Trump news – as it happened: Order to seize voting machines revealed as Ivanka ‘isolated’ from Mar-a-Lago

From the letter to Ms Trump:

Third, the Select Committee is evaluating whether the President did or did not give any order to deploy the National Guard to respond to the violence on January 6th. Acting Secretary Chris Miller, who was in the chain of command and reported directly to the President, has testified under oath that the President never contacted him at any time on January 6th, and never, at any time, issued him any order to deploy the National Guard. Miller did speak with Vice President Pence on January 6th, but not with President Trump. The Committee is aware that certain White House staff devoted time during the violent riot to rebutting questions regarding whether the President was attempting to hold up deployment of the guard, and that Press Secretary McEnany issued a tweet that afternoon suggesting that the guard would be deployed (this occurred hours later). But the Committee has identified no evidence that President Trump issued any order, or took any other action, to deploy the guard that day. Nor does it appear that President Trump made any calls at all to the Department of Justice or any other law enforcement agency to request deployment of their personnel to the Capitol.

The Select Committee respectfully requests that you share any information you may have on this topic.

Prosecutors from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office want to talk to Ivanka Trump about a Park Avenue apartment she leased from her family’s eponymous real estate company that was offered to her for purchase at a price far lower than the unit’s public valuation, court documents reveal.

In a motion asking a New York state judge to order Ms Trump to appear for a deposition with investigators from the attorney general’s office, the prosecutors allege she “obtained apparently extraordinarily favourable terms” for renting an apartment at the Trump Park Avenue condominium building, with her monthly payments at “a mere fraction” of what the general public would have paid.

The committee is also keen to ask Ms Trump about her father’s state of mind during this period and Sean Hannity’s efforts to stop the president from talking about a “stolen election”.

A text conversation between Mr Hannity and then-White House Press Secretary Kayeigh McEnany on the day after the Capitol riot is included in the letter. It lays out a five-point approach for conversations with the president.

The first item is “No more stolen election talk”, the second is “Yes, impeachment and 25th amendment are real, and many people will quit…”

Ms McEnany responds: “Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce…”

The press secretary also agreed with Mr Hannity’s recommendation to keep Mr Trump away from certain people. “No more crazy people,” said the Fox News presenter underlining it as “Key now”.

Ms McEnany replied: “Yes 100%”.

Rep Bennie Thompson suggests an early February meeting for Ivanka Trump to be questioned by the Capitol riot select committee:

We would like to meet with you soon, but we also want to accommodate your schedule. We propose meeting with you on February 3 or 4, 2022. Please let us know whether one of those dates will fit with your schedule, or connect us with your counsel so we can coordinate on scheduling. If you are unavailable on those dates, we can arrange a time during the week of February 7, 2022.

The chief prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia has requested a special grand jury as part of her investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s results in the 2020 presidential election.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who launched her probe nearly one year ago, follows the former president’s phone call with Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he appeared to pressure him to “find” votes that would overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Alex Woodward reports.

A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump tells NBC’s Peter Alexander:

“Ivanka Trump just learned that the January 6 Committee issued a public letter asking her to appear. As the Committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the January 6 rally.”

“As she publicly stated that day at 3:15pm, ‘any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.’”

In an interview last night, former President Donald Trump claimed that everyone wanted to be vaccinated against Covid-19 when he was president, but after Joe Biden came into office some people won’t get the vaccine because they do not trust him.

Fox News host Sean Hannity sent a post-Capitol riot text message to then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany urging her and other top aides to then-president Donald Trump to stop “stolen election talk” and keep “crazy people” away from him.

Mr Hannity’s 7 January message laid out what Ms McEnany called a “playbook” for conversations with Mr Trump during his final days in office.

Andrew Feinberg reports.

Former President Donald Trump has released a statement through his spokesperson regarding his “perfect” call to the Secretary of State of Georgia following the 2020 election.

He continues to allege “massive voter fraud” and says that the Civil Special Grand Jury requested by Fulton County DA Fani Willis should instead focus on that and not his “perfect phone call” in which he tells Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger he needs to find 11,780 votes.

He signs off with: “No more political with hunts!”

Read more below.

Donald Trump has tried to twist President Joe Biden’s words to falsely argue that the 2020 election was fraudulent, despite having no evidence to support the repeated claims.

“President Biden admitted yesterday, in his own very different way, that the 2020 election may very well have been a fraud, which I know it was,” the former president said in a statement on 20 January, the anniversary of his last day in office. “I’m sure his representatives, who work so hard to make it look legit, are not happy.”

Gustaf Kilander in Washington, DC has the details.