Maggie Haberman: Trump Says He’ll Testify to Jan. 6 Committee If He Can Do It Live – At Least 1 of His Lawyers On Board
Trumpworld sources tell New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman that former President Donald Trump says he’ll testify before the January 6 Committee if he can do it live — and at least one of his lawyers is on board.
The January 6 Committee held its purported final hearing on Thursday, which featured never-before-seen evidence and testimony, new footage of the attack from inside and outside the Capitol, and climaxed with a dramatic vote to subpoena Trump.
NYT correspondent Michael Schmidt credited Haberman for this bit of reporting in his article on Thursday’s hearing: “Since it became public that the House select committee planned to subpoena Trump for his testimony, the former president has been telling aides he favors doing so, so long as he gets to do so live, according to a person familiar with his discussions.”
On Thursday night’s edition of CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper, Haberman related that scoop to host Jake Tapper.
“In terms of the subpoena, for him, that is actually one of the things that has animated him. He’s been talking to advisers about how, you know, he would consider testifying if they would air it live, which is also not surprising,” Haberman said, adding, “it seems hard to imagine the committee would go for that.”
Tapper and Haberman each threw some shade on Trump’s not-so-crack legal team, and Haberman revealed at least one of those lawyers is entertaining the idea of letting Trump testify:
TAPPER: That’s — that’s interesting. Do you think his lawyers would let him testify live? I mean, I can’t imagine that — I mean, it might feel good for him, but I can’t imagine that making him look sane, rational, reasonable. I mean, I don’t see any scenario in which he ends up looking good there.
HABERMAN: I think that it would be — I also don’t see a scenario where he doesn’t potentially get himself into a fraud situation when he’s testifying under oath. And I think it would depend on which lawyers he is listening to, Jake. He has different lawyers in different cases, and he seeks them out for different things. And they are not always on the same page.
TAPPER: Well, right, that’s the thing. Because he would be under oath. Often when he testifies under oath, he just ends up saying, “I don’t recall, I don’t recall, I don’t recall.” Because he’s being told by lawyers that he has to do that. But I don’t think he would do that before the committee. I just can’t imagine any attorney — although, I don’t know how he’s picking his attorneys these days. It doesn’t seem like he’s exactly going to…
HABERMAN: Right.
TAPPER: … the Harvard Law Review. So do you think — I mean, among these lesser attorneys who are giving him advice these days, do you think somebody would actually tell him, “Go ahead, do that; that’s going to be great?”
HABERMAN: At least one of his lawyers was sounding people out about the idea today of him — of him testifying and agreeing to it as long as the committee would let him do it live. And so I certainly don’t think they’re all shutting him down. I do think that there are people who would be concerned about it, for the same reason that his lawyers, when he was being investigated by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, were concerned about him meeting with Mueller and testifying, which Trump wanted to and they did not want him to, for the reasons you just said.
Watch above via CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper.
