- Melania Trump mistrusted many of her husband's closest advisors, Jan. 6 committee transcripts show.
- These included his son, Donald Trump Jr, former Trump aide Stephanie Grisham told the committee.
Former First Lady Melania Trump mistrusted many of her husband, former President Donald Trump's, closest advisors, according to transcripts from the January 6 committee released on Thursday.
These included some of his own children.
Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary and as a senior aide to Melania Trump, told the committee in her testimony that the former first lady was skeptical of the intentions of some of the president's children.
"Certainly when it came to the kids, especially Don Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, she never trusted that they were doing things in the best interest of their – of Don Jr.'s father," Grisham told the committee.
This is not the first time reports have surfaced of tensions between Trump's children from his first marriage and his third wife, Melania. Grisham claimed in her 2021 memoir that the first lady also didn't get along with Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Trump Jr served as an advisor to his father during his presidency, and he and his fiancée, Guilfoyle, were ardent promoters of Trump's bogus claims of a vast plot to deprive him of victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Grisham told the committee that Melania Trump was also "very wary" of a coterie of advisors who spearheaded Trump's bid to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis.
She said that Melania Trump was "very angry" at Mark Meadows, Trump's then chief of staff, whom she believed allowed access to "people who were maybe harmful to the president, giving him bad advice."
"And Mrs. Trump never liked it when people would tell Trump what he wanted to hear rather than the truth or the reality of the situation, and she felt that Meadows was always just playing into his hand," she added.
The Democrat-led House committee concluded its 18-month investigation into the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot earlier this month. The committee found Trump largely responsible for the events of January 6, during which Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president.
In his own statements to the committee, Trump Jr said that he had shared a text message with Meadows after the 2020 election, detailing a plan to overturn his father's defeat, but he and Guilfoyle said they didn't recall key aspects of events on Jan. 6, according to the transcripts.
The committee's report detailed concern among top Trump aides regarding the advisors the then-president surrounded himself with after his election defeat, with many peddling outlandish conspiracy theories.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr described staff members President Donald Trump brought on after the November election as the "clown car."