The House panel investigating the Capitol riot is continuing to explore newly available information while working through its slate of public hearings outlining its case for Americans. Now, The Guardian reports the committee is “closely focused” on calls made by and discussions among Donald’s adult children and aides at a particular point before the 2020 election.
The scrutinized calls unfolded the night of the first general election debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, which was on September 29, 2020. Documentary filmmaker Alex Holder spent some time at an invitation-only event at Trump’s Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., where he captured some of the discussions on tape as the private gathering unfolded. Holder was the first to reveal the existence of the event — and his footage of it — to the riot panel. “What appears to interest the panel is whether Trump and his children had planned to somehow stop the certification of the election on January 6 – a potential violation of federal law – and to force a contingent election if Trump lost as early as September,” Hugo Lowell reported in The Guardian. That would represent a remarkably early start for the potential criminal conspiracy targeting the election.
Infamous Trump goon Steve Bannon was already talking about the supposed possibility of deciding the 2020 presidential election outcome in Congress around the time the Trump International Hotel gathering took place, and investigators on the riot panel believe advisers to Donald Trump Jr. and his fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, were brought in the loop regarding such notions before the 2020 presidential election actually happened.
Holder — the documentarian responsible for the footage at issue — was welcomed to the Trump International Hotel that night in 2020 by Eric Trump, although Holder was eventually asked to depart by Donald Jr. It’s not clear from The Guardian article why he might have been asked to leave. Holder obtained substantial tranches of footage showcasing the Trumps and their circles, including some seven hours worth of personal interviews with Donald, Mike Pence, Trump’s adult children, and Jared Kushner, alongside some 110 hours of video from the campaign.
The Guardian identifies Donald Jr. and Eric Trump as among those shown engaging in apparent strategy discussions in footage from the September 2020 event Holder captured. It’s unclear at this point whether the riot committee has been able to obtain Holder’s footage, although it sounds like they might have it: “As I’ve stated previously, I have provided the committee with all requested materials and am fully cooperating with the investigation,” Holder said.
Holder met in-person with the riot committee last Thursday, where he testified regarding — among other points of interest — the actual content of his interviews. Holder interviewed Donald himself three times, including once in December 2020 and twice following the riot. Holder’s interactions with Ivanka depict a portrait strikingly distinct from the one she provided the riot committee: despite claiming to have accepted then-AG Bill Barr’s insistence there was no evidence of systematic election fraud, Ivanka insisted to Holder — after Barr laid that out — that Donald should “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted.” Holder ended up creating a documentary called Unprecedented, which is scheduled for a three-part release on Discovery+ later this year. The Trumps had no editorial control over the production’s content.
My statement about meeting with the January 6th Committee: pic.twitter.com/ZDUDc6nV39
— Alex Holder (@alexjholder) June 23, 2022
