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Democrats can be forgiven for having flashbacks when Steve Bannon defied a subpoena to appear before the House committee investigating the origins of the January 6 insurrection, citing executive privilege. That was, after all, the move Donald Trump used for four years to stonewall congressional investigators. So when Bannons lawyer said earlier this month that he wouldnt comply with committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, it was tempting to think: Here we go again.

But things have changed with Trump gone from office. Democrats subpoenas are harder to ignore with the threat of contempt, the charge Bannon is facing. Trump can no longer use executive privilege as the magic words to make his problems go away. And former Trumpworld figures, perhaps seeking to rehabilitate their damaged reputations, have not only mostly complied with Thompsons committee, but have engaged with the panel voluntarily.

CNN reported Tuesday that at least five former Trump staffers have provided information to the committee investigating January 6, either because they believe they have information worth sharing or simply to preempt a potential subpoena. Among those who have come forward: Alyssa Farah, the former Mike Pence spokeswoman who quit as White House communications director in December 2020 because she saw where this was heading. The president and certain advisers around him are directly responsible, she told Politico the day after the Capitol attack.

In addition to those who have voluntarily spoken with the committee, congressional investigators are reaching out to other former White House staffers to solicit compliance. Ive got good reason to believe a number of them are horrified and scandalized by what took place on January 6 and they want to do their legal duty and their civic duty by coming forward to explain exactly what happened, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin told CNN on Tuesday. Were going to continue to encourage everybody who has relevant information to come and talk.

That engagement, be it voluntary or compelled, already appears to be yielding damning information. Over the weekend, Rolling Stone reported on eye-popping allegations that have been detailed to the committee, including that several House Republicans were intimately involved in planning the January 6 rally and that one, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, suggested Trump would offer organizers a blanket pardon for any trouble that followed. This never materialized, which perhaps explains the feelings of betrayal some rioters have expressed, particularly in the face of major legal consequences. January 6th was a disgrace to our nation that left a scar Trump is ultimately responsible for, one Capitol attack defendant, Thomas Sibick, wrote in a letter to Judge Amy Berman Jackson recently requesting release from jail, claiming he was consumed by the mob mentality. He added, I have vowed to never attend another political protest in my life, that was my first and last!

More is likely on the way: Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark is due to testify next week, and legal scholar John Eastman is expected to be hit with a subpoena. Both were part of Trumps plot to try to overturn his election loss; the latter wrote a memo outlining how Trumps DOJ could go about throwing out the results and undermining the will of the people. Meanwhile, Joe Bidens White House has once again refused to allow Trump to claim executive privilege over records related to January 6, allowing the committee access to more investigative materials. As Axios suggested Wednesday, Bannons failure to cooperate may be an aberration for a committee that actually seems to be chugging along with impressive momentum.

What will ultimately come of it? Its still too early to say. Even the hamstrung Trump-era investigations produced their share of damning revelationsnone of which led to actual accountability in a Washington divided along partisan lines. Those divisions, on Capitol Hill and beyond, havent budged in the last nine months and could still shield Trump and his cronies from consequences. But with a more muscular congressional investigation like the January 6 committee seems to be, there is perhaps reason for Republicans implicated in the findings to be nervous, as suggested by the careful statements by GOP lawmakers named in the Rolling Stone report. I was really busy, Rep. Mo Brooks, who wore body armor to the speech he gave ahead of the riot, told the Montgomery Advertiser, explaining why he couldnt possibly have been part of the planning. I was working on speeches for the House floor debates, he continued, though he added to CNN that while he had no involvement in the insurrection plot, his team may have. I dont know if my staff did, he said. But if they did, Id be proud of them.

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The January 6 Committee Is Finally Getting Trump Allies to Spill - Vanity Fair

As a top adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff has been a principal figure in some of the countrys most dramatic political and national security concerns, including the 2020 impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

A Framingham, Mass., native and 1985 Harvard Law School graduate, Schiff was first elected to Congress in 2000. His leadership of the intelligence committee put him squarely in the middle of Trumps clashes with U.S. intelligence, from the FBI investigation into Russias election interference to the impeachment of the president for his efforts to pressure Ukraine for political gain. The California Democrat is now a member of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Out with a bestselling memoir, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, Schiff spoke to the Gazette Tuesday about the Jan. 6 committees work even as new information unfolds. Interview has been edited for clarity and length.

GAZETTE: There have been news reports this week that Republican members of Congress and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows participated in planning meetings with rioters before Jan. 6. And Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa write in their new book, Peril, that President Donald Trump called into a command center gathering at the Willard hotel on Jan. 5 that included Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, and attorney John Eastman, after Vice President Mike Pence had refused to go along with a plan to stop the electoral vote certification the next day. If those reports are accurate, what are the potential legal ramifications?

SCHIFF: There have been a whole host of troubling public reports about what was going on at the Willard hotel, about the possibility of granting mass pardons to people who might be engaging in the illegal activity, and were going to investigate all of it and work up a report, expose any malefactors to public scrutiny. If there are prosecutable crimes, that will be up to the Justice Department to decide. But in Congress, if any misconduct involves members, we have remedies of censure around ethics violations, and expulsion from the House.

Whether its people working for the campaign or the administration or playing some kind of dual role, were going to get to the bottom of it. Theres no daylight between Democrats and Republicans on the Select Committee when it comes to our quest for the truth. Weve cast a wide net, and we want to make sure that were aware of everything that went on. And were determined to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

GAZETTE: Does there need to be a special counsel?

SCHIFF: I havent opined on whether we need a special counsel or not. But I do think that the Justice Department needs to investigate any potential criminal misconduct, whether its by the former president or by others. I am concerned that I dont see that going on with respect to one thing in particular, which I consider deeply troubling, and that is: the former presidents efforts to get the secretary of state of Georgia to find 11,780 votes that dont exist, to essentially demand the secretary defraud the people of Georgia and in so doing, defraud the people of the United States. I dont think you can ignore that. And I think if anybody else had been on the phone and recorded making that kind of demand, they might be indicted by now.

We cannot have a system where a current president cant be prosecuted, and then, because we dont want to look backward, the former president cant be prosecuted; that theyre somehow too big to jail. Because, if we get to that point, then the president really does become above the law. Thats a dangerous proposition in the abstract; its even more dangerous, given the fact that Donald Trump is running for president again.

GAZETTE: If we take a step back, is Jan. 6 just one chapter in a much broader effort to stop Joe Biden from becoming president?

SCHIFF: It is. It begins with the effort to get Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, first by the presidents lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and others, and then by the president directly on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, trying to coerce Ukraine into initiating this bogus investigation of Joe Biden to help them cheat in the election. And then it continues with the withholding of military aid to further extort Ukraine into helping his misconduct succeed.

The failure of that led to other ways to cheat in the election, by first trying to persuade the country that any votes that came in after the polls were closed were somehow illegitimate because Trump felt the absentee vote was going to go against him. Then, all the bogus litigation and all the fraudulent filings in court. And when that didnt succeed, efforts to corral and corrupt local elections officials, and then state legislators, and secretaries of state. And then, finally, that violent assault on the Capitol.

But even then, people need to understand that Jan. 6 was not the end; Jan. 6 was just a violent wave point because the efforts to use the Big Lie continue. And it continues to usher in a new generation of Jim Crow laws around the country and to strip independent elections officials of their duties and give them over to partisan boards and partisan legislatures.

It seems what the former president learned from the failed insurrection was that next time he needed to be sure that he could find the secretary of state who would find 11,780 votes. If Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wouldnt do it, he seems intent on replacing him and every other one around the country with someone who will.

GAZETTE: The House voted to hold Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to turn over documents or appear for a deposition earlier this month. Bannon cited the former presidents likely invocation of executive privilege as his rationale. What level of cooperation is the committee receiving from the others whove been served, particularly former chief of staff Mark Meadows, advisers Dan Scavino and Kash Patel, who missed their subpoena deadlines, but whom the committee said it was engaging with, or cant you say?

SCHIFF: I cant say. I can say that there are a great number of people who are cooperating with us, who are providing us important information. With respect to particular witnesses, like the four that we subpoenaed together, they are engaging in different ways. Some may lead to successful testimony, and others we may need to pursue the same course we did with Steve Bannon. But I can tell you this: Were not going to wait forever. We moved with alacrity when it came to Steve Bannon, and were going to move quickly with those we determine are deliberately noncooperative.

GAZETTE: What will success look like for this committee if, after hearings and a report is issued even with damning evidence, youre still not able to reach or convince 35-40 percent of the country?

SCHIFF: We are going to proceed the way we have other investigations in the last few years, which is you begin by doing private interviews and depositions, and then you move to doing public hearings to help inform the public of what happened. Some of that you can do concurrently, like we did with the hearing with the four police officers.

Are there going to be some people whom we will not be able to reach even when presented with such obvious fact, as those police officers testified? It was no honeymoon; it was no typical tourist day. It was a brutal assault in which they were beaten and gouged. Will some people listen to that, or not listen to it and refuse to be moved? Yes. Now, because of Fox News and Newsmax and OAN, theres an entire alternate, non-factual world for people to live in. Im convinced that if Richard Nixon had had Fox News, he would have never been forced to leave the office. But what we can hope for in the select committee is to reach all those with an open mind, of which there are still many millions of Americans, and to do the most thorough job we can, and to write the most credible report we can. Thats all we can do, and hope that its enough to open peoples eyes to the threat.

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Adam Schiff vows speedy, aggressive probe of Jan. 6 assault - Harvard Gazette

Of course, another name that has been thrown around for the GOP candidacy is former Vice President Mike Pence; however, just because his name has been tossed around for a 2024 presidential run doesn't mean he has a ton of support behind him. In fact, Raymond Harre, vice chair of the GOP in eastern Iowa's Scott County, revealed that he doesn't think Pence stands a chance against some of the other top GOP contenders especially if Donald Trump runs."I don't imagine he'd have a whole lot of support. There are some Trump supporters who think he's the Antichrist," he said (via Politico), adding that although Pence "did a good job as vice president," Harre doesn't "see him overcoming the negatives."

Republican Doug Gross, who served as chief of staff to former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, didn't mince words when it came to his feelings about Pence, echoing Harre's sentiments about Trump loyalists' views on Pence running for president. "It's just, where would you place him? ... With Trumpsters, he didn't perform when they really wanted him to perform, so he's DQ'd there. Then you go to the evangelicals, they have plenty of other choices."

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Why Mike Pence's Presidential Chances In 2024 Don't Look Good

Pitmans order blocks any officers of the state from enforcing the ban and explicitly prohibits said officers from accepting or docketing, maintaining, hearing, resolving, awarding damages in, enforcing judgments in, enforcing any administrative penalties in, and administering any lawsuit brought under the state law. CNN notes that The judge also ordered the state to take proactive steps to inform court officials, as well as private individuals seeking to enforce the ban, that the law is currently blocked under his order. In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrate the decision, saying, todays ruling enjoining the Texas law is a victory for women in Texas and for the rule of law.

Unfortunately, thanks to the uniquely fucked-up nature of the law, abortion providers might not yet feel comfortable performing the procedure just yet. Per Bloomberg:

Crucially, S.B. 8 strips abortion providers of protection for procedures they perform when the law is blocked by a court order that is later overturned. That would seem to blunt the effectiveness of the temporary injunction U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman issued Wednesday night in Austin, in a suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department.

Each provider will need to make their own determination of whether to provide in the face of the threat that they could be sued for serving their patients retroactively,Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Reproductive Freedom Project, told Bloomberg. She added that the retroactive provision is another cruel tactic designed to harass and intimidate pregnant Texans and their providers. But as the district court recognized, the retroactivity provision is on shaky legal ground and some providers have explicitly said that they will provide under an injunction.

About an hour after Pitman issued his ruling, Texas attorney general Ken Paxtonlate of arguing that forcing pregnant people to travel out of state for abortions has been great for commercefiled a notice to appeal the order to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is viewed as one of the most conservative in the country. Hence, reactions like these:

Florida is still doing its thing

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Mike Pence, Who Tried His Best to Help Trump Overturn the Election, Wants to Be President in 2024 - Vanity Fair

In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Mike Pence declared January 6 to be a dark day in the history of the United States and condemned the violence that took place here. He went on to decry the unprecedented violence and vandalism, saying that those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol todaydid not win, before praising those who protected these hallowed halls. But during a Monday night appearance on Fox News, Pence, who is rumored to be entertaining a presidential run in 2024, appeared less bothered by those who participated in the insurrectionsome of whom were calling for his executionthan those covering it.

I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administrations failed agenda by focusing on one day in January, Pence told Sean Hannity. They want to use that one day to try and demean the character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported our administration in 2016 and 2020. Further stoking speculation of his own plans for a White House run, the former vice president added that he truly believes we ought to remain completely focused on the future, and thats where Im focused.

Pence sounded a lot like certain Republicans in Congress who, when not whitewashing the MAGA riot, have shown no appetite for revisiting it. But its hard to turn the page on the events of January 6, as revelations keep spilling from a flurry of news reports and books on Donald Trumps chaotic exit from the White House, including a memo from one of the former presidents lawyers detailing how he believed Pence could overturn the election. In Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa report that Pence considered how he could stop the certification of Joe Bidens victory, only to be told by former vice president Dan Quayle that he had no power to do so. According to the book, Pences refusal to overturn the election results prompted Trump to say, I dont want to be your friend anymore if you dont do this.

Yet on Monday night, Pence spoke warmly of his post-White House relationship with Trump. You cant spend almost five years in a political foxhole with somebody without developing a strong relationship, he said, adding: The president and I sat down a few days [after the riot] and talked through all of it. I can tell you that we parted amicably at the end of the administration and we talked a number of times since we both left office.

Stephanie Grisham, Trumps former White House press secretary and author of a new tell-all, called out Pences attempt to contort himself to get on Trumps good side, before pushing back against the idea that Pence and Trump actually had a serious discussion about the Capitol riot. I imagine Pence just went and said all the right things, Grisham told CNN on Tuesday. I guarantee you that, going forward, whenever Mike Pence and the former president are together, the president will continue to jab at him about how disloyal he was, and you just have to take ituntil you dont. In a reference to the pro-Trump rioters calling for Pences execution, Grisham noted that there were others whose lives were in danger on January 6. Not only was [Pence] there, but he was being rushed to somewhere safe with his family, she said. His family was in danger. I know that there were calls going to the White House saying, My family is in danger, whats going on?

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Mike Pence Is Conveniently Trying to Turn the Page on January 6 - Vanity Fair