House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol Chairman Bennie Thompson told CNN’s Jake Tapper that witnesses will describe conversations between members of the Proud Boys and people “in the Trump orbit” during the insurrection.
On Thursday night, Tapper interviewed Rep. Thompson as part of CNN’s “Attack on Democracy: The January 6th Hearings” coverage, and when the chairman brought up the extremist group that then-President Donald Trump had once told to “Stand back and stand by,” Tapper asked if the public can expect testimony on more direct links between the group and Trumpworld:
THOMPSON: Well, I think obviously it was never before seen footage of what occurred. The fact that Trump’s daughter was in the video. The fact that his son-in- law in the video. The fact that a lot of the organizing aspect of the January 6 –TAPPER: The Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers.THOMPSON: We saw them in the midst of the insurrection, but we didn’t see what they were doing, organizationally before. So, we showed the meeting on the 5th in the parking lot with a group that normally they don’t.TAPPER: Two rival far right-wing extremist groups meeting breaking bread. Right?THOMPSON: That’s right.TAPPER: But you know what, I wonder about the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. You convincingly made the case that Trump was good for their membership. And you convincingly
made the case that they were there, they thought, because Trump them to be there to undermine the election and to stop the electoral count vote — the electoral vote count.Are there going to be witnesses that describe actual conversations between these extremist groups and anyone in Trump’s orbit?THOMPSON: Yes.TAPPER: There will be?THOMPSON: Yes. Obviously, you have to go to the hearing, but we have a number of witnesses who come forward that people have not talked to before, that will document a lot of what was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was occurring.TAPPER: So, it’s not just happenstance that they were there? That they were encouraged directly by people around.
Watch above via CNN.