CNN
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The House January 6 committee corroborated key details involving former President Donald Trump’s heated exchange with the Secret Service when Trump was told he could not go to the Capitol – the latest in a string of shocking revelations that have come from the summer hearings with their expected high-profile conclusion next week.
CNN first reported Thursday evening that a Washington, DC, police officer in the motorcade with the Secret Service corroborated details to the committee that were related to the explosive House select committee public testimony earlier this month. At the same time, the Secret Service came under new scrutiny this week over the deletion of agency text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021. On Friday, the January 6 committee issued a subpoena to the Secret Service, asking for the text messages.
The corroboration comes as the committee plans to zero in on Trump’s conduct on January 6, 2021 at its hearing next week, which will focus on Trump’s response – or lack thereof – as rioters breached the Capitol walls and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers.
Select committee members have accused Trump of a “dereliction of duty” for failing to act as the Capitol was under attack – and his vice president, Mike Pence – was in danger. Next week’s hearing is the last planned of the committee’s eight public hearings as the panel has sought in each session to tie Trump to the deadly attack that unfolded on January 6.
“There will be a lot of information, a lot more clarity about the details of the things that happened that day, what the people who were working in the White House, working around the President and even people who were advising him to do things, actions that he was not taking based off of their reasoned advice,” Virginia Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, who will help lead the next hearing, told CNN this week. “I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn’t act. He did not take action to stop the violence.”
New details about Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden have continued to emerge. On Saturday, The New York Times reported that a little-known conservative lawyer, William Olson, spoke to Trump in December 2020 about efforts to enlist the Justice Department to sign on to a lawsuit at the US Supreme Court to overturn the presidential election results, according to a memo Olson drafted documenting the call. Olson urged Trump to replace his then-acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, if Rosen would not endorse the Supreme Court lawsuit, according to the memo. Olson also encouraged Trump to replace lawyers in the White House counsel’s office and to take steps related to the election that would effectively have amounted to “martial law.”
The Justice Department’s probe has also been expanding, as it’s issued numerous subpoenas in recent weeks and is seeking information in all seven battleground states where Trump’s campaign convened false electors as part of an effort to subvert the Electoral College. Beyond charging rioters, the department has asked questions about the organization of rallies that preceded the attack, searched a Trump election attorney’s cell phone and the home of a former Justice Department official, as well as continued its grand jury activity around extremist groups. It has been moving closer to political circles around Trump.
While the DOJ investigation has appeared to lag in some ways behind the House committee’s work, and while the two probes have largely operated separate and apart from one another, they have also been starting to intersect.
The committee announced Friday that it would hold the hearing on Thursday, July 21 at 8 p.m. ET – the panel’s second prime-time session to try to maximize…
Read More: January 6 committee’s investigation stirs up fresh revelations ahead of last planned hearing