‘One Of The Darkest Days On Our Nation’s History: Former Trump White House Aide, Stark County Native Sarah Matthews Testifies At Jan. 6 Hearings.
A North Canton Hoover High School graduate and Kent State University grad, Matthews announced that she would resign from her position as deputy press secretary hours after the Capitol riots broke out.
One of the top witnesses at Thursday night’s long-awaited, prime-time committee hearing on Jan. 6 has deep ties to not only the former administration of former President Donald Trump but also to Northeast Ohio as well.
The panel is scheduled to hold its last televised hearing on Wednesday, and it is scheduled to be Sarah Matthews from Stark County, who will be testifying under oath.
After graduating from Hoover High School and Kent State University in North Canton, she served as deputy White House press secretary during the last nine months of Donald Trump’s presidency but made headlines after she resigned shortly after the infamous riot at the U.S. House of Representatives.
In June 2019, Matthews joined Trump’s reelection campaign as a communications staffer. He describes himself as a lifelong Republican. In April of 2020, Matthews became one of a handful of former campaign workers who joined Kayleigh McEnany’s team in the West Wing when McEnany was appointed White House press secretary.
She told the committee of her former boss, “I developed a close relationship with Ms. McEnany.”.
There was no doubt that the “close relationship” they shared would play a significant role in what happened on January 6, 2021, the day when President Trump was ordered by Congress to officially certify that he had lost the 2020 presidential election to Vice President Joe Biden.
After spending the previous weeks falsely claiming that he had been defrauded of the election, Trump encouraged thousands of his supporters to march to the capital on that day on the grounds that the election had been “stolen” from him.
One Of The Darkest Days On Our Nation’s History’: Former Trump White House Aide, Stark County Native Sarah Matthews Testifies At Jan. 6 Hearings
During Thursday’s hearing, the focus was on the three hours and seven minutes that passed between Trump’s speech and the moment he told his supporters to leave the Capitol. As a result, Congressman Peter King and Vice President Mike Pence were forced to evacuate the chambers and members of Congress stormed the Capitol.
According to Matthews, Trump had sent a tweet in which he claimed that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done,” namely to overturn the election results when constitutionally he couldn’t do so.
I thought it was the last thing that was needed at that moment to have the tweet about the vice president tweeted out,” Matthews said.
Essentially what he was doing was giving the green light to these people, telling them that what they were doing on the steps of the Capitol was alright and that what they were doing at the Capitol was okay as well.
According to Matthews, Trump’s supporters “hook on to every word and every tweet he says,” which made her fear the president was “pouring gasoline on the fire.” She decided to ask McEnany in the West Wing to talk to Trump about condemning the riots and asking Capitol police to leave.
In less than a minute, Trump sent out a tweet asking his supporters to “support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement” as well as to “Stay peaceful!” However, Matthews told McEnany that she felt the message didn’t go far enough, and McEnany’s response was chilling.
In a hushed tone, she told me that the president did not want that tweet to include any sort of peace message and that she understood the president’s decision,” Matthews explained on the witness stand.
It wasn’t until Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase ‘stay peaceful’ that he finally agreed to include it in the statement, and there was a back and forth going over various phrases in order to find something that he was comfortable with.”
The unnamed co-worker of Matthews, who wants discretion over the media’s coverage, then suggested that Trump should not condemn the violence at all, fearing that such an action would hand a victory to the media.
Matthews says that she became “visibly angry” at the statement, and called the co-worker’s attention to what was happening on television.
“I looked up at the TV, and I threw an eyebrow up, and then I said, ‘Do you think it looks like we’re going to win?'” She remembered what she said. In my opinion, it does not! That is why I said, ‘Because I don’t think it does!'”
At least five people, including a U.S. Police officer from the Capitol Police Department, were killed as a result of the events of Jan. 6. However, it wasn’t until 4:17 p.m. on Jan. 7 after the riot that Trump sent out his video message telling the protesters to go home. No matter what he said, he once again lied about how the election had been “stolen” and expressed his “love” for those who had stormed the building.
It was Matthews who described the final “We love you” message as “disturbing” to her, as she interpreted it as a sort of approval for everything that had taken place during the previous hours. This was also a turning point in her personal life, as well as a breaking point for the company.
She told me she was aware that as a spokesperson for him, she would be asked to defend what he said. There was no doubt in my mind that that evening I would resign from my position.”
Matthews did indeed step down upon completing her other tasks for the day and, in her subsequent remarks on Thursday, described Trump’s actions on Jan.
6 as indefensible, and as a manner of “treating it as a national celebration.” She also reaffirmed her own belief that then Vice President Biden won the election legitimately, and expressed her heartbreak that the Capitol was attacked due to a lie.
“The 6th of January 2021 was perhaps one of the darkest days in the history of our nation,” she said. We must agree that he will peacefully transfer power over to the incoming administration because that’s one of the fundamentals of living in a democracy and that’s what it means to live in a democracy.