The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot has testimony that then-President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump asked him to intervene as his supporters ransacked the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. Sunday.
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 attack on the Capitol occurred. The White House briefing room is just a few steps from the Oval Office, as you know, Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said on ABC News' This Week. She said that at any moment, Trump could have walked to the briefing room and appeared on television.
As he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television to tell people to stop. She said that Leader McCarthy was pleading with him to do that, referring to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
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 stop this violence, she said.
In a one-minute video released on social media hours after the attack began, Trump repeated false claims about the election he lost while encouraging the rioters who attacked the Capitol during a joint session of Congress to disrupt the counting of the votes that Joe Biden's win, to go home in peace. Trump said that you're very special.
He later tweeted: These are the things that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly treated for so long. Twitter removed messages and banned Trump after the riot, citing the risk of further incitement of violence. Thompson said on NBC News' Meet the Press that the panel believes that Trump made several videos before he released the short clip, and that he has asked the National Archives for videos that were never shared.
In an interview that took place Sunday, he said it took 187 minutes for Trump to urge his supporters to leave the Capitol after the attack began.
Representatives for Trump and his daughter did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The Jan. 6 committee has been accelerating its investigation into the riot, as well as any actions or inaction by Trump and his allies over the past few months. The House voted last month to refer former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to the Justice Department for a criminal charge over his refusal to answer the committee's questions.
The panel asked Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Scott Perry, R-Pa. to provide information about their activities. The chair of the committee is Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Its ability to subpoena lawmakers isn't known.
As the anniversary of Jan. 6 approaches, Thompson appeared on three Sunday programs to talk about the congressional investigation and the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly event. At the rally, Trump encouraged those who were there to march to the Capitol, where Congress was formalizing Biden's win.
Thompson said that the panel has evidence of interactions between House members and rioters on January 6 that may or may not be significant. He said on Meet the Press that 'assisted means different things. Some people came to the Stop the Steal' rally and took pictures with them. Some of the people allowed to come and associate in their offices and other things during the rally week. Thompson said that the panel intends to recommend legislation to improve intelligence gathering, which he hopes will ensure that this will never happen again. As you know, it was clear that we were not told that something would happen. It was the worst-kept secret in America that people were coming into Washington, and the potential for coordination and what we saw there. He said on This Week that we want to make sure that never happens again. A Senate report released in June, the result of a joint investigation by the Homeland Security and Rules Committees, summed up what it said were deep intelligence and security failures that contributed to one of the worst incidents of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.
The report found that the intelligence community didn't properly analyze, assess and disseminate information to law enforcement about the potential for violence and the known threats to the Capitol.
In the report, an unnamed Capitol police officer said we were ill prepared. We were not informed with intelligence. We were betrayed. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif said on CBS News' Face the Nation that the riot was an intelligence failure that was the failure to see all the evidence that was out there to be seen of the propensity for violence that day. The Jan. 6 committee will recommend legislation to better coordinate resources to protect the Capitol, Thompson said.
There were significant inconsistencies in coordination. The National Guard from the District of Columbia was slow to respond, not on its own, but had to go to the Department of Defense, he said on This Week. We want to make sure that the line of communication between the Capitol Police and the structure of how we make decisions is clear. It's kind of a hybrid authority, and it clearly broke down.