The committee voted unanimously to compel the former president to appear. “We need to seek the testimony under oath of the central player of January 6,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican, the committee’s vice chairwoman. “We are compelled to seek answers directly from the man who set it all in motion,” he added. “And every American deserves those answers.” Trump will almost certainly fight the subpoena and refuse to testify. On his social media account he criticized members for not asking him to testify earlier – although he did not say he would – and called the panel a “total meltdown”. The vote came as the panel produced new details and evidence about Trump’s state of mind when he refused to concede his election loss to Joe Biden, resulting in the attack. WATCHES | Trump was subpoenaed by a committee:
Jan. 6 panel votes on Trump subpoena
“We are compelled to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” said Republican Rep. Liz Cheey as she asked the committee Jan. 6 to vote on a resolution to subpoena Donald Trump to testify. It passed unanimously.
“Their plan is literally to kill people”
The panel also showed previously unseen footage of Congress leaders calling officials for help during the attack. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer were seen talking with governors in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Later, the video shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders as the group asks the deputy attorney general for help. “They’re breaking the law in many different ways — frankly at the instigation of the president of the United States,” Pelosi is heard saying at one point. WATCHES | Congressional leaders are asking for help:
New footage of congressional leaders calling for help during Capitol siege
The Jan. 6 committee released new video Thursday showing members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, trying to get help as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is heard saying, “They’re breaking the law in many different ways — frankly at the instigation of the president of the United States.” In never-before-seen Secret Service messages, the committee provided evidence of how extremist groups powered Trump’s presidential race, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force into Washington. “Their plan is literally to kill people,” read a tip sent to the Secret Service more than a week before the Jan. 6 violence. The Secret Service warned in a Dec. 26, 2020 email about a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to march on Washington on Jan. 6 with a group large enough to outnumber police. “It felt like the calm before the storm,” one Secret Service agent wrote in a group chat. Text from a US Secret Service email appears at a House committee hearing on Thursday. (Alex Wong/Pool/The Associated Press)
Delving into Trump’s state of mind
The committee warned that the riot at the US Capitol was not an isolated incident, but a warning about the fragility of the nation’s democracy in the post-Trump era. “None of this is normal, acceptable or legal in a democracy,” Cheney said. “There is no defense that Donald Trump was deceived or unreasonable. No president can flout the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional democracy, period.” The committee’s 10th public hearing, just weeks before the midterm congressional elections, delved into Trump’s “state of mind,” committee chairman Benny Thompson said. The panel begins summarizing its findings: Trump, after losing the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented effort to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory. The result was the deadly siege of the Capitol. Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who was seen with Trump at a Sept. 3 rally, was on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, and questioned the 2020 election results. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) Thompson’s and Cheney’s statements were loaded with language often seen in criminal indictments. Both lawmakers described Trump as “substantially” involved in the events of January 6. Cheney said Trump had acted in a “premeditated” manner. To demonstrate what it said were “deliberate lies,” the committee encountered repeated instances in which senior administration officials recounted telling Trump the real facts with excerpts of him repeating the exact opposite at the pre-riot rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. The commission may well decide whether to refer criminal charges to the Department of Justice. WATCHES | Trump repeatedly said he lost:
Trump ignored staff, advisers told him the election was over
The Jan. 6 committee presented video Thursday showing how Donald Trump was told over and over by his own top brass that the election was over and that he had lost, but that he ignored them and continued his bid to stay in office. Thursday’s hearing began in a mostly empty US Capitol complex, with most lawmakers inside campaigning for re-election. Several people who were among the thousands around Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 are now running for congressional office, some with Trump’s support. The police officers who fought the mob filled the first row of the hearing room. To describe the president’s mindset, the committee released new material it had previously seen, including interviews with top Trump cabinet officials, aides and associates in which some described the president privately admitting he had lost. In one, according to former White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump looked up at the television and said, “Can you believe I lost on this? [expletive] guy?” A picture of former US President Donald Trump is shown during a committee hearing June 16 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Drew Anger/Reuters) The committee is also relying on a trove of 1.5 million documents it obtained from the US Secret Service, including an email from December 11, 2020, the day the Supreme Court threw out one of the main lawsuits brought by the Trump team against election results. “Simply, POTUS is pissed off,” the Secret Service wrote, according to documents obtained by the committee. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled that Trump was “hurt” and “hurt” about the court’s decision. Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of: ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Get it,” Hutchinson told the panel in a taped interview. Cabinet members, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, also said in interviews presented at the hearing that they believed once legal avenues were exhausted, that should be it. the end of Trump’s efforts to remain. in charge. “In my view, that was the end of the matter,” Barr said of the Dec. 14 electoral college vote. The January 6 commission has been meeting for more than a year and is expected to produce a report with its findings. It was created by the House after Republican senators blocked the creation of an outside committee similar to the 9/11 Commission that looked into the 2001 terrorist attacks. House Republicans are expected to drop the Jan. 6 probe if they win control of the House after the midterm elections. The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the panel argued that their work is not just a recapitulation of the past, but a dire warning of ongoing threats to the democratic process. Millions of Americans still mistakenly believe Trump has won 2020, according to polls, while a Washington Post analysis published last week found that half of Republicans contesting races next month for key U.S. congressional and state offices denied or disputed the 2020 result, including gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Kari Lake of Arizona. Trump associate Peter Navarro is due to go on trial next month for refusing to cooperate with a House committee subpoena, while Steve Bannon is due to be sentenced next week after pleading guilty to similar contempt charges. Outside of the committee’s work, more than 850 people have been criminally charged by the Justice Department in the Capitol attack, some of whom received long prison terms for their roles. Several leaders and associates of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been hit with rare sedition charges. LISTEN | Oath Keepers on Trial: Front Burner19:36 The Oath Keepers on trial The Oath Keepers is a far-right militia, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes. He is one of five members currently on trial in Washington, D.C., facing charges of seditious conspiracy and other felonies related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors say they planned to stop a peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election. Explosive, secretly recorded audio of an alleged insurrection planning meeting was played last week in court. Today, we’re joined by Andy Campbell, editor-in-chief of HuffPost and author of the new book We Are Proud Boys. He explains who the Oath Keepers are and what was revealed at the trial about how the deadly attack could have been prevented.
