Last Sunday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who refuses to talk to the House January 6 committee about his involvement with the insurrection, said, “It is our job to tell the truth and take the truth to the American people.” On the Fox network, political adviser Kristal Knight talked about serious allegations that Jordan concealed sexual crimes while he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State University. She added, “This is the same Jim Jordan who sent a text on Jan. 5 encouraging the insurrection.” Jordan, in his search for the “truth,” has indicated great difficulty remembering the times of his personal calls with Dictator Donald Trump (DDT).
These are some “truths” that Jordan is avoiding.
Jordan’s “truth” can begin with the new three-hour video from DOJ of January 6’s battle between rioters and police with attackers’ weapons and beatings of officers.
For the House investigation committee, a team of 40 investigators and staff members, including federal prosecutors, have compiled over 30,000 records and interviewed over 300 witnesses, including a dozen last week who provided “key” testimony, according to committee members. Committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA) said the committee wants to ask Jordan about coup participants being offered presidential pardons before DDT left the White House.
Also on the hot seat is Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) who refused to submit to voluntary testimony by stating he “will continue to fight the failures of the left.” He also declared “immense respect for the Constitution.” The committee has evidence that Perry, a believer in the “stolen” election, had “an important role” in moving DOJ official Jeffrey Clark into the acting attorney general position. Clark was key in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential results, feeding DDT’s lies of voter fraud. Perry communicated DDT’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows through the encrypted Signal app. Clark has already said he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In his fifth term in Congress, Perry has spread lies such as an aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) committing a “substantial security threat’ with “massive” data transfers. She was cleared. He also accused then-CNN host Chris Cuomo of exaggerating the lack of water and electricity in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, connected to almost 3,000 deaths, and contradicted law enforcement by trying to connect the mass shooting in Las Vegas to the Islamic State. Perry was one of 18 House Republicans to vote against a resolution condemning QAnon.
Other subpoenaed witnesses for testimony are trying DDT’s ploy of taking their objections to the courts. A federal judge already denied Michael Flynn’s motion for a temporary retraining order. Flynn hasn’t worked in the administration since he was fired as national security adviser under three weeks after DDT’s inauguration. Flynn is also joined by convicted Alex Jones, who is also suing to hide documents.
Peter Navarro, DDT’s trade adviser who was discovered by DDT’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on Amazon books, outlined how he and DDT’s former adviser Steve Bannon planned and carried out “Green Bay Sweep” for January 6. He said they “spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators…. At 1 p.m., [Arizona’s Rep. Paul] Gosar and [Texas’ Sen. Ted] Cruz did exactly what was expected of them.” The plan “was designed to get us 24 hours of televised hearings” and “bypass the corporate media.” Each congressional chamber is required to allow up to two hours debate for each challenged state. For six states, that’s 24 hours.
Another committee search is into DDT’s telephone calls to his troops at the Willard Hotel working on plans to overturn the election. Although the committee cannot ask for one specific call from the National Archives, it can request all White House calls on January 5 and 6. Because VP Mike Pence didn’t want to follow DDT’s plan to stop the counting of electoral votes, DDT asked his team led by lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, and strategist Steve Bannon to find another way to delay certification. Giuliani may be getting a subpoena for information. On the evening of January 5, DDT talked with lawyers and non-lawyers at the Willard separately because Giuliani didn’t want non-lawyers on the calls to jeopardize attorney-client privilege claims. Committee member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that this privilege doesn’t protect people committing crimes from investigating them. Subpoenas reveal only the target and time of calls.
The January 6 committee wants to see the multiple videos DDT made during the insurrection and not used because the team said they wouldn’t calm the rioting, according to committee chair Bennie Thompson (R-MS). The final one was made out in the open in front of the White House although VP Mike Pence and congressional members of both parties, the first three people in the presidential line of succession, had to hide from the violent attackers. During DDT’s 187-minute delay, five people died, 140 people including police officers were wounded, and lawmakers feared for their lives, some of the contracting COVID because of their forced proximity.
The Pentagon indicated that military leaders didn’t call out the National Guard for fear that DDT would invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to take power and block the orderly reading of electoral votes. The Guard wasn’t deployed until DDT released his video telling the insurrectionists to leave the Capitol. When DDT walked across the cleared protesters for his photo-op in front of a church, his aides had already prepared a draft of the order to deploy troops in the city under the Insurrection Act. Three days before the insurrection, the ten living defense secretaries published a warning op-ed in the Washington Post about the unconstitutional danger of using “U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes.
DDT may face the same charge as 240 insurrectionists at the Capitol—obstructing an official congressional proceeding, a tactic never before seen for an event never before seen. A provision in the statute against witness tampering makes it a crime for anyone who “corruptly… obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding,” or tries to do so. Even a DDT-appointed judge approved the use of this provision against rioters.
The question is what happens to the person who led hundreds of people facing time for interrupting Congress during certification of the 2020 election results. Committee vice-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), an experienced lawyer, made this suggestion when she referred to “another key question before this committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’ official proceeding to count electoral votes?” Later The New York Times reported that the committee is considering a request for the DOJ charge him.
Legal scholars said this charge could be successful if DDT refused advisers’ pleas to intervene and redirect the crowd after explicitly intending the attack to happen. Another reason would be holding back the National Guard or federal law enforcement forces from rescuing the people under attack. These could fall under Cheney’s term “inaction.”
Other possible crime by planners of the overthrow is wire fraud by Republicans raising millions of dollars asserting a stolen election knowing it was a lie. The committee subpoenaed a bank for financial records during the weeks before January 6 belonging to Taylor Budowich, DDT’s spokesman and a senior advisor to his 2020 campaign. He allegedly moved $200,000 into advertising for the January 6 rally from an unidentified organization. Budowich is suing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and J.P. Morgan Chase Bank to have the subpoena suppressed.
To overturn a lower court, DDT went to the Supreme Court to block the House committee from obtaining his records from the National Archives and Records, but a change from the investigating group may stymie his argument. The committee is pulling requests for some records at this time to make sure they get the ones they really need. DDT has lost his argument that the subpoena was too broad with the removal of non-1/6 related documents.
Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) says he “should have voted to certify because President Trump was responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol.” He voted for DDT’s impeachment and tweeted, “I have backed this President through thick and thin for four years. I campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable.” Other Republicans trying to distance themselves from January 6 legal problems include Senate Minority mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has suddenly legitimized the House investigation committee. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), claimed by rally organizer Ali Alexander to be a part of the team, can’t remember hearing of Alexander. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-) also can’t remember “communicating” with Alexander, as he had claimed. In October, another rally organizer told the media about talking “to Boebert’s team, [Rep. Madison] Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back.” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) denied “any role” in the January 6 event, either “planning or execution.”
The coming year will see the next phase of committee work when it moves to public hearings. Committee chair Thompson said the next progression is also “to see whether or not some of the things that we have uncovered or discovered rises to the level of a criminal referral.”