CNN
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Throughout a personal assembly final summer time, Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy informed two law enforcement officials who defended the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the mom of a 3rd who died after the riot, that former President Donald Trump had no concept his supporters had been finishing up the assault, in response to newly obtained audio of the dialog.
Testimony to the Home Choose Committee on January 6 revealed that Trump watched tv for hours because the rioters engaged in a brutal struggle with legislation enforcement.
However McCarthy maintained Trump was unaware of the violence contained in the Capitol when he spoke with Trump by telephone that afternoon. He additionally appeared to take credit score for getting the then-President to make a late-afternoon public assertion urging his supporters to “go residence,” in response to one of many conferences’ attendees, then-DC Metropolitan police officer Michael Fanone.
“I’m simply telling you from my telephone name, I don’t know that he did know that,” McCarthy mentioned through the June 2021 assembly about Trump’s data of the combating, in response to audio secretly recorded by Fanone on the time and detailed in his new guide titled, “Maintain the Line: The Rebel and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.”
The District is a single-party consent jurisdiction for recordings, which means it’s authorized for one occasion to document one other with out permission. CNN has reached out to McCarthy’s workplace for remark.
The assembly got here as a variety of Home Republicans had been making an attempt to downplay or distort the info of what happened on January 6, when Trump’s false claims of a stolen election triggered a lethal assault on the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob.
It additionally happened as McCarthy was “backing off on a pledge to nominate Republicans to the particular January 6 Committee,” Fanone writes, including: “The one purpose McCarthy had agreed to satisfy with us was as a result of he’d been getting warmth for refusing to see me.”
Whereas some particulars of the assembly had been reported on the day it occurred, the newly launched audio underscores simply how rapidly Trump regained his grip on the Republican Social gathering following the January 6 assault regardless of an preliminary groundswell of bipartisan outrage over his unwillingness to denounce the violence because it was occurring.
McCarthy himself mentioned he thought of asking Trump to resign within the quick aftermath of the assault, in response to beforehand launched audio of a personal dialog between the Home minority chief and different Republican lawmakers.
Fanone, who was stun-gunned a number of instances and crushed with a flagpole through the riot, had beforehand made a number of makes an attempt to satisfy with the California Republican to debate the riot earlier than McCarthy in the end agreed, in response to his new guide.
Republicans, together with McCarthy, had largely opposed efforts to look at the circumstances of the riot, drawing intense criticism from Fanone and several other different law enforcement officials who had been there.
US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who additionally defended the Capitol through the riot, and the mom of late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick additionally participated within the assembly with McCarthy and all three repeatedly pressed McCarthy to acknowledge Trump’s position in spurring on the assault, in response to the recording. Sicknick suffered a number of strokes and died a day after the riot.
It was his mom, Gladys Sicknick, who first challenged McCarthy’s declare about what Trump knew and when he knew it.
“He already knew what was happening,” she mentioned of Trump, in response to the audio obtained by CNN. “Individuals had been combating for hours and hours and hours. This doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Later within the assembly, Fanone additionally confronted McCarthy about his protection of Trump, telling the Republican chief: “When you had been on the telephone with him, I used to be getting the shit kicked out of me!”
“I requested McCarthy why he would take credit score for Trump’s pathetic, half-hearted late-afternoon video tackle to his followers. I mentioned, ‘Trump says to his individuals, ‘That is what occurs once you steal an election. Go residence. I really like you.’ What the f–ok is that? That got here from the president of america,” Fanone writes in his guide.
All three urged McCarthy to sentence 21 members of his personal occasion who voted earlier that month in opposition to awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to officers who defended the Capitol and pushed him to decide to a critical “riot investigation,” Fanone writes in his memoir.
“I informed McCarthy I felt betrayed by the way in which some Republicans had been twisting a riotous assault on legislation enforcement officers right into a fundraising grift,” Fanone writes in his guide.
“‘It’s crap,’ I mentioned. ‘It’s disgraceful,’” he provides, recalling his feedback through the assembly and noting that “McCarthy provided no response.”
McCarthy mentioned forward of his assembly with Fanone that he has “no drawback speaking to anyone about” his dialog with Trump on January 6 when requested by CNN if he would communicate to the committee in regards to the name.
Fanone suffered a coronary heart assault and a concussion through the riot and is coping with a traumatic mind harm and post-traumatic stress dysfunction.