Donald Trump's pardon offers for Jan. 6 is witness tampering, says congressional investigator

Donald Trump’s recent comments regarding the defendants of the Capitol insurrection drew more backlash as well as raised concerns. A member of the House Committee probing the riots accused the former president of witness tampering, especially at the panel is making more progress in its probe into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar, who serves on the congressional committee, accused the former president of tampering with witnesses following his recent comments during his Texas rally. CNN host Brianna Keilar asked Aguilar if Trump was making such a move when he decided to dangle presidential pardons to the January 6 defendants during his rally. Aguilar said yes.

“Absolutely,” said Aguilar. “And I think the question is more from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you know where – where are they? Do they support this? When is enough enough?”

During the former president’s rally in Texas Saturday, he suggested that he would pardon all the January 6 defendants from the insurrection should he return to the White House in 2024. Trump would double down on his suggestion in an interview with right-wing network Newsmax.

The latest reports also revealed the extent of how far Trump was willing to go in order to stay in power and overturn his election loss to Joe Biden. One of which was to seize voting machines in the states that Biden won in order to justify his baseless claims of fraud, which were ultimately shot down. Former Trump administration official Matthew Travis blasted the former president for the scheme during his appearance on CNN.

Travis, who was the Deputy Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called the scheme “harebrained” and unconstitutional. Host Erin Burnett recalled that Trump approached the DHS, and then the Pentagon, as well as the DOJ in looking into whether voting machines could be seized in the states Biden won. Burnett pressed Travis on whether or not he thinks Trump believed in the conspiracy theory surrounding the voting machines.

“I think he must have believed a lot to go this far to have executive orders drafted,” said Travis. “Now I haven’t seen the DHS version but if it’s anything like the DOD, calling it a harebrained plan is probably too kind…On the face of it, it’s unconstitutional. Article 1 Section 4 gives the authority over federal elections to the states. And in terms of authority, most Americans don’t realize how many law enforcement authorities the Department of Homeland Security has. But it doesn’t have this. Not even close.”