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(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol held its first hearing Tuesday in which lawmakers heard dramatic, emotional accounts from law enforcement officers who defended the building against a pro-Trump mob.

“We’re going to revisit some of those moments today, and it won’t be easy,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said to open the hearing, while praising the officers for holding the line. “But history will remember your names and your actions.”

Here are key takeaways from the first hearing:

All witnesses feared for their lives during attack

The four officers testifying — Capitol Police officers Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges — flatly rejected any attempts to rewrite history on Jan. 6 and downplay the attack as one that shouldn’t be investigated further, telling lawmakers they all feared for their lives on Jan. 6.

When Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asked Gonell to respond to former President Donald Trump’s calling the crowd “loving.” Gonell placed responsibility on him for sending his supporters to the Capitol.

“It’s a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create — this monstrosity,” Gonell said. “I’m still recovering from those ‘hugs and kisses’ that day.”

Hodges, who referred to the rioters as “terrorists,” detailed the weapons used against officers that day including police shields, batons, hammers, a sledgehammer, flag poles, tasers, pepper spray, bear and wasp spray, copper pipes, rocks, table legs broken down, guardrails, cones and “any items they can get their hands on.”

“There were over 9,000 of the terrorists out there with an unknown number of firearms and a couple hundred of us, maybe. So we could not — if that turned into a firefight, we would have lost,” he said. “And this was a fight we couldn’t afford to lose.”

Hodges, who was crushed in a doorway that day, recalled how he had to wrestle with one rioter who tried to take his baton and how another shouted at him, “‘You will die on your knees.'”

Gonell also described the day as a scene “from a medieval battlefield.”

“I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, ‘this is how I’m going to die, trampled defending this entrance,'” he said.

But the officers said they didn’t think twice about defending the Capitol and democracy, as traumatic as the experience was for them, their colleagues and families.

“Us four officers, we would do Jan. 6 all over again,” Dunn said. “We wouldn’t stay home because we knew what was going to happen. We would show up. That’s courageous. That’s heroic. So what I ask from you all, is to get to the bottom of what happened.”

“The rioters called me traitor, a disgrace, and shouted that I—an army veteran and a police officer—should be executed,” Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell says during Jan. 6 select committee hearing. https://t.co/KuT3vxIg91 pic.twitter.com/knJ8oRxRqg

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2021

The lawmakers choked up at times during the officers’ testimony including Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who told them, “You guys may like individually feel a little broken … but you guys won.”

“Democracies are not defined by our bad days. We’re defined by how we come back from bad days,” he said.

Racial slurs heard at riot haunt hearing room: ‘I guess it is America’

Racial slurs haunted the hearing room as officers recounted chants made by the mob, moving some officers to tears and prompting some lawmakers to hang their heads.

Dunn recounted the racist verbal abuse he endured from rioters in emotional testimony and said it was the first time he had been called the n-word in uniform.

“I’m a law enforcement officer and I do my best to keep politics out of my job, but in this circumstance I responded, ‘Well, I voted for Joe Biden, does my vote not count? Am I nobody?'” he said he told rioters who falsely shouted at him the election was stolen.

Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn on racial abuse from rioters: “It’s so disheartening and disappointing that we live in a country with people like that, that attack you because of the color of your skin just to hurt you.” https://t.co/pZb3doEsvx pic.twitter.com/rVGupmH6hP

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2021

“That prompted a torrent of racial epithets,” Dunn said. “One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled “You hear that guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden.”

Dunn, who also witnessed a Confederate flag carried through the Capitol, said that other Black officers shared similar stories of racial abuse from the day.

“I sat down on the bench in the Rotunda with a friend of mine, who is also a Black Capitol Police officer and told him about the racial slurs I endured. I became very emotional and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?'” he said. “I began sobbing.”

When Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., posed the same question to Dunn later, the officer said, “I guess it is America. It shouldn’t be.”

Committee looking to subpoena Trump, lawmakers

Cheney, in her opening statement, made clear the committee is open to subpoenaing the former president, White House aides and members of Congress as they create a timeline of the day.

“We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House. Every phone call, every conversation, every meeting, leading up to, during, and after the attack. Honorable men and women have an obligation to step forward,” she said.

Adding to that pressure, all four witnesses told lawmakers they wanted an investigation into those in power who may have aided and abetted rioters.

Dunn used an analogy with a hitman to describe his expectations, in an apparent nod to the former president, after the witnesses spent three and a half hours recounting chants of “Trump sent us,” among others.

“If a hitman is hired and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to jail, but not only does the hitman go to jail but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on Jan. 6 and a hitman sent them,” he said. “I want you to get to the bottom of that.”

Thompson said at a press conference after the hearing that the committee could be brought back for another hearing during the House’s August recess, which starts Friday. The panel said its work is just beginning.

The Department of Justice said in letters to former Trump officials, and provided to congressional committees, that they can participate in the investigations into the Jan. 6 attack, according to sources and letters reviewed by ABC News earlier Tuesday.

Cheney and Kinzinger poke holes in GOP arguments against committee

The two Republicans on the panel spent their questioning time pushing back on some of the most prominent Republican talking points after Jan. 6 — including that the rioters were not violent and that whatever took place at the Capitol paled in comparison to violence perpetrated by antifa during racial justice protests.

“I condemn those riots and the destruction of property that resulted — but not once did I ever feel that the future of self-governance was threatened like I did on Jan. 6,” Kinzinger said. “There was a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law, between a crime, even grave crimes and a coup.”

Kinzinger also defended his choice to serve on the committee, saying it’s “not in spite of my membership in the Republican Party, but because of it, not to win a political fight, but to learn the facts and defend our democracy.”

Cheney reminded in her opening statement that she and other lawmakers preferred to establish an independent commission to investigate the attack, but that effort was “defeated by Republicans in the Senate.”

“That leaves us where we are today. We cannot leave the violence of Jan. 6 and its causes uninvestigated,” she said. “If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic.”

Rep. Liz Cheney: “We must overcome the many efforts we are already seeing to cover up and obscure the facts…No member of Congress should now attempt to defend the indefensible.”

LIVE UPDATES: https://t.co/5JurU263Qs pic.twitter.com/FFSGMPfOt3

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2021

The former No. 3 House Republican also reminded that her GOP colleagues had “recognized the events that day for what they actually were” in the days after the attack, even if members downplay it now.

Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Republicans who boycotted the select panel said the hearing should focus on the fact that Capitol Police were unprepared for Jan. 6. But because they gave up their ability to participate in the hearing, they couldn’t lead the discussion in their preferred direction — or challenge Democrats’ lines of inquiry the way Cheney and Kinzinger picked apart some of their claims.

Officers, while praised for heroism, blast lawmakers for partisan politics

While the officers were praised throughout the hearing for holding the line on Jan. 6, with lawmakers on the panel thanking them for their protection, the officers didn’t hold back when describing their disapproval in how partisan politics has muddied the search for the truth.

Fanone, the Metropolitan Police Department officer who was dragged down the Capitol steps, beaten with a flagpole, tased repeatedly and taunted with chants of “kill him with his own gun,” called out lawmakers on Tuesday who have blocked efforts for an investigation.

Officer Michael Fanone slams the table during Capitol riot hearing: “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!”

“What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens…are downplaying or outright denying what happened.” pic.twitter.com/1mGO4hHTFG

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2021

“The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he said, slamming his fist on the witness table. “I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad.”

“Nothing — truly nothing — has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so betray their oath of office,” he added.

Gonell said of the former president downplaying the day, “It’s insulting, it’s demoralizing because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt.”

Dunn said that the investigation is innately political because of the landscape surrounding the attack, but that it shouldn’t stop lawmakers from seeking the truth.

“It’s not a secret that it was political. They literally were there to stop the steal. So when people say it shouldn’t be political, it is. It was and it is. There’s no getting around that,” he said.

“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes and while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard?” he asked. “I guess in this America, it is.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon that a mandate to require all federal employees to be vaccinated is now “under consideration.”

He said this one day after the Department of Veterans Affairs moved to require all health workers get a COVID-19 vaccine and shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant and reversed its mask guidance.

“It’s under consideration right now,” Biden said when asked by ABC News if the federal government would expand the vaccine mandate. “But if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
 

BREAKING: Pres. Biden tells ABC’s @sarahkolinovsky that he is considering a mandate for all federal employees to get COVID-19 vaccines. 

“That’s under consideration right now, but if you’re not vaccinated you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.” https://t.co/si3klnHefV pic.twitter.com/6XxbDy6PRk

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2021

As he wrapped a visit to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ABC News also asked the president about Tuesday’s new guidance from the CDC, recommending masks for vaccinated Americans in public, and whether it would cause confusion, but Biden continued to focus on those who remain unvaccinated.

“We have a pandemic because the unvaccinated — and they’re sowing enormous confusion,” he said. “The more we learned — the more we learn about this virus and the delta variation, the more we have to be worried, concerned.”

“And the only one thing we know for sure, if those other 100 million people got vaccinated we’d be in a very different world. So get vaccinated. If you aren’t, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were,” Biden continued.

Following his remarks, Biden released a statement saying the CDC decision is “another step on our journey to defeating the virus” and that he’d have more to say on Thursday when he will “lay out the next steps” to get more Americans vaccinated.

Regarding the CDC recommendation for students, Biden said it’s “inconvenient,” but gives them a chance to learn “with their classmates with the best available protection.”

He also acknowledged concerns that as cases rise and mask guidance is reversed that the U.S. could be heading back to restrictions and closures but said in the statement, “We are not going back to that.”

“In the meantime, more vaccinations and mask wearing in the areas most impacted by the delta variant will enable us to avoid the kind of lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures and disruptions we faced in 2020. Unlike 2020, we have both the scientific knowledge and the tools to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said.

Earlier Tuesday, the CDC cited new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant and reversed its mask guidance to recommend that everyone in areas with high levels of COVID, vaccinated or not, wear a mask, as the virus continues to spread rapidly across the U.S.

“This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday afternoon.

Throughout Washington there was a quick return to mask wearing for many who had grown accustomed to being without.

Vice President Kamala Harris, meeting with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Native American voting rights advocates Tuesday afternoon, wore a mask indoors for the first time since May 13.

Asked about the development, Harris gave a little shrug.

“None of us like wearing masks,” she said bluntly.

She noted that most people dying at this point are not vaccinated.

“People need to get vaccinated. That’s the only way we’re going to cut this thing off. No one likes wearing a mask. Get vaccinated. That’s it,” she said, then hitting her hand on the table for emphasis.

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

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(RICHMOND, Va.) — Virginia gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe called on his GOP opponent Glenn Youngkin to cancel his appearance at and denounce what the 5th Congressional District Republican Party is calling an “election integrity regional rally,” which coincides with the anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act first being signed into law.

Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, called on the 5th District Republicans to cancel the event altogether.

“We all know what Glenn Youngkin and Republicans mean when they talk about election integrity. They’re following Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and pushing restricting measures that make it harder for folks to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” Swecker said in a virtual press conference Tuesday. “Here in Virginia, we fought hard to protect and expand the sacred right to vote, and we’re not about to let Glenn Youngkin drag us backwards.”

The two-day, paid event is scheduled for Aug. 6 and 7 at Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian institution in Lynchburg. Attendees can purchase “early bird tickets” through Friday, which cost $60 per individual and $110 per couple; after Friday, ticket price increases by $20 and $40, respectively, according to the flyer for the event.

Youngkin, along with the other statewide GOP nominees for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, and attorney general, Jason Miyares, are the headliners for the Saturday night banquet.

The itinerary for the 5th District Republicans’ rally, which was not organized or being run by the Youngkin campaign, does not indicate it will be an event highlighting conspiracies about the 2020 election. It appears to be more of a grassroots event for the party’s faithful, with breakout sessions focused on voter registration, outreach like phone banking and door-knocking, organizing and election monitoring, for which there is a legal process to do.

In response to a request for comment, Melvin Adams, the chairman of the 5th District Republicans, told ABC News the party is “not surprised by these tactics.”

“They know this is a close race and that our event to thank, inspire, equip, and empower our ‘grassroots’ volunteers, while also helping them know how they can help to secure the integrity of our local elections, will cause an unprecedented Republican turnout in this very RED region of Virginia,” Adams said. “That is why they are attempting to cause distraction.”

Election integrity has become the rallying cry of the Republican Party following the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim was “rigged,” despite no real evidence to support the baseless accusation of widespread fraud in battleground states Trump legitimately lost. Republican-led state legislatures, including Georgia, Florida and Arizona, have passed new “election integrity” laws, some of which amount to sweeping rewrites of election code.

The lawmakers justify these changes by asserting voters have lost faith in the system and are demanding changes — though few in the party openly acknowledge the source of that diminished confidence among voters, Republican voters specifically.

Youngkin, who earned Trump’s endorsement after securing the nomination, has not personally repeated the same lies about the election being “stolen,” but the issue of election integrity has been central to his campaign.

Before the party convention in May, the only major plan Youngkin released was one in February about this, also creating an “election integrity task force.” The five-prong plan calls for creating a “politically independent and transparent” Department of Elections, monthly updates to voter rolls, stricter voter identification requirements, verification of mail ballot applications and returns to ensure they are “legitimate and timely,” and requiring ballot counting observers and an audit of voting machines.

McAuliffe, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s predecessor who’s vying for his old job, blasted the rally as being “inspired by Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory that led to a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”

“Glenn – enough is enough. I call on you to immediately withdraw from this ‘election integrity’ rally and disavow this dangerous, deadly conspiracy theory once and for all. Virginians deserve a leader who will tell the truth, act with integrity, and respect the office they seek to hold,” McAuliffe said in a statement Tuesday. “Glenn has shown, yet again, that he is no such leader. … If Glenn has any respect for the truth or Virginians, he will drop out of this event immediately.”

In response, Youngkin spokesperson Matt Wolking said in a statement, “Terry McAuliffe opposes requiring a photo ID to vote, which undermines the integrity of our elections and makes it easier to cheat. Glenn Youngkin will restore Virginia’s photo ID law and make sure it is easy for every eligible person to vote and harder to cheat.”

In Virginia, current law requires voters present a form of identification, but photo ID specifically is not required. There is broad support among the public for requiring voters to present a photo ID to cast ballots. In late June, a Monmouth University poll found that 80% of Americans support this, including about 60% of Democrats.

McAuliffe also accused Youngkin of spending “months denying that Joe Biden was duly elected president.” Since winning the nomination, Youngkin has repeatedly said Biden was legitimately elected, according to a fact check done by the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact. However, the fact check also found that pre-nomination, multiple media outlets reported that Youngkin or his campaign either did not respond to questions about whether Biden was “legitimately elected” or declined to answer.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has sent letters to six former Trump DOJ officials telling them that they can participate in Congress’ investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to sources and communications reviewed by ABC News.

The move is likely to remove a significant barrier that Democrats faced during Trump’s presidency, when the Justice Department backed the White House’s efforts to prevent any DOJ officials from testifying before their Democratic congressional committees.

At this time, no Trump-era DOJ official has indicated that they have agreed to testify in the congressional probe.

The first hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, featuring law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, got underway Tuesday.

Earlier, those attorneys who had been asked to testify had said they would need authorization from the Justice Department, sources told ABC News.

“Department attorneys, including those who have left the Department, are obligated to protect non-public information they learned in the course of their work,” reads the DOJ’s letter, which was sent Monday and reviewed by ABC News. “For decades and across administrations, however, the Department has sought to balance the Executive Branch’s confidentiality interests with Congress’s legitimate need to gather information. The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress in this case.”

The letter was sent to former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia B.J. Pak, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia Bobby Christine and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hovakimian, all of whom were requested as witnesses by House Oversight Committee.

“The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress in this case,” the letter said. “Congress has articulated compelling legislative interests in the matters being investigated, and the information the Committees have requested from you bears directly on Congress’s interest in understanding these extraordinary events: namely, the question whether former President Trump sought to cause the Department to use its law enforcement and litigation authorities to advance his personal political interests with respect to the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

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(NEW YORK) — Two key senators announced a bipartisan deal on a $2.1 billion emergency security supplemental bill to send much-needed funding to Capitol Police and the National Guard, as law enforcement officers were recounting to members of the House their gripping, harrowing tales of confrontations with former President Donald Trump’s supporters rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The deal includes $70.7 million for Capitol Police training, equipment, overtime, more officers, hazard pay and retention bonuses; more than $521 million to the National Guard to reimburse the department for the long hours guardsmen put in guarding the Capitol in the wake of the attack; and additional funding will be allotted for making repairs to the building after rioters damaged the centuries-old historic building. There’s also $35.4 million for the Capitol Police mutual aid agreements with local, state and federal law enforcement for securing the Capitol and funds to secure the Capitol complex and respond to COVID on the complex.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters that “We’re going to take care of the Capitol Police, fix all the problems that need to be done here (in the building), certainly take care of the National Guard, which is critical, because they have real problems.”

The Guard has been desperate for the reimbursement, threatening to cancel training events, drills in August and September and potentially furloughing civilians.

The embattled Capitol Police, still clawing back from the Jan. 6 attacks — enacting changes in leadership, grappling with retirements and officers walking away from the job after that harrowing day — have said they would be out of funding by mid-August if Congress did not act.

The emergency supplemental also has $1.125 billion to cover the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa program — a little less than what the White House requested — to provide asylum to allies there who aided the U.S. mission and now face retribution from a resurgent Taliban.

Leahy has said before that the money is also designed to address the backlog of applications for the program and shortening the work requirement to one year from two, but it unclear what will be in the final deal.

The chairman said the bill could be on the floor as early as Tuesday night, but lawmakers could have a Sen. Rand Paul problem. The Kentucky Republican is opposed to awarding funds to provide asylum to Afghan interpreters and others who helped the United States in that long-fought war.

The State Department announced last week the “first tranche” of Afghans being evacuated from Afghanistan consists of 700 who worked for the U.S. military and diplomatic missions in Afghanistan and an estimated number of their family members — bringing the total to a “ballpark” of 2,500 Afghans set to be sent to Fort Lee base in Virginia, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

Thousands more are being moved to other cooperating countries, as well as overseas U.S. bases.

ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.

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