January 6 Committee Withheld Witness Transcripts Contradicting Accusations

TFD – Delve into the controversy surrounding witness transcripts withheld by the January 6 committee, shedding light on contradictions related to Trump’s SUV incident. Discover the implications of this withheld information and the call for transparency.

House Republicans said in a report released on Monday that the January 6 committee withheld witness transcripts from the public that contradicted some of their most incendiary accusations regarding the uprising.

The testimony of the driver of Trump’s SUV on January 6 and White House officials, who refuted the allegation that Trump physically lunged toward the front of the car to try to force his security detail to take him to the Capitol, are among the transcripts that have been withheld.

“The testimony of these four White House employees directly contradicts claims made by Cassidy Hutchinson and by the Select Committee in the Final Report,” the new GOP report said, referring to the Trump White House aide-turned-whistleblower. “None of the White House staff members supported Hutchinson’s outrageous account regarding President Trump reaching for the Beast’s steering wheel.”

Republicans have undermined Hutchinson’s credibility ever since her momentous public testimony in 2022, in which she accused Trump and other high-ranking officials of inciting the violence. Since her statement in public, there has been much debate on the SUV incident, which she claimed to have just heard about and not seen. However, this is only one of Hutchinson’s many astounding—and frequently undisputed—discoveries.

According to the Republican report, the SUV driver told the January 6 panel that Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel” and that “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”

The Republican report does not name the driver. The now-defunct bipartisan January 6 committee, which included two anti-Trump Republicans and two Democrats, did not disclose this information.

Hutchinson’s attorney wrote a letter stating that she “has and will continue to tell the truth” to GOP Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, the head of the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee.

In a letter to Loudermilk, Hutchinson’s attorney, William H. Jordan, stated, “Let me be clear: since Ms. Hutchinson changed counsel, she has and will continue to tell the truth.” While other people, frequently males in positions of greater authority, refused to speak with the Select Committee, Ms. Hutchinson and numerous other brave witnesses bravely came forward. However, she is currently being questioned by your Subcommittee and you about her testimony as well as about issues that might perhaps be related to the ongoing criminal investigations into Mr. Trump.

Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, a former chairman of the January 6 select committee, denounced the GOP counterreport as “dishonest” and “deceptive.”

Trump was “irate” when his security detail told him he could not march to the Capitol, according to Thompson, who claimed that their inquiry “took into account the testimony of all witnesses, including the testimony that was released today.”

“Loudermilk’s failure to mention the Select Committee’s December 22, 2022, letter is deceptive. The Select Committee also released detailed letters addressing this matter and explained clearly why the committee was required to send certain transcripts to the executive branch for review. The Select Committee was required to take these actions to safeguard witnesses’ privacy and confidential information. In a statement, he added, “Mr. Loudermilk disregards these facts because they are inconvenient for him and he continues to disparage the work of the Select Committee.

He went on, “Loudermilk is just trying to divert attention away from Donald Trump’s accountability for the violence on January 6th and his own unwillingness to respond to the Select Committee’s inquiries.”

The “driver testified that he did not recall seeing what President Trump was doing and did not recall whether there was movement” during the vehicle journey, according to the House Select Committee’s report released on January 6.

The primary agent in the former president Donald Trump’s motorcade that day, Robert Engel, reportedly “did not characterize the exchange in the vehicle the way Hutchinson described the account she heard… and indicated that he did not recall President Trump gesturing toward him,” according to the report.

“The vast majority of witnesses,” which included several Secret Service agents, a police officer in Washington, DC, and representatives of the military and national security, according to the report, “described President Trump’s behavior as ‘irate,’ ‘furious,’ ‘insistent,’ ‘profane,’ and ‘heated'” during the drive from the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse that day.

The story states that Trump’s SUV driver and Engel both stated in court that “the President asked if he could travel to the Capitol within 30 seconds of getting into the vehicle.”

The report states that the President was “animated and irritated” at not traveling to the Capitol, according to the Secret Service agent operating the car.

“It is difficult to fully reconcile the accounts of several of the witnesses who provided information with what we heard from Engel and (then-deputy White House Chief of Staff Tony Ornato),” the committee wrote in this section of the report. However, the primary factual point at hand is evident and uncontested: It has been specifically and frequently asked by President Trump to be brought to the Capitol. Even after arriving back at the White House, he persisted in his insistence and anger about going to the Capitol.

Beyond the controversy surrounding Trump’s alleged SUV lunge, parts of the recently made public transcripts do support additional testimony from Hutchinson and other witnesses, according to which Trump became furious when his security rejected his requests to accompany him to the Capitol. The panel on January 6 claimed that Trump’s intention to join the protesters at the Capitol shows his support for their efforts to physically obstruct Congress’s certification of the 2020 election.

According to the new report, the driver stated, “The president was insistent on going to the Capitol.”

During the trip back to the White House following the rally, an unidentified Trump White House aide claimed to have heard that the president was “irate.”

The Department of Homeland Security stated in February that it received 12 transcripts of both former and current Secret Service agents, but that it was still analyzing them at the time “because their internal review is not yet complete,” according to the subcommittee’s report released on Monday.