Highlights from the latest batch of January 6th Select Committee transcripts

The January 6 committee continues to release its witness transcripts in the wake of publishing its final report on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. As the records keep rolling out, details have emerged that offer a keener view of events surrounding former President Donald Trump’s attempt to usurp the White House and overturn the 2020 election results.

The latest batch features interviews with 16 witnesses. Significantly, this release includes yet more transcripts from sessions with Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. (The Hutchinson transcripts published Tuesday are from May 17 and June 20. Transcripts from sessions held on September 14 and September 15 were released last week.)

Hutchinson told the committee—among other key details—that Trump: 1) privately acknowledged he lost the election while publicly promoting conspiracy theories stating otherwise; 2) urged the Secret Service to allow more people through rally checkpoints on Jan. 6 despite receiving info that many were armed and 3) had an alleged temper tantrum that became physical after he allegedly attacked his driver once being informed that he would not be allowed to join his supporters at the Capitol following his speech at the Ellipse.

Burning up

The very first reports that Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows actively burned paperwork in a fireplace in his office surfaced this May. The reports specifically noted at the time that Meadows burned records after meeting with Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican congressman who amplified Trump’s “voter fraud” propaganda and introduced Trump to sympathetic figures at the Justice Department like Jeffrey Clark.

Hutchinson’s transcripts from this spring have now fleshed out those reports a bit more.

According to her testimony:

• Meadows burned records in his fireplace after meeting with Rep. Scott Perry on at least two occasions
• Meadows burnt records in his fireplace “roughly a dozen times” despite routine White House protocol demanding staff put paper waste that may be sensitive into “burn bags,” (A special system is set up just for classified materials, but all records that are to be destroyed this way go into a bag, not a fireplace)
• Hutchinson testified that she personally saw Meadows burn records between mid-December 2020 and mid-January 2021 though she could not confirm the contents or if they were specifically related to Jan. 6 in any way
• Meadows instructed White House staffers to keep certain meetings “close hold,” or private in late November or early December and ordered a tight grip over whatever information about Trump’s daily schedule may come out in public White House logs. Hutchinson said she could not recall whether Meadows urged a “close hold” for staff on any meetings or items specifically tied to Jan. 6.

Hutchinson’s testimony from May and June also features her change in legal representation from attorney Stefan Passantino, who was paid by Trump’s Save America PAC, to Jody Hunt, the former assistant attorney general under Jeff Sessions who represented Hutchinson pro-bono.

In May when she appeared before the panel with Passantino, Passantino was quick to cut in and remind Hutchinson of potential attorney-client privileges that he said may have been asserted by other White House staff like Meadows or White House attorneys Pat Cipollone or Eric Herschmann. Passantino was careful to note too that he wasn’t trying to “shape” what Hutchinson was saying but was concerned about how her remarks could be construed.

Passantino became particularly touchy when Hutchinson started to divulge what she heard Mark Meadows say about Trump’s reaction to the chorus of “Hang Mike Pence” chants emanating from his supporters on Jan. 6.

Trump was not outraged by calls to hang the vice president, Hutchinson recounted. Trump thought that “perhaps the chants were justified,” she recalled Meadows saying. Speaking to the panel, Passantino zeroed in on the word “perhaps” and stressed that Trump might not have been speaking definitively or was in agreement with the mob’s sentiments.

In June, once Hutchinson had retained Hunt, they met with the panel to pore over transcripts from her earlier interviews to ensure they were accurate and clear.

Part of what Hutchinson sought to clarify was her testimony about Meadows and his foreknowledge of threats of violence on Jan. 6. In May, she said only Tony Ornato had pulled Meadows aside to discuss potential threats. In June, once under Hunt’s representation and with time to gather her thoughts, Hutchinson was ready to elaborate. Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien called Meadows a few hours after Ornato and Meadows spoke on Jan. 4. O’Brien told Hutchinson specifically “about potential violence, words of violence, that he was hearing that was potentially going to happen on the Hill on January 6th.”

When Hutchinson asked O’Brien just 48 hours before the insurrection whether he had this conversation with Ornato, she recalled O’Brien saying, “I’ll talk to Tony.” She was unclear if the national security adviser ever had that chat with Meadows.

‘Blanket pardons’ and talk of a ‘delay’ to the transition

John McEntee, the former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, told investigators that the former president considered doling out “blanket pardons” for people charged with crimes tied to the riot at the Capitol.

McEntee said Trump brought up the idea before leaving office but White House counsel Pat Cipollone promptly shut that talk down.

“One day when we walked into the Oval, I remember it was being discussed and I remember the president saying, ‘Well, what if I pardoned the people that weren’t violent, that just walked into the building?”

McEntee said Cipollone gave Trump “some pushback,” as he urged against it and questioned Trump’s logic. Cipollone was concerned with how such a decision might be interpreted and besides, McEntee recalled the attorney asking, “why does anyone need a pardon?”

Trump didn’t want law enforcement to go after his mob for “any little thing.”

McEntee said that Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida disclosed to him that he went to Meadows looking for help with a potential pardon. McEntee said Gaetz was worked up about a probe into his alleged role in the sex trafficking of minors. Hutchinson corroborated that Gaetz sought the pardon in her own testimony. She highlighted that it wasn’t Gaetz alone, however.

Hutchinson said Meadows was “personally concerned that there would be a connotation of violence associated with everybody that had gone to the Capitol that day” and, she added, “he had thought it was an idea worth entertaining and raising to White House Counsel’s Office to pardon those who had been inside the Capitol.

There was a time when “several White House staffers and administration officials wanted to pardon themselves prior to leaving,” Hutchinson said.

Meadows was among them, she testified.

In addition to Gaetz, Hutchinson said that Reps. Scott Perry, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs also sought blanket pardons. All of the lawmakers except for Brooks have denied this. Brooks said he wanted the pardon because he was worried that the Justice Department under Joe Biden would be punitive with Trump supporters and overzealous in its prosecution of crimes connected to Jan. 6.

In that same vein, Hutchinson testified that language about pardoning rioters was included in a draft speech for Trump to be delivered on Jan. 7.

Another version of that speech had the pardon language removed, Hutchinson said. White House counsel said including it wasn’t a “good idea,” she testified. Even today, as he runs for the White House in 2024, Trump has suggested that he would pardon Jan. 6 rioters if elected again.

Regarding the transition of power, McEntee told the select committee that he couldn’t recall a time personally when Trump had specifically discussed disrupting the transition.

But McEntee said he did recall a meeting with Meadows and others where it was discussed that the head of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, should waylay the transition because “they need to wait until we know, you know, more of what’s going on.

“Like she needs to delay this a little while,” McEntee recalled saying. He was unable to recall the date of the meeting.

Murphy signed off on the transition process two weeks after the race was called for Joe Biden and emphasized in a public letter that she was not pressured or asked to delay the process.

The cult of Q-Anon, the presence of extremism

Though there was hardly any question that extremist right-wing ideology had a home in the Trump White House, Hutchinson’s latest transcript put an even finer point on the amplification of QAnon conspiracy among the highest rungs of the U.S. government.

Hutchinson told investigators in June that Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the bombast from Georgia, brought QAnon up “several times” in Trump’s presence. She also discussed it with Mark Meadows privately, Hutchinson testified.

“I remember Mark having a few conversations, too, about, more specific to QAnon stuff and more about the idea that they had with the election and, you know, not as much pertaining to the planning of the January 6th rally,” Hutchinson said.

Before Jan. 6, the former White House aide told investigators that Greene showed Trump pictures of “her people” at Trump rallies. One of those constituents pictured wore a QAnon tee shirt.

“Those are all my people,” Hutchinson recalled Greene telling Trump proudly.

Hutchinson recalled how Greene told Trump her supporters would come to Washington on Jan. 6. The two “begun talking a little more about QAnon” but Hutchinson didn’t catch the rest of the conversation.

Once in the presence of Mark Meadows and Hutchinson, Max Miller, a Trump campaign aide, made a comment about the anti-government, white supremacy-entrenched Boogaloo Boys. Miller, Hutchinson recalled, said it would only be dangerous on Jan. 6 if the “boogaloo boys” showed up.

Meadows didn't know who they were, Hutchinson said:

And Mr. Meadows says: 'I haven't heard of them. Are they the dangerous ones, or is it a different group that are the dangerous ones?' And then Max [Miller] was, like: '| think they are all dangerous. And Mark was like: Antifa is dangerous too.'

Hutchinson disclosed during a public hearing this summer that she heard conversations in the White House where talk of extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers came up.

That happened closer to the Jan. 6 rally itself, she said, when Rudy Giuliani was around.

Giuliani, memorably, urged the crowd of Trump’s supporters, many of whom were armed, to resolve any perceived election slights in “trial by combat.” Max Miller, a Trump campaign aide, told the select committee that he tried to convince Trump to keep Giuliani off stage on Jan. 6.

Giuliani was “already involved in active litigation,” Miller testified, the transcript released on Tuesday shows.

“I didn’t want to embarrass the president by putting him up on that stage and exposing him to other litigation if he decided to piggyback off a talking point that Rudy may have said,” Miller testified.

Peter Navarro was another voice amplifying QAnon conspiracy theory, according to Hutchinson’s testimony.

The onetime trade adviser goes on trial for contempt of Congress next year after refusing to cooperate with the select committee’s subpoena for his records and deposition. Hutchinson said Navarro showed up to the White House frequently with presentations he said would prove election fraud but that he was not privy to meetings between Meadows, Scott Perry, or Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who aligned with Giuliani and Trump on the bunk elector bid:

Peter would frequently bring items to our office that I felt Mark didn't need to expand further on, so I normally would take the items from Peter and just [say] 'Thank you.'
The items throughout December/early January in particular, he would come and he would give his little speeches about why it was important and why we should be paying attention to it and why he needs to meet with the chief and President about it.
And at one point I had sarcastically said, 'Oh, is this from your QAnon friends, Peter?' Because Peter would talk to me frequently about his QAnon friends.
He said, 'Have you looked into it yet, Cass? I think they point out a lot of good ideas. You really need to read this. Make sure the chief sees it.'
And I sort of just left it at that.

In a transcript released Tuesday from General William Walker, the former commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, the question of a fair federal response to extremism was raised.

Walker, who has served as the House sergeant at arms since 2021, told the committee that he believed the response to the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 would have been quite different if most of the rioters were Black.

“I think it would have been a vastly different response if those were African Americans trying to breach the Capitol. As a career law enforcement officer, part-time soldier, last five years full but, but a law enforcement officer my entire career, the law enforcement response would have been different,” he said.

The death toll among rioters and those in the crowd would have been higher too in that scenario, Walker said.

And as for the glaring intelligence failures surrounding Jan. 6, Walker expressed utter disbelief.

”You don't need intelligence. I mean everybody knew that people were directed to come there by the president,” Walker testified. “November was a run-up. December was practice, and January 6th was executed.”

In a transcript of the committee’s interview with Ali Alexander, leader of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, Alexander worked to shift blame leveled against him for violence on Jan. 6 to other right wing activists like Charlie Kirk. It was Kirk, under the umbrella of Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, that helped bus Trump’s supporters into Washington, D.C. from all over the U.S., increasing the likelihood of chaos or violence.

Another detail in Alexander’s testimony, which is so often drenched in his own diatribes, is that he was in regular contact with Caroline Wren, a chief fundraiser for Trump. Alexander was cagey about his relationships or interactions with other Trump White House officials.

The last person to have Trump’s ear could call themselves an adviser, Alexander explained.

“My main point of contact with what I’m calling Trump world was Caroline Wren regarding what I consider the scope of the committee and that’s January 6,” Alexander testified.

The transcripts released on Tuesday include:

• Jan. 6 rally organizer and Stop the Steal movement leader Ali Alexander
• Amy Kremer and Kylie Kremer of Women for America First
• Top Trump campaign fundraiser Caroline Wren✎ EditSign
• Former director of the White House Presidential Personnel OfficeJohn McEntee
• Former White House press aide Judd Deere
• Trump campaign adviser Max Miller
• Trump ally Bernie Kerik (associate to Rudy Giuliani, leader of Trump’s fake elector scheme in courts)
• Former U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia
• Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
• Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
• Michigan State Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey
• Former commanding general of the DC National Guard Major General William Walker, part 1 and part 2
• Filmmaker Nick Quested
• House of Representatives staff director Jamie Fleet

This story is developing.