Ivanka Trump pleaded with her father, former president Donald Trump, at least twice on January 6 to stop the violence at the US Capitol.
Jan. 6 Select Committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney revealed the first daughter's efforts to stop the siege, during an interview on Sunday. She added that the panel has firsthand testimony confirming Ivanka's requests.
'We know members of his family, we know his daughter - we have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence,' the Wyoming Republican said on ABC's This Week.
Ivanka reportedly referred to the insurrection as an 'optics issue' as it was taking place, according to Michael Wolff's latest Trump book Landslide.
She tried to stop the riot herself, tweeting: 'American Patriots - any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.' The tweet has since been deleted.
Later, when a CNN reporter questioned her use of the word 'patriots' to describe the rioters she responded: 'No. Peaceful protest is patriotic. Violence is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms.'
Ivanka Trump visited her father, Donald Trump, during the Capitol Riot 'at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence,' Rep. Liz Cheney revealed Sunday (Pictured: Ivanka Trump, left, and Donald Trump, right, on Jan. 6, 2020 before the riot)
Cheney's confirmation of Ivanka's alleged pleas to her father, echoes an account by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker in their book 'I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year.'
The authors, who published the novel in July 2021, claimed Ivanka tried for hours to convince Trump to order his supporters to stop rioting at the Capitol Building on January 6.
'I'm going down to my dad. This has to stop,' Ivanka reportedly told her aides after the massive crowd of his supporters had breached the Capitol.
The first daughter and adviser to the president left her second floor West Wing office and headed toward the Oval.
She then spent 'several hours walking back and forth' between the two offices, trying to convince her dad to call off the MAGA assault.
Jan. 6 Select Committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney revealed during an interview Sunday that the panel has firsthand testimony confirming Ivanka's visits
A number of people in the president's orbit allegedly asked Ivanka to tell her father to quell the crowd.
Mark Meadows, who was serving as White House chief of staff, summoned her throughout the day.
'I need you to come back down here,' Meadows said. 'We've got to get this under control.'
He then cleared out the Oval, saying: 'I only want Ivanka, myself and the president in here,' according to the authors.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's top allies on Capitol Hill, also called Ivanka on January 6.
'You need to tell him to tell these people to leave,' Graham said.
Ivanka Trump responded with: 'We're working on it.'
It is unclear if this account aligns with the 'firsthand testimony' Cheney referenced on Sunday.
Ivanka Trump is photographed leaving her Washington, D.C. home on January 6, the day of the attempted insurrection
Also during her interview, Cheney outlined reasons why the committee could consider criminal charges against Trump, arguing he shouldn't be 'anywhere near the Oval Office ever again'.
She and Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson appeared on multiple news programs Sunday where they further clarified the emerging picture of the ex-president's movements as his supporters shattered windows and beat back law enforcement to enter the US Capitol building.
'We are learning much more about what former President Trump was doing while the violent assault was underway,' Cheney said, adding the panel now has 'firsthand testimony' alleging Trump watched the Capitol riot unfold on television as his allies frantically begged him to call off his supporters.
'The briefing room at the White House is just a mere few steps from the Oval Office,' she said. 'The president could have at any moment, walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop.'
'Any man who would provoke a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, any man who would watch television as police officers were being beaten, as his supporters were invading the Capitol of the United States is clearly unfit for future office, clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again,' she argued.
Trump's supporters are pictured storming the US Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021
Thompson told NBC's Meet The Press that his panel is looking at a timeline of 'about 187 minutes' during which Trump sat at the White House shunning appeals to stop the violence.
He added that the committee is weighing whether it can subpoena sitting members of Congress linked to the riot as well.
'We've determined that a number of people made attempts to contact him through his chief of staff ... We also have information of other individuals who made calls trying to get some semblance of response out of the White House. But for that 187 minutes, nothing happened,' Thompson said.
'We do know now that several videos were made, we don't have them yet, before the right one was released.'
He didn't elaborate on what those videos contained but said they were part of the committee's sweeping records requests to the National Archives.
'So, he - the president was told, "You need to say directly to your people to go home. Leave the Capitol." And so it took over 187 minutes to make that simple statement. Something’s wrong with that,' Thompson said.
Thompson told NBC that the committee is actively exploring whether it can subpoena sitting members of Congress
Of those 187 minutes, Cheney said on ABC: 'The committee has firsthand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred.'
She added that the White House briefing room was a 'mere few steps' away.
'He could have told them to go home, and he failed to do so. It's hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than that,' Cheney said.
Multiple reports have cited Trump as watching the riot unfold on television, but Sunday marks the first time those reports were confirmed by a member of the committee.
Cheney said Trump's inaction that day proves he is 'clearly unfit for future office and clearly cannot be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.'
Asked about whether that inaction amounted to criminal negligence, Cheney said there are a 'number' of 'potential criminal statutes at issue here.'
'I think there is absolutely no question it was a dereliction of duty, and I think one of the things the committee needs to look at is... whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty,' the Wyoming lawmaker said.
The Wyoming Republican Party ousted Cheney in November for her continued opposition to Trump and her work on the committee.
On Sunday she issued an ultimatum for her fellow Republicans: 'The Republican Party has to make a choice. We can either be loyal to our Constitution or loyal to Donald Trump, but we cannot be both.'
Thompson told Meet The Press host Chuck Todd that he believes Trump 'weaponized' his supporters on January 6 -- suggesting that some with no intention of storming the Capitol only did so after his Stop the Steal rally speech.
The committee has 'firsthand testimony' of Trump's inaction on January 6, Cheney said, and Thompson said the inaction lasted 'about 187 minutes'
'I think a lot of people got caught up in the moment, had no intentions of going, but when the president said, "They are up there now taking your rights away from you. You need to go there. They need to hear from you. And I'll be there." Well, you know, that kind of weaponized the entire crowd to go to the Capitol,' he said.
He also said the committee could also step up consequences for lawmakers in Trump's orbit who are somehow linked to the riot but refuse to cooperate.
'I think there are some questions of whether we have the authority to do it. We're looking at it. If the authorities are there, there'll be no reluctance on our part,' he said.
Republican Reps. Scott Perry and Jim Jordan are currently under the panel's microscope.
The committee said it was interested in Perry's links to ex-DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who allegedly had Trump's support in trying to oust Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen over his refusal to participate in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Perry refused to voluntarily cooperate.
Jordan recently told Fox he had 'real concerns' about the committee's credibility, but was reviewing its December 22 letter to him.
Post a Comment