Alex Holder, a British documentary filmmaker who had extensive access to President Donald J. Trump and his family before and after the 2020 election, has emerged late in the home investigation into the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack as a new and possible important witness.
Mr Holder will testify behind closed doors Thursday morning before the House committee investigates Mr Trump’s attempts to undermine the results of the lost election. His statement comes ahead of a separate public hearing by the commission on Thursday on Mr. Trump’s attempt to install a loyalist in the final weeks of his administration to head the Justice Department.
The footage of Mr Holder — about 11 hours with the Trump family discussing the campaign and the election — was subpoenaed by the committee ahead of the interview.
It is still unclear what exactly the images show. But Mr. Holder interviewed Mr. Trump twice before the Jan. 6 riots and once after Jan. 6, meaning he may be able to talk to Mr. Trump’s state of mind and whether he made it clear that he knew he was going to win the election. had lost.
The images with the Trump family can also be revealing. DailyExpertNews was shown a short clip of Ivanka Trump, the former president’s eldest daughter, discussing her take on her father’s repeated false claims that the election was stolen by widespread fraud. The clip was played for The Times by someone who has access to it.
The themes of the House Committee hearings on January 6
That video was shot on December 10, 2020, after Mr. Trump made baseless claims about widespread fraud for weeks. In the clip, Ms. Trump said, “I think, as the president has said, every vote should be counted and heard, and he campaigned for the voiceless.”
She said that “a lot of Americans right now feel very, very disenfranchised, and are really questioning the sanctity of our elections, and that’s not right, it’s not acceptable”
“He has to take on this fight,” she said. “Look, you fight for what you love most and he loves this country and he loves the people of this country, and he wants to make sure their voices are heard, heard and not muffled.” Mr Trump “will continue to fight until all legal remedies are exhausted and that is what he should do,” Ms Trump said.
The timing of the video, and her comments in it, are noteworthy because she was shown in a video testimony before the House Committee that she had “accepted” statements from Attorney General William P. Barr, including on Dec. 1. 2020, that there had been no widespread fraud.
Insofar as there are other images of the Trump family discussing their view of the election, or the campaign’s efforts to secure the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr. this may be important for the Committee’s investigation. Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the panel’s chairman, cited access to the footage as a reason for postponing additional public hearings the panel would hold next week; those sessions have now been moved to July.
The filmmaker was connected to Mrs. Trump’s husband and de facto chief strategist, Jared Kushner, through Jason D. Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization attorney who became Mr. Trump’s White House Envoy to the Middle East. The documentary was intended as a legacy project for Mr. Trump and, by extension, his family.
But no senior campaign officials were informed about it, and some were stunned to learn it existed after Politico reported this week that the footage had been subpoenaed.
The footage has been used for a series to be streamed by Discovery+ later this summer.
