Trump aides who claimed confidentiality on Jan. 6 are now spilling the beans: columnist

For over a year, former President Donald Trump's top aides refused to give any details to courts or Congress as they investigated the 2020 election overthrow attempt. Now it seems they're more than willing to spill the beans, explained New York Times Magazine writer Emily Bazelon.

Lawmakers on the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election voted to hold Mark Meadows, Mike Pence, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress. The men refused to testify to the committee and answer questions about the election.

The contempt vote was then passed before the full House and referred to the Justice Department. Now that those cases are going to trial it seems some of the Donald Trump staffers seem more willing to come forward.

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In the case of Mark Meadows, for example, the former Trump chief of staff spent nearly five hours on the witness stand answering questions about his duties on and around the 2020 election.

MSNBC host Ari Melber couldn't help but wonder what it says that these Trump staffers so "strenuously insisted they were defending principles of secrecy, separation of powers, and suddenly I guess they're not."

It's funny how quickly things change, Bazelon described.

"There's a kind of irony here that previously we were hearing about how this was all privileged information. It was part of Meadows' duty as White House chief of staff, but he couldn't talk about that because of his confidentiality and duties and his responsibility in that office," said Bazelon. "And now he is much more inclined to spill the beans because he has to provide specifics to the judge to explain exactly — under questioning exactly how all of these activities related to being White House chief of staff."

She explained that it's still a tricky question for him.

"Meadows' interest in trying to move his trial to a different venue, (when he'll still go on trial) obviously was enough for him to cough up testimony," Melber confirmed. "But this insurrection which was waged against this government, this nation, if he cares to claim he was on the right side of that, the honest, nonviolent government side, and not the insurrection side, getting to the bottom of that, apparently, wasn't enough. That wasn't a good reason. I think although everybody has moved their standards lower. We shouldn't move them so low as to not note that, and what that says quite clearly about someone like him, who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution."

See the full conversation in the video below or at the link here.

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