’d heard him take with the vice president before.”
“It was something like … ‘you’re not tough enough to make that call,'” Pence national security adviser Keith Kellogg testified.
Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, told the committee that the president’s eldest daughter told her Trump called Pence “the p-word.”
EASTMAN KNEW THE LEGAL EFFORT WOULD FAIL
In one exchange with the committee, Pence counsel Jacob said Eastman acknowledged “his theory [about Pence’s power] didn’t hold water,” in the words of Aguilar.
“We had an extended discussion an hour and a half to two hours on January 5 … When I pressed him on the play, I said, ‘John, if the vice president did what you’re asking him to do, he would lose nine to nothing in the Supreme Court.'”
“Initially, he started, ‘Well, I think he would lose only 7 to 2.’ After some further discussion, he acknowledged, ‘Well, yeah, you’re right, we would lose nine to zero,'” Jacob recalled Thursday.
Jacob also said he told Eastman his theory was “just wrong,” and that if the shoe was on the other foot, he would not want Al Gore or Vice President Kamala Harris to have the power to reject slates of electors.
Jacob said Eastman replied by saying “Absolutely — Al Gore did not have a basis to do it in 2000, Kamala Harris shouldn’t be able to do it in 2024, but I think you should do it today.”
EASTMAN ASKED FOR A PARDON
The committee revealed Thursday that Eastman was still pushing Pence’s team to delay the counting of electoral votes even after rioters had been cleared from the Capitol.
But days after the attack, he emailed Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani saying he would be interested in a pardon — which the committee has said could suggest he believed he may have acted illegally.
“I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works,” Eastman said in his email.
Eastman also pleaded the Fifth 100 times in his interview with the committee, for which he appeared under subpoena after repeated delays.
ABC News’ Libby Cathey contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — New details and never-before-seen photographs have emerged about the “heated” phone call between President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.
The information came out in the House select committee’s third public hearing this month in its investigation of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The panel on Thursday focused on the intense pressure placed on Pence by Trump and others to single-handedly overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the 2020 presidential race.
Pence refused Trump’s last-ditch demands, which witnesses said sparked a mocking response from Trump.
The committee shared new photographs of Trump on that very phone call, which it obtained from the National Archives. Another exhibit showed a handwritten note on Trump’s schedule that the call was slated to take place at 11:20 a.m., just hours before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as Pence was presiding over Congress certifying Biden’s win.
“The conversation got pretty heated,” Ivanka Trump, the ex-president’s daughter who was in the room, told the committee in a videotaped deposition.
She recalled the phone call representing a “different tone” from what she’d previously heard her father use with Pence.
Other aides who were also inside the Oval Office echoed Ivanka Trump’s alarm.
Eric Herschmann, then was serving as the White House counsel, told lawmakers that the conversation started off with a “calmer tone” but “then it became heated.” Herschmann said he didn’t think many people were paying attention to the call until it became “louder.”
Nicholas Luna, Trump’s former assistant, told the committee he was delivering a note to the Oval Office when he overheard some of Trump’s side of the conversation.
“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp,'” Luna said in a taped deposition. “Either he called him a wimp, I don’t remember if he said, ‘You are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp.’ Wimp is the word I remember.”
Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s former chief of staff, said in her deposition she remembered being told by Ivanka Trump “her dad had just had an upsetting conversation with the vice president.”
Radford said she was told the former president had called Pence “the p-word.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser at the time, said in a taped deposition that he remembers Trump telling Pence he wasn’t “tough enough.”
Greg Jacob, who served as Pence’s legal counsel between December 2020 and January 2021, testified live on Thursday about what he experienced on the other side of the call.
Jacob said he and several other people were with Pence finalizing his statement on why he couldn’t unilaterally reject state electors when Pence stepped out of the room to receive the call from Trump.
“No staff went with him,” Jacob told the committee.
After the call, Jacob testified, Pence appeared to be “steely, determined, grim.”
The House select committee on Thursday commended the former vice president for his “courage” in rejecting Trump’s demands.
“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening remarks.
“The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner, or send the votes back to the states to be counted again,” Thompson continued. “Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar, a Democrat who led the hearing Thursday, said it was a “pressure campaign that built to a fever pitch with a heated phone call on Jan. 6.”
Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Aguilar says Americans will hear “how Vice Pres. Pence withstood an onslaught of pressure from Pres. Trump, both publicly and privately.”
The committee also revealed new photographs of Pence and his family hiding in an underground location of the Capitol complex as Trump supporters stormed the building.
In one photo, Pence is seen looking at a tweet Trump had just sent asking rioters to leave the area.
Pence remained in the underground location for four hours as law enforcement officials eventually pushed back the mob.
Jacob, Pence’s former adviser, told the committee that Pence decided to stay in the area so as to “not to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol.”
Jacob also testified that Trump didn’t check in on Pence at all during that time, which left Pence frustrated.
ABC News on Wednesday published exclusively-obtained White House photos of the Pence family after he was evacuated from the Senate floor, where the joint session of Congress was taking place.
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a rare public appearance during the frenzied crush of Supreme Court opinion season, delivered public praise of her colleague Justice Clarence Thomas and gave a pep talk to progressives Thursday as the embattled institution prepares to issue major rulings driven by the court’s conservative majority.
“If it doesn’t kill me, it makes me stronger. That is what adversity does to you,” an upbeat Sotomayor, one of the court’s three liberal justices, told an audience at the American Constitution Society conference in Washington.
In the coming days, the court will issue opinions on abortion, gun rights, immigration, school prayer and climate policy. The justice did not directly address any of the pending cases, or an unprecedented leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito last month that showed the conservative majority ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Sotomayor did, however, discuss how infamous and unjust court decisions can later be corrected, citing the Dred Scott case of 1857, which held that enslaved or free black Americans could not be citizens. She noted that it took eight years and a Civil War to rectify, but that ultimately it was overturned.
“We have to have continuing faith in the court system, in our system of government, in our ability — I hope not through war — but through constitutional amendment, to change in legislation, towards lobbying, towards continuing the battle each day to regain the public’s confidence that we as a court, as an institution have not lost our way,” Sotomayor said.
“We as a society, have taken steps some may disagree with. But if we disagree, we will continue to battle to do justice,” she said.
Alito, in his draft opinion in the abortion case, cited the Scott case to justify overturning Roe, arguing that the 1973 landmark opinion was similarly, in his view, wrongly decided from the start.
Sotomayor’s appearance was the first by a member of the court’s liberal wing since the leaked opinion breached a cherished code of trust, upended court operations and stirred new security threats to the justices, including an alleged assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Her remarks also followed public comments by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas last month, each of whom suggested relations among justices and with their clerks have significantly deteriorated amid recent events.
“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally,” Thomas said at a conference in May. “You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it.”
Sotomayor heaped praise on Justice Thomas — who has been sharply criticized by Democrats and progressive legal scholars for his positions in controversial cases and for the alleged involvement of his wife, Ginni Thomas, in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Thomas was one of the only justices to dissent from the court’s decision to decline to take up several election-related cases.
“I suspect I have probably disagreed with him more than with any other justice, that we have not joined each other’s opinions more than anybody else,” Sotomayor said, and yet “he is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution, about the people who work there…”
Thomas has a “very different philosophy of life,” Sotomayor continued, “but I think we share a common understanding about people and kindness towards them. That’s why I can be friends with him and still continue our daily battle over our difference of opinions in cases.”
While many Democrats and progressive activists have been downtrodden about the direction of the Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority — some are demanding dramatic changes to the size and scope of the court — Sotomayor urged optimism and civility in the face of disappointment.
“You can lie down and let the truck run you over. Or, you can…get up and build the barricades,” she told the crowd. “I don’t mean this literally, I mean it figuratively….Look, there are days I get discouraged. There are moments where I am deeply, deeply disappointed. And yes, there have been moments where I’ve stopped and said, ‘Is this worth it anymore?’ And every time I do that, I lick my wounds for a while. Sometimes I cry. And then I say, OK — let’s fight.”
(WASHINGTON) — Members of the House select committee appeared divided this week on whether they should make a criminal referral against former President Donald Trump at the conclusion of their investigation, with Chairman Bennie Thompson telling reporters it’s “not our job” to prosecute Trump before Vice Chair Liz Cheney said the decision to refer findings hasn’t been made.
The back-and-forth has reignited questions on the merits of sending a criminal referral to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department. A referral is not required for the agency to investigate Trump, nor will one guarantee it, but public hearings outlining Trump’s “seven-point plan” to overturn the 2020 presidential election have amped up pressure on Garland to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump — the first in history against a former president.
While a criminal referral from the Jan. 6 committee might, on paper, end up being a mostly symbolic gesture, experts told ABC News the move deserves careful consideration.
“I don’t think that there is any member of that committee who has any doubt about whether Donald Trump violated the law or questions the actual merits of a criminal referral,” said Claire Finkelstein, director of the Center for Ethics and Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “What I suspect is that it has much more to do with trying to preserve Congress’ authority and not wanting division between those who are trying to hold Donald Trump accountable in Congress and the Justice Department.”
“But,” she added, “the calculation that says, ‘We will hold back, and therefore preserve our own authority,’ is mistaken.”
Pros and cons
Amid concerns that Republicans will paint a criminal referral, and any subsequent DOJ investigation, as politically-motivated, the committee may decide to leave its findings in a public report, which would then serve as an indirect “handoff” to the Justice Department, said Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University School of Law, who outlined some reasons that might give the committee pause.
“The downside with a referral could be that if Garland’s Justice Department does move ahead, that it would be perceived as potentially political by some parts of the American public,” he said. “It could be better for the Justice Department to appear more independent than seeming as though it’s responding to a direct referral coming out of the committee.”
On the other hand, Goodman said, while a referral doesn’t have any compulsory force tied to it, “I think Garland has shown us time and again that he is reactive, not proactive — and what he reacts to are other institutions, forcing the question.”
Garland told reporters that he and his prosecutors are closely watching the committee’s hearings this week, and the Department of Justice sent a new letter on Wednesday telling the committee’s chief investigator it is “critical” members “provide us with copies of the transcripts of all its witness interviews,” which the committee so far has declined to do. The request suggests there are matters DOJ is investigating beyond the violence on the ground on Jan. 6 it is already prosecuting — specifically alternate or fake electors as part of the discredited theory that Pence could unilaterally block the certification of Joe Biden as president.
Regardless of whether the committee makes a formal criminal referral, each legal expert ABC News spoke with said it would be concerning if the government did not, at the very least, open a criminal investigation.
“As a matter of constitutional theory and law and accountability and the separation of powers, if Merrick Garland doesn’t at least try, even if the Justice Department loses, there’s no disincentive left for any future president to not use the massive powers of the White House to commit widespread crimes,” said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a former assistant U.S. attorney. “It’s a green light for a crime spree in the White House because every other lever of accountability has failed.”
Then sentiment is clearly shared by Cheney, who has taken the tone of a criminal prosecutor in the hearings, arguing that Trump and his allies engaged in criminal activity, using video testimony of Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann recalling how he suggested that Trump White House attorney John Eastman “get a great effing criminal defense lawyer.”
Using the clip to tease Thursday’s hearing, Cheney pointedly noted how a federal judge already found Trump’s pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to obstruct the congressional count of electoral votes “more likely than not” violated two federal criminal statutes: obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
“President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing and he had been told it was illegal. Despite this, President Trump plotted with a lawyer named John Eastman and others to overturn the outcome of the election on Jan. 6,” Cheney said.
Trump, in a 12-page statement sent to reporters on Monday night, blasted the panel illegitimate and their presentation one-sided, calling it “a smoke and mirrors show.”
While the committee weighs sending a formal criminal referral, here’s a look at federal statutes the committee and experts say Trump and his allies may have violated:
Obstruction of an official proceeding – 18 U.S.C. § 1512
The committee has outlined an alleged “sophisticated seven-point plan” it says Trump and his allies engaged in with the goal of stopping the peaceful transfer of power, including “corruptly” planning to replace federal and state officials with those who would support his fake election claims and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to violate his oath to the Constitution.
Acting on a plan with the intent to stop the counting of electoral votes would likely violate 18 U.S.C. § 1512, which makes it a felony to attempt to “corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding,” such as a presidential election, and comes with up to 20 years in prison.
“If there is enough evidence to prove that Trump knew he had lost the election, then it’s obvious that he was acting with corrupt intent,” Goodman said. “You can’t try to pressure the vice president to overturn the election if you know you actually lost.”
Cheney, raising texts sent to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging Trump to call for violence to stop on Jan. 6, mirrored language in the statute Monday to raise the question, “Did Donald Trump, through action — or inaction — corruptly seek to instruct or impede Congress’ proceedings to count electoral votes?”
The committee has attempted to make the case that even without a “smoking gun” such as Trump admitting on tape he knew the election was lost, a preponderance of evidence should have made that clear to him, and members will lead their case next to the potential legal culpability of Trump’s direct — and indirect pressure — on the Justice Department and state election officials.
Conspiracy to defraud the United States – 18 U.S.C. § 371
This statute, also raised by Cheney ahead of Thursday’s hearing, criminalizes the agreement between two or more persons to “impair, obstruct or defeat the lawful government functions” and is punishable by up to five years in prison.
As part of the “seven-point plot” Cheney has laid out, the committee argues Trump’s legal team violated this federal criminal statute when instructing Republicans in battleground states to replace Biden electors with slates of Trump electors and send those votes to Congress and the National Archives.
While Trump’s intent to defraud would need to be proved for a conviction, experts interviewed by ABC News say, how Trump relates to other potential defendants would be considered when weighing potential criminal charges to bring, and they note some of his closest allies “have very significant criminal exposure.”
Former Trump White House attorney John Eastman, in drafting a plan for Trump to cling to power by falsely claiming Pence could reject legitimate electors, as well as Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who allegedly with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, told then- Attorney General Bill Barr that Trump was “becoming more realistic” that he lost as they were “working on it,” may have a harder defense to make.
“If those individuals know Trump lost and indicated it, it’s going to be easier to prove the case against them,” Goodman said.
And if those close to Trump are charged, it may be easier to prove he agreed to participate in the conspiracy.
“For example,” Finkelstein said, “if John Eastman is found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States or obstruction of an official proceeding and Donald Trump was found to be in a conspiracy with John Eastman, the exact nature of his intent may not have to be the same as if he is a principal defendant because, under federal conspiracy law, he only needs to have agreed to the object to the conspiracy.”
Seditious conspiracy – 18 U.S.C. § 2384
Seditious conspiracy is defined as when two or more people in the U.S. conspire to “overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force” the U.S. government, or to oppose by force and try to prevent the execution of any law. It comes with 20 years in prison if convicted.
Since the use of force is an element of this crime, and Trump was not on the Capitol grounds during the attack, experts cautioned that the burden of proof might be more difficult in this instance.
“It must mean that Trump acted with foreknowledge and intend to use force and violence, and I think that’s going to be very hard to prove, though there is a lot of evidence that points in that direction,” Goodman said.
The Justice Department last week announced an indictment charging the then-leader and four other members of the extremist far-right group the Proud Boys with seditious conspiracy. Three have pleaded not guilty, and two others are set to enter not guilty pleas on Thursday. In an apparent suggestion the two were linked, the committee has argued that hundreds of Proud Boys traveled to Washington specifically for an insurrection, as indicated by members of the group marching on the Capitol before Trump even began speaking.
If the committee accuses Trump of conspiring with Proud Boys or other far-right extremist groups who are accused of organizing the Capitol attack, there’s more potential for a seditious conspiracy charge, which could then trigger Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits those who had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same [United States], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from serving in government.
“But in some sense,” Goodman cautioned, “it’s easier to prove that Trump might have had more knowledge that his supporters would try to enter the Capitol and occupy the Capitol physically but not use violence.”
Fraud by wire, radio or television – 18 U.S.C. § 1343
The committee introduced evidence this week of Trump and his allies fundraising $250 million off fraudulent election claims, asking for money for an “Official Election Defense Fraud” fund — but the panel said no such fund existed — with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., casting the “big lie” as “a big rip-off.”
“Claims that the election was stolen were so successful, President Trump and his allies raised $250 million, nearly $100 million in the first week after the election,” said Amanda Wick, senior investigative counsel to the committee, in a taped video. “Most of the money raised went to this newly created PAC, not to election-related litigation.”
The allegation has raised questions over potential wire fraud charges, or the attempt to defraud another through physical or electronic mail.
However, experts told ABC News this charge might be more difficult to prove, going back to the question of Trump’s intent. Prosecutors would have to convince a grand jury that Trump intended to mislead.
“He can say, ‘I wasn’t in charge of setting up those fundraising efforts, I didn’t know that they were potentially illegal,'” Wehle said. “So that’s a thornier case.”
To charge or not to charge
The experts ABC spoke with agreed the Jan. 6 committee has made a compelling case so far, and that the onus is on Garland and the Justice Department to follow the roadmap it’s laid out.
They argue the rule of law is at risk.
“What’s at stake is the very structure of our democracy and our ability to hold public officials to the confines of the law,” Finkelstein said.
“The committee’s public hearings have raised the stakes enormously for the country, in the sense that the criminal activity shown to have gone on is so brazen, that if the Justice Department does not enforce the law in this case, it really does further erode the rule of law and democracy,” Goodman said.
“Even if the effort fails, at least there’s a message sent that there is a cop on the block,” Wehle added. “Because we’re headed for a very, very dark era of American history if something doesn’t happen.”
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Alexander Mallin and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Jan. 6 committee is holding its third public hearing of the month Thursday with the focus on the pressure campaign on then-Vice President Mike Pence.
The committee says it will detail efforts from then-President Donald Trump and his allies before and on Jan. 6 to get Pence to reject electoral votes Congress was certifying — as part of what it says was a plot to overturn the presidential election.
Please check back for updates. All times Eastern:
Jun 16, 5:23 pm
Witness warns Trump allies ‘executing a blueprint’ to overturn 2024 election
Former federal judge Michael Luttig, in his closing comments before the committee, reiterated his comments in a New York Times op-ed in February that Trump and his allies were “a clear and present danger to democracy,” warning that Trump or his “anointed successor” could succeed in 2024 in overturning those presidential election results where they failed in 2020.
“The former president and his allies are executing a blueprint for 2024, in open and plain view of the American public,” Luttig told lawmakers.
“I don’t speak those words lightly. I would have never spoken those words I ever in my life,” he said. “Except that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us.”
Chairman Bennie Thompson thanked the witnesses for protecting the “foundation” of U.S. democracy and reiterated hit warning as well.
“There are now some who think the danger has passed. That even though there was violence and a corrupt attempt to overturn the presidential election, the system worked,” the Mississippi Democrat said. “I look at it another way: Our system nearly failed, and our democratic foundation destroyed but for people like you.”
Jun 16, 4:14 pm
Chair teases tip line, exhibits available to public online
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., closing out Thursday’s hearing, drew attention to the committee’s website — — where the public can view the evidence presented in the public hearings and send tips to the committee as its investigation is ongoing.
“Despite how you may not think it’s important, send us what you think,” he said. “I thank those that sent us evidence, for their bravery and patriotism.”
Jun 16, 4:09 pm
Cheney previews next hearing
With searing new evidence, the committee on Thursday sought to draw a direct link between Trump’s actions and the Capitol attack, which it maintained put Vice President Mike Pence’s life at serious risk.
Vice Chair Liz Cheney, in her closing statement, previewed evidence still to come, promising information in their next hearing on Tuesday about Trump’s efforts to apply pressure to Republican slate legislators, election officials and even federal officials to corrupt the electoral count vote.
“We will examine the Trump team’s determination to transmit material false electoral slates from multiple states to officials of the executive and legislative branches of our government,” she said, and “the pressures put on state legislators to convene to reverse lawful election results.”
After establishing Pence on Thursday as an “honorable man” who had the courage to carry out his constitutional duty on Jan. 6 despite a pressure campaign and threats to his life, Cheney ended by drawing a stark contrast with Trump.
“An honorable man receiving the information and advice that Mr. Trump received from his campaign experts and his staff, a man who loved his country more than himself would have conceded this election,” she said. “Indeed, we know that a number of President Trump’s closest aides urged him to do so.”
Jun 16, 4:03 pm
Eastman emailed Rudy Giuliani to be on ‘pardon list,’ committee says
Trump-allied attorney John Eastman, in the days after Jan. 6, emailed Rudy Giuliani about a possible pardon.
“I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works,” Eastman wrote to Giuliani, the committee showed.
Eastman wasn’t pardoned and when he was was deposed by the House panel, he pleaded the fifth 100 times, Rep. Pete Aguilar noted.
Jun 16, 3:51 pm
Pence’s life in danger as he hid for hours with rioters 40 feet away: Committee
Showing video footage of Secret Service agents rushing Pence down stairs in the Capitol, the committee said Pence was in hiding for four and a half hours, while, at times, rioters were just 40 feet away.
Greg Jacob, a former adviser to Pence who was with the vice president on Jan. 6 told the hearing room, “I could hear the din of the mob as we moved, but I don’t think I was aware,” when told how close they got.
“Approximately 40 feet, that’s all there was, 40 feet between the vice president and the mob,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., telling Jacob, “Forty feet is the distance from me to you roughly.”
“Make no mistake about the fact that the vice president’s life was in danger,” Aguilar said, arguing the “big lie” directly contributed to the Capitol attack and put Pence’s life at serious risk. “A recent court filing by the Department of Justice explains that a confidential informant from the Proud Boys told the FBI that the Proud Boys would’ve killed Mike Pence, if given the chance.”
Jun 16, 3:50 pm
Trump attorney pressured Pence to delay certification even after the riot, email shows
John Eastman, an attorney advising the Trump campaign, sent an email after the riot at the U.S. Capitol to once again pressure Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act, according to the committee’s presentation Thursday.
“I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for ten days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations,” Eastman wrote to Pence adviser Greg Jacob at 11:44 p.m. that day.
Jacob said he relayed Eastman’s message to Pence, who responded that the email was “rubber room stuff.”
“What did you interpret that to mean?” Rep. Pete Aguilar asked Jacob.
Jacob replied he translated that to mean Pence was calling it “certifiably crazy.”
Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told the committee that on Jan. 7, 2021, after Pence certified Joe Biden’s victory, Eastman called him to talk about a possible appeal in Georgia.
“I said to him, ‘Are you out of your f—— mind?’ I said, ‘I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now: orderly transition,” Herschmann recalled.
Jun 16, 3:39 pm
Trump aware of insurrection underway when he tweeted criticism at Pence: Committee
The committee displayed a slate of video testimony from those inside the White House and close to Trump to argue he was well aware of the violence underway on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 when he tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary” at 2:24 p.m.
Trump White House aide Sarah Matthews, in video testimony with the committee, recalled, “It felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that.”
“It was clear that it is escalating, and escalating quickly,” she said. “When the Mike Pence tweet was sent out, I remember us saying that that was the last thing that needed to be tweeted out. The situation was already bad.”
Earlier, Rep. Pete Aguilar noted that the Capitol building itself was breached at 2:13 p.m. As the attack continued, Trump tweeted to “stay peaceful” at 2:38 p.m., said “no violence” at 3:13 p.m., and finally, at 4:17, he tweeted a video that telling people to go home while also saying, “We love you,” and repeating the false claim the election was stolen.
Jun 16, 3:24 pm
Witnesses recount for first time ‘heated’ Jan. 6 call between Trump, Pence: ‘Wimp’
Ivanka Trump, former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and others told the committee in previously taped testimony what they heard when Trump called Pence from the Oval Office on Jan. 6.
“The conversation was pretty heated,” Ivanka Trump recalled.
Nicholas Luna, Trump’s former assistant, described entering the Oval Office at the time to deliver a note and hearing Trump say the word “wimp.”
“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp’,” Luna told the committee. “Either he called him a wimp, I don’t remember if he said, ‘You are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp.’ Wimp is the word I remember.”
Gen. Keith Kellog, Pence’s national security adviser at the time, said in his deposition that Trump told Pence he wasn’t “tough” enough. Ivanka’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, told the committee that Ivanka said Trump called Pence “the p-word.”
Jun 16, 3:10 pm
Committee says Trump’s chief of staff discussed how plan was illegal
Committee members revealed evidence that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows knew — or was at least telling other aides that he agreed with their view — that Trump and his attorney John Eastman’s plan to overturn the election was illegal and that Pence had no ability to reject electoral votes for Biden sent to Congress.
In his taped interview with the committee, Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short told panel lawyers that that Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, said he agreed with Short and Pence that the vice president lacked such authority.
“Did Mr. Meadows ever explicitly … agree with you or say, ‘Yeah, that makes sense’?” interviewers asked.
“I believe that Mark did agree,” Short said. “But as I mentioned, I think Mark told so many people so many different things that it was not something that I would necessarily accept as … resolved.”
-ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel
Jun 16, 3:04 pm
Pence’s chief of staff alerted Secret Service about VP’s safety on Jan. 5
Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, said he grew worried about the vice president’s safety as the disagreement between Pence and Trump escalated in the days leading up to Jan. 6.
“The concern was for the vice president’s security, so I wanted to make sure the head of the vice president’s Secret Service was aware that likely, as these disputes became more public, that the president would lash out in some way,” Short said in his taped deposition.
Short called the Secret Service on Jan. 5, 2021.
“After the recess, we will hear that Marc Short’s concerns were justified,” Rep. Pete Anguilar said. “The vice president was in danger.”
Jun 16, 2:58 pm
DOJ tells committee it’s ‘critical’ to provide investigation intel
As Attorney General Merrick Garland and his prosecutors are closely watching the hearings conducted by the committee this week, the Department of Justice sent a new letter telling the committee it is “critical” members “provide us with copies of the transcripts of all its witness interviews.”
In a letter to the committee’s chief investigator Wednesday, senior officials at the Justice Department said that the first two hearings this month showed the interviews conducted by the hearing “are not just potentially relevant to our overall criminal investigations but are likely relevant to specific prosecutions that have already commenced.”
The request suggests there are matters beyond violence on the ground on Jan. 6 that the Justice Department is already investigating — specifically alternate or fake electors as a part of the theory that Pence could unilaterally block the ceremony of Joe Biden as President.
Click here for more on potential federal crimes the committee has floated.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Jun 16, 3:23 pm
Attorney who pushed theory Pence could save Trump previously dismissed that same claim: Docs
Trump White House attorney John Eastman, at the center of the alleged scheme to send a false slate of electors to Congress and have Pence refuse to certify votes, based his reasoning on a theory the committee argued he never believed.
According to the committee, Eastman sought to take advantage of an ambiguity in the Electoral Count Act and claim the vice president could has the constitutional authority to reject electoral votes outright and use his capacity as presiding officer to suspend the proceedings.
“He described for me what he thought the ambiguity was in the statute. And he was walking through it at that time. And I said, ‘Hold on a second, I don’t understand you’re saying,'” said former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann in taped testimony.
Showing past documents, the committee said that Eastman had dismissed the same power he later claimed Pence could have used.
“In this letter, an idea was proposed that the vice president could determine which electors to count — but the person writing in blue negates that argument,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar. “Judge Luttig, does it surprise you that the author of those comments in blue, are in fact, John Eastman?
Former federal judge Michael Luttig responded “yes” and called it “constitutional mischief.”
Jun 16, 2:32 pm
Pence told Trump ‘many times’ he couldn’t overturn election: Marc Short
The committee aired several clips featuring Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Jason Miller, Steve Bannon and others publicly pressuring Pence to refuse the Electoral College votes that were in favor of Joe Biden.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Trump said in one video from his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. “He’s a great guy. If he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”
Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, told the committee in previously recorded testimony that Pence directly conveyed his view to Trump “many times” that he didn’t have the authority to do what they were asking of him.
“He’d been consistent in conveying his position to the president?” the committee asked Short.
“Very consistent,” Short replied.
Jun 16, 2:09 pm
Pence and adviser found that ‘history was absolutely decisive’: He couldn’t help Trump
Greg Jacob, a former adviser to Pence, said they analyzed history and constitutional text to map out the vice president’s role when it came to certifying elections.
The two then examined “every single electoral vote count that had happened in Congress” since the country’s founding, Jacob testified. They found no vice president ever claimed to have the kind of authority Trump and his attorney John Eastman claimed Pence had.
“The history was absolutely decisive and again, part of my discussion with Mr. Eastman was, ‘If you were right, don’t you think Al Gore might have liked to have known in 2000 that he had authority to just declare himself president of the United States? Did you think that the Democrat lawyers just didn’t think of this very obvious quirk that he could use to do that?’”
Jun 16, 2:15 pm
Trump, Pence haven’t spoken in a year: Sources
Trump and Pence haven’t spoken to one another since last summer, according to sources familiar with their conversations.
Pence defended Trump through a slate of controversies during their administration. But, as the House committee is highlighting at its hearings, Pence drew a line at Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the election — breaking from the president and drawing the rage of the Trump mob on Jan. 6.
When ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl interviewed Trump for his book “Betrayal,” Karl asked about the “Hang Mike Pence” chants and whether Trump had been concerned for the safety of the man he chose to be his vice president.
“Well, the people were very angry,” Trump said.
“They said, ‘hang Mike Pence,’” Karl told Trump.
“It’s common sense, Jon. It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect,” Trump said. “How can you, if you know a vote is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”
While Pence himself isn’t testifying and has not sat before the committee, a range of former Pence aides cooperated with the investigation.
Since his term ended, Pence has publicly reiterated he had no power to overturn the 2020 results. But like other conservatives, he has said “election integrity” should be a national priority.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders
Jun 16, 1:40 pm
Inside the hearing room
Notable faces were spotted across the hearing room as proceedings kicked off Thursday.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Capitol Police Staff Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges and former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who testified at the committee’s first hearing last year on their experience defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, were all present.
Former Pence national security adviser Olivia Troye, who resigned from the administration in 2020, was spotted sitting next to Gonell as well as Allison Gill, a former high-level Veterans Affairs official who was secretly recording a podcast on the weekends about Robert Mueller’s investigation that attracted thousands of listeners.
A couple of members of Congress have been spotted in the back of the room including Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., sitting together. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who along with Vice Chair Liz Cheney has been ostracized by the Republican Party for speaking out against Trump, also stopped by.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Benjamin Siegel
Jun 16, 1:35 pm
Retired judge says Trump risked throwing country into ‘revolution’
In his testimony on Thursday, former federal judge Michael Luttig painted a dire picture of what he believed would have happened had Pence followed through with Trump’s plea to remain in power.
“That declaration of Donald Trump as the next president would have plunged America into what I believe would’ve been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America,” Luttig said, “which in my view, and I am only one man, would’ve been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.”
Luttig is one of the panel’s two live witnesses in today’s hearing. The former judge informally advised Pence on his role in affirming the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Jun 16, 1:35 pm
Clip played of Pence saying Trump was ‘wrong’
In her opening statement, Vice Chair Liz Cheney played a clip of a Pence pushing back against Trump’s claim that he had the power to overturn the 2020 election in the weeks after the Jan. 6 attack.
“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in a speech in February before The Federalist Society. “I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
Cheney said the select committee will now reveal the details of that pressure campaign.
Jun 16, 1:10 pm
Thompson commends Pence’s ‘courage’ in rejecting Trump’s orders
The House select committee has kicked off its third of seven public hearings slated for this month.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., gaveled in the hearing just after 1 p.m.
“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done,” Thompson said in his opening remarks. “The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again. Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong. We are fortunate for Mr. Pence’s courage on Jan. 6. Our democracy came dangerously close to catastrophe. That courage put him in tremendous danger.”
Jun 16, 11:22 am
Live witnesses for Thursday
Pence himself will not appear before the committee, but his adviser Greg Jacobs — who was with the former vice president the day of the Capitol insurrection — is slated to testify. Jacobs, who is an attorney, pushed back against legal theories that Pence could single-handedly stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
Former federal judge Michael Luttig will also testify in front of lawmakers. Luttig previously told ABC News that if Pence had attempted to keep Trump in power, he would’ve “plunged the country into a constitutional crisis of the highest order.”
In addition to the live witnesses, the committee is expected to include pre-recorded video testimony from Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, and others who have been deposed behind closed doors.
Jun 16, 11:02 am
Rep. Pete Aguilar to lead hearing
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., is going to be leading this third hearing, which he said will “lay out new evidence about the pressure campaign against Vice President Pence asking him to reject the votes of millions of people.”
Former U.S. Attorney John Wood will also be questioning the witnesses on Thursday, according to committee aides. Wood was federal prosecutor during the George W. Bush administration and is now a senior investigative counsel for the House committee.
Aguilar told reporters earlier this week that through these public hearings, the committee is making the point that “Trump was at the center of a coordinated strategy to overturn the results of a free and fair election.”
Jun 16, 10:29 am
Thursday to focus on Trump pressuring Pence
The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol will convene its third public hearing of the month at 1 p.m. with members set to focus on how former President Donald Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence with “relentless effort” to intervene to help overturn the 2020 election.
“President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing and he had been told it was illegal,” Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in a video teasing Thursday’s hearing. “Despite this, President Trump plotted with a lawyer named John Eastman and others to overturn the outcome of the election on Jan. 6.”
A key component of evidence is never-before-seen photos of Pence and his family taken by an official White House photographer on Jan. 6 itself. In one — obtained by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl ahead of the hearing — second lady Karen Pence is seen hurriedly closing the curtains of the vice president’s ceremonial office at the Capitol, apparently fearful the mob outside could see where they were.
Last week, at the prime-time kickoff to this round of hearings, Cheney teased testimony to come around Trump’s awareness of rioters’ “hang Mike Pence” chants. Quoting from witness testimony, Cheney said Trump suggested as the attack was underway: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it.”
(WASHINGTON) — Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker this week acknowledged he has three more children in addition to the son, Christian, he has publicly helped raise for the last 20 years.
Walker’s statements on the matter, issued via his campaign, come after a series of reports in The Daily Beast about his other kids — all of whom have remained out of the spotlight cast on their father, a businessman and college football legend in his home state.
Walker, who has talked about the importance of his being a dad to Christian, had not previously discussed his role as a parent to multiple children.
The issue of Walker’s involvement as a father has brought renewed focus to the fact that he has repeatedly touted the importance of being an active father and, in particular, has said “the fatherless home is a major, major problem” for Black people.
It is, however, unclear what role Walker has played in the life of his children beyond Christian, a budding conservative social media influencer whom he shares with his first wife.
In statements to ABC News, Walker pushed back on any criticism that his kids were kept out of view.
“I have four children. Three sons and a daughter. They’re not ‘undisclosed’ – they’re my kids,” he said on Thursday. “I support them all and love them all. I’ve never denied my children, I confirmed this when I was appointed to the President’s Council on Sports Fitness and Nutrition, I just chose not to use them as props to win a political campaign. What parent would want their child involved in garbage, gutter politics like this?”
He continued: “Saying I hide my children because I don’t discuss them with reporters to win a campaign? That’s outrageous. I can take the heat, that’s politics — but leave my kids alone.”
A court order obtained by ABC News shows Walker admitted in 2013 to being the youngest boy’s father after the boy’s mother filed a paternity petition that April.
In an initial statement on Wednesday, Walker’s campaign manager, Scott Paradise, insisted that the 10-year-old boy wasn’t being hidden.
“Herschel had a child years ago when he wasn’t married. He’s supported the child and continues to do so. He’s proud of his children,” Paradise said. “To suggest that Herschel is ‘hiding’ the child because he hasn’t used him in his political campaign is offensive and absurd.”
Paradise pointed to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s court fight with his ex-wife over their child custody arrangement. (Walker hopes to unseat Warnock in November.)
A spokeswoman for Warnock, Meredith Brasher, told ABC News on Wednesday he is a “devoted father who is proud to continue to co-parent his two children as he works for the people of Georgia.”
Walker, who easily won the Republican nomination in the state’s primary in May, has previously faced scrutiny about his personal life. That includes allegations of violent behavior and his diagnosis with dissociative identity disorder, or D.I.D., a complex mental health condition characterized by some severe and potentially debilitating symptoms.
Walker has denied some of the past allegations of domestic violence, physical threats and stalking; others he claimed not to remember.
His campaign previously referred ABC News to his 2008 memoir, which detailed his D.I.D. diagnosis, and a 2008 interview he did with ABC News in which he discussed its effects on his first marriage.
ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman, Pete Madden and Stephanie Lorenzo contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Jan. 6 committee is holding its third public hearing of the month Thursday with the focus on the pressure campaign on then-Vice President Mike Pence.
The committee says it will detail efforts from then-President Donald Trump and his allies before and on Jan. 6 to get Pence to reject electoral votes Congress was certifying — as part of what it says was a plot to overturn the presidential election.
Please check back for updates. All times Eastern:
Jun 16, 3:51 pm
Pence’s life in danger as he hid for hours with rioters 40 feet away: Committee
Showing video footage of Secret Service agents rushing Pence down stairs in the Capitol, the committee said Pence was in hiding for four and a half hours, while, at times, rioters were just 40 feet away.
Greg Jacob, a former adviser to Pence who was with the vice president on Jan. 6 told the hearing room, “I could hear the din of the mob as we moved, but I don’t think I was aware,” when told how close they got.
“Approximately 40 feet, that’s all there was, 40 feet between the vice president and the mob,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., telling Jacob, “Forty feet is the distance from me to you roughly.”
“Make no mistake about the fact that the vice president’s life was in danger,” Aguilar said, arguing the “big lie” directly contributed to the Capitol attack and put Pence’s life at serious risk. “A recent court filing by the Department of Justice explains that a confidential informant from the Proud Boys told the FBI that the Proud Boys would’ve killed Mike Pence, if given the chance.”
Jun 16, 3:50 pm
Trump attorney pressured Pence to delay certification even after the riot, email shows
John Eastman, an attorney advising the Trump campaign, sent an email after the riot at the U.S. Capitol to once again pressure Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act, according to the committee’s presentation Thursday.
“I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for ten days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations,” Eastman wrote to Pence adviser Greg Jacob at 11:44 p.m. that day.
Jacob said he relayed Eastman’s message to Pence, who responded that the email was “rubber room stuff.”
“What did you interpret that to mean?” Rep. Pete Aguilar asked Jacob.
Jacob replied he translated that to mean Pence was calling it “certifiably crazy.”
Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told the committee that on Jan. 7, 2021, after Pence certified Joe Biden’s victory, Eastman called him to talk about a possible appeal in Georgia.
“I said to him, ‘Are you out of your f—— mind?’ I said, ‘I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now: orderly transition,” Herschmann recalled.
Jun 16, 3:39 pm
Trump aware of insurrection underway when he tweeted criticism at Pence: Committee
The committee displayed a slate of video testimony from those inside the White House and close to Trump to argue he was well aware of the violence underway on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 when he tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary” at 2:24 p.m.
Trump White House aide Sarah Matthews, in video testimony with the committee, recalled, “It felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that.”
“It was clear that it is escalating, and escalating quickly,” she said. “When the Mike Pence tweet was sent out, I remember us saying that that was the last thing that needed to be tweeted out. The situation was already bad.”
Earlier, Rep. Pete Aguilar noted that the Capitol building itself was breached at 2:13 p.m. As the attack continued, Trump tweeted to “stay peaceful” at 2:38 p.m., said “no violence” at 3:13 p.m., and finally, at 4:17, he tweeted a video that telling people to go home while also saying, “We love you,” and repeating the false claim the election was stolen.
Jun 16, 3:24 pm
Witnesses recount for first time ‘heated’ Jan. 6 call between Trump, Pence: ‘Wimp’
Ivanka Trump, former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and others told the committee in previously taped testimony what they heard when Trump called Pence from the Oval Office on Jan. 6.
“The conversation was pretty heated,” Ivanka Trump recalled.
Nicholas Luna, Trump’s former assistant, described entering the Oval Office at the time to deliver a note and hearing Trump say the word “wimp.”
“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp’,” Luna told the committee. “Either he called him a wimp, I don’t remember if he said, ‘You are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp.’ Wimp is the word I remember.”
Gen. Keith Kellog, Pence’s national security adviser at the time, said in his deposition that Trump told Pence he wasn’t “tough” enough. Ivanka’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, told the committee that Ivanka said Trump called Pence “the p-word.”
Jun 16, 3:10 pm
Committee says Trump’s chief of staff discussed how plan was illegal
Committee members revealed evidence that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows knew — or was at least telling other aides that he agreed with their view — that Trump and his attorney John Eastman’s plan to overturn the election was illegal and that Pence had no ability to reject electoral votes for Biden sent to Congress.
In his taped interview with the committee, Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short told panel lawyers that that Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, said he agreed with Short and Pence that the vice president lacked such authority.
“Did Mr. Meadows ever explicitly … agree with you or say, ‘Yeah, that makes sense’?” interviewers asked.
“I believe that Mark did agree,” Short said. “But as I mentioned, I think Mark told so many people so many different things that it was not something that I would necessarily accept as … resolved.”
-ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel
Jun 16, 3:04 pm
Pence’s chief of staff alerted Secret Service about VP’s safety on Jan. 5
Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, said he grew worried about the vice president’s safety as the disagreement between Pence and Trump escalated in the days leading up to Jan. 6.
“The concern was for the vice president’s security, so I wanted to make sure the head of the vice president’s Secret Service was aware that likely, as these disputes became more public, that the president would lash out in some way,” Short said in his taped deposition.
Short called the Secret Service on Jan. 5, 2021.
“After the recess, we will hear that Marc Short’s concerns were justified,” Rep. Pete Anguilar said. “The vice president was in danger.”
Jun 16, 2:58 pm
DOJ tells committee it’s ‘critical’ to provide investigation intel
As Attorney General Merrick Garland and his prosecutors are closely watching the hearings conducted by the committee this week, the Department of Justice sent a new letter telling the committee it is “critical” members “provide us with copies of the transcripts of all its witness interviews.”
In a letter to the committee’s chief investigator Wednesday, senior officials at the Justice Department said that the first two hearings this month showed the interviews conducted by the hearing “are not just potentially relevant to our overall criminal investigations but are likely relevant to specific prosecutions that have already commenced.”
The request suggests there are matters beyond violence on the ground on Jan. 6 that the Justice Department is already investigating — specifically alternate or fake electors as a part of the theory that Pence could unilaterally block the ceremony of Joe Biden as President.
Click here for more on potential federal crimes the committee has floated.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Jun 16, 3:23 pm
Attorney who pushed theory Pence could save Trump previously dismissed that same claim: Docs
Trump White House attorney John Eastman, at the center of the alleged scheme to send a false slate of electors to Congress and have Pence refuse to certify votes, based his reasoning on a theory the committee argued he never believed.
According to the committee, Eastman sought to take advantage of an ambiguity in the Electoral Count Act and claim the vice president could has the constitutional authority to reject electoral votes outright and use his capacity as presiding officer to suspend the proceedings.
“He described for me what he thought the ambiguity was in the statute. And he was walking through it at that time. And I said, ‘Hold on a second, I don’t understand you’re saying,'” said former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann in taped testimony.
Showing past documents, the committee said that Eastman had dismissed the same power he later claimed Pence could have used.
“In this letter, an idea was proposed that the vice president could determine which electors to count — but the person writing in blue negates that argument,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar. “Judge Luttig, does it surprise you that the author of those comments in blue, are in fact, John Eastman?
Former federal judge Michael Luttig responded “yes” and called it “constitutional mischief.”
Jun 16, 2:32 pm
Pence told Trump ‘many times’ he couldn’t overturn election: Marc Short
The committee aired several clips featuring Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Jason Miller, Steve Bannon and others publicly pressuring Pence to refuse the Electoral College votes that were in favor of Joe Biden.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Trump said in one video from his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. “He’s a great guy. If he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”
Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, told the committee in previously recorded testimony that Pence directly conveyed his view to Trump “many times” that he didn’t have the authority to do what they were asking of him.
“He’d been consistent in conveying his position to the president?” the committee asked Short.
“Very consistent,” Short replied.
Jun 16, 2:09 pm
Pence and adviser found that ‘history was absolutely decisive’: He couldn’t help Trump
Greg Jacob, a former adviser to Pence, said they analyzed history and constitutional text to map out the vice president’s role when it came to certifying elections.
The two then examined “every single electoral vote count that had happened in Congress” since the country’s founding, Jacob testified. They found no vice president ever claimed to have the kind of authority Trump and his attorney John Eastman claimed Pence had.
“The history was absolutely decisive and again, part of my discussion with Mr. Eastman was, ‘If you were right, don’t you think Al Gore might have liked to have known in 2000 that he had authority to just declare himself president of the United States? Did you think that the Democrat lawyers just didn’t think of this very obvious quirk that he could use to do that?’”
Jun 16, 2:15 pm
Trump, Pence haven’t spoken in a year: Sources
Trump and Pence haven’t spoken to one another since last summer, according to sources familiar with their conversations.
Pence defended Trump through a slate of controversies during their administration. But, as the House committee is highlighting at its hearings, Pence drew a line at Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the election — breaking from the president and drawing the rage of the Trump mob on Jan. 6.
When ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl interviewed Trump for his book “Betrayal,” Karl asked about the “Hang Mike Pence” chants and whether Trump had been concerned for the safety of the man he chose to be his vice president.
“Well, the people were very angry,” Trump said.
“They said, ‘hang Mike Pence,’” Karl told Trump.
“It’s common sense, Jon. It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect,” Trump said. “How can you, if you know a vote is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”
While Pence himself isn’t testifying and has not sat before the committee, a range of former Pence aides cooperated with the investigation.
Since his term ended, Pence has publicly reiterated he had no power to overturn the 2020 results. But like other conservatives, he has said “election integrity” should be a national priority.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders
Jun 16, 1:40 pm
Inside the hearing room
Notable faces were spotted across the hearing room as proceedings kicked off Thursday.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Capitol Police Staff Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges and former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who testified at the committee’s first hearing last year on their experience defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, were all present.
Former Pence national security adviser Olivia Troye, who resigned from the administration in 2020, was spotted sitting next to Gonell as well as Allison Gill, a former high-level Veterans Affairs official who was secretly recording a podcast on the weekends about Robert Mueller’s investigation that attracted thousands of listeners.
A couple of members of Congress have been spotted in the back of the room including Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., sitting together. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who along with Vice Chair Liz Cheney has been ostracized by the Republican Party for speaking out against Trump, also stopped by.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Benjamin Siegel
Jun 16, 1:35 pm
Retired judge says Trump risked throwing country into ‘revolution’
In his testimony on Thursday, former federal judge Michael Luttig painted a dire picture of what he believed would have happened had Pence followed through with Trump’s plea to remain in power.
“That declaration of Donald Trump as the next president would have plunged America into what I believe would’ve been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America,” Luttig said, “which in my view, and I am only one man, would’ve been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.”
Luttig is one of the panel’s two live witnesses in today’s hearing. The former judge informally advised Pence on his role in affirming the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Jun 16, 1:35 pm
Clip played of Pence saying Trump was ‘wrong’
In her opening statement, Vice Chair Liz Cheney played a clip of a Pence pushing back against Trump’s claim that he had the power to overturn the 2020 election in the weeks after the Jan. 6 attack.
“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in a speech in February before The Federalist Society. “I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
Cheney said the select committee will now reveal the details of that pressure campaign.
Jun 16, 1:10 pm
Thompson commends Pence’s ‘courage’ in rejecting Trump’s orders
The House select committee has kicked off its third of seven public hearings slated for this month.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., gaveled in the hearing just after 1 p.m.
“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done,” Thompson said in his opening remarks. “The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again. Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong. We are fortunate for Mr. Pence’s courage on Jan. 6. Our democracy came dangerously close to catastrophe. That courage put him in tremendous danger.”
Jun 16, 11:22 am
Live witnesses for Thursday
Pence himself will not appear before the committee, but his adviser Greg Jacobs — who was with the former vice president the day of the Capitol insurrection — is slated to testify. Jacobs, who is an attorney, pushed back against legal theories that Pence could single-handedly stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
Former federal judge Michael Luttig will also testify in front of lawmakers. Luttig previously told ABC News that if Pence had attempted to keep Trump in power, he would’ve “plunged the country into a constitutional crisis of the highest order.”
In addition to the live witnesses, the committee is expected to include pre-recorded video testimony from Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, and others who have been deposed behind closed doors.
Jun 16, 11:02 am
Rep. Pete Aguilar to lead hearing
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., is going to be leading this third hearing, which he said will “lay out new evidence about the pressure campaign against Vice President Pence asking him to reject the votes of millions of people.”
Former U.S. Attorney John Wood will also be questioning the witnesses on Thursday, according to committee aides. Wood was federal prosecutor during the George W. Bush administration and is now a senior investigative counsel for the House committee.
Aguilar told reporters earlier this week that through these public hearings, the committee is making the point that “Trump was at the center of a coordinated strategy to overturn the results of a free and fair election.”
Jun 16, 10:29 am
Thursday to focus on Trump pressuring Pence
The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol will convene its third public hearing of the month at 1 p.m. with members set to focus on how former President Donald Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence with “relentless effort” to intervene to help overturn the 2020 election.
“President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing and he had been told it was illegal,” Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in a video teasing Thursday’s hearing. “Despite this, President Trump plotted with a lawyer named John Eastman and others to overturn the outcome of the election on Jan. 6.”
A key component of evidence is never-before-seen photos of Pence and his family taken by an official White House photographer on Jan. 6 itself. In one — obtained by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl ahead of the hearing — second lady Karen Pence is seen hurriedly closing the curtains of the vice president’s ceremonial office at the Capitol, apparently fearful the mob outside could see where they were.
Last week, at the prime-time kickoff to this round of hearings, Cheney teased testimony to come around Trump’s awareness of rioters’ “hang Mike Pence” chants. Quoting from witness testimony, Cheney said Trump suggested as the attack was underway: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it.”
