what happened with respect to these militias is more of a pretext for them to do something that they were already disposed to do, namely to attack the capitol. john: martha, as we look at the witnesses there, steven ayres, screen left with the short hair and then jason van totenhove on the right. he left oath keepers, he says i purged my life of that world years ago. wonder what the immediate relevance connection to january 6th will be, since he was not with the organization for six years before january, or for four years before january 6th happened. but steven, the fellow on the left, actually was there and can probably speak with greater degree of knowledge of exactly what was being said among these groups leading up to january 6th. your thoughts. you know, it just makes me
actions were improper? also, we saw a lot of information today about the reach and power of the president s words. and any indication of how he might have known that his twitter following of 70 million people, however large it was, he had the power to call off a crowd or make it disperse or come together. and you saw a lot of evidence and information of that. so very powerful from any of those insiders. we also haven t talked about witness tampering, wolf. that suggestion that was made at the end, that s frankly probably the easiest crime to prove of the ones that we talked about. we talk about sedition and so on. and there may well be a serious allegation of witness tampering here. it just depends on what further information comes out. there s certainly a lot more we need to discuss here in the situation room including, as elliot just said, that bombshell from congresswoman liz cheney at the very end of the hearing on potential witness tampering by donald trump. our live coverage
washington. andrew mccabe, as elliot mentioned earlier the vice chair of the select committee liz cheney revealed at the very end of this hearing very disturbing details that after the last hearing the former president trump actually tried to call a potential witness in their investigation, a real witness. they ve alerted the u.s. justice department. how concerning is this? well, it s incredibly concerning, wolf. i think not in the least part because it shows a level of desperation i think on the former president to reach out, to make any contact with a witness of this committee in light of what was said at the end of the previous hearing where congressman cheney really turned the light and the focus on witness intimidation that s been going on until this point. then to get directly, allegedly directly involved in potentially contacting a witness by the by former president trump, it s just it s hard to imagine
completely, completely out there. i mean, you ve got people walking in, it was late at night, it had been a long day, and what they were proposing i thought was nuts. i thought that the president did not have the authority to do what was being suggested under a proper reading of the law. i conveyed that. i think i actually somebody in the vice president s, just blame me. i think the vice president did the right thing. i think he did the courageous thing. i think he did a great service to this country. and i think i suggested to somebody that he should be given the presidential medal of freedom for his actions. after our last hearing president trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings.
and we want to make sure that everybody knows we re not going to stand which and let witnesses be intimidated. so you do know the name of the the identity of this person? is that what i m hearing? yes, sir. all right. we also heard directly from a rioter today saying he only marched to the u.s. capitol after trump urged all of them to do so. but besides the former president s public comments, can you really say he was giving specific directives to these people? well, that s what the testimony indicated. and as we ve done throughout this entire process, we re just going to let the facts go where they take us. and that s exactly what mr. ayres told the committee and told the country, is that he was disappointed and that this has ruined his life. and i thought it was incredibly powerful testimony, wolf. this is someone who came down, had been monitoring social media, felt that he owed it to the president to come to the