UPDATE: In her closing remarks, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that “Donald Trump made a decisive decision to violate his oath of office.”
The committee engaged in the use of often gruesome and sometimes humorous videos and audio clips, some of which quickly went viral and will likely be played in the next news cycle. They were all aimed at the audience’s main narrative: Well aware of this, Donald Trump didn’t stop performing for the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the crowd to go home . He chose not to act,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said at the start of the hearing.
The two-and-a-half-hour hearing filled in some of the blanks of what Trump was doing during that period, watching Fox News from the West Wing dining room and as advisers urged him to call off the mob. He ignored their pleas and instead sent out a tweet blasting it.
Among the revelations, according to live witnesses and taped segments: Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, told Sarah Matthews that Trump refused to mention “peace” in a tweet as a way to quell rioters .
As the crowd ransacked the Capitol, Trump made calls to lawmakers favorable to his electoral challenge. That evening Rudy Giuliani, his lawyer, also began making calls, including one to Senator Tommy Tuberville that didn’t even mention what happened that day. “We need you, our Republican friends, to just slow it down,” Giuliani said in a voice message.
The committee played audio of Vice President Mike Pence’s Secret Service detail at the Capitol, with serious concerns about being able to evacuate him when he was becoming a mob target. But security officials were also concerned about their own safety, and “there were calls to say goodbye to family members, etc.,” according to a White House official whose voice was slurred.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that in conversations with Pence that day, the vice president was “very explicit” and gave “very direct and unequivocal orders,” working to resume electoral vote counting. . Milley said Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, called him and “said we have to kill the narrative that the vice president is making all the decisions. We have to establish the narrative that the president is still in charge.” .
The big moment of levity was the clip of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), hours after showing solidarity with protesters outside the Capitol, running from the Senate chamber as the crowd approached . The clip drew laughs from the Cannon Caucus room, as expected.
Immediate reaction to the video: pic.twitter.com/XAv4jc2tjr
— Dan Przygoda (@dprzygoda) July 22, 2022
Matt Pottinger, who resigned as deputy national security adviser on January 6, said in his live testimony that the chaos helped embolden America’s adversaries to claim that the US system of government is not working. while the Allies “were concerned about the health of the United States.” our democracy”.
Cheney, in his closing remarks, put the committee’s work in the context of history, highlighting the women who testified, including Cassidy Hutchinson. “She always knew she would be attacked by President Trump and the men in their 50s, 60s and 70s who hide behind executive privilege.”
He also warned of what was at stake.
“We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation,” Cheney said.
Earlier: The committee played never-before-seen videos of Donald Trump’s speech the day after the Capitol siege as Trump, after much delay, admitted there would be a presidential transition.
In the raw footage, Trump is shown objecting to a line in the speech: “I don’t want the top to say the election is over. I just want to say that Congress has certified that it would have results without saying that the election they’re over, OK,” Trump said.
Trump has continued to insist that the election was stolen from him.
President Trump on January 7: “This election is over. Congress has certified the results; I’m not saying the election is over.” #January6thHearing pic.twitter.com/tZ5urGjsZZ
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 22, 2022
Previously: “He put a target on his own vice president’s back,” Elaine Luria (D-VA) said on the Jan. 6 Committee as she went through a heartbreaking timeline of Mike Pence being rushed of the Senate and then to a security center. location as the crowd approached.
The hearing included audio of Pence’s Secret Service detail scrambling to determine what to do as the rioters entered the Capitol and made their way into the Senate chamber. “If we waste any more time, we may lose the ability to leave,” an officer was heard saying.
Meanwhile, White House national security officials were aware of the transmissions. A 2:18 p.m. memo in the National Security Council chat log read: “Decision in next 2-3 minutes or they may not be able to move. Vice President may be stuck in Capitol.”
The staff urged Trump to make a statement to tell the crowd to go home. His son, Donald Trump Jr., texted chief of staff Mark Meadows: “This is (sic) where you go to the mattresses. They’re going to try to sink their whole legacy on this if it gets worse.” Trump’s son told the committee that “going to the mattresses” was a reference to the Godfather.
“Staff repeatedly came into the room to see him and asked him to make a strong public statement condemning the violence and ordering the crowd to leave the Capitol,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
Instead, Trump, in the dining room watching Fox News, tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”
An unnamed staffer testified that White House counsel Eric Herschmann told White House counsel Pat Cipollone, “The president didn’t want anything done.” Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews that Trump “didn’t mean to mention any kind of peace” in his tweet, according to Matthews’ live testimony.
Other senators were being evacuated. There was laughter in the hearing room when the committee showed a photo of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), raising his fist in support of protesters that day. But then they showed another clip of Hawley leaving the Senate chamber as the crowd approached. “Senator Hawley ran away after these protesters, which he helped infuriate, stormed the Capitol. See for yourself,” Luria said.
.@RepElaineLuria shows a photo of Sen. Hawley raising her first in solidarity with protesters before Jan. 6: “Later that day, Sen. Hawley fled after those protesters he helped enrage stormed the Capitol. See for yourself.” #Hearing of January 6. twitter.com/JUyyumRUcb
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 22, 2022
Earlier: Two more witnesses have corroborated one of the most vivid revelations to come out of the hearings: Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony that Donald Trump had a confrontation with a Secret Service agent, demanding to be taken to the Capitol after he delivered his speech at the Ellipse. “The president was upset and adamant about going to the capitol and there was a heated argument about it,” said Mark Robinson, a retired D.C. police officer who was with a Secret Service agent at the main vehicle that day.
An unnamed witness, described as a White House staffer with national security responsibilities, told the committee there was a “heated conversation” between the president and his security detail. They said nothing about another aspect of Hutchinson’s testimony: that Trump lunged in an attempt to grab the steering wheel. Trump has denied the claim.
Earlier: The Jan. 6 Committee promised another hearing of new revelations about what Donald Trump was doing during the 187 minutes it took him to urge the mob that stormed the Capitol to go home, as members tried characterizing the then president as derelict in his duty.
“He refused to defend our nation and our Constitution,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the committee’s vice chair. “He refused to do what every president must do.”
The committee’s last hearing was scheduled in prime time, with anticipation that it would resemble a season finale, with plans to reconvene in September. One reason: More new information is coming in.
“The floodgates have opened, more subpoenas have been issued, and the curse has begun to break,” Cheney said.
Reporters expected the committee to make a case that Trump did little to try to stop the storming of the Capitol, calling those who took part in the siege “great patriots.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a member of the committee, released a video earlier Thursday with excerpts of Trump aides, in his video depositions, recalled that Trump was watching television in a dining room in the wing west as the violence unfolded.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who appeared virtually after testing positive for Covid, opened the hearing by saying Trump “couldn’t move to get up from the dining room table” to make a statement in the White House briefing room.
“For 187 minutes on January 6, this man of unbridled destructive energy was unable to move,” Thompson said.
Matt Pottinger, who served as deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, deputy press secretary, are scheduled to testify live. They were among the administration officials who resigned in protest on January 6.
Using television production techniques, the committee laid out their case as a narrative spread over eight hearings.
Several hours before the hearing, one White House figure disavowed what she was doing that day: former first lady Melania Trump. She told Fox News Digital that she was “fulfilling” her official duties when the siege took place and that she would have reported the violence if she had been fully informed of what was happening.
“I was performing one of my duties as the First Lady of the United States, and so I did not know what it was…