Ivanka Trump announced 'Mike Pence is a good man' after he denied her father's request to reject Electoral College votes that would formalize Joe Biden's 2020 victory.
She made the comments after a meeting on January 6 last year when President Trump was in the Oval Office with her and Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg on a telephone call with Pence.
The revelation of her comment during testimony by Kellogg before the House committee investigating Jan. 6 comes just 10 days after Pence revealed he hadn't spoken to Trump since last summer.
The committee has been aggressively interviewing witnesses - nearly 500 so far - and has subpoenaed Meadows and Trump's personal lawyer. They are asking Ivanka Trump to cooperate voluntarily.
Pence suggested that Jan. 6, 2021 marked a souring in their relationship. That day, ahead of the Capitol riot, Trump said that Pence 'didn't have the courage' to object to the election results during Congress' certification.
Fox News' Jesse Waters asked Pence when the last time he spoke to Trump was on his show Thursday evening.
Ivanka made the comments after a meeting on January 6 last year when President Trump was in the Oval Office with her and Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser
'You know, we talked last summer,' Pence said. 'And, you know, I've said many times, it was difficult. Jan 6 was difficult. It was a tragic day in the life of the nation.'
'I know I did my duty under the Constitution of the United States,' Pence added. 'But the president and I sat down in the days that followed that. We spoke about it, talked through it. We parted amicably.'
But then on Friday, Pence delivered his most direct and public rebuke of Trump on Friday – saying he had 'no right' to overturn the 2020 election as Trump demanded.
'I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong,' Pence said. 'I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.'
Pence went even further, calling the idea 'un-American.'
'And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. Under the Constitution, I have no right to change the outcome of our election.'
Trump, of course, shot back in a statement: 'Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible,' Trump wrote in a statement.
McConnell has recently denounced Trump's plan to pardon or shorten the sentences of the January 6 rioters.
The President continued: 'Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist. I was right and everyone knows it. If there is fraud or large-scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out.
'A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our Country is going to hell!'
During a call on Jan. 6 Trump told Pence that he had a duty to reject Electoral College votes that would formalize Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election, something the vice president had no authority to do in his ceremonial role in Congress that day.
'You don't have the courage to make a hard decision,' Trump told Pence, according to congressional testimony. Even after Trump called him a 'wimp,' Pence rebuffed the demand, issuing a lengthy statement afterward laying out his conclusion that he had no power to influence the outcome.
When the call ended, Ivanka Trump turned to retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg and said, 'Mike Pence is a good man.'
'Yes, he is,' Kellogg replied.
The revelation of her comment comes just 10 days after Pence revealed he hadn't spoken to Trump since last summer
And on January 31 Trump suggested that he wanted Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election when the vice president chaired the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021.
Trump pointed to efforts on Capitol Hill to change the Electoral Count Act, including firming up the language to make clear that the vice president is only there to count votes and can't override the will of the voters.
'Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away,' Trump claimed. 'Unfortunately, he didn't exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!'
Now the House committee investigating the riot wants to know what else Ivanka Trump heard and saw that day as they try to stitch together the narrative of the riots and the former president's role in instigating them.
While Ivanka was asked to cooperate voluntarily rather than hit with a subpoena, a committee aide said they are hopeful that she will soon commit to a time to meet.
There was a frantic effort by many of Trump's top supporters to persuade him to call off the violence, and some directly sought to use his daughter as their conduit.
While Trump wanted Pence to object to the election certification for President Biden's win, the former vice president saw his role in the certification as largely ceremonial
Throughout her time in the White House, Ivanka Trump was known as a rare voice who could get through to her father and talk him out of bad decisions, though her success was mixed.
The former first daughter has kept an extraordinary low profile since her father left office and has distanced herself from him and politics since moving to Florida.
But her proximity to him on Jan. 6 could provide the committee with direct access to what Trump was doing during those crucial three hours when his supporters violently stormed Capitol.
'Ivanka Trump has details about what occurred in the lead-up to and on Jan. 6 and about the former president´s state of mind as events unfolded,' Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla, a member of the panel, said.
It is highly unusual for congressional investigators to target a family member of a president, but as a senior adviser to her father, she also had a perch close to power.
'You know, we talked last summer,' Pence said of his relationship with Trump. 'And, you know, I've said many times, it was difficult. Jan. 6 was difficult. It was a tragic day in the life of the nation'
Kellogg disclosed the exchange with the committee, but so far Ivanka Trump, who famously guards her image and public profile, has not talked to the panel.
The answers could have significant repercussions not only for Donald Trump, who is eyeing a political comeback in 2024, but for those in the Republican Party who have downplayed his role in the insurrection.
A spokeswoman for Ivanka Trump did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But in a statement issued in late January, a representative for her noted that Ivanka Trump did not speak at the rally near the White House where the then-president urged his supporters to 'fight like hell' as Congress convened to certify the 2020 election results, and said she still believed that 'any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable.'
Members of the committee hope to get beyond such vague assertions.
Hours after Trump's call to Pence, Ivanka Trump joined brother Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Kimberly Guilfoyle under a large tent at the rally to listen to Trump´s speech.
She reportedly told aides she 'decided to attend only because she had hoped to calm the president and help keep the event on an even keel.'
After Trump´s speech, as rioters began to smash through Capitol police barriers and break windows, the former president tweeted: 'Mike Pence didn´t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution ...'
That tweet, according to court testimony, only added to the anger fueling the mob.
Back in the White House, as staffers watched in shock at what was unfolding down Pennsylvania Avenue on television screens positioned throughout the West Wing, Trump's attention was so rapt that he hit rewind and watched certain moments again, according to Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary.
'Look at all of the people fighting for me,' Trump said, according to Grisham, who also served as chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump. At one point, the president was confused why staffers weren't as excited as he was watching the unrest unfold.
Kellogg testified that staff wanted the president to take immediate action to address the violence consuming the Capitol, but Trump refused.
'Is someone getting to potus? He has to tell protestors to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed,' Alyssa Farrah Griffin, a former White House communications official, texted Ben Williamson, an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
'I've been trying for the last 30 minutes. Literally stormed in outer oval to get him to put out the first one. It´s completely insane,' Williamson wrote back.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., then called Ivanka Trump, pleading that the president 'ask people to leave.'
'We´re working on it,' she replied.
Former President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that he wanted Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election when the vice president chaired the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote count on January 6
Trump pointed to efforts on Capitol Hill to change the Electoral Count Act, including firming up the language to make clear that the vice president is only there to count votes and can't override the will of the voters
At that point, staffers acknowledged that despite efforts by Meadows, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Kellogg, the only person who could get through to him would be his daughter.
Ivanka Trump, according to testimony, went on to make at least two 'tenacious' attempts to reason with her father as staffers were bombarded with messages from Trump allies begging him to quell the violence.
'Can he make a statement. I saw the tweet. Ask people to leave the (Capitol),' Fox News host Sean Hannity texted Meadows.
But inside the West Wing, Kellogg strongly recommended that they not ask the president to appear in the press room, where a group of reporters would be waiting for him.
Former Vice President Mike Pence made clear that he didn't believe he had the power to pick from slates of electors when he chaired the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 to count the electoral votes for president of the United States
'Apparently, certain White House staff believed that a live unscripted press appearance by the President in the midst of the Capitol Hill violence could have made the situation worse,' lawmakers wrote in their letter to Ivanka Trump.
The president ultimately agreed to a video statement. Multiple takes were filmed but not used. In each one of the initial takes, according to the committee, he failed to ask rioters to leave.
The final video was released on Twitter at 4:17 p.m. - nearly two hours after Trump´s initial tweet criticizing Pence.
'This was a fraudulent election, but we can´t play into the hands of these people,' Trump said in the video. 'We have to have peace. So go home. We love you; you´re very special.'
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, has said it´s hard to 'imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty' than Trump´s failure to quell the riots.
Trump´s last words that day came at 6:01 p.m. when he tweeted that the 2020 election was 'unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long.'
He ended with, 'Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever.'
Meanwhile, the National Archives was forced to show up at Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago to retrieve boxes of official letters that had been improperly removed from the White House.
The boxes included correspondence with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and former President Barack Obama.
The documents and gifts, which should have been turned over to The National Archives and Records Administration at the end of Trump's presidency, were retrieved by the agency last month, three people familiar with the visit told the Washington Post.
Under the Presidential Records Act, memos, notes, letters, emails, faxes and other written correspondence related to the president's official duties must be handed to the National Archives for preservation.
Recovery of the boxes of official White House records from Trump's Florida home raises questions about his adherence to the Act.
Trump lost his bid in the Supreme Court last month to block the release of presidential documents from the National Archives to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
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