Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham recently met with the January 6 Committee and is telling reporters she “cooperated fully.” It looks like she shed quite a lot of light on the deteriorating situation within the White House in the days leading up to the Capitol riot, The Daily Mail [1] reports. Then-president Donald Trump was growing increasingly paranoid about possible leaks from his own White House staff and began holding private meetings.
Former first lady Melania Trump was often at these meetings, Grisham, who also served as Melania’s chief of staff told the committee. Her remarks suggest Melania may have information about who Trump was meeting with as he tried to overturn the election. The House Committee investigating the riot also reached out to Ivanka Trump [2] in the hopes of interviewing her.
All I can say here is that I hope the committee doesn’t mind snowballs melting in hell because in all likelihood that’s what it will take to get her to make an appearance.
But as for Melania, Grisham had this to say:
“She may or may not have been sitting in on — she knew she was known for popping into meetings,” Grisham told CNN [3] Friday. “So she probably knew what was going on as well.”
Grisham said Trump began holding the private meetings at the White House residence in the waning days of his administration and as his paranoia about leaks continued to build.
While talking to reporters, Grisham went into some detail about the secret meetings but didn’t reveal what she told the committee during her interview. She did note, however, that a report about the meeting published in the Guardian — something was accurate.
“There were meetings taking place up there,” she confirmed.
And there were several notable types attending these meetings, which White House staffers were obviously excluded since they didn’t even know the meetings were being held. Among those attending: Why, the architects of Trump’s little plan to overturn the election, of course, plans that Grisham referred to as “bonkers little plans.”
“Well, that was the beauty of having meetings in the residence,” she CNN. “And the president, the former president, did that often. He did that quite a bit because there was a lot of paranoia about leaks in the White House and so he’d just have people up to the residence.”
Grisham also provided details as to how she received the information. She first received the information about who was participating while serving as Melania’s chief of staff. But after a while, she was shut off from the information by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Every now and then a White House usher, a former employee at the Trump Organization, would tip her off as to who was coming.
But Grisham had another conduit if the information wasn’t forthcoming: Melania herself.
“Mrs. Trump would let me know, because maybe she wasn’t happy that people were in her home without her knowledge.”
The House panel has been focusing on Trump’s “state of mind” on and during the days leading up to the failed siege as it reconstructs the events surrounding that day.
The good news here is that the panel’s interview with Grisham was very productive, much more so than had been expected, sources told The Guardian. [4] The newspaper reports that Grisham said Meadows scheduled the meetings and chief usher Timothy Harleth waived the guests into the meetings.
Grisham met with the panel on January 5th and told reporters she “cooperated fully” with the select committee. Grisham resigned as Melania’s chief of staff on January 6, 2021.
I have to wonder if this is getting under Melania’s skin. What did happen at those secret meetings and what role did she play in this?
I’ve provided a clip of Grisham’s CNN interview below.