by Chris Hayes
MSNBC
Jul 28, 2022
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so one of the questions that has
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lingered in the year and a half since
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the violent attack on january 6 is why
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the capitol police were basically left
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alone to defend themselves and all the
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lawmakers inside the building, not to
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mention the seat of the u.s government.
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how could it be that there was no plan
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to support them ahead of a day that
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donald trump teased would be "wild"?
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and why did it take so long for backup
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to arrive on the 6th when it was clear
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the capitol piece were overwhelmed. we
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saw it on television. where was the
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national guard?
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well, beginning that very afternoon, the
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trump white house attempted to tamp down
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those concerns with a big lie.
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hours into the attack, press secretary
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kayleigh mcenaney tweeted, at president
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trump's direction, "the national guard is
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on the way."
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not true!
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just a lie. not true. donald trump never
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directed the national guard to go to the
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capitol. maybe she was mistaken. but in
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the days before or on january 6, it didn't
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happen. that did not stop trump himself
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from then lying on january 7th.
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[Donald Trump] "i immediately deployed the national
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guard
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and federal law enforcement to secure
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the building and expel the intruders.
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america is, and must always be, a nation
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of law and order."
1:12
[Chris Hayes] we now know, thanks to testimony to the
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january 6 committee, donald trump's staff
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had to convince him to make that speech,
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the january 7th one, in the first place.
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and when he finally agreed, practically
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the first thing out of his mouth, was
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that lie: " i deployed the national guard." it
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had already been debunked, the new york
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times reporting on the evening of
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january 6th that trump, "rebuffed and
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resisted requests to mobilize the
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national guard, and in the end it was
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vice president mike pence who approved
1:37
the order to deploy."
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that did not stop trump and his allies
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and his staff from repeating the lie over
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and over again.
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[Mark Meadows, Fox News] "even in january that was was given. as
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many as ten thousand national guard
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troops were told to be on the ready by
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the secretary of defense. that was a
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direct order from president trump."
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[Chris Hayes] a few weeks after that, trump said it
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again, in an interview on fox news, this
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time trying to dump some of the blame on
2:04
nancy pelosi.
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[Donald Trump, Fox News] "i definitely gave the number of ten
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thousand,
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uh, national guardsmen. i think you should
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have ten thousand of the national guard
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ready. uh, they took that number, from what
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i understand, they gave it to the people
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at the capitol, which is controlled by
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pelosi.
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and i heard they rejected it, because
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they didn't think it would look good."
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[Chris Hayes] of course, the new part also completely
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untrue. just
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fabricated whole cloth. trump has
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continued to spread this lie. even
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recently on his fake twitter platform,
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falsely claiming he recommended, offered
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thousands of troops, and pelosi refused
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them. he will not stop repeating this.
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even now, 18 months later. then, of course,
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there's the cable news echo chamber for
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trump's pseudo alibi.
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[Sean Hannity] "donald trump authorized up to 20,000
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national guard soldiers to protect the
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capitol."
[Sean Hannity] "donald trump authorized the use
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of 20,000 national guard troops."
[Sean Hannity] "donald
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trump called up the national guard two
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days prior."
[Sean Hannity] "don't forget president trump
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requested increased national guard
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support in the days leading up to the to
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january 6."
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[Chris Hayes] sean hannity was still doing this as
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recently as last month. according to
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media matters, he pushed the lie hundreds
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of times in total on at least 43 episodes
3:17
of his show, including when he asked
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donald trump's acting secretary of
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defense at the time, chris miller, and chris
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miller's chief of staff kash patel to
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confirm they heard trump authorize the
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use of national guard troops before the
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6th.
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[Kash Patel] "Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 national guardsmen and women for us to utilize should the second part of the law, the request come in. But those requests never did, as you highlighted."
[Sean Hannity] "Let me be very clear: both of you said this under oath, under the threat of a penalty of perjury, to the committee?
[Chris Miller] Absolutely, Sean.
[Chris Hayes] Chris Miller, "Absolutely Sean." Now there's no law against lying to Fox News viewers, and if there was they would not have a network. But there is a law against lying under oath. So what story do you think Chris Miller, the guy who told Sean Hannity last month that Trump ordered the guard to be deployed, before the 6th to be ready, what he told the January 6 committee? Well, the Committee has released the tape. We'll play it for you next.
[Kash Patel] "Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 national guardsmen and women for us to utilize should the second part of the law, the requests come in. But those requests never did as you highlighted."
[Sean Hannity] "Let me me be very clear: both of you said this under oath, under the threat of a penalty of perjury, to the Committee?
[Chris Miller] Absolutely, Sean.
[Chris Hayes] "Under threat of oath, perjury. Absolutely, Sean. Unequivocally." Not a lot of wiggle room in those statements.
Since January 6, Donald Trump and his allies, like Kash Patel -- who apparently wears a custom Kash Patel lapel pin, with a dollar sign on it -- have repeated this utter lie over and over, that the ex-president authorized the national guard to defend the capitol from the mob in the days, uh, leading to it, and then he ordered them to go in. Well now, the January 6 Committee has released definitive proof debunking it. This is testimony under oath from one of the very men you just heard spreading the lie, with Sean Hannity on Fox News last month, Donald Trump's acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller.
[Committee] "I want to be clear here that since then, in February of 2021, Mark Meadows said on Fox News that "even in January, that was a given, as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the Secretary of Defense." Is there any accuracy to that statement?
[Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller] "Not, not from my perspective. I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature, so I was surprised by seeing that publicly. But I don't know the context, or you know, where it was. But no, there was no -- we obviously had plans for activating more folks, uh, but that was not anything more than contingency planning. There was no official message traffic, or anything of that nature."
[Committee] "Just so we're clear, you did not have 10,000 troops 'to be on the ready for January 6th, prior to January 6th?'"
[Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller] "Uh, a non-military person probably could have some sort of weird interpretation, but no, to answer your question. That was not, uh, part of my plan, or the Department of Defense's plan."
Chris Hayes] Lies, just lies. They just lie.
Joining us, now Elie Mystal, justice
correspondent for the nation where he
covers politics, and the courts, and also
lies. Um Elie, I,
this is just one small
little nugget. Right? It's just like one
thing.
But it's just very rare that you sort of get them to say the
truth.
And what to me this sort of speaks to, in
some ways, is the power of
subpoenas, the power of being under oath,
which is a real thing, with real
consequences.
And it really does matter. So here we have
an example of why it matters. Why it
matters that a January 6 Committee can get
people under oath. Because they can't lie
like they do on Sean Hannity when
they're before the Committee.
[Elie Mystal] Yeah, Chris Miller might as well have
said, um, "It is weird that people actually
believed the words coming out of my mouth,
because who would do that?" Clear? Like,
that was his testimony under oath. And
you're exactly right Chris: this is why
the subpoenas have so much power. But
this is a lesson that we all need to
learn. And I would argue, we should have
learned in, I don't know, circa 2015.
These people lie
for a living. All they know how to do is
lie. If they are not under oath,
everything they say should be viewed as
a lie. If Donald Trump says, "I had a
cheeseburger for dinner," what should
happen next is a voiceover saying, "MSNBC
News cannot confirm whether or not Trump
got the cheeseburger, or the chicken
nuggets in his happy meal."
I mean,
we have to
independently verify everything they say,
because all they do is lie. That's all
they know how to do. Remember Chris, just
a couple weeks ago, Cassidy Hutchinson
testified,
and then there was all this right-wing
drama, "Oh, the Secret Service is gonna --
Tony Ornato is gonna testify." No. Did they do
that? No. Because they were lying. Nope. And
they weren't gonna come under oath to
lie, so they just had to put this out
there, when everybody knew that Cassidy
Hutchinson was telling the truth, because
she testified under oath. And these
unnamed sources were just lying. At some
point, the rest of the media needs to
catch up to reality and stop
platforming these liars uncritically.
[Liz Cheney] "that is when you heard the president say
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the people with weapons weren't there to
9:07
hurt him, and that he wanted the secret
9:09
service to remove the magnetometers"?
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[Cassidy Hutchinson] "that's correct."
[Liz cheney] "when the president said
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that he would be going to the capitol
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during his speech on the ellipse, the
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secret service scrambled to find a way
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for him to go."
[Cassidy Hutchinson] "mr meadows had a
9:22
conversation with me where he wanted me
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to work with secret service on a
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movement from the white house to the
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Willard hotel so he could attend the
9:30
meeting,
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or meetings, with mr giuliani and his
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associates."
9:36
[Chris Hayes] one thing the january 6 hearings showed
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us was just how integral the secret
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service was to what happened the day of
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the capitol attack. which is why it was
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such a huge shock when we learned that all of
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the text messages, from dozens of agents
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on january 5th and 6th, were deleted.
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that prompted the department of homeland
9:52
security inspector general to open an
9:54
investigation into the agency.
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it's important to note the inspector
9:57
general himself was the same dhs
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inspector general during the trump
10:01
administration. in fact, the guy who heads
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up the secret service right now is the
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same guy who oversaw it during the
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insurrection.
10:08
after the investigation into deleted text
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messages was launched, a spokesperson for
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the secret service released a statement
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saying, "the insinuation that the secret
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service maliciously deleted text
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messages following a request is false."
10:20
instead blaming a technical error. but
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now top democrats are calling for the
10:24
inspector general to step aside, because
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he reportedly found out about those
10:28
deleted text messages, "in december
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20-21, two months earlier than previously
10:33
reported, and did not alert congress at
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the time.
10:37
now jay johnson served as the head of
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the department of homeland security
10:40
under president barack obama. it's the
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body that oversees the secret service.
10:44
and he joins me now. um, it's great to
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have you on. i want to start with the
10:48
secret service, because
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it's a agency with a lot of mythos
10:53
attached to it. they have obviously an
10:54
incredibly important and crucial job. i
10:56
think there's lots of people who work
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there who are, you know, patriots who take
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their job very seriously. institutionally,
11:03
the story the secret service is telling
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here doesn't really add up. and i'm
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wondering your perspective as a person
11:09
who worked at dhs. like how are you
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hearing all this?
11:14
[Jay Johnson] Chris, first of all thanks for having me
11:16
on. my internet connection's a little
11:18
unstable, so you might lose me. and you'll
11:20
end up talking to yourself.
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but,
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uh i was the oversight of the secret
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service
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uh for three years. and i was a protectee
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of the secret service for three years. i
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was in their constant
11:31
company. um,
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a little perspective here. the secret
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service
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is trained
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to take a bullet for the protectee. on
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occasion, even the secret service is
11:44
trained to,
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uh, save a protectee from himself, as we
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saw on
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january 6th.
11:51
I would be, I have to say, I would be very surprised to learn that there was something nefarious around January 6th, related to January 6, through the loss of these text messages. For as long as I've known the Secret Service, going back to my days as a federal prosecutor 33 years ago, they are good at some things, but they are not good at the back office stuff.
Friends, now I'm going to talk about something that probably qualifies as irony. When I was a federal prosecutor at the D.C. U.S. attorney's office, and we seized evidence, computers or cell phones, and we needed to have forensic searches conducted of the computers, or of the cell phones, you know where I went? I didn't go to the Metropolitan Police Department. I didn't even go to the FBI lab down at Quantico, although I used their services regularly for other forensic endeavors. No, I went to the U.S. Secret Service Forensic Science Division. That was the unit that we most often used to conduct forensic searches of cell phones. And they were really good at what they did. They were especially good at retrieving things that had been deleted from cell phones, or deleted from computers. I'm betting they probably still are good at what they do. And in fact, if you look at the U.S. Secret Service website, you'll see that they think they're pretty good at what they do. There's the website for the Secret Service, touting their forensic expertise: "expertise in processing and analyzing digital multimedia, items of evidence, expertise in cyber forensics, which includes a cyber workforce of special agents and forensic analysts dedicated to conducting advanced computer, mobile device" -- that would be cell phones -- "and vehicle infotainment systems forensic examinations using specialized methods, software, and equipment and their cyber forensic teams work to identify and secure criminal evidence for prosecution." I guess, except, when they're deleting their own text messages that are of enormous investigative value.
-- Secret Service deletes Jan. 6 text messages. A move to protect Trump? Also, Mike Pence MUST testify, by Glenn Kirschner, Justice Matters
And uh, one of the things that frustrated me most in the job as DHS secretary of oversight were the number of unforced errors coming out of that agency, while on the other hand their central mission is executed flawlessly, like a U.N. general assembly, for example, the largest domestic security operation of 2015, led by the Secret Service. Um, so, in the context of the events around January 6, where you have
in the presidential transition, an outgoing President who frankly is unhinged, an incoming President, the Secret Service is in the middle of that transition, they're managing the security on January 20, and the nation is on high alert. Uh, frankly, I'm not surprised that they did not get the data migration completely perfect. Uh, we will learn more about this, but, um, I've had to admonish the Secret Service, I've had to ask for a Director's resignation. It is far from perfect in its execution of a number of things, without a doubt.
Chris Hayes: that's a that's a very interesting
13:25
perspective and and illuminating because
13:27
of the experience that you had there
13:28
were some uh you know there were some
13:30
scandals there the secret service during
13:32
during your the period of time that that
13:33
you were overseeing it um i want to ask
13:36
too about something that you said you
13:37
were former federal prosecutors you just
13:38
referenced um and you said that
13:42
more or less that the case the public
13:44
evidence thus presented
13:47
could in the hands of it i think you
13:48
said aggressive prosecutor
13:50
be an indictable prosecutable case
13:53
elaborate on that
13:55
based upon everything we know from
13:57
public sources
13:58
including most notably the january 6th
14:01
hearings
14:02
i believe
14:03
that an aggressive prosecutor
14:06
would be willing to take on the case
14:08
against donald trump
14:09
for
14:10
participation in a seditious conspiracy
14:13
for violation of the insurrection
14:15
statute
14:16
in my opinion january 6 was a very
14:18
definition of an insurrection and the
14:21
statute punishes those who incite the
14:24
insurrection and those who give aid and
14:26
comfort thereto
14:28
donald trump lit the match uh that
14:30
started the conflagration there were
14:32
moments during january 6 where he flew
14:34
he uh
14:35
poured gasoline on the fire and he was
14:38
the commander-in-chief of all the
14:40
firemen
14:41
and
14:42
and failed to call them in
14:44
uh i i believe that uh
14:47
we're well within the range of potential
14:50
criminal liability uh if a an aggressive
14:53
prosecutor is willing to take that on
14:57
i you know you served in the obama
14:58
administration uh you were the if i'm
15:00
not mistaken the general counsel
15:02
department of defense um you've long
15:04
distinguished legal career i tend to
15:06
think of the the individuals like
15:08
yourself who made up the obama cabinet
15:10
and worked close to the former president
15:12
as you know pretty strong
15:13
institutionalists i mean really believe
15:15
in american institutions believe that
15:17
they are uh that they can be uh made to
15:20
be responsive and and and produce uh
15:22
increases in in our welfare
15:25
and i guess i wonder is what do you
15:27
think about the case of like that you
15:28
know this will be bad for the country
15:30
it'll tear the country apart it's
15:31
institutionally reckless to prosecute an
15:34
ex-president from from your perspective
15:35
to someone who's served as long as you
15:37
have
15:39
uh chris i respect and admire what
15:42
gerald ford did in 1974
15:45
75
15:47
sparing the country the prosecution of
15:48
richard nixon
15:50
i think we live in different times right
15:52
now
15:53
an argument could be made
15:55
that
15:56
um
15:57
if there is an indictable case against
16:00
the former president yet we fail to
16:02
prosecute him we may be doing more harm
16:05
to our democracy
16:06
uh than if we forebear
16:09
and it's a different time now and
16:11
in my judgment the actions that occurred
16:14
during the trump presidency around
16:16
january 6 and before were actually far
16:18
more serious than watergate
16:21
yeah jay johnson uh thank you so much
16:23
for for hanging out uh through those
16:25
hanging with us through those technical
16:26
adults i really appreciate it thank you
16:28
always great to see you thank you very
16:29
much
16:32
[Music]
17:10
you
**********************
Miller Contradicts Himself, Says Trump Did Not Order to Deploy Jan.6 Troops
by Gerrard Kaonga
Newsweek
7/27/22 AT 4:44 AM EDT
The January 6 committee has released the audio testimony of former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller in which he said ex-President Donald Trump did not give any order prior to the January 6 Capitol riot to deploy the military.
The video has also gone viral on Twitter and has more than one million views since it was posted on Tuesday.
The audio testimony from Miller contradicts not only what Trump has previously said about his actions to prevent violence on January 6, 2021, but also what Miller has said about Trump's actions.
January 6th Committee
@January6thCmte · Follow
To remove any doubt: Not only did Donald Trump fail to contact his Secretary of Defense on January 6th (as shown in our hearing), Trump also failed to give any order prior to January 6 to deploy the military to protect the Capitol.
Here is Secretary Miller’s testimony—
https://twitter.com/i/status/1552041350941532168
3:21 PM · Jul 26, 2022
Miller was asked by a committee interviewer about comments made by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Fox News in February 2021.
The interviewer quoted Meadows saying that as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the secretary of defense.
When asked if there was any accuracy to the statement, Miller said: "I'm not... not from my perspective.
"I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature.
"So I was surprised by seeing that publicly but I don't know the context or even where it was.
"So, no there was... obviously we had plans for activating more folks, but that was not anything more than contingency planning.
"There was no official message traffic or anything."
He was cut off and the interviewer asked for clarification about whether there were or were not 10,000 troops on the ready for January 6 prior to January 6.
He answered: "A non-military person probably could have some sort of weird interpretation, but no. The answer to your question is no.
"That was not part of my plan or the Department of Defense's plan.
He added: "There was no direct... there was no order from the president."
On June 9, 2022, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to say that he offered up to 20,000 National Guard or troops to be deployed.
"The Unselect Committee has now learned that I, as President suggested and offered up to 20,000 National Guard, or troops, be deployed in D.C. because it was felt that the crowd was going to be very large," he posted.
"Crazy Nancy Pelosi turned down the offer, she didn't like the way it looked. Likewise, the Mayor of D.C.
"Had they taken up the offer, there would have been no January 6. The Unselects have ruled Pelosi 'off limits, no questions.' The hearing is another political HOAX to counter inflation etc."
A clip of Miller on Sean Hannity's show has also gone viral showing him say that he testified under oath that Trump authorized 20,000 troops. It is not clear on what date Miller was on Hannity's show, however.
cyn
@Acyn · Follow
Replying to @Acyn
Here is Miller saying on Hannity he testified under oath that Trump authorized 20k troops
https://twitter.com/i/status/1552053211640451072
4:08 PM · Jul 26, 2022
While on the show, former Defense Department official Kash Patel said: "Mr. Trump unequivocally authorized up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women for us to utilize.
Hannity asked: "Let me be very clear. Both of you said this under oath, under the threat of perjury, to the committee?
Miller replied: "Absolutely Sean and to be clear, Kash brought it up best. The meeting was one of the most serious kinds of heavy meetings I have been in.
"It was about a foreign threat that was directed towards the United States. Obviously, we can't talk to you about that for fear of ending up in jail.
He continued: "The president, as we are leaving, says one more thing and we all sat back down and we discussed what was going on on January 6.
"I think it is important to bring up so that the opposition doesn't get this idea that this was the purpose of the meeting.
"The president was doing exactly what I expect the Commander in Chief to do, he was looking at the broad threats against the United States and he brought this up on his own, we did not bring it up."
Newsweek has contacted Trump's office and Miller for comment.
