Jan. 6 committee releases first transcripts from interviews

Roger Stone’s interview with the Jan. 6 select committee lasted 51 minutes and pleaded with Fifth Amendment for every question that was asked, the panel's transcripts show.

Stone did not comment on anything the panel put in front of him, including photographs, public statements, video clips of interviews, and text messages. He also took the Fifth when asked basic questions like his age.  

Stone did not reveal who paid for his private flight from Florida to Washington, DC, in the days before Jan. 6, or who paid for his hotel room at the Willard InterContinental, which is where Stone and other Trump allies set a “war room” on Jan. 6. He also would not confirm which events he was invited to speak at on Jan. 5 and 6, by whom, or if he even attended them at all. 

He was previously convicted of lying to Congress during its investigation into Russian meddling in 2016. Prosecutors argued that he lied to protect then-President Donald Trump, who pardoned him in 2020, before leaving office.

Through its questioning, the select committee investigators delved into how the Oath Keepers coordinated to protect Stone when he was in Washington, DC, on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021. A group chat through the encrypted messaging app Signal included Stone and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who has been convicted of seditious conspiracy. Stone wrote, “this group is for all event organizers and VIP speakers who need Oath Keepers PSD or event security on Jan 5/6 so they can talk to me and my top OK team leaders all in one place.” Rhodes later messaged that Kelly Meggs from Florida would be Stone’s protection.  

The select committee asked about text exchanges between Stone and “Stop the Steal” rally organizer Ali Alexander, who also was interviewed by the panel, from Jan. 6 where the pair discuss logistics about the rallies that day. 

“As I expected, no speaking spot, no VIP entrance for any of my people” Stone said to Alexander at approximately 10:02 a.m. A few hours later, Alexander wrote to stone, “get your ass to the US Capitol” and added “we have a stage & the presidents order.”

The House select committee looking into the Jan. 6 insurrection on Wednesday night released the first tranche of transcripts of interviews from its 17-month investigation.

Read them here:

Former President Donald Trump’s one-time national security adviser, Michael Flynn, asserted his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination to nearly every question asked by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection during his interview with the panel, the transcript of his testimony released Wednesday confirms.

Flynn answered a series of initial questions about his background and military career, acknowledging for example that he joined a group called “The America Project,” which was founded by former Overstock CEO and known election denier Patrick Byrne.

He also answered when the committee asked if he knew the reason Trump pardoned him.

“Because I think he saw my whole case as a travesty of justice,” Flynn said. 

But when asked why he failed to produce any documents pursuant to the committee’s subpoena, Flynn invoked the Fifth Amendment, ultimately doing so for every other question during the course of his March deposition.

Flynn’s lawyer noted during the interview that his client was appearing before the committee while a lawsuit to quash the panel’s subpoena was still pending.

Among the questions Flynn responded to by invoking his Fifth Amendment protections, were about his communications with Trump, White House staff, officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, officials at the Department of Justice and attorneys representing the former president about election fraud or other irregularities.

More background: CNN has previously reported that Flynn played a central role in not only spreading baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud and pushed US officials to investigate claims about foreign manipulation of voting machines.

During an Oval Office meeting with Trump in mid-December 2020, Flynn also proposed using the federal government to seize voting machines, sources previously told CNN.

House Republicans released a report Wednesday focused on security failures at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, highlighting well-documented breakdowns in intelligence sharing, Capitol security and coordination between various law enforcement agencies that responded that day.

Their primary recommendation centers around reforming the Capitol Police Board and bolstering congressional oversight of the Capitol police force – two issues that were identified by lawmakers of both parties in the wake of Jan. 6.

But the GOP report is silent on other efforts to disrupt the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election and selective in its criticism of political leaders and their culpability in the security breakdowns on Jan. 6. The report resurfaces largely unfounded allegations to cast blame on Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while glossing over former President Donald Trump’s own role.  

Republicans cast the report as a rebuttal to the House select committee’s investigation into Jan. 6 as they are set to take control of the chamber and endeavor to take back the narrative. Republican lawmakers have said the security failures are paramount and that the select committee overstepped its mandate in its 17-month probe.

The Democrat-led select committee had planned to release its final report on Wednesday but has delayed the rollout until Thursday. An executive summary released on Monday lays blame for the insurrection squarely on Trump.

More on the report: The GOP report comes from the five Republicans who Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy initially appointed to serve on the select committee before deciding members of his party would not participate.

It includes a timeline of events that occurred on Jan. 6, making no mention of the fact that Trump waited hours before calling on the rioters to leave the US Capitol that day and omitting incendiary remarks he made at the rally preceding the attack. 

Instead, the report paints Trump as only encouraging his supporters at the White House Ellipse to march to the US Capitol and demonstrate “peacefully,” noticeably omitting other parts of the speech, including when he encouraged rally goers to “fight light hell.”

Similarly, the timeline includes a tweet Trump sent after the Capitol had been breached, saying: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!” 

Missing from the report is Trump’s tweet in which he eventually told the rioters to leave the Capitol – several hours after the deadly riot began.

The select committee has revealed witness testimony from several former White House officials saying Trump repeatedly refused to call off the rioters despite being asked to do so by a number of his closest advisers.

The GOP report also doesn’t address Trump’s claim that he issued a directive prior to Jan. 6 to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to the Capitol that day.

Trump's former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, in an interview with the select committee, denied Trump gave him formal orders authorizing the deployment of National Guard troops to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

In an updated guidance, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol said it “now anticipates its final report will be filed and released tomorrow.”

The committee also said the release of other records is possible today.

The panel originally said the report would be released Wednesday.

Members of the House select committee have been investigating what happened before, after and during the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. Now they are getting ready to present their findings in a final report expected to be released Wednesday.

The committee is made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans. It was formed after efforts to create an independent 9/11-style commission failed. 

Rep. Liz Cheney is one of two Republicans on the panel appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled all five of his selections because Pelosi would not accept two of his picks. In July 2021, Pelosi invited GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to join the committee, making him the second GOP lawmaker to sit on the committee. 

Here's who is on the panel:

Democrats: 

Republicans 

The final report the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack is set to release Wednesday launches a new era for criminal investigators, politicians, and members of the public who have been eager to see the nuts and bolts of its work.

Here's what to watch for:

Detail on possible obstruction of the investigation

In the summary of its report released earlier this week, the panel revealed it is aware of “multiple efforts by President Donald Trump to contact Select Committee witnesses,” adding that DOJ is aware “of at least one of those circumstances.”

The summary released Monday also claimed the panel has a “range of evidence suggesting specific efforts to obstruct the Committee’s investigation.” That includes concerns that attorneys paid by Trump’s political committee or allied groups “have specific incentives to defend President Trump rather than zealously represent their own clients.”

Details of Trump’s effort to visit the Capitol

The summary details that the panel was ultimately unable to get former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato to corroborate a bombshell moment during the public hearings, in which Hutchinson recalled Ornato describing Trump’s altercation with the head of his security detail when he was told he would not be taken to the Capitol following his speech on the Ellipse.

The committee summary said both Hutchinson and a White House employee testified to the panel about the Ornato conversation. But “Ornato professed that he did not recall either communication, and that he had no knowledge at all about the President’s anger.”

The committee wrote that it “has significant concerns about the credibility of this testimony” and vowed to release his transcript publicly.

Fundraising efforts

In terms of financing after the 2020 presidential election and through the Jan. 6 rallies, the committee says it gathered evidence indicating that Trump “raised roughly one quarter of a billion dollars in fundraising efforts between the election and January 6th.”

“Those solicitations persistently claimed and referred to election fraud that did not exist,” the panel wrote.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, has said the panel has evidence that members of the Trump family and inner circle – including Kimberly Guilfoyle – personally benefited from money that was raised based on the former president’s false election claims, but the panel has never gone as far to say a financial crime has been committed.

Read more on what to watch for here.

The Jan. 6 committee made a startling allegation on Monday, claiming it had evidence that a Trump-backed attorney urged a key witness to mislead the committee about details they recalled. In the executive summary of the final report, the committee revisited the issue in its handoff of the investigation to the Justice Department.

According to the report, “the lawyer had advised the witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the Committee that she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them.” The committee declined to identify the people.

What we know: However, CNN has learned that Stefan Passantino, the top ethics attorney in the Trump White House, is the lawyer who allegedly advised his then-client, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, to tell the committee that she did not recall details that she did, sources familiar with the committee’s work tell CNN. Before her public testimony, Hutchinson dropped Passantino and got a new lawyer.

Trump’s Save America political action committee funded Passantino and his law firm Elections LLC, including paying for his representation of Hutchinson, other sources tell CNN. The committee report notes the lawyer did not tell his client who was paying for the legal services.

In a statement to CNN, Passantino said he didn’t advise Hutchinson to mislead the committee. “I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me. I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her.”

Passantino pointed out it’s not uncommon for people to change lawyers “because their interests or strategies change,” according to his statement. He also said political committees sometimes cover client fees “at the client’s request.”

By Tuesday, Passantino’s professional biography had been removed from the website of a midwestern-based law firm where he was a partner – and he acknowledged in his statement he was on a leave of absence from the firm “given the distraction of this matter.” He remains a partner at Elections LLC.

Lawyers must follow extensive ethics guidelines as part of their profession, including avoiding conflicts of interest that could compromise their representation of a client. According to legal ethics experts, a lawyer swaying their client’s testimony in a way that wouldn’t be entirely truthful could be looked at as possible obstruction of an investigation.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has started handing over evidence — documents and transcripts — to the Justice Department in the last week, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Special Counsel Jack Smith had sent a letter to the committee on Dec. 5, requesting all of the information from the panel’s investigation, another source told CNN.

The information transfer focuses specifically on former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s former election lawyer John Eastman, the source added. The DOJ also received Meadows text messages from the committee.

The panel also has started to share transcripts of witness interviews pertaining to the false slates of electors and the pressure campaign by the former president and his allies on certain states to overturn the 2020 election results.

“We’ve actually given some transcripts to the Department of Justice during the last month,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the select committee, told CNN Monday.

The committee also is slated to release its full final report today.

Spokespersons for the committee and for the special counsel did not respond to CNN's request for comment.