Things just keep getting worse for John Eastman
John Eastman, the Trump-allied lawyer whose name has come up throughout the Jan. 6 committee's public hearings, is having a rough go of it lately.
Eastman said in a court filing Monday that federal agents in New Mexico stopped him last week as he was walking to his car and seized his phone.
Federal agents last week also searched the home of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. Clark was a key figure in Trump's efforts to get the DOJ to help overturn the election, as several former top DOJ officials testified at the last Jan.6 hearing.
There's a lesson in all of this for future coup plotters. But are they listening?
Surprise hearing is a risky bet for the committee — with a potentially high reward
There will be "a lot of significance" in today's hearing, a source familiar with the proceedings told NBC News on Monday.
Well, then! That’s a pretty bold claim to make in what definitely feels like a high-risk/high-reward situation for the committee. On the one hand, the committee’s planned pause had threatened to sap some of the momentum gained in the weeks of hearings so far. On the other hand, though, the secrecy surrounding the unanticipated hearing threatened to allow the public’s imagination to fill in the gaps.
I do have faith so far that the committee isn’t overplaying its hand. I can honestly say that even if I weren’t going to be liveblogging the entire event, I’d definitely be tuning in to find out just what the panel has in store for us.
Cassidy Hutchinson is today's surprise witness. Who is she?
The Jan. 6 committee raised eyebrows yesterday when it suddenly announced a surprise Tuesday hearing featuring live testimony from an unnamed witness. NBC News has now confirmed the witness is Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Hutchinson's name has repeatedly come up during the committee's probe. She testified to congressional investigators that Meadows received a Secret Service briefing the day before Jan. 6 warning of potential violence. She also testified that several Republican lawmakers who sought pardons from Trump were engaged in discussions about how to overturn the 2020 election.
Meadows, like a cartoon villain, burned documents in a White House fireplace after meeting with Rep. Scott Perry in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, Hutchinson has reportedly already told the committee. Perry, a Trump loyalist, also allegedly sought a pardon from the then-president.