Jan. 6 committee member thinks Giuliani, Eastman and Meadows deserve target letters too
Former President Donald Trump was given a target letter from the Justice Department on Sunday after its investigation into actions around the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol – and a Jan. 6 committee member thinks he shouldn't be alone.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who sat on the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 and the attempt to overthrow the election, listed off some of her observations to MSNBC host Peter Alexander, who asked who else deserves a target letter.
"I'm surprised that [Rudy] Giuliani apparently has not received one," she said. "We don't know about [John] Eastman. We don't know about [Mark] Meadows. Certainly, we refer not just to the ex-president but others. There's a lot of culpability among his top circles."
There have been legal debates over whether Giuliani could have made a deal with special counsel Jack Smith. Last week it was revealed he had a proffer agreement, a kind of pre-cooperation deal, with the Department of Justice. Meadows has remained largely quiet, and it was reported that Trump's allies have begun using a rat emoji when referring to him.
"As you know, (Trump's former chief of staff) Mark Meadows would not come in" to speak to the committee, she explained. "He knows everything. So, if he actually did testify and not claim the Fifth Amendment, he would know everything the ex-president did, said, saw, and ended up doing."
She also explained that because the committee was unable to speak to former Vice President Mike Pence, "we didn't get the full conversation on the morning of the 6th where the ex-president attempted to force the vice president to throw out the votes during the electoral count proceedings. The vice president left his staff, went up to the residential part of the dwelling he was in. And so, his part of the conversation was not overheard. I think that would be very important for the public and for the prosecutor to know. Certainly, we heard from a number of the vice president's close staff, his lawyers, his chief of staff. So, we had a pretty good idea of what the vice president had done and, more importantly, what he refused to do."
She also blasted Republican lawmakers for faux outrage over the target letter.
"It is disturbing that some of my colleagues here on the other side of the aisle who on the 6th and the 7th said in public and on the record that it was the ex-president's responsibility," said Lofgren. "He did this. And now they're trying to somehow change it into something else. They know better. And they're putting our democracy at risk by defending this absolutely indefensible conduct. This absurd what-aboutism. One of the things I remember in law school is that they told you, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. And that's what these guys are doing, trying to baffle us."
See the full interview with Rep. Lofgren in the video below or at the link here.
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