Jan 6 probe: Trump fought top officials’ objections

Stephen Ayres (right), a rioter on January 6, with ex-cop Michael Fanone. Ayres apologised to officers after testifying. Pic/AFP

In a heated, "unhinged" dispute, Donald Trump fought objections from his White House lawyers to a plan, eventually discarded, to seize states' voting machines and then, in a last ditch effort to salvage his presidency, summoned supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol for what turned into the deadly riot, the House Jan 6 committee revealed Tuesday.

In another disclosure, raising the question of witness tampering, the panel's vice-chair said Trump himself had tried to contact a person who was talking to the committee about potential testimony. And still other new information revealed that Trump was so intent on a Capitol confrontation that his aides secretly planned for a second rally stage there the day of the attack.

Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel's vice chair, said it had notified the Justice Department that Trump had contacted the witness who has yet to appearin public. "We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously," said Cheney, a Wyoming Republican. The hearing Tuesday was the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee.

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