Matt Pottinger’s video deposition is played during the House select committee hearing on June 28. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
During tonight’s hearing, former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews are expected to give a behind-the-scenes look at what was going on in the White House as the violence unfolded in the Capitol on Jan. 6, as the select committee focuses on former President Trump’s lack of action that day.
Pottinger and Matthews were in close contact with members of the small group of staff surrounding the president as he watched the deadly attack unfold on television.
Pottinger has told the committee that he did not see Trump that day, but that he entered the Oval Office around 3 p.m. ET and spoke with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, he told CNN a source familiar with his testimony behind closed doors.
Trump was in the adjacent dining room. Pottinger informed Meadows that he had been told the National Guard was not yet at the Capitol and tried to get an answer as to why that had not happened yet, the source said.
Meadows, who Pottinger described as appearing visibly frustrated at the time, responded by saying he had made several calls to a senior Pentagon official in an effort to bring the National Guard to Capitol Hill, according to the source familiar with Pottinger’s testimony.
In earlier testimony, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, described his discussions with Meadows as an attempt to make sure the military presented the president as in control.
“I interpreted this immediately as politics, politics, politics. Red flag for me, personally. No action. But I remember it clearly,” Milley said in testimony presented at the hearing.
Sarah Matthews speaks in a video deposition shown June 16 during a House select committee hearing. (House Select Committee/AP)
Matthews was one of several White House aides who pushed for a statement from Trump condemning the violence. While he did not speak to Trump Day, a source told CNN, will shed light on discussions about the effort to get him to issue a response. A source tells CNN that it will shed light on the discussions surrounding that effort.
Pottinger and Matthews, who both resigned after the events of Jan. 6, will also be able to provide insight into the inner workings of the Trump White House. Pottinger was in the administration from the start.
Neither witness has been fully briefed on all the video clips that will be shown today, or the full extent of the committee’s evidence that will be presented, a source familiar with the conversations surrounding the testimony told CNN.