According to Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House communications director, Ms. Haspel had a “suicide pact” in place, in which the entire intelligence community would resign if she were removed from her post.
“Allegedly, for about 14 minutes, Kash was actually the C.I.A. director,” Ms. Griffin said.
Trump’s White House was marked by constant infighting.
One theme throughout the transcripts is the intense infighting that was a constant feature of the Trump White House. Lawyers fought with lawyers. Communications staff fought among themselves. The president berated aides of all ranks.
Some examples: Ms. Griffin provided a scathing assessment of Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary: “I am a Christian woman, so I will say this. Kayleigh is a liar and an — She’s a opportunist.”
The Trump adviser Jason Miller told investigators he was “pissed off” when he learned that Cleta Mitchell, a longtime conservative lawyer, listed his name as the official to contact on a document she circulated denying that President Biden had won the election. “I called Cleta and said, ‘What the hell?’” Mr. Miller said. “And she said, ‘Yeah, you guys weren’t moving fast enough, so I just put your name on it and sent it out.’”
Trump didn’t want to do ‘a big PR push’ for a Capitol Police officer who died after Jan. 6.
The transcripts also show the conditional nature of the former president’s support for law enforcement. Mr. Trump agreed at the urging of his staff to lower the flag over the White House to honor a Capitol Police officer who died after Jan. 6, but “was adamant that we not do a press release or a big PR push,” Mr. Miller wrote in a text message.
“We want to make it clear nobody is a stronger supporter of law enforcement than President Trump but we don’t want to blast it out,” Mr. Miller wrote.
A furniture executive bankrolled private jets for Trump’s circle.
Testimony released Friday detailed how Patrick Byrne, a former chief executive of the furniture retail company Overstock, took on the role of a financier who chartered private jets for people in Mr. Trump’s circle as they fought election results.
