Dozens of allies and supporters of former president Donald Trump invoked their constitutional right to not answer questions posed by the House committee investigating the 2021 assault on the US Capitol, according to transcripts released Wednesday night.
Campaign strategist Roger Stone, for example, asserted his right to remain silent even for questions about his age and place of residence.
Michael Flynn, a former Army general and Trump’s first national security adviser, was pardoned by the then-president after pleading guilty to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US. In the Jan. 6 investigation, he used his right to remain silent.
Garrett Ziegler, a former White House aide, asserted his right when asked how he got his job at the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.
The first of accounts of witness testimony released by the committee came after the panel delayed until Thursday publication of its final report on the assault by Trump supporters trying to thwart the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
The committee, which has pledged to release hundreds of transcripts, interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 1 million pieces of communications and other evidence, some of which investigators reveal in the questions.
Among the 34 transcripts released Thursday are those stemming from interviews of other marquee names in the Trump circle, including John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who promoted the legal theory that then-Vice president Mike Pence had the authority to refuse to count Biden votes from battleground states.
At one point, committee member Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, asked Eastman to clarify, “You’re asserting the Fifth as to whether or not you’re refusing to answer questions just about all of your actions, or also about the ideas you have about the Electoral College. Is that right?”
Eastman replied, “Yes, I’m asserting the Fifth.”
Radio provocateur Alex Jones was asked repeatedly about his contact with Trump or right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and he replied over and over “On advice of counsel I’m asserting my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.”
He took the Fifth Amendment nearly 100 times in his testimony, though he did occasionally claim he wanted to answer questions or sparred with members of the committee.
In some instances, the questions were revealing. For example, an investigator cited an invoice to the conservative student group Turning Point USA getting billed $60,000 for “strategic advisory, promotion, keynote speeches” by Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr. on Jan. 6, the day of the attack and the rally that preceded it.
Charles Kirk, the founder of the group, declined to confirm the payment, invoking his Fifth Amendment right.
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