Robert O’Brien, who was national security adviser to then-President Donald Trump at the time of the Capitol riot in early 2021, was reportedly appearing Thursday for what was evidently grand jury testimony in a courthouse in Washington, D.C.
CNN made a point of noting how it wasn’t clear which jury O’Brien might be appearing before for testimony. He was subpoenaed both in connection to the sprawling investigation into political schemes in support of Trump’s attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election despite his loss and the ongoing criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents from his administration. Making Trump’s case still different from those of Biden and Pence, he and his associates could be guilty of some form of obstruction after the ex-president still retained classified documents even after months of communications with federal authorities and a signed statement from a lawyer of his claiming all that was covered by a subpoena demanding classified docs Trump held was getting returned to officials. That lawyer, Christina Bobb, has provided grand jury testimony, as have Trump lawyers Evan Corcoran and Alina Habba.
“O’Brien could have knowledge of how classified documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago because the National Security Council should be involved in handling those documents at the end of a presidency,” CNN reported. Although he or his lawyers might still bring up something like executive privilege, O’Brien was evidently in general opposition to the then-president after the violence of January 6 and reportedly considered resigning, as other top officials, like the Transportation and Education Secretaries, did. That’s quite a low bar, since at that point Trump was behind a violent assault on a seat of U.S. democracy meant to topple the certification of the presidential election results, but other officials and allies stayed on. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) was texting then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about potentially imposing martial law just days before Biden was scheduled to be inaugurated in late January 2021.
Now, Norman isn’t even supporting Trump’s bid for another term. Instead, he has thrown his weight behind the presidential campaign from Nikki Haley, a former official in the Trump administration and past governor of South Carolina who seems suspiciously unwilling to even directly confront Trump at all the junctures she could, although that’s who she’s ostensibly challenging! Haley’s support in polls generally lingers in the single digits.
