(JustPatriots.com)- The House’s January 6 investigating committee said it would turn its focus to a phone call that former President Donald Trump made to his “war room” at the Willard Hotel just a few hours before the attack at the U.S. Capitol building commenced that day.
Recently, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, who is the chair of the committee, told Hugo Lowell of the Guardian recently that this phone call would be the focus of their investigation. He reportedly told Lowell that”
“Investigators had already started to consider ways to investigate Trumps’ demand that [President Joe] Biden not be certified as president on January 6.”
Last month, The Guardian reported that Trump made that call to the Willard Hotel, in which he told some of his “top lieutenants” that they needed to find alternative ways to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Former Vice President Mike Pence had refused to stop the certification, pointing to the fact that he was constitutionally-mandated to do so as the president of the U.S. Senate.
In response, the former president was seeking ways to “delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.”
In November, Lowell reported:
“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.”
He added:
“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.”
According to the recent report in The Guardian, not only are the contents of the phone call Trump made to the Willard Hotel of interest to the House investigating committee, but so, too, is the exact timing of when that phone call took place.
That has raised many potential legal questions of culpability for both Trump and his top aides who were on the call. Investigators are wondering who knew what and when, what they did in response and what they should have done in response to stop the attack on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6.
While the House’s January 6 panel continues to plow forward with its investigation, Trump is fighting in court for his right to claim executive privilege to protect the committee — and the public — from gaining access to many records the committee is requesting.
Normally, many records can remain sealed under executive privilege. However, Biden refused to allow Trump to assert executive privilege over the documents, which would allow the House committee to move forward in obtaining those records.
The legal fight is still ongoing, and it’s having an effect on other people who the committee has subpoenaed. That includes Bannon, who refused to comply with the subpoena and has since been formally charged with criminal contempt of Congress.
