In law they talk about ‘intent’ for a convection of a criminal offense…..
Transcripts from the House Special Committee point directly to a President trying to overturn an election….looking to reward those who broke the law to try and help him in his efforts as a ‘payback’….
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol released on Tuesday 18 additional transcripts that provided more details about how former President Donald J. Trump considered “blanket pardons” for those charged in connection with the Capitol riot, and how several of his top political allies pushed unsuccessfully to be included in such pardons.
The transcripts, which come from the committee’s trove of hundreds of interviews, build on a growing body of evidence about the extent to which many in Mr. Trump’s orbit, including rioters, White House staffers, Republican members of Congress and some of the president’s own lawyers were seeking pardons after the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Johnny McEntee, Mr. Trump’s director of personnel, recalled in an interview how, during his final days in office, the former president had floated the idea of a “blanket pardon” for the breach of the Capitol, but Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, had rejected it.
“Cipollone said no,” Mr. McEntee recalled. “One day when we walked into the Oval, I remember it was being discussed, and I remember the president saying, ‘Well, what if I pardoned the people that weren’t violent, that just walked in the building?’ And I think the White House counsel gave him some pushback.”…
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Mr. McEntee recalled Mr. Cipollone also rejected Mr. Trump’s idea that all White House staff should be pardoned, even those who had played no role in the president’s push to overturn the 2020 election.
“I remember Cipollone questioning on that, ‘Well, why does anyone need a pardon?’” Mr. McEntee recalled, adding that the president had responded, “‘Well, just so they can’t go after them for any little thing.’ And I think Cipollone said, ‘Yeah, but no one here has done anything wrong.’”….