Texts show top Trump defenders’ private alarm on Jan. 6

WASHINGTON — As a mob overran the U.S. Capitol last January, some of Donald Trump’s highest-profile defenders in the media — and even his own son — sent urgent text messages to the White House chief of staff urging him to get the then-president to do more to stop the violence.

But they did not publicly display that same sense of alarm mere hours after the deadly insurrection. And they have since joined some of the country’s top Republicans in downplaying Trump’s role in the attack — part of a larger effort to rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

Here are some of the frantic messages that Trump allies sent to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as the insurrection was unfolding:

Donald Trump Jr.

“He’s got to condemn this s-— ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Trump’s eldest son wrote in a text message to Meadows about his father. That’s according to excerpts read Monday by Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of a House committee investigating what happened.

Laura Ingraham

“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” the Fox News Channel host wrote, according to text excerpts Cheney read. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”

Sean Hannity

“Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol?“the Fox News Channel host wrote to Meadows about Trump, according to text excerpts read by Cheney.

During his show the evening of Jan. 6, Hannity said those responsible for the attack “must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” but he also quickly raised concerns that law enforcement wasn’t ready for what happened.