Remember James Comey saying “Lordy, I hope there are tapes”? Well, there are. Or even better: film, so we get audio and video of what was going on inside TFG’s White House as the Great Orange Shitgrubber himself was filmed in the last days of the election and after, and maybe even on January 6th itself. The J6 committee got the goods.
In a statement on Twitter on Tuesday, the filmmaker, Alex Holder, said that he had complied with the committee’s request for the footage. It was taken in connection with a three-part series titled “Unprecedented,” which focuses on the final weeks of President Donald J. Trump’s re-election campaign, culminating in the storming of the Capitol. Mr. Holder said in his statement that he would also be deposed by the committee’s staff on Thursday.
While it remains unclear exactly what Mr. Holder’s footage and testimony might reveal, he interviewed Mr. Trump three times, including once at the former president’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, directly after the Jan. 6 attack, according to a person familiar with conversations between the filmmaker and the committee. NYT: The panel issued a subpoena for footage from the White House during the Capitol attack.
(Note: The Times headline still focuses on the issuance of the subpoena rather than the compliance. On the other hand, the part I quoted above is only one short paragraph down. Go figure.)
Here is the tweet issued by the filmmaker:
It’s a bit long, and I can’t seem to cut-and-paste the text, so I have to transcribe. I’ll just give the title of the tweet:
Requested footage includes interviews with President Trump and family during the final 6 weeks leading up to January 6 . . .
The footage includes:
unparalleled access and exclusive interviews with President Trump, Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr., as well as Vice President Pence; in the White House, Mar-A-Lago, behind-the-scenes on the campaign trail, and before and after the events of January 6th.
Trump’s inability to keep his mouth shut about his criming has been the bane of any criminal lawyer he’s managed to get on his payroll, though so far he’s gotten away with it. So it is quite likely that footage of him while the insurrection was in full cry will reveal even more evidence of his culpability. As the Times article says,
If Mr. Holder's description of the footage proves accurate, it could be useful next week, when the committee is expected to hold another hearing about Mr. Trump’s real-time response to the Capitol attack. Committee officials have said that the hearing is likely to focus on Mr. Trump’s extended delay in issuing a public call to his supporters in the mob to leave the Capitol grounds.
It’s far too soon to say we finally got him. But not too soon to take another flyer in popcorn futures.