The January 6th Hearing

Breakdown: The January 6th Select Committee held its first public hearing Thursday night

(Note: the following is a chronological breakdown of Thursday night’s public hearing)

The first public hearing of the January 6th Select committee convened on Thursday, what did we learn?

• Chairman Bennie Thompson convened the January 6th Committee with a brief statement, Thompson projected a somber and serious tone of authority appropriate to the moment

  • In his remarks, Chairman Thompson referred to the Civil War origins of the oath to defend the Constitution that all members of Congress and most other federal government officials take, emphasizing the phrase “foreign and domestic”

  • Chairman Thompson then showed a video of former Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the committee

  January 6th Committee @January6thCmte

  WATCH: Attorney General Barr declares that Donald Trump lost the Presidential election in 2020. There is no doubt that the American people voted Trump out of office and the Select Committee has found no evidence of election fraud.

• Next, the chairman introduced Congresswoman Liz Cheney

• Representative Cheney immediately quoted Donald Trump’s tweet on the afternoon of January 6th,  describing what the committee now knows about Trump's actions as events unfolded at the Capitol.  Cheney continued her remarks, saying the committee will demonstrate over the next two weeks how the former president coordinated the effort to unlawfully remain in power, culminating in the events of January 6th

• The committee began to build its case against Trump

  • The committee presented a video of former Trump aide, Jason Miller, testifying that Trump was aware of the data confirming he had lost the election

  January 6th Committee @January6thCmte

  "I remember he delivered to the President in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose." - Jason Miller, a senior Trump Campaign spokesperson

  • The committee then presented a video of Trump attorney, Alex Cannon, regarding a conversation with Mark Meadows following election day.  In the recordings, Cannon tells Meadows there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the result of the election.  To which Meadows replies, ‘So there’s no there there’

  • The committee presented another video of William Barr plainly telling the committee there was no evidence of fraud significant enough to have affected the outcome of the election.  Barr continued, saying he warned the White House to stop making false claims about Dominion voting machines, as they were patently false and would be damaging to the country's confidence in the election.  The White House continued this line of propaganda anyway

  • The committee then showed a brief video of Ivanka Trump testifying that she believed Bill Barr when he said there has been no fraud

• Congresswoman Cheney continued her remarks

  • Cheney reminded the audience that Rudy Giuliani lost his law license because of the frivolous and misleading nature of Trump's claims

  • Cheney went on to explain that Trump attempted to replace the leadership at the Justice Department and put in place loyalists who would argue that the election results were fraudulent and then press state election officials to overturn their results

  • Justice Department leadership threatened to resign en masse and go public with what they knew

• Cheney then referred to remarks former VP Mike Pence made at a Federalist Society event earlier this year 

• Cheney continued laying out the case against Trump

  • The congresswoman referred to the opinion of US District Court Judge David Carter in the John Eastman case, some of which reads as follows: “President Trump and Dr. Eastman justified the plan with allegations of election fraud—but President Trump likely knew the justification was baseless, and therefore that the entire plan was unlawful,”

  • Cheney further referred to Trump’s attempts to intimidate Brad Raffensperger to find more votes in Georgia

  • Finally, Cheney recounted a late night meeting at the White House in December attended by Giuliani, Michael Flynn and Sydney Powell concerning overturning the election.  Following the meeting, Trump sent out his first tweet referencing January 6th 

  

• The committee then turned its attention to January 6th, and the following facts

  • Despite evidence that January 6th would turn violent, agencies under Trump’s authority made no effort to increase security at the Capitol

  • While the Insurrection was underway, Trump refused to take any action, despite pleas from members of the White House staff

  • The committee then presented video testimony from Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, saying he received orders to mobilize the National Guard and military from Pence, not Trump

  January 6th Committee @January6thCmte

  "Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. But Mike Pence did." - @RepLizCheney Testimony from General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

• Further evidence demonstrated that in the aftermath of January 6th, members of the White House staff strongly considered invoking the 25th Amendment.  Among those who considered it, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany

• The committee then played the following video (warning, the video is extremely disturbing):

January 6th Committee @January6thCmte

• After a brief recess, the committee called two witnesses, Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was injured on January 6th defending the Capitol and documentarian Nick Quested, who had been documenting the Proud Boys and was present and filming on January 6th

  • Officer Edwards movingly testified about her experiences on January 6th, recounting how she was rendered unconscious while trying to defend The Capitol

  • Edwards recounted that she was called Pelosi’s dog, a traitor and a villain

  • Edwards described the escalation in violence, urged on by members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers

  • Quested recounted events leading up to January 6th, including coordination between the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers on the evening of January 5th

  • Quested described how the Proud Boys skipped the Stop the Steal rally and instead reconnoitered the Capitol building’s security

  • Quested characterized events as escalating from a rally to a riot to an insurrection

• The committee highlighted the following facts

  • Proud Boys membership increased threefold after President Trump’s ‘Stand back and stand by’ remark during the presidential debate

  • The Oath Keepers breached the building specifically looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

  • Trump sent his rally goers from the Ellipse, near the White House, to the Peace Circle outside the Capitol, where the Proud Boys were waiting for them

  • The rally attendees who became rioters were always intended to be force multipliers for the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers

• Officer Edwards and Nick Quested continued to describe the events at the Capitol with the assistance of video evidence

• Chairman Thompson thanked the witnesses for their testimony, then adjourned the first January 6th hearing

• The proceedings concluded with videos of accused and convicted insurrectionists, in their own words, attributing their participation in the January 6th siege of the Capitol entirely to Trump

• Further analysis later but the committee is building a conspiracy case against former President Trump. The video testimony presented, along with the timeline suggest the committee believes it can prove Donald Trump coordinated the events that culminated in January 6th and his failed coup attempt