Another batch of transcripts have been released by the Jan. 6 committee, and a reporter who's been covering the investigation explained the most substantial new evidence those interviews turned up.
The new batch of transcripts show a growing divide between Cassidy Hutchinson and her boss, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and her Donald Trump-funded first lawyer Stefan Passantino, and Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" which details he found most significant.
"I thought the Hutchison transcripts were particularly interesting," Lowell said. "These are from the summer, previously we got the transcripts from September, and I think three things stood out to me, personally. First, the fact that Meadows was burning documents in his fireplace. Now Hutchison couldn't elaborate or confirm any of the details of the kinds of documents he was burning, and I'm not sure that's something even the [Department of Justice] can probably corroborate, but it is interesting when you think about the timing. Hutchinson testified that one of the instances when Meadows was burning these documents was when [Rep. Scott] Perry was actually in the chief of staff's office. They were talking about election issues, they were talking about the vice president's role on Jan. 6, and certainly if you're looking for circumstantial evidence, that seems to be very damning."
"Two other things that stood out to me was that Hutchinson was in the room for part of Trump's call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and she seemed to notice how the White House counsels were quite concerned after that call," Lowell added, "and as we have since found out, DOJ is investigating that call, the Georgia district attorney is investigating that call, and one of the concerns for the White House counsel was exactly what was being discussed, so I thought that was a really big deal."
Some of the new evidence offered possible threads for DOJ investigators to follow, Lowell said, in addition to palace intrigue from inside the Trump White House.
"To me, you know, having looked at this investigation for 16 months, you know, I've covered Jan. 6 since the start of the committee's investigation," Lowell said. "What's really interesting has been what the committee couldn't get and what witnesses were reluctant to talk about, and if you go through the transcripts, even the latest that came out yesterday, various hints and various moments when witnesses become really resistant to talking about certain events. For instance, Ali Alexander, who is seen as this key linchpin among several of the Jan. 6 rally organizers because he had connections to Roger Stone, he had connections to the Proud Boys, who in turn had connections to Oath Keepers and those groups storming the Capitol."
"There is a text that Alexander sends on Jan. 5, when he says, 'Trump at end of the speech is going to order us to go to the Capitol,'" Lowell added. "He could not apparently remember how he came to learn of that [information]. If I'm the Justice Department trying to figure out exactly how the thread unravels, that's what I want to get. I want to get Ali Alexander in front of a grand jury and probe him about how he came to have that knowledge and why he was so reluctant to tell the committee."
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