Thread by @SethAbramson

(🔐) NEW: PROOF readers have been asking for this report for a long time—and rightly so.

On January 6, 2021, Sen. Grassley was third in line to the presidency—and is a more important witness than Kevin McCarthy.

I hope you’ll subscribe, read and RETWEET. sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-comi…

1/ Americans already know the information House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would testify to before the House January 6 Committee (though to be clear, PROOF still believes he must be subpoenaed and deposed).

We know what he’ll say because he’s said it publicly at least twice.

2/ CNN reports McCarthy revealed the content of his January 6 call with Trump both in a January 12, 2021 radio interview *and* in a transcribed GOP caucus meeting—and we also have testimony from another Republican rep, who McCarthy described the call to shortly after it happened.

3/ But there are even more reasons than this for the House January 6 Committee to start focusing more on Chuck Grassley now than even Kevin McCarthy (though again, it can and should do both): because *we already know* how Donald Trump responded to the January 6 attack in private.

4/ I'm not just talking about the recent testimony of former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, whose supposedly "new" testimony only echoed what *six* major media outlets reported back in January 2021: Trump *loved* the attack on the Capitol. rollingstone.com/politics/polit…

5/ Yes, the House Special Committee needs McCarthy to go on record on this issue—and must refer him to DOJ for criminal prosecution if he perjures himself or refuses to honor a subpoena. That’s basic rule-of-law stuff. But from an *investigative* standpoint, Grassley offers more.

6/ It’s for this reason that readers of PROOF and this feed have long asked me—or, really, *anyone* in media—to research and write about Sen. Grassley’s *stunning* Insurrection Eve statement on Vice President Mike Pence and the certification of Biden’s landslide election victory.

7/ At the time, no less a right-wing outlet than THE HILL reported that the man who was, on Insurrection Eve, third in line to the American presidency sent "shock waves" through DC on the eve of one of the most tense days in modern American history—causing "chaos" with his words.

8/ What PROOF details here, to a degree never before seen, is *exactly* what Grassley said on Insurrection Eve, and to whom, and why, and where, and how—as well as the *many* lies his team told to cover up what his words imported. And what did they import? A potential conspiracy.

9/ You may think you know everything Chuck Grassley said and did on Insurrection Eve—I know I foolishly thought that, before starting this research—but you do not.

The matter of what Grassley did on Insurrection Eve, and why, is much more complicated than we previously realized.

10/ What I can’t understand is why media is so little interested in this subject. The January 6 mob Trump sent to the Capitol wanted to hang two people only—Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.

Do you know who the two people ahead of Grassley in the line of succession were on January 6?

11/ I say this not to suggest Grassley was part of a plot to harm Pence or Pelosi—I’ve seen no evidence of that—but to underscore the *stakes* on January 6, and how closely Grassley was tied to those stakes. There’s a reason he was one of 3 people federal agents rushed to safety.

12/ And there’s a *reason* that Trump’s seditious plot (which we now know—thank you, Peter Navarro—went by the name THE GREEN BAY SWEEP) had an out clause—indeed one that appeared in Step 1 of the plot!—that involved removing Pence from the picture in favor of.... Chuck Grassley.

13/ Grassley is a canny political operator who has been treated as a non-entity in the insurrection *solely* because of his age.

But the fact—the actually *documented* fact—is that not a single Trumpist insurrectionist misunderstood how central Grassley could be to the 1/6 coup.

14/ So when the implication is left that a canny political operator was merely speaking over-casually about *the most important political issue in America on Insurrection Eve, namely what Pence was about to do or not*—and that this explains his *many* bizarre statements, it’s BS.

15/ Needless to say, PROOF doesn’t merely submit this as some sort of *opinion*: it does an exhaustively researched deep dive on the *facts* of the matter, using reliable major-media sources and (most of all) *quotes from Grassley and his political operation* on Insurrection Eve.

16/ If you’ve ever, even for a moment, wondered about Chuck Grassley’s "shock wave"–producing, "chaos"–inducing statements on Insurrection Eve, this is an article you *have* to read. Be aware that it’s dense, long, and probably requires multiple reads. The issue is a complex one.

17/ What the article makes clear—again, with evidence, not speculation—is that the House January 6 Committee *must* subpoena Chuck Grassley to testify *under oath* about January 6. His coy statements from September 2021 will not do, and no other witness can replace his testimony.

18/ I ask folks to RETWEET the first article in this thread not just because I know PROOF to be a valuable resource on the insurrection as we head into next month’s public hearings on January 6—though that’s true—but because the Grassley Question has gone unanswered for too long.

19/ As I’ve written here over the last week, we came closer to losing our democracy on January 6 than most realize.

If Pence gets into that car in the Capitol garage—

If Pence’s escape is just 45 seconds slower—

If Grassley takes that gavel in that Senate—

Everything changes.

20/ Never—ever—believe the insurrectionist lie that the Trumpist coup plot on January 6 was to permanently overwhelm federal forces by violence. That has literally *nothing* to do with January 6 other than in the fevered imaginations of coup plotters aiming to cover their tracks.

CONCLUSION/ The 1/6 coup plot depended on the following:

1⃣ A 2- to 3-day occupation of the Capitol
2⃣ The use of forged documents to delay certification
3⃣ The complicity of state officials Trump had pre-briefed
4⃣ Removal of the VP from the situation

Grassley was *key* to 4⃣.