March 8, 2024 – J6 Committee falsely claimed they had ‘no evidence’ to support Trump officials’ claims the White House had asked for 10,000 National Guard troops

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The House committee investigating the January 6 “insurrection.” (Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images)

Former Rep. Liz Cheney’s January 6 Committee suppressed evidence that President Donald Trump pushed for 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the nation’s capital, a previously hidden transcript obtained by The Federalist shows.

Cheney and her committee falsely claimed they had “no evidence” to support Trump officials’ claims the White House had communicated its desire for 10,000 National Guard troops. In fact, an early transcribed interview conducted by the committee included precisely that evidence from a key source. The interview, which Cheney attended and personally participated in, was suppressed from public release until now.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Anthony Ornato (Credit: Wikipedia)

Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato’s first transcribed interview with the committee was conducted on January 28, 2022. In it, he told Cheney and her investigators that he overheard White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows push Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to request as many National Guard troops as she needed to protect the city.

He also testified President Trump had suggested 10,000 would be needed to keep the peace at the public rallies and protests scheduled for January 6, 2021. Ornato also described White House frustration with Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller’s slow deployment of assistance on the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Not only did the committee not accurately characterize the interview, they suppressed the transcript from public review. On top of that, committee allies began publishing critical stories and even conspiracy theories about Ornato ahead of follow-up interviews with him. Ornato was a career Secret Service official who had been detailed to the security position in the White House.

Cheney frequently points skeptics of her investigation to the Government Publishing Office website that posted, she said, “transcripts, documents, exhibits & our meticulously sourced 800+ page final report.” That website provides “supporting documents” to the claims made by Cheney and fellow anti-Trump enthusiasts.

However, transcripts of fewer than half of the 1,000 interviews the committee claims it conducted are posted on that site. It is unclear how many of the hidden transcripts include exonerating information suppressed by the committee.

Those documents support the committee’s narrative rather than the truth of the events leading up to January 6, 2021, said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight. (Read more: The Federalist, 3/08/2024)  (Archive)

Update 3/10/2024

(…) On Saturday, conservative commentator Mark Levin called Cheney out, posting on X: “Sleazy Liz Cheney needs to receive some of the Stalinist medicine she introduced into the body politick against scores of patriotic Americans — that is, she needs to be compelled to testify under oath about, among other things, what knowledge she may have about: possible witness tampering, censorship of exculpatory information and testimony, the destruction of committee evidence and data, etc.”

Cheney responded, calling Mollie Hemingway a “bozo” – and directing people to various sections of the Jan. 6 report in which Secretary of Defense Miller (the guy who was ‘slow to deploy’ assistance) said Trump never ordered 10,000 troops, and that Kash Patel is “not a credible witness” (as determined by a judge with a conflict noted below).

Note that Cheney never addresses the suppression of information.

(Zero Hedge, 3/11/2024) (Archive)

On March 11, 2021, The Washington Post retracted its false reporting on Trump’s phone call with Raffensberger.