Important to remember what prompted the subpoena — scenes in PERIL showing Bannon and Trump speaking about the 6th, thinking it through. Talking about Pence.
“People are going to go, ‘What the fuck is going on here? We’re going to bury Biden on January 6th, fucking bury him.’”
This was not just about a stray comment on a radio/podcast program. This is about Trump. Conversations with a president who is trying to stoke chaos on the Hill and push the election to the House so he can stay in power.
Bannon, Giuliani, the Willard. Pushing Pence on the eve.
Trump is working the levers of power on night of Jan. 5…
Eastman memo reveals the details of Trump’s legal plan. But Bannon and Trump conversations remain key to understanding the rest of the story — Trump’s behind the scene efforts to stir up his supporters, ramp up pressure…
Our book shows Bannon wasn’t an outside player, but an inside participant in Trump pressure campaign.
It Scavino in Oval on 5th, the night Trump revels in the mob outside & asks aides what else he can do to pressure Congress.
It shows Trump updating Willard crew post Pence mtg.
When you read news stories about Bannon defying the subpoena, think about why. Think about the scenes we know about and report in the book — and the scenes we do not know about.
What else does he know about Trump, Giuliani, Eastman? That’s what the 1-6 cmmte wants to answer.
One episode on Jan. 5 that deserves more attention: Trump issued a statement late at night speaking for Pence, hours before the next day's certification.
Trump declared he and Pence were in "total agreement that the [VP] has the power to act."
Of course, they were not.
"This breaks protocol," Pence chief Marc Short said tersely in phone call with Trump adviser Jason Miller, who was at the Willard with Giuliani and Bannon, among others. Miller refused to retract a word.
From pgs. 233-234 of PERIL
Why this matters: the Trump-Pence Oval meeting on Jan. 5 was not the end of it. Even when Pence flatly refused to do what Trump wanted, Trump soon decided to issue a public statement defining the vice president's power and position on the election.
As the debate in DC over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan continues, worth remembering what happened last November: outside of the official channels, Trump's former body man & others drafted a rapid U.S. withdrawal memo, as @jonathanvswan reported. And Trump signed it.
Months later, @realBobWoodward and I included the text of the memo in PERIL: "... no later than 15 January 2021. Inform all allied and partner forces of the directives." cnn.com/2021/09/14/pol…
"What do you mean you have no idea? You're the national security adviser to the President?" Milley responded. "And the secretary of defense didn't know about this? ... How the hell does this happen?"
Why reading the whole story in PERIL matters, beyond the headlines: the Eastman memo and argument wasn't just a pressure point on Pence. It was a pressure point on *Sen. Mike Lee,* one of the most influential legal minds in GOP. There was a push to get his cred, his endorsement.
Remember Trump on January 4? He says at Georgia Senate rally, "Mike Lee is here" and "I'm a little angry at him today. I just want Mike Lee to listen to what we're talking about."
Behind the scenes, Lee investigated the Eastman memo ahead of January 6. Chapters 40-42 detail how he made call after call, talking to state GOP leaders. Quickly found, on his own, no state was going to decertify their electors. "Not one house chamber in any of these states."
As we worked on PERIL, it became evident that Jan. 6 was not a sporadic moment, as some have tried to cast it. Our reporting shows it was the culmination of a coordinated pressure campaign. Giuliani & Bannon at the Willard. Eastman & Trump in Oval, etc. nbcnews.com/politics/polit…
While the riot, understandably, was at first the central focus, our book shows that the riot isn’t the whole story of Jan 6. The story is also what Trump and those around him were doing to use power to keep power in days prior, with Bannon & Trump seeing Jan. 6 as the reckoning.
I'm in touch with someone who's on the governors' call with President Trump right now. They and others listening in are alarmed. The president is urging governors to take back the streets, not be "weak," and use force as the nation faces growing racial unrest.
More: President Trump just berated governors and mayors for how they are handling the protests, calling them "fools," per person on the call.
Aides to governors say the president continues to talk. One describes it as a "rant." Says he keeps talking about the need to "dominate" the protests.