(WASHINGTON) — A filmmaker who witnessed firsthand the clashes between pro-Trump rioters and police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6 said former President Donald Trump had “enormous power” over the rioters and could have prevented the violence that day.
“I believe he had enormous power over that crowd,” documentarian Nick Quested said in an interview with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl ahead of his testimony before the House Jan. 6 select committee Thursday night.
“I think that there’s a high probability that things would have been a lot calmer if he’d have asked people to stop,” he said.
Quested, a veteran filmmaker who has covered conflicts around the world, has spent his career documenting other people living through dangerous and difficult situations.
A producer of visceral documentaries Restrepo and Korengal, he followed U.S. service members through a deployment to a remote region of Afghanistan.
Quested has also covered the rise of ISIS in Syria and the dangerous journey of migrants through Central America.
But he said his experience following the Proud Boys and other pro-Trump rioters to the Capitol and their combat with police officers on Jan. 6 was one of the most violent situations he’s ever faced.
“I’m astounded that people say it wasn’t violent, because I’ve been in a lot of violent situations in my life, and I don’t think I’ve seen something that’s been that persistently violent for such a long period of time,” he said.
War zone firefights “don’t last very long,” he said. “There’s moments of panic and then hours of boredom.”
“This is hours of panic,” he said of the experience on Jan. 6.
Quested was so close to the action on Jan. 6 that he was initially considered a suspect by the FBI.
“For the first few weeks I was a subject of investigation,” he said. “They couldn’t figure out how I wasn’t part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government.”
His camera was rolling as a rioter was pushed off the balcony outside the Capitol, and as others used flag poles and makeshift weapons to attack Capitol Police officers and break into the building.
“For anyone that really didn’t think that there was extreme violence in that day, I filmed it. I saw it and was subject to it. The violence was real. And it was exceptionally powerful,” Quested said.
“When you see two people die on one day, you know… it’s not normal political discourse,” he said.
The footage, which was shared with the select committee and played during the public hearing Thursday night, showed rioters attacking Capitol Police officers with flag poles and other makeshift weapons, and pacing through the halls of Congress.
One member of Quested’s team filmed rioters screaming out for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as they entered her offices, just minutes before she was evacuated from the Capitol by her security detail.
Quested, who spent weeks with members of the Proud Boys and former leader Enrique Tarrio, followed Tarrio to an underground parking garage in Washington on Jan. 5, where he met with Stuart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia also linked to the Capitol attack.
Quested and his crew did not capture any audio of the exchange between the two far-right leaders.
“I don’t know whether it’s a smoking gun or not, the optics of having a meeting with Stewart Rhodes the day before the events of January 6 is terrible,” he said.
Tarrio, Rhodes and members of both groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Quested said it was “unnerving” to be in front of the camera before the committee’s investigation.
“I’m usually the fly on the wall. I’m not the fly on the wall anymore,” he said.
Quested said he agreed to cooperate and testify publicly because “the truth is important.”
“If my testimony can help establish … a basis of truthfulness about what really happened on that day, then I’ve done my job as a journalist,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol held its first prime-time hearing on Thursday.
The hearing featured never-before-seen video footage and witness testimony as lawmakers aim to explain what they call a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Here is how the hearing unfolded:
Jun 09, 10:30 pm
‘He called me there’: Teasing next hearing, committee shows video of rioters voicing intent
Chairman Bennie Thompson wrapped up the hearing with a video compilation of rioters’ interviews with the committee, with more than half-a-dozen Capitol rioters explaining in their own words why they marched on the Capitol last Jan. 6.
“Trump only asked me for two things,” said Robert Schornack, who was arrested last March and pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor last December. “He asked me for my vote, and he asked me for January 6th.”
“He asked us to come to come to D.C. and said things are going to happen,” said Daniel Herendeen,” who pleaded guilty last year to illegally entering the Capitol.
Thompson closed by teasing the committee’s next hearing, scheduled for Monday, June 13, at 10 a.m.
“We’re going to examine the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol,” he said.
-ABC News Benjamin Siegel and Alex Mallin
Jun 09, 10:24 pm
Historic hearing gavels out
In a nearly two-hour hearing in prime time, the House select committee placed Trump at the center of an “attempted coup” and “multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election,” with the panel’s chairs emphasizing how Trump and his allies repeatedly tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Never-before-seen footage and graphic testimony from a Capitol Police officer, who described the crowd as an “absolute war zone,” brought some in the hearing room to tears, as the committee laid out how it will explain in subsequent hearings a “sophisticated seven-part plan” by Trump to steal the election.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the 11-month-long investigation with more than 1,000 interviews revealed that Trump was “well aware” of the violence at the Capitol and security risk to Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers but chose to do nothing.
“Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element to the United States government to instruct at the Capitol be defended,” she said. “The vice president — Pence — did each of those things.”
Jun 09, 10:02 pm
‘It was carnage’: Capitol Police officer recounts ‘slipping in people’s blood’
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after rioters knocked her to the ground, described in detail what she called a “an absolute war zone” as officers struggled to hold the line.
“I can just remember my — my breath catching in my throat, because I — what I saw was just — a war scene,” she said. “It was something like I had seen out of the movies.
WATCH: “What I saw was just a war scene,” Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testifies of Capitol attack.
“There were officers on the ground, they were bleeding, they were throwing up…I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood.” pic.twitter.com/xqll4Ww1GT
“I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. You know, they were bleeding. They were throwing … I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood,” she continued.
“I was catching people as they fell … It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw,” she added. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think as as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”
Jun 09, 9:56 pm
Video shows Capitol Police officer getting knocked unconscious
The committee aired a video showing the moment Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards was knocked out as she tried to hold the line from a crowd of rioters pushing up against barricades and bike racks.
Edwards winced as the video began.
“I felt the bike rack come on top of my head and I was pushed backwards, and my foot caught the stair behind me, and my chin hit the handrail,” she said. “At that point I blacked out but the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me.”
Edwards returned to duty after regaining consciousness, saying “adrenaline kicked in” as she went to the West Front of the Capitol to protect the Senate steps. There she helped people who had gotten pepper sprayed and others injured before she was hit herself with pepper spray and tear gas.
Jun 09, 9:54 pm
Documentarian notes Proud Boys went to Capitol before Trump spoke
Documentarian Nick Quested, who followed the Proud Boys through Washington as members of the extremist group marched on the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement, noted in his testimony that the group headed to the Capitol long before Trump spoke on the Ellipse.
“The was a large contingent, more than I would expect, and I was confused to a certain extent while we were walking away from the president’s speech, because that’s when I felt we were there to cover,” Quested said.
Chairman Bennie Thompson emphasized that point to argue the Jan. 6 attack was not purely spontaneous but a “coordinated plan” and the “culmination of a months-long effort spearheaded by President Trump.”
“They were not there for President Trump’s speech,” Thompson said of the hundreds of Proud Boys who descended on Washington. “We know this because they left that area to march toward the Capitol before the speech began.”
NEW: Chair Bennie Thompson: “We’ve obtained substantial evidence showing that the president’s December 19 tweet calling his followers to Washington, D.C., on January 6 energized individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups.” https://t.co/W2f3oCDYwhpic.twitter.com/0SzTWNparj
Jun 09, 9:34 pm
Witness testimony begins, officer recounts insults hurled at her during attack
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards told lawmakers that her patriotism was called into question as she pushed back against rioters, sustaining a serious head injury in the process.
“I was called Nancy Pelosi’s dog, called incompetent, called a hero and a villain,” Edwards testified. “I was called a traitor to my country, my oath and my Constitution. In actuality, I was none of those things.”
She continued, “I was an American standing face to face with other Americans asking myself how many times — many, many times — how we had gotten here.”
Edwards recounted her own grandfather’s experience fighting in the Korean war, telling lawmakers she will “gladly sacrifice everything to make sure that the America my grandfather defended is here for many years to come.”
Jun 09, 9:32 pm
Cheney slams Kushner for downplaying resignation threats by WH lawyers as ‘whining’
Among several clips of taped testimony with Trump aides, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., played one of Jared Kushner telling the committee that he dismissed White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s “multiple” threats to resign when asked if he was aware on any instances.
“Like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done, and I know that he was always, him and the team, were always saying oh we are going to resign,” Kushner said. “‘We are not going to be here if this happens, if that happens’ … . So, I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you.”
Cheney slammed Kushner’s response.
Asked about White House Counsel Pat Cipollone threatening to resign in weeks before Jan. 6 attack, former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner tells House committee in taped interview, “I kind of took it up to just be whining.” https://t.co/lcaaCa2vg6pic.twitter.com/7vWGLL8pXs
“There is a reason why people serving in our government take an oath to the Constitution,” she said. “And that oath must mean something.”
-ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel
Jun 09, 9:16 pm
Powerful video compilation prompts short recess
The House select committee played a 10-minute video compilation including never-before-seen footage of rioters violently breaching the Capitol overlaid with law enforcement officers calling for backup, and Trump calling the crowd “loving.”
In chronological order, the video followed the timeline of the day: from Trump speaking at his “Save America” rally to the joint session of Congress being gaveled in — leading up to rioters clashing with police and storming the Capitol, prompting lawmakers to take cover.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, one of several officers in the hearing room who defended the Capitol, was seen wiping away tears before Chairman Bennie Thompson called a short recess.
Some members of Congress watching in the public seats teared up, clearly rocked with emotion by the horrific memory.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., held tissues in her hands. Around the hearing room, people shook their heads yet intently watched the footage.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders
Jun 09, 9:05 pm
Committee says multiple Republicans sought presidential pardons after attack
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said for the first time publicly that multiple Republican members of Congress reached out to the Trump White House to ask for presidential pardons in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack, including Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa.
“Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election,” she added.
As with other House Republicans, Perry has refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigation through voluntary requests and a congressional subpoena.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders
Jun 09, 8:55 pm
Cheney issues warning to fellow Republicans
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., had a message for her colleagues who continue to defend Trump and his false election claims.
“Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain,” Cheney said.
Cheney also had a message for the American people as they watch these hearings unfold over the next several weeks.
“The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot.”
“Please remember what is at stake,” she said. “Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the rule of law and not the rule of men.”
Jun 09, 8:52 pm
Trump ‘well aware’ of violence but ‘placed no call’ to defend Capitol: Cheney
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the select committee, shared snippets of what White House aides told the committee Trump said to them while the attack at the Capitol was ongoing, laying out what she called Trump’s “sophisticated, seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election.”
“You will hear testimony that ‘The president didn’t really want to put anything out’ calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave. You will hear that President Trump was yelling and “really angry at advisers who told him he needed to do be doing something more.’
“And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it,” she said.
She then added, in new detail, “Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element to the United States government to instruct at the Capitol be defended.”
Jun 09, 8:38 pm
With Ivanka Trump tape, panel argues Trump was aware he lost
Using taped testimony from Trump officials including Attorney General Bill Barr and campaign attorney Alex Cannon, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., argued that Trump and his team were well aware that he lost the election but still carried out a plot to stay in power.
“In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had in fact lost the election,” Cheney said, explaining how the committee will lay out its case. “But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him.”
In a video clip from an interview with Barr, Trump’s attorney general said he “repeatedly told the president, in no uncertain terms, that I did not see evidence of fraud and — you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election.”
The committee also aired a taped interview with Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump commenting on Barr’s statement that the Justice Department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.
“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka said of Barr’s assessment. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”
Jun 09, 8:35 pm
Cheney says Trump ‘lit the flame of this attack’
GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said Americans will learn new details about what Trump was doing before, during and after the attack at the Capitol in his effort to remain in power despite his 2020 election loss.
“Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power,” she said.
The Wyoming Republican asserted Trump told his staff during the riot that it’s what people “should be doing” and that he agreed with protesters urging violence against then-Vice President Mike Pence.
After the dust settled, Cheney said, Trump continued to ignore the statements from the Department of Justice, election officials and his own staff telling him the election result was legitimate.
“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in her opening statement.
Jun 09, 8:22 pm
Committee places Trump at ‘center of this conspiracy,’ deems attack ‘attempted coup’
In his opening statement, Chairman Bennie Thompson — looking directly at the camera — called Jan. 6 an “attempt to undermine the will of the people” and “only the beginning of what became a sprawling multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election.”
“Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, and ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down Capitol and subvert American democracy,” he said.
Thompson said the attack on the Capitol was “the culmination of an attempted coup” and a “brazen attempt … to overthrow the government”
“The violence was no accident,” he said. “It represents President Trump’s last stand, his most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.”
Jun 09, 8:01 pm
Historic hearing underway
Chairman Bennie Thompson has gaveled in the committee’s first prime-time hearing intended to “remind you of the reality of what happened that day.”
“But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson will say in his opening statement, according to an excerpt released by the committee. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over.”
Americans will hear live testimony from a Capitol Police officer and documentarian who were on the scene of the attack and watch never-before-seen video footage in a rare congressional hearing made for television.
Jun 09, 7:50 pm
Cheney arrives on Capitol Hill
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the select committee, was the first member to arrive on Capitol Hill through the member entrance, according to an NBC pool reporter.
Asked how she was feeling, Cheney said, “Good, thank you,” as she walked inside.
Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., the only other House Republican to accept a seat on the panel, have faced relentless attacks from within their caucus for their participation. Cheney was removed from her No. 3 House GOP leadership post last year, and both were formally censured by the Republican National Committee for choosing to investigate what it controversially called “legitimate political discourse.”
Jun 09, 7:49 pm
Demonstrators rally outside Capitol
Demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday ahead of the House select committee’s first prime-time hearing of its Jan. 6 investigation.
Participants held signs reading, “Not above the law.”
The panel is looking to explain what it calls a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election loss.
From legal action to name-calling, Trump continues to try to discredit the House select committee as the panel prepares to go public with its findings in prime time.
“January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again,” Trump said in a string of posts hours ahead of the hearing on Truth Social, the social media platform his team launched after Twitter permanently suspended him in the wake of the Capitol siege “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Jun 09, 7:22 pm
Just before hearing, 3 Capitol rioters express regret in federal court
Three rioters convicted on federal charges for participating in the Capitol attack appeared in court just hours ahead of the prime-time event and asked for mercy before federal judges deciding their punishments.
“I made one mistake in my life and I have immediately took responsibility for it,” said Michael Daughtry, a gun store owner and former police officer who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge this past March. “I apologize to the court for my indiscretion. But does a person not get to make at least one mistake in their entire life?”
The sentencing hearings just blocks away from the Capitol offer a noteworthy split-screen as lawmakers and their staff are in the midst of final preparations to put their investigation’s findings on full display for the American people. Click here for more.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Jun 09, 7:00 pm
‘Our democracy remains in danger’: Opening statement excerpt
Chairman Bennie Thompson will warn the American public of the ongoing threat from “those in this country who thirst for power” when the Jan. 6 committee soon kicks off a series of public hearings laying out its investigation, according to an opening statement released by the committee.
“So tonight, and over the next few weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day. But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson is expected to say. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over.”
“January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here,” read the excerpt.
Jun 09, 6:57 pm
Officers and widows plan to attend hearing
Several police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and widows of law enforcement members who died in the aftermath will be present at the hearing.
Among them are Erin Smith, the widow of Metropolitan Police Department officer Jeffrey Smith; Serena Liebengood, the widow of Capitol Police officer Howie Liebengood; Sandra Garza, partner of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn; Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell; and Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges.
Dunn told ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott the hearing will be “triggering.”
“I think about Jan. 6 daily and tonight we are going to find out stuff we didn’t know,” he said.
Garza told Scott she’s preparing to painfully “relive the nightmare of the day.” Her longtime partner, Officer Sicknick, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes one day after engaging with rioters.
“Everybody should watch the hearings because they need the truth of what happened that day,” Garza said. “These are the facts — it’s important for them not to only hear the witnesses but see it again.” She added, “There has to be some accountability, people are dead because of what happened.”
Jun 09, 5:45 pm
Capitol Police officer, documentarian to testify
One of the first officers injured on Jan. 6, U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after she was thrown to the ground by rioters pushing bike racks, will deliver her firsthand account before the committee in a matter of hours.
Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who followed the Proud Boys through Washington as members of the extremist group marched on the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement, is also scheduled to testify live.
ABC News exclusively obtained some of Quested’s extraordinary material, showing how a group of Trump supporters at a presidential rally transformed into an angry mob that broke into the Capitol. Click here for more.
Jun 09, 5:22 pm
McCarthy dodges questions on legitimacy of 2020 election
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wouldn’t say Thursday if President Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl pressed McCarthy on the matter four times during a news conference where House Republicans preemptively slammed tonight’s hearing, calling the Jan. 6 panel “the most political and least legitimate committee in American history.”
McCarthy said Biden is the president, but declined to address the legitimacy aspect and declined to say Trump was wrong when he baselessly claimed the election was fraudulent.
Watch the full exchange here:
Ahead of the Jan. 6 committee’s presentation alleging former Pres. Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy dodges when pressed four times by @jonkarl on whether he believes Pres. Biden was the legitimate winner. https://t.co/7x9xFOiAeUpic.twitter.com/xqqDpFGoFU
The select committee has promised never-before-seen videotaped depositions from some of Trump’s closest aides and family members after Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. all sat for interviews earlier this year.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — who turned over thousands of text messages to the committee — has been described by congressional sources as an “MVP” of the hearings, as his messages have provided somewhat of a roadmap for investigators.
Jun 09, 4:35 pm
Biden calls Jan. 6 ‘flagrant violation of the Constitution’
President Joe Biden said a lot of Americans will learn new details about the Jan. 6 attack as lawmakers begin to reveal the findings of their 11-month investigation.
“One of the things that’s gonna occupy my country tonight, I suspect, is the first open hearings on January the 6th,” Biden said as he sat down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Summit of the Americas on Thursday afternoon.
“And as I said when it was occurring and subsequent, I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Biden continued. “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. And there’s a lot of questions: who’s responsible, who’s involved?”
Jun 09, 4:11 pm
Hearing kicks off at 8 p.m.
Thursday’s hearing, the first of six scheduled in June, is the culmination of an 11-month-long investigation by the House select committee.
The nine-member panel has collected more than 140,000 documents and 1,000 witness interviews throughout the course of the investigation, and members have promised to introduce never-before-seen videos and exhibits they say will shock the public.
ABC News Television Network will air special coverage of the hearing at 8 p.m. and ABC News Live will carry gavel-to-gavel coverage.
(WASHINGTON) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first prime-time hearing on Thursday at 8 p.m.
The hearing will feature never-before-seen video footage and witness testimony as lawmakers aim to explain what they call a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election.
Jun 09, 9:05 pm
Committee says multiple Republicans sought presidential pardons after attack
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said for the first time publicly that multiple Republican members of Congress reached out to the Trump White House to ask for presidential pardons in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack, including Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa.
“Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election,” she added.
As with other House Republicans, Perry has refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigation through voluntary requests and a congressional subpoena.
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders
Jun 09, 8:55 pm
Cheney issues warning to fellow Republicans
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., had a message for her colleagues who continue to defend Trump and his false election claims.
“Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain,” Cheney said.
Cheney also had a message for the American people as they watch these hearings unfold over the next several weeks.
“The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot.”
“Please remember what is at stake,” she said. “Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the rule of law and not the rule of men.”
Jun 09, 8:52 pm
Trump ‘well aware’ of violence but ‘placed no call’ to defend Capitol: Cheney
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the select committee, shared snippets of what White House aides told the committee Trump said to them while the attack at the Capitol was ongoing, laying out what she called Trump’s “sophisticated, seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election.”
“You will hear testimony that ‘The president didn’t really want to put anything out’ calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave. You will hear that President Trump was yelling and “really angry at advisers who told him he needed to do be doing something more.’
“And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it,” she said.
She then added, in new detail, “Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element to the United States government to instruct at the Capitol be defended.”
Jun 09, 8:38 pm
With Ivanka Trump tape, panel argues Trump was aware he lost
Using taped testimony from Trump officials including Attorney General Bill Barr and campaign attorney Alex Cannon, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., argued that Trump and his team were well aware that he lost the election but still carried out a plot to stay in power.
“In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had in fact lost the election,” Cheney said, explaining how the committee will lay out its case. “But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him.”
In a video clip from an interview with Barr, Trump’s attorney general said he “repeatedly told the president, in no uncertain terms, that I did not see evidence of fraud and — you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election.”
The committee also aired a taped interview with Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump commenting on Barr’s statement that the Justice Department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.
“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka said of Barr’s assessment. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”
Jun 09, 8:35 pm
Cheney says Trump ‘lit the flame of this attack’
GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said Americans will learn new details about what Trump was doing before, during and after the attack at the Capitol in his effort to remain in power despite his 2020 election loss.
“Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power,” she said.
The Wyoming Republican asserted Trump told his staff during the riot that it’s what people “should be doing” and that he agreed with protesters urging violence against then-Vice President Mike Pence.
After the dust settled, Cheney said, Trump continued to ignore the statements from the Department of Justice, election officials and his own staff telling him the election result was legitimate.
“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in her opening statement.
Jun 09, 8:22 pm
Committee places Trump at ‘center of this conspiracy,’ deems attack ‘attempted coup’
In his opening statement, Chairman Bennie Thompson — looking directly at the camera — called Jan. 6 an “attempt to undermine the will of the people” and “only the beginning of what became a sprawling multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election.”
“Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, and ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down Capitol and subvert American democracy,” he said.
Thompson said the attack on the Capitol was “the culmination of an attempted coup” and a “brazen attempt … to overthrow the government”
“The violence was no accident,” he said. “It represents President Trump’s last stand, his most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.”
Jun 09, 8:01 pm
Historic hearing underway
Chairman Bennie Thompson has gaveled in the committee’s first prime-time hearing intended to “remind you of the reality of what happened that day.”
“But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson will say in his opening statement, according to an excerpt released by the committee. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over.”
Americans will hear live testimony from a Capitol Police officer and documentarian who were on the scene of the attack and watch never-before-seen video footage in a rare congressional hearing made for television.
Jun 09, 7:50 pm
Cheney arrives on Capitol Hill
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the select committee, was the first member to arrive on Capitol Hill through the member entrance, according to an NBC pool reporter.
Asked how she was feeling, Cheney said, “Good, thank you,” as she walked inside.
Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., the only other House Republican to accept a seat on the panel, have faced relentless attacks from within their caucus for their participation. Cheney was removed from her No. 3 House GOP leadership post last year, and both were formally censured by the Republican National Committee for choosing to investigate what it controversially called “legitimate political discourse.”
Jun 09, 7:49 pm
Demonstrators rally outside Capitol
Demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday ahead of the House select committee’s first prime-time hearing of its Jan. 6 investigation.
Participants held signs reading, “Not above the law.”
The panel is looking to explain what it calls a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election loss.
From legal action to name-calling, Trump continues to try to discredit the House select committee as the panel prepares to go public with its findings in prime time.
“January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again,” Trump said in a string of posts hours ahead of the hearing on Truth Social, the social media platform his team launched after Twitter permanently suspended him in the wake of the Capitol siege “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Jun 09, 7:22 pm
Just before hearing, 3 Capitol rioters express regret in federal court
Three rioters convicted on federal charges for participating in the Capitol attack appeared in court just hours ahead of the prime-time event and asked for mercy before federal judges deciding their punishments.
“I made one mistake in my life and I have immediately took responsibility for it,” said Michael Daughtry, a gun store owner and former police officer who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge this past March. “I apologize to the court for my indiscretion. But does a person not get to make at least one mistake in their entire life?”
The sentencing hearings just blocks away from the Capitol offer a noteworthy split-screen as lawmakers and their staff are in the midst of final preparations to put their investigation’s findings on full display for the American people. Click here for more.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Jun 09, 7:00 pm
‘Our democracy remains in danger’: Opening statement excerpt
Chairman Bennie Thompson will warn the American public of the ongoing threat from “those in this country who thirst for power” when the Jan. 6 committee soon kicks off a series of public hearings laying out its investigation, according to an opening statement released by the committee.
“So tonight, and over the next few weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day. But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson is expected to say. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over.”
“January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here,” read the excerpt.
Jun 09, 6:57 pm
Officers and widows plan to attend hearing
Several police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and widows of law enforcement members who died in the aftermath will be present at the hearing.
Among them are Erin Smith, the widow of Metropolitan Police Department officer Jeffrey Smith; Serena Liebengood, the widow of Capitol Police officer Howie Liebengood; Sandra Garza, partner of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn; Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell; and Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges.
Dunn told ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott the hearing will be “triggering.”
“I think about Jan. 6 daily and tonight we are going to find out stuff we didn’t know,” he said.
Garza told Scott she’s preparing to painfully “relive the nightmare of the day.” Her longtime partner, Officer Sicknick, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes one day after engaging with rioters.
“Everybody should watch the hearings because they need the truth of what happened that day,” Garza said. “These are the facts — it’s important for them not to only hear the witnesses but see it again.” She added, “There has to be some accountability, people are dead because of what happened.”
Jun 09, 5:45 pm
Capitol Police officer, documentarian to testify
One of the first officers injured on Jan. 6, U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after she was thrown to the ground by rioters pushing bike racks, will deliver her firsthand account before the committee in a matter of hours.
Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who followed the Proud Boys through Washington as members of the extremist group marched on the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement, is also scheduled to testify live.
ABC News exclusively obtained some of Quested’s extraordinary material, showing how a group of Trump supporters at a presidential rally transformed into an angry mob that broke into the Capitol. Click here for more.
Jun 09, 5:22 pm
McCarthy dodges questions on legitimacy of 2020 election
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wouldn’t say Thursday if President Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl pressed McCarthy on the matter four times during a news conference where House Republicans preemptively slammed tonight’s hearing, calling the Jan. 6 panel “the most political and least legitimate committee in American history.”
McCarthy said Biden is the president, but declined to address the legitimacy aspect and declined to say Trump was wrong when he baselessly claimed the election was fraudulent.
Watch the full exchange here:
Ahead of the Jan. 6 committee’s presentation alleging former Pres. Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy dodges when pressed four times by @jonkarl on whether he believes Pres. Biden was the legitimate winner. https://t.co/7x9xFOiAeUpic.twitter.com/xqqDpFGoFU
The select committee has promised never-before-seen videotaped depositions from some of Trump’s closest aides and family members after Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. all sat for interviews earlier this year.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — who turned over thousands of text messages to the committee — has been described by congressional sources as an “MVP” of the hearings, as his messages have provided somewhat of a roadmap for investigators.
Jun 09, 4:35 pm
Biden calls Jan. 6 ‘flagrant violation of the Constitution’
President Joe Biden said a lot of Americans will learn new details about the Jan. 6 attack as lawmakers begin to reveal the findings of their 11-month investigation.
“One of the things that’s gonna occupy my country tonight, I suspect, is the first open hearings on January the 6th,” Biden said as he sat down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Summit of the Americas on Thursday afternoon.
“And as I said when it was occurring and subsequent, I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Biden continued. “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. And there’s a lot of questions: who’s responsible, who’s involved?”
Jun 09, 4:11 pm
Hearing kicks off at 8 p.m.
Thursday’s hearing, the first of six scheduled in June, is the culmination of an 11-month-long investigation by the House select committee.
The nine-member panel has collected more than 140,000 documents and 1,000 witness interviews throughout the course of the investigation, and members have promised to introduce never-before-seen videos and exhibits they say will shock the public.
ABC News Television Network will air special coverage of the hearing at 8 p.m. and ABC News Live will carry gavel-to-gavel coverage.
(WASHINGTON) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first prime-time hearing on Thursday at 8 p.m.
The hearing will feature never-before-seen video footage and witness testimony as lawmakers aim to explain what they call a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election.
Jun 09, 8:01 pm
Historic hearing underway
Chairman Bennie Thompson has gaveled in the committee’s first prime-time hearing intended to “remind you of the reality of what happened that day.”
“But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson will say in his opening statement, according to an excerpt released by the committee. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over.”
Americans will hear live testimony from a Capitol Police officer and documentarian who were on the scene of the attack and watch never-before-seen video footage in a rare congressional hearing made for television.
Jun 09, 7:50 pm
Cheney arrives on Capitol Hill
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the select committee, was the first member to arrive on Capitol Hill through the member entrance, according to an NBC pool reporter.
Asked how she was feeling, Cheney said, “Good, thank you,” as she walked inside.
Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., the only other House Republican to accept a seat on the panel, have faced relentless attacks from within their caucus for their participation. Cheney was removed from her No. 3 House GOP leadership post last year, and both were formally censured by the Republican National Committee for choosing to investigate what it controversially called “legitimate political discourse.”
Jun 09, 7:49 pm
Demonstrators rally outside Capitol
Demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday ahead of the House select committee’s first prime-time hearing of its Jan. 6 investigation.
Participants held signs reading, “Not above the law.”
The panel is looking to explain what it calls a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election loss.
From legal action to name-calling, Trump continues to try to discredit the House select committee as the panel prepares to go public with its findings in prime time.
“January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again,” Trump said in a string of posts hours ahead of the hearing on Truth Social, the social media platform his team launched after Twitter permanently suspended him in the wake of the Capitol siege “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Jun 09, 7:22 pm
Just before hearing, 3 Capitol rioters express regret in federal court
Three rioters convicted on federal charges for participating in the Capitol attack appeared in court just hours ahead of the prime-time event and asked for mercy before federal judges deciding their punishments.
“I made one mistake in my life and I have immediately took responsibility for it,” said Michael Daughtry, a gun store owner and former police officer who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge this past March. “I apologize to the court for my indiscretion. But does a person not get to make at least one mistake in their entire life?”
The sentencing hearings just blocks away from the Capitol offer a noteworthy split-screen as lawmakers and their staff are in the midst of final preparations to put their investigation’s findings on full display for the American people. Click here for more.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Jun 09, 7:00 pm
‘Our democracy remains in danger’: Opening statement excerpt
Chairman Bennie Thompson will warn the American public of the ongoing threat from “those in this country who thirst for power” when the Jan. 6 committee soon kicks off a series of public hearings laying out its investigation, according to an opening statement released by the committee.
“So tonight, and over the next few weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day. But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson is expected to say. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over.”
“January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here,” read the excerpt.
Jun 09, 6:57 pm
Officers and widows plan to attend hearing
Several police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and widows of law enforcement members who died in the aftermath will be present at the hearing.
Among them are Erin Smith, the widow of Metropolitan Police Department officer Jeffrey Smith; Serena Liebengood, the widow of Capitol Police officer Howie Liebengood; Sandra Garza, partner of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn; Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell; and Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges.
Dunn told ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott the hearing will be “triggering.”
“I think about Jan. 6 daily and tonight we are going to find out stuff we didn’t know,” he said.
Garza told Scott she’s preparing to painfully “relive the nightmare of the day.” Her longtime partner, Officer Sicknick, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes one day after engaging with rioters.
“Everybody should watch the hearings because they need the truth of what happened that day,” Garza said. “These are the facts — it’s important for them not to only hear the witnesses but see it again.” She added, “There has to be some accountability, people are dead because of what happened.”
Jun 09, 5:45 pm
Capitol Police officer, documentarian to testify
One of the first officers injured on Jan. 6, U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after she was thrown to the ground by rioters pushing bike racks, will deliver her firsthand account before the committee in a matter of hours.
Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who followed the Proud Boys through Washington as members of the extremist group marched on the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement, is also scheduled to testify live.
ABC News exclusively obtained some of Quested’s extraordinary material, showing how a group of Trump supporters at a presidential rally transformed into an angry mob that broke into the Capitol. Click here for more.
Jun 09, 5:22 pm
McCarthy dodges questions on legitimacy of 2020 election
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wouldn’t say Thursday if President Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl pressed McCarthy on the matter four times during a news conference where House Republicans preemptively slammed tonight’s hearing, calling the Jan. 6 panel “the most political and least legitimate committee in American history.”
McCarthy said Biden is the president, but declined to address the legitimacy aspect and declined to say Trump was wrong when he baselessly claimed the election was fraudulent.
Watch the full exchange here:
Ahead of the Jan. 6 committee’s presentation alleging former Pres. Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy dodges when pressed four times by @jonkarl on whether he believes Pres. Biden was the legitimate winner. https://t.co/7x9xFOiAeUpic.twitter.com/xqqDpFGoFU
The select committee has promised never-before-seen videotaped depositions from some of Trump’s closest aides and family members after Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. all sat for interviews earlier this year.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — who turned over thousands of text messages to the committee — has been described by congressional sources as an “MVP” of the hearings, as his messages have provided somewhat of a roadmap for investigators.
Jun 09, 4:35 pm
Biden calls Jan. 6 ‘flagrant violation of the Constitution’
President Joe Biden said a lot of Americans will learn new details about the Jan. 6 attack as lawmakers begin to reveal the findings of their 11-month investigation.
“One of the things that’s gonna occupy my country tonight, I suspect, is the first open hearings on January the 6th,” Biden said as he sat down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Summit of the Americas on Thursday afternoon.
“And as I said when it was occurring and subsequent, I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Biden continued. “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. And there’s a lot of questions: who’s responsible, who’s involved?”
Jun 09, 4:11 pm
Hearing kicks off at 8 p.m.
Thursday’s hearing, the first of six scheduled in June, is the culmination of an 11-month-long investigation by the House select committee.
The nine-member panel has collected more than 140,000 documents and 1,000 witness interviews throughout the course of the investigation, and members have promised to introduce never-before-seen videos and exhibits they say will shock the public.
ABC News Television Network will air special coverage of the hearing at 8 p.m. and ABC News Live will carry gavel-to-gavel coverage.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday gave the green light to counting undated mail-in ballots in a contested Pennsylvania local election, a move with potentially broader implications for close races in November’s midterm elections.
Over the objection of three justices, the Court restored a federal appeals court ruling that said disqualifying ballots received on time but lacking a handwritten date on the return envelope would violate federal voting rights.
Pennsylvania state law requires that voters include a date next to the signature, even though mail ballots are typically postmarked and dated again by election officials when they are received. The appeals court concluded the absence of the handwritten date was an “immaterial” error.
The Supreme Court did not elaborate on its decision to allow counting to proceed, and it is not binding precedent. But it does suggest that a majority of justices support the view that discarding ballots over small administrative errors or omissions would harm the franchise.
Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said he would have stayed the appeals court ruling in order to review the merits of the dispute, which he said “could well affect the outcome of the fall elections.”
Alito wrote that he believes the Third Circuit opinion is “very likely wrong.”
“When a mail-in ballot is not counted because it was not filled out correctly, the voter is not denied ‘the right to vote.’ Rather, that individual’s vote is not counted because he or she did not follow the rules for casting a ballot,” Alito wrote.
Pennsylvania has famously had a number of very close elections in recent years, in several cases decided by the counting of mail-in ballots with varying degrees of compliance with state voting regulations.
GOP Senate candidate David McCormick, who conceded to rival Dr. Mehmet Oz in his closely-watched Pennsylvania primary race last week, may have benefitted from the counting of undated mail-in ballots, which were ultimately discarded. He lost by 900 votes.
The court’s decision most immediately benefits the Democratic candidate in a 2021 race for a seat on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas, Zachary Cohen. He trails David Ritter, a Republican, by 71 votes. State election officials say there are 257 undated mail-in ballots that will soon be counted to finalize results in the race.
The Supreme Court has been deeply divided over election disputes and voting rights in recent years, with today’s decision highlighting differences among the justices and the kinds of political fights the court will likely face during a high-stakes election year.
(WASHINGTON) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first prime-time hearing on Thursday at 8 p.m.
The hearing will feature never-before-seen video footage and witness testimony as lawmakers aim to explain what they call a “coordinated, multi-step effort” by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election.
Jun 09, 5:45 pm
Capitol Police officer, documentarian to testify
One of the first officers injured on Jan. 6, U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after she was thrown to the ground by rioters pushing bike racks, will deliver her firsthand account before the committee in a matter of hours.
Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who followed the Proud Boys through Washington as members of the extremist group marched on the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement, is also scheduled to testify live.
ABC News exclusively obtained some of Quested’s extraordinary material, showing how a group of Trump supporters at a presidential rally transformed into an angry mob that broke into the Capitol. Click here for more.
Jun 09, 5:22 pm
McCarthy dodges questions on legitimacy of 2020 election
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wouldn’t say Thursday if President Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl pressed McCarthy on the matter four times during a news conference where House Republicans preemptively slammed tonight’s hearing, calling the Jan. 6 panel “the most political and least legitimate committee in American history.”
McCarthy said Biden is the president, but declined to address the legitimacy aspect and declined to say Trump was wrong when he baselessly claimed the election was fraudulent.
Watch the full exchange here:
Ahead of the Jan. 6 committee’s presentation alleging former Pres. Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy dodges when pressed four times by @jonkarl on whether he believes Pres. Biden was the legitimate winner. https://t.co/7x9xFOiAeUpic.twitter.com/xqqDpFGoFU
The select committee has promised never-before-seen videotaped depositions from some of Trump’s closest aides and family members after Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. all sat for interviews earlier this year.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — who turned over thousands of text messages to the committee — has been described by congressional sources as an “MVP” of the hearings, as his messages have provided somewhat of a roadmap for investigators.
Jun 09, 4:35 pm
Biden calls Jan. 6 ‘flagrant violation of the Constitution’
President Joe Biden said a lot of Americans will learn new details about the Jan. 6 attack as lawmakers begin to reveal the findings of their 11-month investigation.
“One of the things that’s gonna occupy my country tonight, I suspect, is the first open hearings on January the 6th,” Biden said as he sat down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Summit of the Americas on Thursday afternoon.
“And as I said when it was occurring and subsequent, I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Biden continued. “I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. And there’s a lot of questions: who’s responsible, who’s involved?”
Jun 09, 4:11 pm
Hearing kicks off at 8 p.m.
Thursday’s hearing, the first of six scheduled in June, is the culmination of an 11-month-long investigation by the House select committee.
The nine-member panel has collected more than 140,000 documents and 1,000 witness interviews throughout the course of the investigation, and members have promised to introduce never-before-seen videos and exhibits they say will shock the public.
ABC News Television Network will air special coverage of the hearing at 8 p.m. and ABC News Live will carry gavel-to-gavel coverage.
(WASHINGTON) — From legal action to name-calling, former President Donald Trump continues to try to discredit the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as the panel prepares to go public with its findings in prime-time on Thursday.
Committee members say they will lay out to the American people how Trump encouraged a mob of his supporters to descend on lawmakers as part of a monthslong attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election — as Trump, from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, coordinates counterattacks with GOP allies in the House, who have assumed the role of his public defenders against what he’s deemed is a “scam” investigation from the “unselect committee” of “political thugs.”
“January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again,” Trump said in a string of posts Thursday on Truth Social, the social media platform his team launched after Twitter permanently suspended him in the wake of the Capitol siege “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
While Trump has labeled the rioters as “a loving crowd” who were “hugging and kissing” police officers and posed “zero threat” in an interview, the committee is expected to emphasize the threat to then-Vice President Mike Pence as it seeks to capture the severity of the attack and make its case — despite Trump’s narrative.
Members of the select committee now have the challenge of making their case to the American public amid Trump’s relentless commentary riddled with false claims about the 2020 election — commentary that previously encouraged “patriots” to “fight” in Washington on Jan. 6.
Trump has maintained he carries no responsibility for the attack while deploying an arsenal of rhetoric to recast what happened and to undermine the investigation.
Here are some examples:
Branding the ‘Unselect committee’
After Senate Republicans blocked efforts last year to form an independent commission to investigate the Capitol attack, the House established a select committee last summer by a vote of 222-190. From the start, Trump used familiar attack language to mock the effort he called a “political Witch Hunt by the Radical Left Democrats.”
When the committee sent its first subpoenas to four of his administration officials last September, the former president released a lengthy statement labeling it the “Unselect Committee” of “highly partisan politicians.” He called the action “Harassment Subpoenas,” while continuing to push baseless claims that the election was stolen.
“Hopefully the Unselect Committee will be calling witnesses on the Rigged Presidential Election of 2020, which is the primary reason that hundreds of thousands of people went to Washington, D.C. in the first place,” Trump said.
And when announcing he was canceling a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, amid concerns from congressional Republicans over what he might say, Trump added in his statement, “This is the Democrats’ Great Cover-Up Committee and the Media is complicit.”
Trump continues to call the 2020 election “the Crime of the Century,” despite his own officials, dozens of recounts, and more than 40 failed lawsuits affirming President Joe Biden’s win.
GOP coordination in counterprogramming
Taking cues from the former president as still appears to carry massive influence with his base, Republican leaders have also dismissed the work of their colleagues to match Trump’s rhetoric.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who first said that Trump carries responsibility for the attack before making a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago just weeks later — held a news conference with other House Republicans Thursday morning as a “prebuttal” to the Jan. 6 hearing. Though McCarthy was subpoenaed by the committee seeking information on his phone calls with Trump on the day of the attack, he did not comply.
Asked Thursday by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl whether the election was stolen, McCarthy repeatedly dodged.
“Joe Biden is the president. There’s a lot of problems still with the election process,” he said.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who has slammed the committee as a “scam” for months, called the upcoming hearing “garbage” that “Americans are not going to watch” in an interview Wednesday on Fox News, which is notably not carrying the hearing in prime time.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who was with Trump in Bedminster Wednesday, said in an interview with “Breitbart News Saturday” that it’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who should be investigated instead, alleging the speaker “refused” to turn over security documents.
“Why? Because she is covering up, because there were concerns about security that were raised with Speaker Pelosi’s office,” Stefanik claimed. “Where are the documents? Where are the communications, Nancy? Until she does that, we know that she bears responsibility.”
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told ABC News Wednesday, “We have no idea what Rep. Stefanik is talking about. We suspect neither does she.” He added: “Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination.”
While House Republican leaders have loudly backed Trump, one notable Republican — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a frequent target of Trump’s attacks — signaled his personal interest in the House committee’s work. McConnell said in an interview with Spectrum News in December, “I think that what they’re seeking to find out is something the public needs to know.”
Trump taunts committee members
Trump has taken particular aim at the only two Republicans sitting on the committee, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, whom he has taunted with his trademark nicknames, “polling warmonger Liz Cheney and Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger.”
The pair has faced relentless attacks from within their caucus for speaking out against Trump, with Cheney being removed from her No. 3 House GOP leadership post last year and both being formally censured by the Republican National Committee for choosing to investigate the attack.
“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed a line,” Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement on the censure. “They chose to join Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.”
Beyond calling Cheney a “smug fool” and throwing the full weight of his endorsement behind her primary challenger, Trump has also shared doctored images on his website of the lawmaker with former President George Bush’s face, teasing the images as a “must-see.”
Cheney has continued to counter the attacks with warnings for American democracy.
“We are not in a situation where former President Trump has expressed any sense of remorse about what happened,” she told CBS News correspondent Robert Costa in a “Sunday Morning” interview. “We are, in fact, in a situation where he continues to use even more extreme language, frankly, than the language that caused the attack. And so, people must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”
Attempts to block committee
As the select committee began to seek documents for its investigation last summer, Trump announced that he would assert “executive privilege” over what he called a “partisan exercise” in order to withhold documents the committee had requested.
Then, in October, Trump announced that he was suing the committee to block the disclosure of those documents, describing the panel’s demand in a lawsuit as a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition.”
“We will fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds, for the good of our Country, while we wait to find out whether or not Subpoenas will be sent out to Antifa and BLM for the death and destruction they have caused in tearing apart our Democrat-run cities throughout America,” he said in a statement.
A federal appeals court first rejected his effort before the Supreme Court also ruled in favor of the select committee in January, allowing the National Archives to turn over Trump White House records to the committee. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented that he would have granted Trump’s request.
The National Archives and Record Administration also confirmed earlier this year that Trump White House documents sought by the committee recovered from Mar-a-Lago were marked classified.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel and Will Steakin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has promised to reveal new information in prime time Thursday as it seeks to capture the public’s attention and lay out how it says American democracy came close to being subverted.
Summing up an 11-month-long investigation, Thursday’s hearing kicks off at 8 p.m. EDT and will be the first of six this month where the committee says it will explain a “multi-step, coordinated attempt” by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and, for the time in U.S history, stop a peaceful transfer of power.
The nine-member panel has collected more than 140,000 documents and 1,000 witness interviews throughout the course of the investigation, and members have promised to introduce never-before-seen videos and exhibits that they say will shock the public.
ABC News Television Network will air special coverage of the hearing at 8 p.m. EDT, and ABC News Live will carry gavel-to-gavel coverage of each hearing in June.
“There’s a lot that’s unseen,” one committee aide said Wednesday in a briefing with reporters. “The select committee is also going to lay out a clear indication of ongoing threats to American democracy.”
What is the select committee and who sits on it?
A select committee is a congressional committee appointed to perform a special function beyond the capacity of an already standing committee. For example, Americans might remember a House select committee was previously formed to investigate the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.
After Senate Republicans killed a proposal for an independent, bipartisan commission that would have given Republicans equal representation to investigate the Capitol attack — similar to what Congress approved after the Sept. 11 attacks — the House voted to form a select committee last summer.
The panel was designed to consist of 13 members, with five appointed in consultation with the minority leader, but after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s committee nominees — Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Indiana Rep. Jim Banks — over concerns false statements they made around the 2020 election — McCarthy pulled all five of his nominees. Echoing language used by Trump, he deemed the investigation a “sham process” before it began.
Pelosi ultimately appointed the only two Republicans who voted in favor of the committee — Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — and seven Democrats — Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Zoe Lofgren of California, Adam Schiff of California, Pete Aguilar of California, Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Elaine Luria, of Virginia — to probe the insurrection.
“It’s bipartisan, and we have a quorum. Staff is being hired to do the job,” Pelosi said at the time. “We’re there to get the truth, not to get Trump.”
Nearly a year later, Americans can expect different lawmakers of the nine-member committee to take the lead on various hearing days to guide the presentations.
What can viewers expect to see Thursday?
Aides described the first major public hearing in prime time as a “preview” of what to expect in subsequent hearings.
Witnesses planned for Thursday include documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who was embedded with the extremist far-right group the Proud Boys during the assault on the Capitol, and Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury during the attack when rioters pushed her to the ground.
“We’re going to learn about where they were at that time when these rioters initially breached the Capitol,” a committee aide told reporters.
The panel will also feature new excerpts of videotaped interviews with Trump administration and White House officials, Trump campaign officials and Trump’s family members. ABC has reported previously that daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr. have all testified.
Unlike other congressional hearings, Thursday will be a mixture of live and taped testimony and blockbuster video production, designed to capture the public’s attention.
Former ABC News President James Goldston, a seasoned television executive, started working with the committee several weeks ago to help produce the hearing, a development first reported by Axios and confirmed to ABC News by congressional sources. The committee declined to comment on “personnel matters” when asked about the decision to enlist Goldston’s help.
While most major news networks are expected to carry Thursday’s hearing live in their prime-time slot, Fox News announced this week that their prime-time programs will only cover the hearings “as news warrants.” Instead, Fox Business will be covering the hearings live, stirring backlash. Fox News averaged 1.5 million viewers at any given time last month, while Fox Business averaged 136,000.
When are the next hearings?
The select committee’s next hearings are slated for Monday, June 13, and Wednesday, June 15. Both begin at 10 a.m.
The committee has not yet finalized witnesses for the next hearings, but they could include state election officials, ex-Trump Justice Department officials who pushed back on attempts to investigate voter fraud, and even White House lawyers familiar with Trump’s attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results.
With at least three other hearings planned for June, the committee has also not ruled out the possibility of adding more hearings in the future.
It also plans to release a full report on its findings, including legislative recommendations on reforms, at some point this fall — coinciding with the 2022 midterm elections.
Is this the first hearing?
Although Thursday marks the panel’s first hearing in prime time, it is not the first public hearing.
The select committee held its first hearing last July, when lawmakers heard dramatic, emotional accounts from law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and said they feared for their lives.
“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?'” recounted Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn. “I began sobbing.”
In her opening statement that day, Cheney made the committee’s intentions clear.
“We cannot leave the violence of January 6th 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.”
(WASHINGTON) — Cassidy Hutchinson, a member of Mark Meadows’ staff when Meadows was Donald Trump’s chief of staff, has hired Jody Hunt to represent her as the public Jan. 6 hearings begin, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
At the start of the Trump administration, Hunt served as chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Hunt later became the head of Department of Justice’s Civil Division.
Members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack are actively negotiating with Hutchinson for her public testimony during the upcoming committee hearings, sources with knowledge of the matter told ABC News.
If Hutchinson agrees to appear publicly, she will put a voice to many of the interactions involving Jan. 6 that have been reported publicly, and offer significant insight into Meadows’ actions and interactions with the former president on Jan. 6 and in the days before and after, the sources said.
During earlier depositions with the committee, Hutchinson confirmed to committee investigators accounts that Meadows had burned documents in his office, according to sources.
It was not immediately clear the contents of what Meadows is alleged to have burned, or whether his actions as described by witnesses constitute anything illegal.
ABC News previously reported that the committee is negotiating with former White House counsel Pat Cipollone for his public testimony. Should either Hutchinson or Cipollone agree to testify, it would mark the first witness to publicly appear before the committee who was physically in the West Wing on Jan. 6.
(WASHINGTON) — Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley has been arrested and charged for participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
