Here are the takeaways from Thursday’s epic primetime audience.
The committee used Thursday’s hearing to show how Trump not only failed to act, but chose not to act as he watched the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol unfold.
Several witnesses with first-hand knowledge of what was happening in the White House on January 6 told the committee that Trump did not make a single call to any of his national security or law enforcement officials while the attack was unfolding in the Capitol, as it had not been seen before. video testimony played during Thursday’s hearing.
The panel said it was “confirmed in numerous interviews with senior law enforcement and military leaders, Vice President Mike Pence’s staff and D.C. government officials that none, not one, knew of the President Trump that day,” Luria said.
The committee used that testimony to argue that Trump’s refusal to intervene amounted to a dereliction of duty.
Former officials who were with Trump as he watched the riot on television, including then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s bodyguard Nick Luna, told the committee they had no knowledge that the former president make a single call to the heads of various agencies that might have responded to the violence, including the secretary of defense or the attorney general.
Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser who was also with Trump that day, testified that he never heard the former president call for the National Guard or a response from law enforcement.
Kellogg also reiterated that he would have been aware if Trump had asked that question.
Matthews, the former White House press secretary, said she spoke with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany during the unrest, and McEnany “looked directly at me, and in a hushed tone, shared with me that the president did not want to include any mention of peace” in a tweet they were crafting.
“To me, their refusal to act and call off the crowd that day and their refusal to condemn the violence was indefensible,” Matthews told the audience.
That testimony dovetailed with other evidence presented Thursday, such as excerpts from Trump’s videotaped speech on Jan. 7, in which he tried to water down some of the prepared language, telling aides: “I don’t want to say the election is over , Okay. ?”
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, told a House select committee he was surprised he never heard from Trump while the attack on the Capitol was unfolding, suggesting his failure to represent an abdication of his duties as commander in chief, according to previously unseen video of his closed-door deposition.
“You know, you’re the commander in chief. You have an assault on the Capitol of the United States of America and nothing? No calls? Nothing? Zero?” he said in the clip.
‘They were starting to fear for their own lives’: Disturbing audio and video show how dangerous Pence’s security detail felt
Thursday’s hearing included disturbing new video and audio that showed how Pence’s security detail felt in danger as they tried to evacuate the vice president from the Capitol.
The committee painted the fullest picture yet of the danger facing Pence and his team when rioters called for Pence to be hanged when he refused to go along with Trump’s efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election.
A committee witness testified that Pence’s detail was so concerned about what was happening that they were “starting to fear for their own lives” and there were calls “to say goodbye to family members.”
The witness was an unidentified national security professional who worked at the White House on Jan. 6, whose audio testimony was blacked out to protect the official’s identity.
“Is the vice president engaged? Like, I don’t know. We didn’t have visibility, but if they’re calling and saying things, like, saying goodbye to the family … that’s going to go to another level soon,” the official said. of national security.
The House Select Committee also released, for the first time, Secret Service radio traffic as agents assessed the Senate floor where Pence would be evacuated, while rioters clashed with police in a hallway of the ground floor at the same time. Video played Thursday spliced the surveillance tapes with security footage and audio from Pence’s detail, highlighting the closeness Pence and his detail experienced.
The Committee contrasts Pence’s presidential actions with Trump’s inaction
One focus of the select committee hearing was the presidential actions that were taken on Jan. 6, not by Trump but by Pence.
The committee stressed how Trump did not try to call law enforcement or military officials on Jan. 6, while Pence, whose life was in danger from the riots, “worked the phones” by talking to Milley and then-acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller.
The committee played a video of Milley’s statement in which he said he had “two or three calls” with Pence.
“He was very animated, and he issued very explicit, very direct and unambiguous orders. There was no doubt about it,” Milley said. “He was very animated, very direct, very firm with Secretary Miller: get the military down here, get the Guard down and let this situation go.”
Luria painted a direct contrast to what Trump did on Jan. 6: “The president didn’t call the vice president or anybody from the military, federal law enforcement or the D.C. government. Not a single person “, he said.
The committee’s comparison between Trump and Pence underscores how angry Trump still is with his vice president on Jan. 6. Politically, Pence has faced off against Trump in several primaries ahead of a possible 2024 presidential contest. The former vice president has supported Republicans who rejected Trump’s false claims of fraud, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp — who defeated a Trump-backed primary challenge — and Arizona Republican Karrin Taylor Robson, who is running in the state’s gubernatorial primary against a Republican who has bought into Trump’s lies about the election.
The committee, which has two anti-Trump Republicans as members, Kinzinger and the committee’s vice chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, has painted Pence as one of the key officials who confronted Trump after he lost the 2020 election.
The committee also included in its hearing Thursday a Jan. 6 clip of Joe Biden condemning the violence, in what was a subtle nod to Biden acting presidential earlier compared to Trump before he was inaugurated as to president
Committee goes after congressional Republicans (again)
The committee threw several hard elbows at congressional Republicans during Thursday’s hearing, confronting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump allies.
The committee played previously released audio clips in which McCarthy discussed her conversations with Trump after Jan. 6 and said she was considering advising him to resign.
The committee also played a video clip from Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s deposition in which Kushner said McCarthy “was scared” amid the violence at the Capitol when the two spoke by phone on Jan. 6.
In addition, the panel singled out Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who led the Senate’s objection to the Jan. 6 election results. The panel showed a well-known photo of Hawley raising his fist at rioters outside the Capitol that January morning. 6.
Immediately afterward, the panel played a video showing Hawley leaving the Senate chamber and played it a second time in slow motion for emphasis. Later that night, Hawley forced debate on the Pennsylvania election results and voted against certifying them.
The two Republicans on the panel, Kinzinger and Cheney, have been vocal critics of McCarthy as they have been ostracized from the House GOP conference. Both could be out of Congress next year: Kinzinger is retiring and Cheney is facing a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming.
Kinzinger is co-chairing Thursday’s hearing.
The committee has previously gone after congressional Republicans for their role in aiding Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, including seeking a pardon after Jan. 6. And the committee’s clashes with McCarthy go well beyond the hearings: The committee has subpoenaed five Republicans, including McCarthy, in an unprecedented move.
The committee adds the corroboration of Hutchinson’s testimony
The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday provided new evidence to support explosive testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who publicly described Trump’s angry interactions with his Secret Service after she was told to Trump that he could not go to the Capitol.
Luria said the committee had information from two additional sources to partially corroborate Hutchinson’s testimony that Trump jumped on his Secret Service detail. One of the witnesses, Luria said, “is a former White House staffer with national security responsibilities.”
Although the individual was not named, Luria said the officer testified that Tony Ornato, then Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff and a current member of the Secret Service, told him the same story that Hutchinson to state that Ornato had told him: that Trump was “pissed” when Robert Engel, the Secret Service agent in charge on January 6, 2021, did not bring him to the Capitol.
The second witness was pulled from Washington, DC, police Sgt. Mark Robinson, who was in Trump’s motorcade that day. Robinson testified that the Secret Service agent in charge of the motorcade had said Trump had a “heated” discussion with his detail about going to the Capitol.
Robinson added that he had been in “over 100” gunfights with Trump and had never heard of this type of exchange before Jan. 6.
Hutchinson’s testimony about Trump being released to his Secret Service has become a key point that Trump allies have tried to use to discredit the investigation.
While the detail about Trump lunging at a Secret Service agent was only one fragment of Hutchinson’s testimony, the pushback likely…