Did Ivanka Trump Lie When Questioned By Jan 6 Committee?

Julie Radford, who was Ivanka Trump's former chief of staff, contradicted a part of the former First Daughter's Jan. 6 testimony.

Radford contradicted the part about why Ivanka, who was a White House senior advisor, accompanied her father Donald Trump to the Ellipse for his speech before supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, reported Business Insider.

In a video played Tuesday by the committee that's investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Ivanka said that she did not attend the rally to calm her father down after a phone call he had with Mike Pence, who was Vice President at the time. Pence told Trump during that phone call that he would not help him overturn the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. According to testimonies from previous hearings, Trump then called Pence a "wimp."

During Tuesday's hearing, Representative Stephanie Murphy, who is a Democrat of Florida, said that Trump was "worked up" from the phone call.

Trump, the then-President, had encouraged his supporters to gather for a speech. Then he urged them to march to the U.S. Capitol while Congress prepared to certify Joe Biden's 2020 presidential win.

According to the video aired during the new hearing, one of the investigators told Ivanka that it had been reported that she ultimately decided to attend the rally because she hoped that she would calm her father and keep him "on an even keel." When asked if that was accurate, Ivanka replied that it wasn't. She said no, and shared that she didn’t know "who said that or where that came from."

The Jan. 6 committee then showed an interview with Radford. The investigator asked what did Ivanka share with Radford about why it was concerning that Trump was "upset or agitated after that call with Vice President Pence in relation to the Ellipse rally? Why did he have to be calmed down?"

Radford shared that the former First Daughter said Trump had called Pence "an expletive word." He added that she thought that bothered her, and she thought that she could tell based on the conversation and what was going on the office that he was "angry and upset." Radford noted that people were providing "this information and she felt like she might be able to help calm this situation down, at least before he went on stage."

The video did not indicate whether Ivanka had told Radford why she went to the Ellipse. It was also not clear whether the comments represented Radford's interpretation of Ivanka's decisions. But both of them were testifying under oath.

According to Chris Cillizza of CNN, the statements appear, on their face, to be contradictory. Either the former First Daughter was worried about what Trump might say to the "Stop the Steal" crowd on Jan. 6, 2021 and accompanied him to help keep him calm or she wasn't.

A part of the hearing also showed a video of Ivanka. She told the Jan. 6 committee that she believed her father lost the 2020 U.S. Presidential election likely before a formal Electoral College vote on Dec. 14 of that year.