Frustrated with January 6 hearings, Trump turns ire toward his allies

(CNN)- Donald Trump is growing increasingly irritated with the House panel investigating the January 6, 2021, riot as it lifts the curtain on some of its findings with public hearings that have garnered gavel-to-gavel cable coverage -- much to the annoyance of the TV-obsessed former President.

Tucked away at his Bedminster golf club, Trump has spent the past week venting his frustrations to nearly anyone who will listen. He has also taken his complaints about the committee on the road, lashing out at the congressional panel during a speech to conservatives in Nashville last Friday.

"I don't understand why Kevin didn't put anyone on the committee," Trump has recently griped to those around him, according to a GOP source with direct knowledge of the comments -- a reference to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's decision to boycott the select committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two Republican members he originally chose to sit on the panel.

Trump's growing frustration with the absence of any hard core supporters on the select committee -- which has given the panel uninterrupted air time and deprived Republicans of the ability to cross-examine witnesses in real time -- is just the latest example of how the public hearings have gotten under his skin. The former President has previously complained about his lack of allies on the committee, though he has become especially exasperated over the last week with his inability to preemptively respond to the committee's findings without knowing what the panel plans to reveal during each hearing.

Trump has also publicly and privately lashed out at former Vice President Mike Pence, whose chief of staff Marc Short and former top White House lawyer Greg Jacob have both been featured prominently in the select committee hearings, putting an unflattering spotlight on the pressure campaign Trump directed at Pence and others as he desperately attempted to stay in power.

And while Trump has been pleased by the counter-programming effort being waged by his Capitol Hill allies in conservative media and on social media, he has still felt the need to take matters into his own hands. He reacted to the committee's first prime-time hearing earlier this month with a lengthy 12-page rebuttal bashing the probe into the deadly Capitol riot and devoted much of his 90-minute appearance at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference last week to slamming Pence and the committee's two Republican members -- Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

As the former President contemplates launching another presidential bid -- potentially before the midterm elections -- he has also become hyper-sensitive to how the hearings are being received by viewers and voters alike, according to multiple Republicans close to Trump. The stakes are high: the investigation could not only cast Pence, one of his potential 2024 rivals, in a positive light as investigators underscore the former vice president's role in preventing a constitutional crisis, but it could also foreshadow potential legal trouble for Trump, who is already grappling with multiple legal battles unrelated to his role in January 6.

Stuck in this high pressure atmosphere, Trump has started to direct his anger at people both inside and outside his orbit, from McCarthy and Pence to his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and Attorney General Bill Barr.