Never-before-seen photos of then-President Donald Trump surrounded by his children and aides at the White House in the hours before MAGA supporters stormed the Capitol were presented to the select committee on Thursday from the room.
The photos first came to light as the committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot shed light on a “heated” phone call Trump made to his then Vice President, Mike Pence, from the Oval Office on the morning of January 6.
Trump’s children, Ivanka, Eric and Don Jr., could be seen watching the call. Don Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, were also in the Oval Office.
In videotaped testimony, then-first daughter Ivanka said the conversation was “quite heated” and “a different tone than I had heard him take with the vice president before.”
In other taped interviews, aides described snippets of the conversation, which they only heard from Trump’s side during the call.
Former Trump aide Nicholas Luna said he heard the word “wimp,” while Ivanka’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, said she was told the president called Pence “the word. p”.
Testifying in person, Greg Jacob, one of Pence’s lawyers, said he was there when the vice president returned after taking Trump’s call, saying the vice president looked “steel , determined, sinister”.
The photos and testimony came as the committee focused on Trump’s pressure on Pence to reject certification of Joe Biden’s Jan. 6 election victory.
The committee also showed never-before-seen photos of Pence after he was evacuated to a safe location in the Capitol as rioters stormed in.
One of the photos showed Pence speaking on the phone, while another showed him reading one of Trump’s tweets.
Within hours of the call with Pence, Trump then took to the stage and slammed the vice president to his thousands of supporters after Pence certified the election results — and refused to bow to pressure.
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