January 6 hearing highlights evidence that Matt Gaetz and other lawmakers have asked for presidential pardon after the attack on the Capitol

Updated, Last: According to testimony prior to the committee hearing Thursday, several lawmakers, including Congressman Matt Gates (R-FL) and Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL), asked the president for a pardon after January 6.

“The only reason I know of the clemency request is because you believe you have committed a crime,” said Adam Kinsinger (R-IL), a Member of Parliament.

The committee cited a January 11 email in which Brooks apologized to “every congressman and senator who votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania Electoral College.” Getz was included in Brooks’ pardon application.

In the video, Cassidy Hutchinson, then Deputy Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, spoke of pardoning other lawmakers, including Andy Biggs, Scott Perry, and Louis Gomert. She said Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) had “talked about forgiving Congress, but never asked for it.” She also said she heard Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-CO) had asked for a pardon.

Trump aide John McCenty said in the video that Getz told him he was apologizing.

soon: Some of the most compelling testimonies came from senior Justice Department officials who described the Oval Cabinet meeting on January 3, 2021, in which they warned Donald Trump not to appoint Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General.

At the time, Clark was a Department of Justice official specializing in environmental law, but he also backed Donald Trump’s claims about tainted elections and took steps to help reverse the results, including sending letters to Georgia and ad other states with alleged electoral irregularities. . But even the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud, and Department of Justice leaders saw this move as an attempt to eventually replace Joe Biden’s voters with Trump’s voters.

When officials argued with Trump against this step, the president at one point said, “What do I have to lose?”

Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donogi said he told Trump “a lot”. He said at the Oval Cabinet meeting, if he nominated Clark for the job, “within 24, 48 hours, hundreds and hundreds of his entire Department of Justice could resign because of his actions.” He said White House Advisor Pat Cipolon called Clark’s letter a “murder-suicide pact.”

Eventually, his request impacted Trump, who backtracked the plan.

But Trump continued to argue that the election had been stolen from him, even during an Ellipse rally that preceded an attack on Capitol Hill.

Trump has repeatedly urged Justice Department officials to investigate allegations of election fraud. “You may not follow the Internet like me,” Trump said at one point.

Donohi also called one of the conspiracy theories “sheer madness”: Italian satellites changed Biden’s voice. However, according to committee member Adam Kinsinger (R-IL), interim defense secretary Chris Miller actually appealed to the Italian clerk to investigate the lawsuit.

Justice Department officials said Trump wanted his voting machines removed and that the president had made the same request to the Homeland Security Department. But there was no reason for that.

Before 2:19 pm (Pacific time): Donald Trump pursued many ways to get the Justice Department to investigate election fraud, even after being repeatedly told by Attorney General William Barr that federal officials were doing this and that the allegations were unfounded.

Jeffrey Rosen, who was appointed by Trump as interim attorney general after Barry resigned in December 2020, testified before a committee on Thursday Jan.6 that the president called him almost daily or met with him from 23 to 23. December 3. January as a member of the official Congress. . The vote count was approaching January 6, which would officially confirm Joe Biden as the winner.

“A common element in all of this was the president’s dissatisfaction that the Justice Department had not done enough to investigate election fraud,” Rosen told the committee.

Richard Donohy, who was serving as an interim Attorney General, also spoke repeatedly and met with Trump. He told the committee today that at one point, after telling the president that the allegations of election fraud were false, Trump said, “You just said the election was corrupt and you left the rest to me and the Republicans in Congress. “. At the time, Donogie took note of the summons and told the committee that these were Trump’s exact words.

In a 90-minute conversation with Trump on December 27, Donohue said he went through the fraud allegations one by one and explained how they were investigated and that it was “very rude” that they were unfounded. “I wanted to stop the noise,” he said.

Rosen said Trump had asked the Court of Justice to appoint a special advisor to investigate election fraud, who would meet with his election adviser Rudy Julian, and that they would hold a press conference only to substantially question the election results.

“The Justice Department rejected all these claims because we didn’t feel they were adequately supported by facts and the law as we intended them,” Rosen said.

Donogi said that as the month went by and January 6 approached, Trump “became more urgent and resilient.”

In a video of his statement at the hearing, Barry said that if the Justice Department hadn’t investigated the fraud and found it unfounded, there may not have been a presidential transition. “It was really important to keep things going,” he said.

Before 12:23 PM (Pacific time): The Jan.6 commission opened its fifth hearing on Thursday, focusing on Donald Trump’s efforts to influence the Justice Department to back up his claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen.

“He wanted the Justice Department to legitimize their lies and brand the elections as largely corrupt,” said Benny Thompson (D-MS), the member of parliament who chairs the committee. He said Trump was engaged in a “blatant attempt” to get the Justice Department to back up his claims.

Audience: Actor Sean Penn, who first sat next to Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer who was injured in an attack on Capitol Hill. Penn told reporters a lot and, outside the listening room, left the stairs when one of the observers asked him and Fanone to take a selfie.

The witnesses would be Jeffrey Rosen, the interim attorney general; Richard Donohy, acting Deputy Attorney General; And Stephen Engel, former Deputy Attorney General at the Legal Department.

This will be the commission’s final hearing before the break, which is expected to resume after the July congressional break. Committee members said new evidence is still coming, including a Trump documentary that will be shown on Discovery + this summer.

Discovery + documentary director Donald Trump meets with the committee on January 6, telling CBS News that the president was “pretty pissed” after the attack on Capitol Hill.

The hearing took place on the same day federal agents raided the home of Jeffrey Clark, a senior Justice Department official involved in trying to delay or cancel the election results. Earlier testimony at the hearing showed that other Justice Department officials were threatening to resign if Trump named Clark as the new Attorney General.

Clark drafted the letter, which was to be sent to the Georgia legislature for approval of a new voter list, and agreed to assist the president in his efforts. The committee played a video in which Department of Justice officials resisted Clark’s attempts, which included Rosen’s resignation as Attorney General just days before the January 6 election count. Or the constitutional law.

Trump appointed Rosen as interim attorney general following the resignation of William Barry, who told the president his allegation of election fraud was unfounded.