Duped Trump 'pawns' may now have the motive to testify against the former president
Two reporters focused on Donald Trump's "pawns" following a public hearing by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol June 21.
On MSNBC's "The 11th Hour," host Stephanie Ruhle interviewed Luke Broadwater of The New York Times, Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and legal analyst Tali Farhadian Weinstein.
Bluestein said one of the "biggest moments" involved "Robert Sinners, a former low-level Trump aide who was involved in orchestrating the phony GOP electors scheme in Georgia.
"He told the false electors to act in secrecy, and trick state Capitol officers. His testimony today showed that the campaign in his words, treated him as a useful idiot and knowingly misled him now that he regrets it," he explained. "To me, that was just -- there are so many pawns in these schemes that were unwillingly duped because they didn't do their own research, and he was one of them.
Broadwater also had analysis on Trump's "pawns."
"I do think that is important because we heard about plans to have a conspiracy with John Eastman, to defraud the American people, we heard about the whole ripping off of Trump voters by the spreading of lies, and seeking donations, and you hear about potential criminal statutes were violated in Georgia, but here we have one more statute which is this, if people submitted fraudulent documents to Washington, to the National Archives, they could be in a lot of jeopardy, legal jeopardy," he explained.
"And if they were put up to it by people? If they were misled into doing that by others? Then those people could be in legal jeopardy too," he continued. "And that is why some of these witnesses who say that we were pawns, they were pawns and these people above us who are the ones really doing it — that could lead up the food chain."