Page:Introductory Material to the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/96

 The Committee, along with our nation, offers particular thanks to Officers Caroline Edwards, Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, and Daniel Hodges, along with hundreds of other members of law enforcement who defended the Capitol on that fateful day, all of whom should be commended for their bravery and sacrifice. We especially thank the families of Officer Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood and Jeffrey Smith, whose loss can never be repaid.

The Committee very much appreciates the invaluable testimony of General Milley and other members of our military, Judge J. Michael Luttig, and the important contributions of Benjamin Ginsberg and Chris Stirewalt. This, of course is only a partial list, and the Committee is indebted to many others, as well.

The Committee believes that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone gave a particularly important account of the events of January 6th, as did White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann. For multiple months, Cipollone resisted giving any testimony at all, asserting concerns about executive privilege and other issues, until after the Committee’s hearing with Hutchinson. When he did testify, Cipollone corroborated key elements of testimony given by several White House staff, including Hutchinson – most importantly, regarding what happened in the White House during the violence of January 6th – but also frankly recognized the limits on what he could say due to privilege: “Again, I’m not going to get into either my legal advice on matters, and the other thing I don’t want to do is, again, other witnesses have their own recollections of things.” Cipollone also told the Committee that, to the extent that other witnesses recall communications attributable to White House counsel that he does not, the communications might have been with his deputy Pat Philbin, or with Eric Herschmann, who had strong feelings and was particularly animated about certain issues.

Of course, that is not to say that all witnesses were entirely frank or forthcoming. Other witnesses, including certain witnesses from the Trump White House, displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or were not otherwise as frank or direct as Cipollone. We cite two examples here, both relating to testimony played during the hearings.

Kayleigh McEnany was President Trump’s Press Secretary on January 6th. Her deposition was taken early in the investigation. McEnany seemed to acknowledge that President Trump: (1) should have instructed his violent supporters to leave the Capitol earlier than he ultimately did on January 6th; (2) should have respected the rulings of the courts; and (3) was wrong to publicly allege that Dominion voting machines stole the election. But a segment of McEnany’s testimony seemed evasive, as if she was testifying from pre-prepared talking points. In multiple instances, McEnany’s testimony did not seem nearly as forthright as that of her press office staff, who testified about what McEnany said.

For example, McEnany disputed suggestions that President Trump was resistant to condemning the violence and urging the crowd at the Capitol to act peacefully when they crafted his tweet at 2:38 p.m. on January 6th. Yet one of her deputies, Sarah Matthews, told the Select Committee that McEnany informed her otherwise: that McEnany and other advisors in the dining room with President Trump persuaded him to send the tweet, but that “… she said that he did not want to put that in and that they went through different phrasing