The House Select Committee, which is responsible for investigating the events leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, has requested the voluntary cooperation of Ivanka Trump, the daughter of former United States President Donald Trump and former senior White House adviser.
The request is a major step in the panel's efforts to close in on the former president's inner circle regarding their involvement in the insurrection. In a letter dated Thursday that was addressed to the Republican businessman's daughter, the committee sought Ivanka's "voluntary cooperation with our investigation."
Ivanka's Voluntary Cooperation
The letter detailed the panel's explosive new information regarding the former president's actions in the days prior to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The document included new testimony about Trump's attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to follow his orders on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.
The document also detailed new text messages from Fox host Sean Hannity, which were during the aftermath of the attack, that urged the White House to have Trump stop talking about the election being a fraud. It also showed how officials wanted to distance the former president from certain "crazy people," CNN reported.
The situation comes as the former president defended his "perfect" phone call with Georgia officials where he talked about election fraud in the state. On Thursday, the district attorney of Fulton County requested a special grand jury as part of the investigation of Trump's interference in the 2020 election results.
But the House Select Committee's request for voluntary cooperation from Ivanka includes asking for answers regarding the former president's daughter about her knowledge of various White House conversations relating to the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. The panel's chair, Bennie Thompson, also said that they wanted to question Ivanka on her father's state of mind.
Previously, the former president's ex-press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the committee about "off-the-books" secret meetings that were held before January 2021. She also provided the names of aides who may have insider information about the details of the discussions, Independent reported.
Investigation of Jan. 6 Riot
The panel's request of Ivanka suggests the House Select Committee was already delving deeper into the question of what Trump's involvement in the riot was. A retired lieutenant general, Keith Kellogg, who was Pence's national security adviser, testified that Trump had rejected entreaties by him as well as Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary.
Kellogg then turned his attention over to Ivanka to intervene with his father's inaction amid the Capitol Hill riot. The former official testified that the former president's daughter went back inside and noted she could be very "tenacious."
The former national security adviser also told investigators that he had previously recommended "very strongly" against the former president speaking on live television. He defended his proposal by saying that Trump's "press conferences tend to get out of control."
The House Select Committee also revealed that Kellogg had testified that he and Ivanka witnessed a telephone call in the Oval Office on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. The call was where the former president pressured Pence to follow his orders, the New York Times reported.
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