Michael Steele, ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), was asked on MSNBC for his view about the evidence that the former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne had given on Friday to the congressional committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot.

When asked whether Byrne’s testimony could hurt Trump, Steele replied, “Yes. Well, if he’s honest, yeah.

“If he’s absolutely honest about what the president said to him and how that worked, there is no executive privilege here.”

“It’s a matter of, hey, the president’s response was, he wanted to figure out how we could help him secure a win when he lost,” he added. “But I don’t know…about whether or not the committee was hesitant to bring him in the first place, because maybe there were some questions about his reliability.”

Byrne played a role in supporting efforts to push baseless claims that the 2020 election Trump lost to Joe Biden was marred by fraud. These included attending a White House meeting on December 18 that year to discuss how to overturn the election, it was revealed this week.

January 6 committee aides have previously said that the December meeting Byrne attended with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, his lawyer Sidney Powell, and White House staff is of high interest to the panel’s investigation, CNN reported.

The committee considers a tweet Trump sent the day after the meeting encouraging his supporters to descend on Washington as central to their storming of the U.S. Capitol.

During the mid-December meeting, there were reportedly discussions on how to block Biden’s certification as president and the prospect of seizing voting machines.

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone in his testimony before the committee described seizing machines as a “terrible idea”.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat on the January 6 panel, said the meeting got so heated that screaming was heard down the hallway. Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who testified against Trump, said that the meeting showed that the West Wing was “unhinged.”

Steele said on Friday that the committee had called Byrne to testify “to explore a little bit deeper exactly what he offered the president and what the president’s response was to what he offered.”

He added this was significant, “given that the President’s counsel and Attorney General had told him he had lost the election.”

Newsweek has contacted the Trump team for comment.