WWhen the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack that brought down British film producer Alex Holder, it heard from an actual first-hand witness who inadvertently observed some The darkest and most political day of Donald Trump time in office.
The new witness, who appeared late in the congressional investigation into the Capitol attack, has extensive personal access to Donald Trump and his family as the administration collapsed in the post-election 2020 period after the former president’s defeat to Joe Biden.
Holder was there for all: three sit-down interviews with Trump, including one at the White House, many more with Trump’s adult children, private conversations between aides and top advisers before the election, and around the Capitol itself when it stormed.
The second film producer to work with the board – the first, Nick askedwas joined by the far-right Proud Boys – in fact there was a front-row seat to peer into the mind of the former president at key moments in his bid to stay in office.
Reaching out to Trump, and listening to him and his inner circle, makes him suspect that the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election will somehow culminate in a number of events at Capitol on January 6, Holder said in an interview with the Guardian.
“I’m not 100% sure, but it’s a feeling, so we were prepared for that to happen,” Holder said. “The reason we think January 6 is because, in Trump’s mind, the last-ditch effort is to stop the process” of Biden’s certification.
“The ceremonial process that took place in Congress on January 6th was, he said, the last time in his mind that he could prevent the election from going to the wrong people, as it did. The rhetoric given is that the election was rigged, [that] We need to fight. “
Holder testified for about four hours behind closed doors last week about his nearly 100-hour footage, used for an upcoming documentary titled Unprecedented, and turned over to investigators. The House of Representatives required parts of the subpoena to compel him to cooperate.
The selection committee is very interested in his recollections of the events leading up to the Capitol attack, as well as his interactions with Trump and his family, Holder said, even though he declined to discuss specific lines of inquiry or questioning.
The Guardian previously reported, however, the panel engage in phone calls between Trump’s adult children – including Don Jr and Eric – which Holder captured on camera at a campaign event on September 29, 2020 at the Trump International Hotel he had gathered.
The selection committee focused closely on footage of the event – in addition to the content of face-to-face interviews with Trump and Ivanka – as the discussions of strategy mirror similar conversations at the time. of top Trump advisers.
What interested the panel was whether Trump and his children had planned to somehow stop certifying the January 6 election – a potential violation of federal law – and force the election to be held. hold a backup election if Trump loses by September at the earliest.
Events on the day of the first presidential debate at the Trump hotel, which Holder obtained access to through Eric Trump, was unplanned, and reflected, according to Holder, his approach to filming everything he could, in case it was. proved to be the consequence of the latter.
Holder said he engaged in face-to-face interviews with Trump and his children with a deliberately cautious approach and open-ended questions to ensure the exchanges didn’t become confrontational – including whether Will Trump lose the 2020 election?
“If I start pushing a guy I know won’t change his position, and then he throws you out of the room, it’s all over,” Holder said. “I don’t need to argue and argue about him because we will contextualize his stance with journalist interviews.”
“And besides, this British guy from north London is not going to change Donald Trump’s mind about the election. Then we would waste an entire hour together while I tried to convince him that I was right and he was wrong,” Holder added.
The selection committee is also interested in Ivanka Trump’s interviews with Holder, according to a source familiar with the matter, because although she testified to the panel that she accepts that Trump lost the electionat the time, she told Holder the opposite.
Holder said he doesn’t know if it would make Ivanka Trump change her beliefs about the 2020 election results in the midst of her three interviews with him, but said he was surprised she would testify. effectively for the selection committee that her father was wrong.
“That was surprising, since the three kids, at least to me, will always claim their father’s position and support them,” he said.
The documentary presents an extensive portrayal of Trump and his family as they follow them through the tumultuous 2020 presidential campaign, as children act as campaign representatives. , the final months of the administration and then several months after the Capitol attack.
Holder said he interviewed Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, before the 2020 election, and then went to the White House the first weekend in December 2020 to interview the former president as well. like Ivanka the second time.
He said he did a second interview with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida a few months after the Capitol attack, and then a third interview with Trump at Bedminster’s golf club him a few months later. He also interviewed Ivanka and Eric again after the January 6 events.
The documentary also features raw footage of the Capitol attack captured by Holder’s director of photography, Michael Crommett, who filmed at tunnel of inauguration on the west side of the Capitol when the pro-Trump crowd tried unsuccessfully to break down the door.
Holder said he also did a one-on-one interview with then-vice president Mike Pence, which included a scene where Pence briefly reviewed an email about the 25th Amendment – which involves removing a president. America – was discussed privately among White’s seniors. House officials after the attack on the Capitol.