 At its public hearing today, the January 6th select committee finally named the Republicans who sought pardons from Donald Trump. And this is probably the least surprising list of names ever. So as Politico reports, several top Trump White House aides at the time, including special assistant Cassidy Hutchinson and aide Johnny McKenzie, described outreach from multiple members of Congress seeking clemency. Representative Andy Biggs, Louis Gohmert, Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. Additionally, according to the former Trump aides testimony, Representative Mo Brooks sent an email on January 11th of 2021 asking for all-purpose pardons for every lawmaker who objected to electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Representative Jim Jordan never asked for a pardon, but did request an update on the status of requests by other members Hutchinson said. Now keep in mind that these requests came just days after the January 6th insurrection. And to actually seek out a pardon means that you believe you broke the law and you're fearful of prosecution. So for them to seek a pardon, this is no small deal. This is huge news. Now I'm going to play the moment from the hearing from today where they go over these names and it's relatively lengthy, but it's worth the watch. These after the tragic events of January 6th, some of these same Republican members requested pardons in the waning days of the Trump administration. Five days after the attack on the Capitol, Representative Mo Brooks sent the email on the screen now. As you see, he emailed the White House, quote, pursuant to a request from Matt Gaetz requesting a pardon for Representative Gaetz himself and unnamed others. This told the select committee that the president considered offering pardons to a wide range of individuals connected to the president. Let's listen to some of that testimony. And was Representative Gaetz requesting a pardon? Believe so. The general tone was we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of, you know, the president's positions on these things. And that he was discussing, requesting was as broad as you could describe from beginning. I remember he's from the beginning of time up until today for any and all things. He mentioned Nixon and I said Nixon's pardon was never nearly that broad. And are you aware of any members of Congress seeking pardons? I guess Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Brooks, I know both advocated for there to be a blanket pardon for members involved in that meeting and a handful of other members that weren't at the December 21st meeting. As the preemptive pardons, Mr. Gaetz was personally pushing for a pardon. And he was doing so since early December. I'm not sure why Mr. Gaetz reached out to me to ask if he could have a meeting with Mr. Meadows about receiving a presidential pardon today. Not all of them, but several of them did. So you mentioned Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Brooks. Mr. Fakes did. Mr. Jordan talks about congressional pardons that he never asked me for one. It's more for an update on whether the White House is going to pardon members of Congress. Mr. Gover asked for one as well. Mr. Perry asked for a pardon too. I'm sorry. Did he speak directly? Yes, he did. Did Marjorie contact you? No. She didn't contact me about it. I heard that she had asked the White House Counsel Office for a pardon from Mr. Philbin. But I didn't frequently communicate this. Are you aware of any conversations or communications regarding the possibility of giving Congressman Matt Gaetz a pardon? I know he had asked for it, but I don't know if he ever received one or what happened with it. How do you know that Congressman Gaetz asked for a pardon? He told me. Tell us about that. He told me he had asked Meadows for a pardon. Were you involved in or did you witness any conversations about the possibility of a blanket pardon for everyone involved in January 6th? I have heard that mentioned, yeah. Do you know whether the President had any conversations about potentially pardoning any family members? I know he had hinted at a blanket pardon for the January 6th thing for anybody, but I think he had, for all the staff and everyone involved, not with January 6th, but just before he left office, I know he had talked about that. The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you've committed a crime. That may be the only thing that Adam Kinzinger has said that I've agreed with. He's right. There is absolutely no reason to seek a pardon unless you believe you did something wrong, unless you believe you broke federal laws. So I think it's important for Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Louis Gomer to explain to us, which federal law do you believe you broke? Why in particular did you feel as if you were under threat of prosecution? What did you do in particular? It's time to fess up. I mean, they can try to obfuscate and distract you, but we now know that they must be prosecuted. Now I love the responses following this revelation because what we've heard so far, at least from Marjorie Greene and Matt Gaetz, is not a denial. Rather they're trying to deflect. For example, Marjorie Greene tweeted out, I heard it means you don't know. Spreading gossip and lies is exactly what the January 6th witch hunt committee is all about. Sure. Matt Gaetz says, the January 6th committee is an unconstitutional political sideshow. It is rapidly losing the interest of the American people and now resorts to sicken federal law enforcement on political opponents. It's rich coming from the guy who when Trump was president claimed that he should use the insurrection act to extra judicially hunt down and murder members of Antifa, really anyone who they deem to be members of Antifa. And yet he's saying, they're just unconstitutionally sicken federal agents on us. No, this commission is constitutional. You know that. And I love how he says, oh, well, you know, the American people, they're losing interest in this now that you've been named. Everyone's losing interest. Actually, my interest in particular has increased after you've been named, Matt. So it's really interesting that you're trying to deflect and notice how they're not denying. They're not saying, I never sought a pardon because they did seek a pardon. There's an abundance of evidence that they sought pardons. And even if they denied, I mean, what's the point? Because everyone already suspected that it was them. Honestly, the only name whom I'm surprised to not see is Lauren Boebert, because she literally tweeted out the location of the speaker during the January 6 insurrection. So maybe she's just smarter than the rest and realized if I really seek out a pardon, then that's kind of a little bit too brazen. It shows that maybe I believe I'm culpable. So I'll avoid doing that. But either way, these folks are shameless. And we have this information about how multiple members of Congress, along with Trump's administration, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to kill democracy in the United States. Now that we have this information, now that they know that we know about what they did. Here's the thing that matters the most, I'd argue. If they are not prosecuted, then anything goes. If they can get away with this, elected officials can literally get away with anything. There's no point in having a Constitution or having laws. If we're not going to prosecute the people who are so brazen that they believed they needed a pardon to escape prosecution, if they can get away from this and not be prosecuted or kicked out of Congress, anything goes. Nothing matters. They can get away with murder at this point. Now, ultimately, by the time these public hearings are done, that doesn't mean that the January 6th committee's investigation is concluded. Their investigation will continue. Ultimately, this is going to come down to Merrick Garland and the January 6th committee can make a recommendation. But ultimately, their recommendation is less important than what Merrick Garland chooses to do, because regardless if they recommend a prosecution of Trump and these members of Congress or not, the obvious thing to do would be to prosecute Donald Trump. That's not to say that it wouldn't get ugly, prosecuting a former president, but either we're going to have this Constitution and apply it to everyone, including elites, or we're just going to use the law and the Constitution against the peasants. I mean, if you don't prosecute them after we now know that they believed they broke the law, then I mean, what's again, what's the point of having a Constitution? You might as well get rid of it. Why have a Constitution if elites aren't going to be held to the same standards as peasants? All the folks who went to jail who stormed the Capitol. Why are they the ones behind bars? But people like Marjorie Green and Matt Gaetz can still serve as members of Congress. Isn't that preposterous? Sure, those people who stormed the Capitol deserve to be prosecuted for what they did, but so do the members at the top who were instigating and helping them to coordinate this. OK. So I'm not necessarily sure what the outcome will be, but we can all predict reasonably so that if nothing comes of this, if nobody is prosecuted, especially Donald Trump, then we're just teeing up the next insurrection. And I think that the next individual who tries to kill democracy is going to be successful because they now know nothing's going to happen. So might as well be a little bit more out of the open with it. Yeah. So really interesting, not surprising revelations, but now it's been confirmed. Marjorie Green, Matt Gaetz, Louis Gomert, among others, sought pardons because they believed they broke the law. Very interesting.