The House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, offered new details on Tuesday about a meeting at the White House that involved several Republican members of Congress ahead of the meeting of the joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 presidential election.
Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, a committee member, said the December 21 meeting was part of an effort to “disseminate his false claims and to encourage members of the public to fight the outcome on January 6.”
Murphy said that Vice President Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff at the time, attended the meeting, along with President Donald Trump.
At the meeting, Murphy said the members discussed election theories pushed by Trump’s personal lawyer John Eastman, who said he believed that Pence was able to single-handedly reject slates of electors in his role presiding over the joint session.
In reality, Pence’s role was simply to count the votes. On Tuesday, the committee aired footage of Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel. He was asked to address a comment attributed to him by another Trump advisor, Jason Miller, who quoted him as saying that Eastman’s theory was “nutty.” Cipollone declined to contradict that.
Cipollone said he tried to attend the meeting himself but was apparently turned away.
Here are the 11 House Republicans who were at the meeting, according to the White House visitor logs obtained by the January 6 panel:
- Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama
- Rep. Brian Babin of Texas
- Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona
- Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida
- Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas
- Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona
- Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland
- Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia
- Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio
- Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
- Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
The committee previously shared a number of Republicans who sought pardons from Trump in the final days of his administration. Six of the attendees of the December 21, 2020, meeting — Biggs, Brooks, Gaetz, Gohmert, Greene, and Perry — sought pardons.
