Trump tried to call Jan. 6 committee witness, Cheney says

Cipollone pushed back on the idea that the Trump administration could have seized voting machines, testifying there was no legal basis to do so.

"There was a real question in my mind, and a real concern, particularly after the attorney general had reached a conclusion that there wasn't sufficient election fraud to change the outcome of the election, when other people kept suggesting that there was, the answer is, what is it? And at some point, you have to put up or shut up."

"To have the federal government seize voting machines?" he added. "That's a terrible idea for the country. That's not how we do things in the United States. There's no legal authority to do that."

The committee said Trump got the idea to seize voting machines after a meeting with outside advisers, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who were chief proponents of the conspiracy theory that Trump was robbed of electoral victory by widespread voter fraud.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr testified that he told Trump that the government could not seize voting machines.

"Well, some people say we can get to the bottom of this if the department seized the machines," Barr testified Trump told him.

"I said, 'absolutely not, there's no probable cause, and we're not going to seize any machines,'" Barr said he responded.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., revealed for the first time publicly that then-Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia "called President Trump in mid-December and advised him to concede."

She went on to play a video clip of Scalia's testimony.

"I put a call to the president. We spoke on the 14th, in which I conveyed to him that I thought that it was time for him to acknowledge that President Biden had prevailed in the election," he said in a taped deposition.

"I communicated to the president that, when that legal process is exhausted, and when the electors have voted, that that is the point at which the outcome has to be expected," he said, hitting on the committee's argument that Trump was made well aware that he lost.

The Jan. 6 committee aired the first clips from then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone's highly-anticipated videotaped deposition, which took place behind closed doors on Friday.

Cipollone told committee members he agreed with assessments from then-Attorney General Bill Barr and others that there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn Trump's election loss.

Cipollone also testified that he believed Trump should have conceded the election, and that Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows assured him that Trump would eventually make a graceful exit.

"I would say that is a statement and a sentiment that I heard from Mark Meadows ... It wasn't a one-time statement," Cipollone said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., leading the hearing along with Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., laid out what he called "three rings" he said Trump mobilized in an attempt to overturn the election.

In the inside ring, he said, was Trump's pressure on Vice President Mike Pence, while in the middle ring were organized extremists, and in the outer ring was the angry mob.

"On the inside ring, Trump continues trying to work to overturn the election by getting Mike Pence to abandon his oath of office, as vice president and assert the unilateral power to reject electoral votes," Raskin said. "Meanwhile, in the middle ring, members of domestic violence groups created an alliance, both online and in-person, to coordinate a massive effort, to storm invade and occupy the Capitol."

"Finally, in the outer rim, on January 6th, they assembled a large and angry crowd," he said. "All of these efforts, we converge and explode on January the 6th."