Jan. 6 Panel Has Testimony That Trump Was Intrigued By Whole ‘Hang Pence’ Thing: NYT

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 04: U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to Vice President Mike Pence on election night in the East Room of the White House in the early morning hours of November 04, 2020 in Washington, DC.... WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 04: U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to Vice President Mike Pence on election night in the East Room of the White House in the early morning hours of November 04, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump spoke shortly after 2am with the presidential race against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden still too close to call. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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After video emerged on Jan. 6 showing Capitol rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” Donald Trump said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hung, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The report was based on accounts of testimony to the congressional Jan. 6 committee. 

Trump was also apparently upset that Pence had been whisked away to safety during the attack, the Times reported based on the same sourcing. 

According to the report, the description of Trump’s comments came from then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who’s retelling of Trump’s comments was described to the committee by at least one witness. The account was then confirmed to the committee by another witness, former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, the Times reported. 

A Meadows lawyer told the Times they had “every reason to believe” that the account of Meadows’ retelling “is untrue.” A spokesperson for Trump attacked the committee but did not address the substance of the Times’ reporting. 

Separately, citing committee testimony, the Times reported that Trump spoke “approvingly” of the “Hang Mike Pence” chants.

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Notable Replies

  1. Donald Trump, as a businessman, as a politician, as a human being, has absolutely no redeeming value. None. He is like toxic waste, i.e. cannot be recycled.

  2. For all the hair-on-fire panic-buttons: what does this kind of leak suggest to you about the sheer mass and damning nature of the evidence they’ve assembled.

    Trump will die in jail.

  3. Avatar for mrf mrf says:

    In 2016 you would hear his supporters. “But he’s a builder!”
    His rhetoric gave us the stochastic terror which led to 1/6 and the construction of those gallows. It’s as if he contracted them out and in typical Trump fashion shafted the contractors.

  4. As a part of his neurosis, nothing and no one outside his personal existence really exists. Hanging Mike Pence seemed like a good idea to Trump because “Mike Pence” was just a construct that was there to prop him up in office and do his bidding. When “Mike Pence” stopped doing what he demanded, “Mike Pence” stopped being useful and if the people who still showered Trump with adulation wanted to hang “Mike Pence,” then that was probably all right, in Trump’s book.

    He’s incapable of viewing other people as if they are actual living independent people with their own desires and ambitions (and right to live unmolested).

  5. Yep, pretty close.

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