Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the first hearings of the Jan. 6 committee and the biggest takeaways from the evidence presented by the panel.

Cheddar Politics

Biggest Takeaways From the Jan. 6 Hearings, So Far

everyone I know in new york, the long awaited hearings of the january 6th committee firmly underway that the first hearing drew 20 million viewers in prime time and the evidence presented so far has proven to be a stirring reminder about the attack that we had on our democracy. The committee is painting a detailed portrait of what they call a multipronged effort to try to overturn the 2020 election and there's a still a lot more to be revealed. So joining us now is Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional accountability Center Elizabeth. Such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. Clearly, a lot of incredible, stirring, shocking revelations being released at least over the course of the last week or so. What were some of your big takeaways from the hearings thus far? I think they've made an incredibly compelling case that trump, knew that he had lost the election and yet continued to say that he had won. He knew that there was no election fraud, that the election fraud claims in the word of his own attorney general were nonsense, silly bogus. And yet he continued to press these election fraud claims. He knew that his legal theories were bogus after he lost time and time again in the courts, including in front of judges that he himself appointed. He knew that everything he was saying was a lie. And yet he continued to lie To whip up a crowd that assembled on January six and we saw the terrible footage of what happened on that day and heard the just gut wrenching testimony of Officer Edwards that first primetime night about what she went through and we saw the way in which those lies lead to that violence, that it was a predictable result, that it would lead to that violence. And we saw again and again that trump use these lies to try to hold onto power regardless of the cost, even if he had to shred the constitution. In the meantime, we've heard that he fund raised off these lies, raising money for an election fraud fund that didn't exist. And we're going to hear today even more compelling testimony about how he tried to disrupt that constitutional transfer of power, that most sacred, peaceful transfer of power, which has never been disrupted in our nation's history by pressuring his own vice president. And I think that the committee has just done a really amazing job of using republicans to tell this story. This is not a partisan theater show. This is real compelling testimony from republicans themselves, not democratic politicians or political strategists, but from the people who were in the room who were on team trump who are giving us insight into what happened, how president trump knew that what he was saying was an absolute lie, but didn't care because he wanted to hold onto power, no matter the cost to the american democracy, people's right to vote, our sacred right to choose our own leaders. And I think there's only even more explosive testimony and evidence in store for you. Let's talk about that cause I'm in 100% in the same agreement with you. I thought the video testimony we had for Bill Stepien and even, you know, Bill Barr was incredible given the fact that you're right, these are the attorney general and the campaign manager for the President here basically telling him, don't listen to Rudy Giuliani. Don't listen to john Eastman, don't listen to Sidney Powell. Do you almost feel like them sort of saying this and basically setting the table basically saying that trump knew what he was doing was wrong is sort of the most convincing element in all of this. It's absolutely important that what we're hearing is from the people on trump's team themselves. You know, this is not something that can be just be dismissed as opponents of President trump. Um you know, look would Bill Stepien have liked his campaign for president trump to have been successful. Absolutely. But he told President trump, you've lost the elect action, these claims of election fraud, These claims that their votes out there for you that aren't being counted. They're just there. I think he said there's no there there, you know, Bill Barr said he would vote for trump again if he runs he's not an anti trump guy. He's giving this these factual pieces of evidence that I think are made even stronger by the fact that people supported President trump. But they weren't going to go along with his lies and they weren't going to undermine the people's right to vote in the way that president trump was trying to do. So they wanted to win for sure, but they recognized that they had lost because the people didn't vote for them. All right, Elizabeth. Let's talk about jenny thomas and all of this, because as the days go on, we're learning sort of more and more about sort of her interaction with trump officials and even potentially even her husband in all of this as well. Just within the last little bit. Representative Bennie Thompson apparently told reporters, we think quote, it's time that we at some point invite jenny thomas to come and talk to the committee. Do you expect her to actually come and testify? And just how important now is jenny thomas now to this entire investigation? I think we'll just see what her, you know, evidence, what the evidence is regarding, her involvement is. You know, there's such a very strong case from all of the other testimony, evidence that is already there that, you know, I don't know that she is crucial to proving their case, that there was an ongoing criminal conspiracy that was that led to january 6th um, to undermine the vote of the people and overturn the election. I don't know if she's crucial to proving that because there's already so much that the committee has amassed over its nearly year long investigation. But certainly I think they're right to seek that information and whether or not she needs to be subpoenaed in order to provide that information. The committee has already had to do that with several individuals, and the courts have upheld the committee's right to do so that they've upheld the committee's right to get this information and have upheld subpoenas for people to participate. So, I think either way, what we're seeing is a committee that has undertaken a bipartisan process To painstakingly uncover all of the evidence regarding this ongoing criminal conspiracy, of which January six was a predictable result, um and try to hold people accountable whoever they may be. All right, Elizabeth Wydra. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens today. President of the Constitutional accountability Center. Thanks so much for joining us.