Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney, Republican Party operative and with her husband, Joseph diGenova, a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova & Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019, Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018, and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
Richard Bruce Cheney is an American retired politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He has been called the most powerful vice president in American history. Cheney previously served as White House Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford, the U.S. representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 1979 to 1989, and as the 17th United States secretary of defense in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He is the oldest living former U.S. vice president, following the death of Walter Mondale in 2021.
Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby is an American lawyer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney known for his high-profile indictment and clemency.
Emmet Thomas Flood IV is an American attorney who served as the interim White House counsel to U.S. President Donald Trump from October 17, 2018, to December 10, 2018, following the resignation of Don McGahn. He also served as a special counsel during the George W. Bush Administration.
Donald Francis McGahn II is an American lawyer who served as White House counsel for U.S. President Donald Trump, from the day of Trump's inauguration through October 17, 2018, when McGahn resigned. Previously, McGahn served on the Federal Election Commission for over five years. In November 2019, McGahn received a court order to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives. In August 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 7–2 that the House can sue him to comply.
James Northey Miller Jr. is the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory's Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis and also serves on the National Security Council staff as U.S. Coordinator for the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security agreement. He previously served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 18, 2012 until January 8, 2014 and as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense from April 2009 to February 2012.
Maggie Lindsy Haberman is an American journalist, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and a political analyst for CNN. She previously worked as a political reporter for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and Politico. She wrote about Donald Trump for those publications and rose to prominence covering his campaign, presidency, and post-presidency for the Times. In 2022, she published the best-selling book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.
Mercedes Schlapp is an American communications specialist and political commentator for both English and Spanish media. She has served in two presidential administrations as director of specialty media under George W. Bush and as White House Director of Strategic Communications in the Trump administration from September 2017 to July 2019. She went on to work on the Trump 2020 re-election campaign as senior advisor for strategic communications.
Pasquale Anthony "Pat" Cipollone is an American attorney who served as White House Counsel for President Donald Trump. While in office he defended Trump in his first impeachment trial. He objected to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and played a key role in the January 6 committee hearings, specifically the committee's sixth hearing.
The core White House staff appointments, and most Executive Office of the President officials generally, are not required to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, with a handful of exceptions. There are about 4,000 positions in the Executive Office of the President.
On June 1, 2020, amid the George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C., law enforcement officers used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, creating a path for President Donald Trump and senior administration officials to walk from the White House to St. John's Episcopal Church. Trump held a Bible and posed for a photo op in front of Ashburton House, which had been defaced by graffiti and damaged by a fire set during protests the night before.
Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, experienced a series of protests and riots following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some of the events involved violence, looting, and destruction.
After Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Republican nominee and then-incumbent president Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of his supporters. These efforts culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack by Trump supporters in an attempted self-coup d'état. Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote false claims and conspiracy theories asserting the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud and an international conspiracy. Trump pressed Department of Justice leaders to challenge the results and publicly state the election was corrupt. However, the attorney general, director of National Intelligence, and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – as well as some Trump campaign staff – dismissed these claims. State and federal judges, election officials, and state governors also determined the claims were baseless. Trump loyalists, including chief of staff Mark Meadows, personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and several Republican lawmakers, attempted to keep Trump in power. At the state level, they targeted legislatures with the intent of changing the results or delaying electoral vote certification at the Capitol. Nationally, they promoted the idea Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to certify the results on January 6, 2021. Hundreds of elected Republicans, including members of Congress and governors, have refused to acknowledge Biden's victory; a few have acknowledged it. Trump's legal team sought to bring a case before the Supreme Court, but none of the 63 lawsuits they filed were successful. They pinned their hopes on Texas v. Pennsylvania, but on December 11, 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Afterward, Trump considered ways to remain in power, including military intervention, seizing voting machines, and another appeal to the Supreme Court.
On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of then–U.S. President Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup d'état two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. They sought to keep Trump in power by occupying the Capitol and preventing a joint session of Congress counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. The attack was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a seven-part plan by Trump to overturn the election. Within 36 hours, five people died: one was shot by Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer. Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months. Damage caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million.
The United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives established to investigate the U.S. Capitol attack.
Anthony M. Ornato is the former assistant director of the United States Secret Service Office of Training. He was the service's 34th special agent in charge who headed the security detail of president Donald Trump until being detailed to the White House where the president named him White House Deputy Chief of Staff for operations in December 2019. After his tenure as a government SES detailee in the Trump administration, he returned to the Secret Service where he worked as the assistant director in the office of training until August 29, 2022.
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the residence of former U.S. president Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida.
Plasmic Echo was the codename for a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump's handling of classified and national defense-related government documents beginning in 2022, looking for possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.
An ongoing special counsel investigation was opened by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on November 18, 2022, to continue two investigations initiated by the Justice Department (DOJ) regarding former U.S. President Donald Trump. Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, to lead the independent investigations. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Trump's mishandling of government records, including classified documents.
