More details continue to emerge around the disgraced, twice-impeached Donald Trump and what he was doing during the siege on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. According to a report from the Associated Press, the House committee investigating the events of that terrible day wants to know more details from Trump’s close adviser and daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Ivanka is a focus as a number of reports, including most recently from former Vice President Mike Pence staffer Keith Kellogg, that claim the first daughter was repeatedly asked to help handle her father. (Her father, the President of the United States of America, an executive once widely regarded as the leader of the free world.) Those reports include claims that she has intimate knowledge of his thoughts leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and on the day itself.
At issue here is an attempt by investigators to get a clearer picture of the degree to which Donald Trump was instigating the riots and chaos of that day, what his role was while things were unfolding, and whether or not he consciously worked to quell the increasing violence.
Investigators are hoping to add Ivanka Trump’s testimony in the narrative that other White House staff and Trump-orbit Republicans have either told investigators, told book publishers, told reporters, or have revealed in their subpoenaed correspondence from that day.
One of the truly dark stories about the Trump White House on Jan. 6 comes from the former White House Press Secretary and confidant to Melania Trump, Stephenie Grisham, who told news outlets that Trump spent a good part of the day “in the dining room gleefully watching on his TV as he often did. ‘Look at all of the people fighting for me.’ Hitting rewind, watching it again.”
The Associated Press reports that part of that story also includes the claim that, “at one point,” Trump seemed confused that his staffers weren’t as psyched about the turn to violence at the nation’s Capitol as Donald himself clearly was. This, along with Trump’s refusal to step up and tell his supporters to stop trying to kill Capitol police and elected officials in Congress, led many of the sycophants around Trump to focus their energies on getting Ivanka Trump to step up.
It will be interesting to see what Ivanka tells the committee if she cooperates. Her father is clearly a basic narcissist for whom the word “responsibility” does not exist. How like her father Ivanka is remains to be fully explored.