Donald Trump’s “Command Center”: What Happened on January 6th at the Willard Hotel?

The lobby of the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. was already a meeting place for influential people and those who wanted to become one in the middle of the 19th century. Ulysses S. Grant, 18th US President, regularly indulged in an after-work drink there, and was literally besieged by whisperers and job seekers. He contemptuously called them “lobbyists”. The five-star hotel is only a five-minute walk from the White House and has not lost any of its character of power – especially not with those who are about to lose all power.

January 6th began with a formality

Almost exactly a year ago. On January 6, 2021, then Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, was due to confirm the election result before Congress. Actually a formality. Not in the Donald Trump era, however. Because the US president simply denied that he would be voted out of office and signaled to his deputy what he expected from him: nothing other than the withdrawal of the election result, which would have amounted to a breach of the constitution. Pence did not do as he was told and by the end of that Wednesday nearly 1,000 rioters had ravaged the Capitol and five people had lost their lives. The day before, a confidante of Trump was sitting in the Willard Hotel and said in an interview: “We are in a state of national emergency.”

It was Michael Flynn who said this sentence in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Trump’s former security advisor is one of a group of supporters who rented luxurious suites of the hotel around January 6th and operated their “War Room” there, as a campaign center is called in English. Almost all of those present at the time are or have been investigated.

The “New York Times” calls the group from the luxury hotel a “phalanx of lawyers and political advisors”. Namely: Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City and now Donald Trump’s personal legal representative. Bernard Kerik, former chief of police in New York. John Eastman, lawyer. Roger Stone, a longtime Trump advisor and notorious right-wing spindoctor. What exactly the men were up to has not yet been finally clarified, but is now at the center of the investigation by the US House of Representatives committee responsible for the “Capitol Tower”.

According to various media reports, it is considered certain that the Trump confidants tried from Willard to prevent Joe Biden from being sworn in as US President. “The truth will come to light. Donald Trump will remain President of the United States for the next few years,” said Michael Flynn on the day before the riots on and in the Parliament building in the interview. For two and a half months the Trump camp had ventilated the fairy tale of the “stolen presidential election”, and behind the scenes they tried everything to steadily increase the pressure on the institutions.

Wealthy donors took out their wallets

According to the “Washington Post“It was the task of the lawyer Eastman to develop scenarios with which Joe Biden could be prevented as president. Specifically, they had planned, for example, to find evidence of electoral fraud and to publish it. That similar attempts had all failed in the months before, apparently did not irritate the unit called “command center.” On the contrary, rich donors had even announced their support: Julie Fancelli, heiress of a supermarket chain, had donated more than half a million dollars to some organizations in the Trump environment around the turn of the year And booked a room at the Willard Hotel for January 6th, but canceled her participation in the demonstration because of the pandemic.

The investigative committee is primarily concerned with the question of whether the Trump supporters may have directed and coordinated the storming of the Capitol from their suites. US Democrats and other critics of the then president assume that Trump incited his supporters to storm the parliament building with clearly ambiguous speeches. Even Trump’s children are said to have urged their father to “do something about the violence,” as daughter Ivanka is quoted as saying.

Text messages from January 6, 2021

In the meantime, 35 people who were more or less directly involved have been summoned by the committee. In addition to the tight circle from the “command center” also Stephen Miller, Trump’s openly right-wing extremist speechwriter, Keith Kellogg, the last security advisor and long-time confidante Steve Bannon, who is said to have stopped by the Willard regularly. Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, has already presented investigators with numerous text messages dated January 6th. From them it emerges that Trump supporters outside the inner circle should have asked the president to whistle back the crowd. Fox News presenter Laura Ingraham feared the storming of the Capitol would damage Trump’s “political legacy”.

Around 150 witnesses have now testified. Including about the controversial role of the “Capitol Police”, the security staff responsible for the parliamentary grounds. For example, she approved the “Stop-the-Steal” demo (roughly “Stop the election theft”) for January 6 in the immediate vicinity of the Capitol, from whose ranks protesters then stormed into the parliament building. The central question, however, of whether Trump and his accomplices knew about planned riots in advance, accepted them, approved them or even orchestrated them, will only be answered once the investigation has been completed. If any.

Statements by Steve Bannon, who played a key role in helping Donald Trump into the White House in 2016, suggest that the storm did not come as a complete surprise. In his podcast the day before January 6th, he spoke of “the hell that will break loose tomorrow”. What exactly he meant by that and what he had discussed that day in the war room of the Willard Hotel, the investigative committee has not yet been able to clarify. Because Bannon ignored his subpoena and preferred to go to jail instead. Michael Flynn also refuses to work with the parliamentarians and is suing his subpoena, so far unsuccessfully. Mark Meadows has since broken off his initial cooperation.

Lawyers: Investigation against Donald Trump

What consequences the black day will have for American democracy cannot yet be foreseen. According to a guest article by well-known lawyers in the “New York Times”, the current state of knowledge alone could be sufficient to initiate criminal investigations. Against the former president. “Mr Trump sat back for three hours while his chief of staff was showered with messages from Congressmen and Fox News presenters begging him to call back the armed mob whose violent passion he had sparked. This evidence may not be enough sufficient to convict Mr Trump but sufficient to open a criminal investigation “, write Laurence Tribe, Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut.

Sources: “Huffington Post“,”New York Times“,” Washington Post “,”The Guardian“, DPA, AFP