Trump Call to ‘War Room’ Hours Before Capitol Riot Focus of Jan. 6 House Investigation, Report Says
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Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MI) told the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell that the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection will look into former President Donald Trump’s phone call to his “war room” at the Willard Hotel hours before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Thompson, who chairs the select committee, reportedly said that “investigators had already started to consider ways to investigate Trump’s demand that Biden not be certified as president on 6 January.”
Trump is currently engaged in a legal battle, asserting that his claims of executive privilege should be able to stop the committee from obtaining Trump White House records, which may contain more information relating to that call.
The Guardian revealed last month that in the call to the Willard, Trump pushed his “top lieutenants” to find alternative ways to stop the 2020 election from being certified in Congress.
Trump was reportedly dismayed by then-Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to stop the ceremonial, but the constitutionally mandated, process of Congress certifying the election and sought to “delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.”
“The former president’s remarks came as part of strategy discussions he had from the White House with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification,” Lowell reported in November.
Lowell also reported that “a subpoena to Giuliani, the lead Trump lawyer at the Willard, is understood to be in the offing, according to a source familiar with the matter.”
The exact timing and contents of Trump’s phone call to the Willard hotel put “pressure on Trump’s inner circle,” according to the report, as legal questions surrounding the culpability of top aides and Trump himself remains a focus of the investigation.
