Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House press aide, had plenty of important insights to share during her Jan. 6 committee hearing testimony. Consider, for example, her comments about the then-president’s tweet targeting then-Vice President Mike Pence.
At a time when Pence’s life was in danger, that tweet was “potentially giving the green light to these people,” Matthews said. “Telling them that what they were doing by entering the Capitol was OK and that they were justified in their anger. He shouldn’t have been doing that. He should have told people to go home and condemned the violence that we were seeing.”
The Republican staffer also explained that, after seeing Donald Trump’s mid-riot anti-Pence tweet, she spoke to then-White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, making the case that the then-president should condemn the violence and disperse the crowd.
As NBC News reported, McEnany agreed and went into the dining room to see Trump, only to return soon after and say that he didn’t want to include any mention of “peace” in a tweet.
CNBC reported that Matthews quickly faced partisan pushback from House Republicans.
The official House Republicans Twitter account called GOP congressional employee Sarah Matthews “just another liar and pawn in [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s witch-hunt” during the hearing, where she was testifying. That tweet about Matthews, who had worked as a Trump White House press aide, was soon deleted. So was another House Republicans tweet referring to hearing: “This is all heresy.”
So, a few things.
First, Sarah Matthews currently works for House Republicans. When the House GOP conference, during the hearing, described her “just another liar and pawn,” the party was referring to one of their own staffers. (A spokesperson later told Politico the tweet “was sent out at the staff level and was not authorized,” though I’m not sure how much that helps.)
Second, I’m going to hope the House GOP meant “hearsay,” not “heresy.” Third, Republicans have been a bit too cavalier in throwing around “hearsay” in response to the hearings in ways that are legally dubious. But even putting all of these relevant details aside, these unfortunate and deleted missives from last night served as a timely reminder that (a) House Republicans are still desperate to defend Trump amidst devastating Jan. 6 revelations; and (b) they’re not exactly coming up with grade-A material. Indeed, it appears House Republicans have been reduced to telling the public not to trust the sworn testimony of other Republicans who worked for Donald Trump — some of whom currently work for them.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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