rioters. as trump pressured him to stop the vote certification of the 2020 election. it was a move trump knew was illegal as several witnesses revealed just yesterday. let s get to cnn s senior justice correspondent evan perez. what more are you learning about next week s hearing? well, the committee, the january 6th committee is trying to nail down the list of witnesses that they have from the former justice department, former justice department officials under former president trump. and right now we know that they have slated they were key in standing up to the president. he was trying to essentially use the justice department to endorse his claims that there was vote fraud, and in the end, to try to overturn the election results. one witness that we don t know we know the committee was looking for, and it appears will not be showing up is pat sip pat cipollone. it would have been unusual to see a former white house counsel sitting before this committee. it appears
involved in those early discussions around thanksgiving time regarding having alternate electors meet? mr. giuliani, several of mr. giuliani s associates, mr. meadows. one of the biggest supporters of this outrageous attempt to subvert american democracy was law professor and trump attorney june eastman. the entire executive branch is headed by one guy. trump saw him on fox news and shortly after that, he was in the oval office. fraudulent electors was step one in eastman s plan which he outlined in these memos and justified with false claims of, quote, illegal actions of state and local election officials. step two in his plan would have to be executed by vice president mike pence on january 6th while presiding over the opening and counting of electoral ballots. what you can do is you can say due to these disputes in
Newsweek positioned political activist Josh Hammer to run their opinion pages during the runup to the 2020 presidential election, and since that time, the publication has taken a marked radical right turn by buoying extremists and promoting authoritarian leaders.
arguments he was making. so when you add up no factual basis, no legal basis, powerful proof, yes, that deepens the criminal exposure that as we also heard yesterday, a federal judge has already said is likely for trump and eastman. and paul, committee membering a lar went through a timeline yesterday, showed how president trump sent a tweet attacking vice president pence, the one saying he didn t have courage, after the president was already told by mark meadows that was there was violence breaking out at the capitol. he said immediately after the tweet the crowds inside and outside the capitol surged and overwhelmed police. how strong is that evidence? and in tieing the former president of the actions of the insurrectionists? well, i think one of the things that this committee has done a good job of showing is that the insurrectionists at least thought that they were
sip pat cipollone. it would have been unusual to see a former white house counsel sitting before this committee. it appears he s not going to be on this panel. and also, steve engle, he was the key witness on that one big meeting where everybody threatened to quit. that is he s also not expected to be part of this hearing late next week. we know the committee is also planning or hoping to talk to the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas about her role in the effort to overturn the election and some communications she had with eastman specifically. what s the latest with that? well, the latest is she s told reporters she plans to cooperate. she wants to come in and talk to the committee. she says there are misunderstandings in the presentation of some of these communications. yesterday as you know, the