general testifies about trumps efforts subvert

GENERAL TESTIFIES ABOUT TRUMPS EFFORTS SUBVERT HOW TO

Jacob’s account of the meetings, and emails he exchanged with Eastman, were also presented earlier this year to a federal judge who was considering whether to order Eastman to produce certain emails to the committee. Jacob also described a conversation with Eastman where Eastman conceded that no justice on the Supreme Court would support his position. Jacob recalled Eastman acknowledging at one of those meetings that such a maneuver would violate the Electoral Count Act, with Jacob testifying that Eastman thought the law was unconstitutional. Jacob also took notes memorializing Eastman’s assertion, according to the committee. Eastman came in he said, ‘I’m here to request that you reject the electors,'” Jacob said at a House committee hearing in June, while referring to a proposal more aggressive than what Eastman had been recommended in the January 4 meeting. “What most surprised me about that meeting was that when Mr. Short attended that meeting as well, and another meeting with Eastman and Jacob on January 5, where Eastman’s push to have Pence disrupt the certification was further discussed for another two and a half hours. But scrutiny elsewhere of Trump’s election subversion gambits highlight the relevant events that the two aides witnessed.Īccording to the House select committee’s public presentations, Jacob was present at a January 4, 2021, Oval Office meeting with Trump and his attorney John Eastman during which Eastman discussed a plan to have Pence not count the Biden electors that would be put forward at the January 6 certification ceremony. The Justice Department declined to comment on the grand jury subpoenas of Short and Jacob. Witnesses to inflection points in the pressure campaign on Pence “He certainly knows a lot of what happened, and I think under oath you can be pretty much committed that he’ll tell the truth,” the congressman said. Short, Kinzinger added, is a good source. That said, if they are moving forward on looking at this stuff, that’s positive for the country.” “The Department of Justice needs to look at any possible criminality,” Kinzinger said Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day.” “I ask, what have they been doing for the last year and a half. Adam Kinzinger, one of the two Republicans on the House select committee, said the Pence aides testifying is a “positive” development. Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland was visibly frustrated when a reporter grilled him about the possibility that the former president would be charged, as the former judge repeated vague assertions that, “No person is above the law in this country.” That Pence’s inner circle is now being compelled to cooperate in the probe suggests that at least some of those obstacles have been cleared. But any investigation of a former president raises a host of highly sensitive and potentially explosive political and legal questions.

The department has faced immense pressure from lawmakers, former prosecutors and others to focus on the ringleaders of the 2020 election reversal gambits.

GENERAL TESTIFIES ABOUT TRUMPS EFFORTS SUBVERT HOW TO

How to approach Trump in the January 6 investigation has been a delicate question for the Justice Department. Short’s and Jacob’s accounts were among the evidence that a federal judge in California cited in concluding that Trump and his allies may have been planning a crime in their plot to disrupt the transfer of presidential power. Short previously sat for a deposition in the House investigation. Short confirmed to CNN’s Erin Burnett Monday night he complied with a grand jury subpoena but declined to discuss any details about his appearance. (He has not responded to CNN’s inquiries about reports of his grand jury testimony.) Jacob, a former legal adviser to Pence, has participated in the House January 6 select committee investigation, even testifying publicly at a hearing last month. Short and Jacob both were present in key meetings in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection that were part of a pressure campaign to convince Pence to disrupt Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral win.

General testifies about trumps efforts subvert