we're back on this breaking news with
dan goldman miles taylor and betsy would
respond who joins us by phone betsy take
us through your reporting about donald
trump jr's testimony before the 1-6
committee
that's right this story broke just
within the last hour what we know is
that yesterday as most of the country
was focused on the news about the
supreme court and on the first round of
primaries going on particularly in ohio
don jr had a virtual interview that
lasted several hours with investigators
on the select committee we know that
this interview notably and just like his
sister ivanka and his brother-in-law
jared kushner was not conducted under
subpoena don jr appeared voluntarily for
this interview we also know that the
select committee is deeply interested in
a number of topics that don jr has
direct knowledge of they're very
interested in the text that he sent to
the white house chief of staff saying
that trump needed to speak out much more
forcefully as the violence was unfolding
they're also deeply interested in the
january 6th rally that don jr spoke at
before the attack in that rally junior
specifically said that there would be
political consequences for republicans
who did not support the effort to
overturn the election results he
specifically said that he would show up
in the backyards of
republicans who didn't support the
president's effort which has been
characterized as him threatening to
support primary challengers essentially
saying that republicans took their
careers into their own hands unless they
were on board with the president's
effort very much part of this rhetorical
effort to level as much pressure as
possible against republican members of
congress these are all things that are
core to the select committee's
investigation the fact that john jr
cooperated voluntarily
just shows the extent to which in the
final weeks of the investigative process
this committee has had a series of major
breakthroughs and of major bursts of
momentum that most of us i think
couldn't have imagined last year when
the committee first started its work
i mean it also draws a bright line
between
ivanka and jared trump and now donald
trump jr and steve bannon and mark
meadows
the people willing to go to jail to
protect donald trump aren't his kids
does this have any ramifications on
those um obstructive acts by steve
bannon or mark meadows in your view
betsy
you know you have to wonder if bannon
and meadows have a little bit of buyer's
remorse about the fact that they were so
quick to stiff-arm the select committee
at this point cooperating with the
select committee has the blessing of
trump's you know most of trump's family
uh and if there were going to be
punishment or ramifications to people if
that's what meadows and bannon thought
that they might face now in the 11th
hour of the probe it's clear that
actually people are going to be able to
cooperate with this without necessarily
facing any significant criticism from
trump or his inner circle they kind of
got the worst of both worlds uh bannon
and meadows in that you know they're now
an inmet in a bannon's case facing
doj
criminal charges in meadows case
potentially facing criminal charges when
they could have handled this much more
easily by just cooperating and you have
to think that any other senior trump
administration officials or allies who
had been on the fence about playing ball
with the committee now there's no
question that cooperation by far is the
path of least resistance
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