Ivanka Trump is in discussions with the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection to speak with them, her office confirmed to DailyMail.com.
‘Ivanka Trump is in discussions with the committee to voluntarily appear for an interview,’ a spokesperson for Ivanka Trump said.
The panel asked Ivanka Trump last month to voluntarily come and speak with them about what she saw that day. Trump, the daughter of former President Donald Trump, was with her father at a rally where he addressed his supporters before they marched on the Capitol and then was in the White House that day as events unfolded.
She has yet to agree on a date when she might talk with the commitee and the panel has made no threat of an imminent subpoena, the New York Times reported, citing committee sources.
Ivanka Trump served as an adviser to her father Donald Trump during his White House tenure. She, husband Jared Kushner and their three children moved to Miami after the Trump’s administration ended.
Former President Donald Trump has not requested that his daughter defy the committee’s requests, as he has done with his other top aides, the Times noted.
It would unlikely for Ivanka Trump to take any steps that her father did not approve of as the two are extremely close. The former president has ordered other aides – includng Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Dan Scavino Jr., a deputy chief of staff; and Stephen K. Bannon, an adviser – not to speak to investigators.
Meadows and Bannon have been found in contempt of the House. The Justice Department is investigating Bannon and has yet to decide if it will do the same for Meadows.
Donald Trump blasted the panel after it requested to speak to Ivanka. The panel also has requested to hear from Eric Trump, the former president’s son who ran the business empire, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign and the finance of his oldest son Don Jr.
‘It’s a very unfair situation for my children,’ the former president told the Washington Examiner in January.
Ivanka Trump is in discussions with the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection to speak with them
Ivanka Trump with her father Donald Trump at his rally outside the White House on January 6th
In its January letter to Ivanka, the House committee said they were seeking a voluntary interview about what she saw on January 6th, including Donald Trump’s actions that day and his state of mind as his supporters stormed the Capitol.
The 11-page letter offered new details about the committee has learned about what happened in the White House on the day of the insurrection.
Ivanka is the latest member of the Trump family to be targeted by the panel. The committee has also sought logs of phone calls and text messages between the former president’s son Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
She was in the Oval Office on January 6th where she reportedly encouraged him to ask his supporters to stand down during their raid on the Capitol, where they tried to stop the official Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
In its letter, the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol referred to Ivanka being present in the Oval Office on the morning of January 6th, when then-President Trump called Vice President Mike Pence to pressure him to try and hold up certification of the 2020 election.
‘The Select Committee wishes to discuss the part of the conversation you observed between President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of January 6th,’ the panel wrote to her.
The committee noted General Keith Kellogg, the retired general who served as a national security adviser to Pence and was also in the Oval that day, told them after Trump’s call to Pence, ‘[Ivanka Trump] turned to me and said ‘Mike Pence is a good man.”
‘Similarly, the Select Committee would like to discuss any other conversations you may have witnessed or participated in regarding the president’s plan to obstruct or impede the counting of electoral votes.’
The panel also noted: ‘The committee has information suggesting that President Trump’s White House counsel may have concluded that the actions President Trump directed Vice President Pence to take would violate the Constitution or would be otherwise illegal.’
‘Did you discuss those issues with any member of the White House Counsel’s Office?’
They said they also wanted to speak with her about Donald Trump’s response to the insurrection. They referenced a tweet Donald Trump sent at 2:24 that day where he said Pence ‘didn’t have the courage’ to do what needed to be done.
‘We are particularly interested in discussions inside the White House and with the President before and after his 2:24 p.m. tweet. Testimony obtained by the Select Committee indicates that members of the White House staff requested your assistance on multiple occasions to intervene in an attempt to persuade President Trump to address the ongoing lawlessness and violence on Capitol Hill,’ the panel wrote to Ivanka.
‘Testimony obtained by the Select Committee indicates that members of the White House staff requested your assistance on multiple occasions to intervene in an attempt to persuade President Trump to address the ongoing lawlessness and violence on Capitol Hill.’
And, they noted, that White House staff ‘recognized that might be’ the one person who could get Donald Trump to act.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (center), chair of the select committee investigating the January 6 attack, said the panel wants to hear from Ivanka Trump
The panel also noted Kellogg told them he had ‘very strongly’ recommended that Trump not do a live television statement on that day ‘because press conferences get out of control and you want to control the message.’
‘Apparently, certain White House staff believed that a live unscripted press appearance by the President in the midst of the Capitol Hill violence could have made the situation worse,’ the panel noted.
President Trump ultimately filmed a video statement from the Rose Garden that was posted online. He reporatedly had to do multiple takes to get one staff would post.
‘The Select Committee understands that multiple takes of the video were filmed but not utilized. Information in the Select possession suggests that the President failed in the initial clips to ask rioters to leave the Capitol. The Select Committee has sought copies of those unused clips from the National Archives,’ the panel notes.
‘You have knowledge bearing directly on the president’s actions or inactions on January 6th and his state of mind as the violent attack occurred at the Capitol. The Select Committee would very much appreciate your voluntary cooperation with its investigation on these matters,’ the panel wrote to Ivanka.
The committee also revealed its investigating whether or not President Trump ordered the National Guard to respond.
‘The Committee has identified no evidence that President Trump issued any order, or took any other action, to deploy the guard that day. Nor does it appear that President Trump made any calls at all to the Department of Justice or any other law enforcement agency to request deployment of their personnel to the Capitol,’ the panel wrote, saying they wanted to discuss that issue with her.
Finally, the panel said they wished to speak to Ivanka about efforts by White House staff and others – including Fox News host Sean Hannity – to have President Trump stop making statements claiming the election was ‘stolen’ from him.
They cite a text exchange between Hannity and then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has already testified to the panel, where Hannity wrote to her: ‘Key now. No more crazy people.’
‘Yes, 100%,’ McEnany wrote back.
‘The Select Committee would like to discuss this effort after January 6th to persuade President Trump not to associate himself with certain people, and to avoid further discussion regarding election fraud allegations,’ the panel wrote to Ivanka.
