Jan. 6 committee holds eighth hearing

Vice President Mike Pence is seen on January 6, 2021.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail was so concerned for safety inside the Capitol as rioters broke into the building, that they “were starting to fear for their own lives,” one committee witness said.

The moments were so tense, “there were calls to say goodbye to family members,” an unidentified national security professional told the committee in a recorded interview played on Thursday.

He said it appeared that the agents were realizing they were running out of options and may have considered using lethal force.

Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews are sworn in during a hearing by the House select committee on Thursday evening.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is presenting evidence in its eighth public hearing on Thursday night to show what Trump was doing while the Capitol was under attack. 

The committee’s goal is to show what was going on in the White House during the riot and to demonstrate that Trump did not take action as the violence unfolded. Some committee members have described this as Trump’s “dereliction of duty.”

The committee is hearing testimony from Matthew Pottinger, a former Trump deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, a former Trump deputy press secretary. Both Pottinger and Matthews resigned after the insurrection.

The panel is also playing taped footage from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s deposition earlier this month.

Here are some of the key points from the hearing so far:

Matt Pottinger testifies during Thursday's hearing.

Matt Pottinger, former National Security adviser, said that former President Trump’s tweet calling then-Vice President Mike Pence a “coward” essentially was “fuel being poured on the fire” the day of the insurrection.

“Shortly before I had gotten back to the White House, I had come from off site. I began to see, for the first time, those images on TV about the chaos that was unfolding at the Capitol. One of my aides handed me a sheet of paper that contained the tweet that you just read.  And I read it and was quite disturbed by it,” Pottinger said.

Pottinger said that the tweet led to him resigning from his post that day, stating, “that was the moment that I decided that I was going to resign, that that would be my last day at the White House. I simply didn’t want to be associated with the events that were unfolding on the Capitol.”

Sarah Matthews, former deputy White House press secretary, testifies Thursday.

Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews said that a tweet from former President Trump attacking his then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 was effectively a “green light” to rioters storming the Capitol.

The committee asked Matthews for her reaction to a tweet Trump sent that day in which he accused Pence of not having courage. This came as Trump had tried to enlist Pence in his pressure campaign to try to overturn the election results — which Pence resisted.

She went on to say, “I’ve seen the impact that his words have on his supporters. They truly latch on to every word and every tweet that he says.”

Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria said of the tweet, “Despite knowing the Capitol had been breached and the mob was in the building, President Trump called Mike Pence a coward and placed all the blame on him for not stopping the certification. He put a target on his own vice president’s back.”

The House Jan. 6 committee illustrated during Thursday’s hearing how former President Trump made repeated calls to his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, even as he was aware that the attack on the Capitol was unfolding.

While the White House call logs have a seven-hour gap on Jan. 6, Rep. Elaine Luria said that Trump spoke with Giuliani by phone at 1:39 p.m. ET and 2:03 p.m. ET, citing Giuliani’s call logs obtained by the committees.

Trump also sought to contact a list of senators, according to testimony from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany aired during Thursday’s hearing.

“He wanted a list of the senators, and I left him at that point,” McEnany said in her video deposition, adding that she didn’t know which senators he called.

The committee contrasted Trump’s calls to his personal attorney with what White House officials were learning. The committee showed chat messages from National Security Council staff being told that the Capitol was breached, that the vice president was “being pulled” and that the Secret Service “at the Capitol did not ‘sound good right now.’”

Sarah Matthews testifies on Thursday.

Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary, said that Trump had the ability to make a statement from the White House press briefing room “almost instantly” if he wanted to the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

She continued, “For folks that might not know, the press briefing room is the room you see the White House press secretary do briefings from with the podium and blue back drop. There is a camera that is on in there at all times. So, if the President had wanted to make a statement and address the American people, he could have been on camera almost instantly.”

Matthews added, “And conversely, the White House press corps, has offices that are located directly behind the briefing room. And so, if he had wanted to make an address from the Oval Office, we could have assembled the White house press corps., probably in a matter of minutes, to get them into the Oval for him to do an on-camera address.”

Recorded comments from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone are played on a screen during Thursday's hearing.

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the House select committee that on Jan. 6 he was joined by a number of top Trump advisers in pushing the former President to issue a strong condemnation of the attack. The group included Ivanka Trump and Mark Meadows, he said.  

“I think I was pretty clear there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now,” he said. 

A committee investigator then asked him: “So your advice was tell people to leave the Capitol, and that took over two hours when there were subsequent statements made, tweets put forth, that in your view were insufficient. Did you continue … up until 4:17 continue, you and others, to push for a stronger statement?” 

“Yes,” Cipollone responded. 

“Were you joined in that effort by Ivanka Trump?” 

“Yes,” Cipollone said again—before the investigator could even finish the question. 

He confirmed with a series of sharp “yeses” that White House adviser Eric Herschmann, another White House counsel’s office attorney Pat Philbin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were echoing him as well. 

Cipollone declined to describe his direct conversations with Trump. Then he described “generically” saying people should be told to leave the Capitol, and fast. 

But Cipollone said he spoke to Meadows, “expressing my opinion very forcefully, that this needs to be done,” he said, according to the video. 

Watch moment here:

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Sarah Matthews appears before the House select committee on Thursday.

Former Trump White House aide Sarah Matthews is now testifying. She previously served as deputy White House press secretary until resigning shortly after Jan. 6, 2021.

When she resigned, CNN previously reported Matthews said she was honored to serve in Trump’s administration but “was deeply disturbed by what I saw.” She said at the time, “Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”

After another former Trump White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, publicly testified before the committee last week, Matthews tweeted, “Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump (White House) worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.”

Thursday’s hearing will mark the panel’s second prime-time session, and committee members have said it will examine Trump’s inaction for 187 minutes while the US Capitol riot was unfolding.

Several witnesses with first-hand knowledge of what was happening inside the White House on Jan. 6 told the House Select Committee that former President Donald Trump did not place a single call to any of his law enforcement or national security officials as the US Capitol attack was unfolding, according to previously unseen video testimony played during Thursday’s hearing. 

Former officials who were with Trump as he watched the riot unfold on television, including then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s body man Nick Luna, told the committee they had no knowledge of the former President making a single call to the heads of various agencies who could have responded to the violence, including the Secretary of Defense or Attorney General. 

Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser who was also with Trump that day, testified that he never heard the former President ask for the National Guard or a law enforcement response. 

Kellogg also reaffirmed that he would have been aware if Trump had made such an ask. 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley told the House Select Committee that he was astonished by the fact that he never heard from Trump as the Capitol attack was unfolding – suggesting his failure to act amounted to an abdication of his duties as commander in chief, according to previously unseen video from his close-door deposition.

“You know, you’re the Commander in Chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America and there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” he said in the clip.

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified before the committee in a closed-door interview under a subpoena at the beginning of July.

Clips of the eight-hour testimony were played at the House select committee’s prime-time hearing on Thursday. Some video from the testimony was already shown at the committee’s seventh hearing last week that focused on how the violent mob came together and the role of extremist groups.

Here are some of the key things he has said in the pieces of the deposition played at the previous hearing:

After the Secret Service refused to take then-President Donald Trump to the Capitol with his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, he went back to the White House, Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria said. The committee’s eighth hearing this summer is focusing on what Trump was doing for more than three hours after finishing his speech at the Ellipse.

The committee showed a photo of Trump inside the Oval Office with his coat on, after returning from the rally. A White House employee told Trump “as soon as he returned to the Oval” about the riot at the Capitol, Luria said.

At 1:25 p.m. ET Trump went to the private dining room off the Oval Office, Luria said, adding he stayed there until 4 p.m. ET.

She said witnesses told the committee that then-President sat at his “usual spot” at the head of the table facing the television on the wall.

“We know from the employee that the TV was turned to Fox News all afternoon,” she said. Luria said other witnesses also confirmed that Trump was in the dining room with the TV on for more than two and a half hours.

Within 15 minutes of ending his remarks at the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, then-President Trump was made aware that his supporters had stormed the US Capitol, members of the House Select Committee probing the riot revealed in a hearing Thursday. 

According to a timeline provided by lawmakers on the panel, Trump entered his private dining room just off the Oval Office at 1:25 p.m. ET that afternoon, roughly 20 minutes after hundreds of his supporters first breached the building and 15 minutes after he left the stage.  

“From 1:25 until after 4:00, the President stayed in his dining room,” the committee said, noting that he was watching Fox News on a television located in the room nearly the entire time, according to witness testimony. 

Through interviews with former aides familiar his Trump’s movements that day, the committee was able to confirm that Trump was watching television the entire time he was in the executive dining room attached to the Oval Office. The committee displayed White House call logs and the presidential daily diary from Jan. 6, which do not show any incoming or outgoing calls from 11:06 a.m. ET to 6:54 p.m. ET, nor has the committee uncovered any official photos of Trump during the period that the Capitol was under attack.  

The chief White House photographer told the House panel that she was specifically told, “no photographs” during those hours after she expressed an interest in documenting the historic events unfolding that day. 

CNN has previously reported that Trump spent hours upon end in his private dining room during much of his presidency. Often labeled as “executive time” on his public schedule, he would routinely eat meals alone – or with senior aides – in the smaller dining room off the Oval while watching cable news or previously taped recordings of his favorite Fox News shows. 

Eric Herschmann, a lawyer who worked in the Trump White House, told Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel for Donald Trump, that Trump “didn’t want anything done” as his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, the select committee said Thursday.

According to the committee, the Pentagon called the White House to coordinate a response as the attack at the Capitol unfolded. Herschmann and Cipollone discussed the call, according to new testimony from a former White House employee with national security responsibilities. 

The committee presented similar testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson testified that she witnessed Cipollone rush to Meadows’ office on January 6 and demand a meeting with Trump. 

“Mark looked up at him and said, ‘he doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,’” Hutchinson testified.

Rep. Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat co-leading Thursday’s hearing, said that the chief photographer in the Trump White House was instructed not to take photographs for several hours on Jan. 6.

As a result, there are not any photographs of then-President Donald Trump during what Luria called the “critical period” between Trump’s return to the Oval Office at 1:21 p.m. ET and when he recorded a videotaped message in the Rose Garden after 4 p.m. ET.

At previous hearings, the committee has aired clips of a deposition that the chief photographer, Shealah Craighead, gave to the panel. But they haven’t yet played any of Craighead’s clips yet on Thursday. 

Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia, said that the House select committee has information from two additional sources that partially corroborate Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony that former President Trump lunged at his Secret Service detail when he was not permitted to travel to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Secret Service said soon after her testimony that it will make the agents involved in the scene available to testify under oath, and that they will say that the incident itself did not occur.

The story became the focal point for Trump allies attempting to discredit Hutchinson’s powerful testimony. The committee had not previously released evidence corroborating the anecdote from other witnesses.

One witness is a “former White House employee with national security responsibilities,” Luria said.

The individual told the committee that Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff and a current member of the Secret Service, told him the same story that Hutchinson testified Ornato had told her – that Trump was “irate” when Robert Engel, the Secret Service agent in charge on Jan. 6, 2021, would not take him to the Capitol.  

DC Police Sergeant Mark Robinson.

The second witness is retired DC Police Sergeant Mark Robinson. Robinson was in Trump’s motorcade that day, and was told by the Secret Service agent responsible for the motorcade that Trump had a “heated” discussion with his detail about going to the Capitol.

Robinson told the committee that he had been in “over one hundred” motorcades with Trump, and that he had never heard of that type of exchange before January 6. 

He also told the committee that when the motorcade returned to the White House, the motorcade was put on “standby” for more than 45 minutes in case Trump went to the Capitol. 

The committee will hear more testimony under oath about the interaction in the coming weeks, Luria said. 

The House Jan. 6 committee says a national security official who worked in the Trump administration testified since the panel’s last hearing that the White House was aware of reports of weapons in the crowd on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.

Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia, said that the official was a “security professional working in the White House complex on January 6,” who told the panel the White House “was aware of multiple reports of weapons in the crowd that morning.”

The committee did not identify the official and masked their identity in video clips that were played, because of concerns of “retribution,” Luria said.

The official was asked about the idea of the President walking to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after his speech.

Asked what was driving the concerns, the official added: “The President wanted to lead tens of thousands of people to the Capitol. I think that was enough grounds for us to be alarmed.” 

The committee has previously presented evidence of weapons in the crowd the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, as former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified she overhead Trump telling then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows saying he did not care if his supporters were armed.

“I overheard the President say something to the effect of ‘I don’t F-ing care that they have weapons,” Hutchinson said. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the F-ing mags away. Let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in, take the F-ing mags away.”

Watch moment here.

Matthew Pottinger, who served on former President Trump’s National Security Council before resigning in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, is now testifying at the House select committee’s eighth public hearing.

Pottinger told the committee that he was at the White House for most of the day on Jan. 6, 2021.

The committee’s vice chairwoman, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, described Pottinger like this during one of the committee’s previous hearings: “A former Marine intelligence officer who served in the White House for four years, including — including as deputy national security adviser, was in the vicinity of the Oval Office at various points throughout the day.”

The committee previously played a video clip from Pottinger’s interview in which he described the moment he knew it was the moment to resign.

The committee is using the hearing to show, minute-by-minute, how Trump failed to make any effort to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol or to try to help lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021. Like past hearings, the committee is likely to rely on witness testimony of those who were around Trump or nearby in the West Wing, in order to tell the narrative of what happened through the words of Trump’s inner circle.

US Rep. Elaine Luria speaks during Thursday's hearing.

Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat and member of the committee, previewed what the panel will outline during tonight’s hearing, including saying that former President Trump watched on television while his supporters attacked the Capitol amid pleas from senior staff, advisers, and family members.

Read more here.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on January 6, 2021.

Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia is detailing what happened during the little more than three hours that the panel has argued then-President Donald Trump was derelict in his duties on Jan. 6, 2021.

The 187 minutes began at 1:10 p.m. ET, in the final moments of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, when he told his supporters to go to the Capitol.

After leaving the stage at the Ellipse, Trump got into his motorcade and angrily tried to convince his drivers to take him to the Capitol, according to testimony from Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. The agents refused, telling him that the scene was too dangerous and unstable.

Trump then watched TV news coverage of the chaos unfolding at the Capitol, according to a book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, and according to then-White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who said Trump was “gleefully” watching the news.

Trump posted three tweets during this critical timeframe. The first tweet criticized Pence for refusing to overturn the election. The second and third tweets told the rioters to “stay peaceful” and to “respect the law” — but notably, Trump did not instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.

During the 187 minutes, a wide array of Republican lawmakers, former Trump officials and conservative media personalities texted Meadows, saying Trump needed to intervene, CNN has previously reported. 

And the 187 minutes ended at 4:17 p.m. ET, when Trump tweeted out a video telling his supporters to leave the Capitol. He also heaped praise on the rioters and repeated his debunked lies about the election, which had spurred the riot in the first place.

Why this matters: This timeframe is central to the committee’s mission. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee’s GOP vice chair, has repeatedly said that the evidence obtained by the panel about these 187 minutes provides a clear example of Trump’s “supreme dereliction of duty” throughout the insurrection.

The panel’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said earlier this year, “The President was told, ‘You need to say directly to your people to go home, leave the Capitol.’ And so, it took over 187 minutes to make that simple statement. Something’s wrong with that.”

Read more about the 187 minutes here.

US Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chairwoman, speaks at the start of Thursday's hearing.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, said that over the course of the hearings, new evidence has come in.

She added, “We have far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather. So, our committee will spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple fronts, before convening further hearings this September.”

Jan. 6 committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson delivers opening remarks during the House select committee hearing Thursday evening.

Jan. 6 committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said at the opening of the hearing that the panel will continue to outline its findings to the American public in September.

“As that work goes forward, a number of facts are clear: there can be no doubt that there was a coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn an election overseen and directed by Donald Trump,” he continued.

Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the committee, said that the panel will take a break from public hearings next month but resume in September.

“Our committee will spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple fronts, before convening further hearings this September,” Cheney said during her opening remarks.

More background: Committee members have said their investigation is ongoing. The hearings have so far elicited numerous revelations and led to new witnesses coming to Capitol Hill for closed-door depositions as recently as this week.

The panel has conducted eight public hearings so far, and has presented a substantial amount of evidence connecting former President Donald Trump to the deadly riot at the US Capitol, and highlighting his three-plus hours of inaction after his supporters started attacking the building that day.

Matthew Pottinger, left, and Sarah Matthews, right, arrive at the House select committee hearing on July 21.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol is starting its eighth public hearing.

The panel is expected to present evidence that focuses on the three-plus hours when then-President Donald Trump did not step in to stop the insurrection. A committee aide told CNN that the panel will lay out the inaction from Trump as the violence unfolded.

Two witnesses will testify in person, and both resigned in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack:

The committee is also expected to play additional taped footage from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s deposition.

Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, who has Covid-19, appeared at Thursday’s hearing remotely. 

In remarks, Thompson said after calling for the crowd to go to the Capitol, “he stopped.”

“For 187 minutes, on Jan. 6, this man of unbridled destructive energy could not be moved — not by his aides, not by his allies, not by the violent chants of rioters or the desperate pleas of those facing down the riot,” Thompson said, adding that he even disregarded pleas from his own family members.

“He could not be moved,” Thompson said, referring to Trump’s inaction and unwillingness to walk to the press briefing room and say something to stop the violence.

A source familiar with the matter tells CNN that the heads of both former President Donald Trump’s and former Vice President Mike Pence’s security details are among the 24 Secret Service personnel whose text messages were requested for review by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general. 

The Secret Service had been continuing to review both their communications to see if anything was deleted as they purged their phones during an agency-wide migration of phones.

Bobby Engel — the head of Trump’s detail — was in the SUV on Jan. 6, 2021 and is said to have stopped the former President from going to the Capitol, according to recent testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson. 

A source tells CNN the head of Pence’s detail — Tim Giebels — is also among the 24 Secret Service agents whose cell phones are under a fresh review after the inspector alerted Congress that text messages were lost due to a data migration. 

Giebels’ text messages may have captured the frantic effort to sweep Pence away from danger as rioters flooded a Capitol hallway yards from Pence, and other rioters called for his hanging outside the building. The texts could have offered a stark split-screen of Trump’s inaction in the face of grave danger to his No 2. 

Former President Donald Trump appears at a rally on January 6, 2021.

The House Jan. 6 committee’s final prime-time hearing Thursday will be all about 187 minutes.

That’s the period of a little more than three hours as the riot unfolded in the US Capitol that the House select committee has argued then-President Donald Trump was derelict in his duties.

The committee says it plans to show, minute-by-minute, how Trump failed to make any effort to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol or to try to help lawmakers — and then-Vice President Mike Pence — as they were forced to flee the House and Senate chambers.

The 187 minutes began at 1:10 p.m. ET on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump was wrapping up his speech at the Ellipse. This is when he told his supporters to march to the Capitol, so they could pressure lawmakers to overturn the election while they met for a joint session of Congress to formally certify President Biden’s victory.

Exactly 187 minutes later, at 4:17 p.m. ET, Trump posted a video on Twitter. In the clip, he said for the first time that his supporters should leave the Capitol. He also heaped praise on the rioters and repeated his debunked lies about the election, which had spurred the riot in the first place.

Watch CNN’s John King run through what we know about what happened during the 187 minutes:

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This still from video shows former President Donald Trump giving remarks on January 7, 2021.

The House committee investigating the insurrection plans to show footage at Thursday’s hearing of then-President Donald Trump having difficulty working through efforts to tape a message to his supporters on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol riot, sources familiar with the committee’s plans tell CNN.

The outtakes, first reported by The Washington Post, were part of production of a speech Trump gave the night after the riot. They show Trump having a difficult time working through the effort to tape the message. Trump refused to say the election results had been settled and attempted to call the rioters patriots. He also went to great lengths to not accuse them of any wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for the Jan. 6 select committee declined to comment on the outtakes.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who is a member of the committee, confirmed Wednesday night to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the panel has the outtakes and plans to share some of them during the hearing.

“The President displayed extreme difficulty in completing his remarks,” Raskin said on “Anderson Cooper 360.”

“It’s extremely revealing how exactly he went about making those statements, and we’re going to let everybody see parts of that,” he added.

Rep. Adam Schiff, another committee member, told CNN’s Don Lemon later Wednesday that the outtakes “will be significant in terms of what the President was willing to say and what he wasn’t willing to say.”

The California Democrat said the outtakes will show “all of those who are urging him to say something to do something to stop the violence. You’ll hear the terrible lack of a response from the President, and you’ll hear more about how he was ultimately prevailed upon to say something and what he was willing to say and what he wasn’t.”

The video tape outtakes will be one part of a larger presentation during which the committee plans to detail Trump’s lack of attention to the ongoing riot. The committee has said it will focus on the 187 minutes that Trump sat back, refusing to act, as the Capitol was under siege. Some committee members have described this as Trump’s “dereliction of duty.”

Read more here.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has needed to edit down overwhelming evidence in order to fit within the time constraints of a prime-time hearing on Thursday. As evidence came pouring in, members and staff began constructing their plan for their biggest hearing yet. 

They had so much content that their initial hearing plan would’ve been four hours long. Given the constraints of a prime-time television audience, they were forced to cut. 

They cut so much that the “teaser” video they put out earlier Thursday ahead of the hearing was not in fact a tease. None of the content released through Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s Twitter feed is expected to be seen tonight. The release of the clips was just a way for the committee to present evidence they didn’t have time to include in Thursday’s hearing. 

The overwhelming amount of evidence, that members say is still coming in, is part of why they are considering additional hearings in the weeks ahead. 

Cassidy Hutchinson testifies before the House select committee on June 28.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who will help lead part of tonight’s hearing, told CNN that Cassidy Hutchison’s testimony will be corroborated by the evidence they plan to present during the eighth hearing on Thursday night.

Hutchison’s previously testified how Trump didn’t want to do anything to stem the violence on Jan. 6. She also testified that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone confronted former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in a bid to pressure Trump to do something to prevent deaths from occurring at the Capitol.

The committee plans to use key pieces of Cipollone’s extensive testimony to detail Trump’s actions, according to Kinzinger and another committee source.

As he was coming under pressure to do something, the committee will show how Trump was more concerned about trying to figure out a way to overturn the election results than he was about stopping the violence. 

The hearing will show how Trump was lobbying members of Congress to keep the floor debate going on Jan. 6 and delay the certification as long as possible, according to a source familiar with the matter.

As he was being pressured to act, Trump was making and fielding phone calls from his allies on Jan. 6. One ally, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, told CNN Thursday he spoke to Trump multiple times that day. Gaetz declined to say what they spoke about.

Video deposition of Matt Pottinger is played during the House select committee hearing on June 28.

During tonight’s hearing, former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews are expected to give a behind the scenes look at what was going on inside the White House as the violence was unfolding at the Capitol on Jan. 6, as the select committee focuses on former President Trump’s lack of action that day.

Pottinger and Matthews were both in close contact with members of the small group of staffers surrounding the President, as he watched the deadly attack unfold on television.

Pottinger has told the committee he did not see Trump that day but did go into the Oval Office at around 3 p.m. ET and spoke to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a source familiar with his closed-door testimony tells CNN. 

Trump was in the adjacent dining room. Pottinger informed Meadows that he had been told the National Guard was not yet at the Capitol, and tried to get an answer on why that had yet to happen, the source said.

Meadows, who Pottinger described as appearing visibly frustrated in that moment, responded by saying he had made several calls to a top Pentagon official in an effort to get the National Guard to Capitol Hill, according to the source familiar with Pottinger’s testimony. 

In previous testimony, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley described his discussions with Meadows as trying to ensure the military portrayed the president as being in control.

“I immediately interpreted that as politics, politics, politics. Red flag for me, personally. No action. But I remember it distinctly,” Milley said in testimony played at the hearing.

Sarah Matthews speaks in a video deposition shown on June 16 during the House select committee's hearing.

Matthews was one of a number of White House aides pushing for a statement from Trump condemning the violence. While she did not speak to Trump day, a source tells CNN, she will shed light on discussions surrounding the effort to get him to issue a response. A source tells CNN, she will shed light on discussions surrounding that effort.

Pottinger and Matthews, who both resigned following the events of Jan. 6, will also be able to give insight into the inner workings of the Trump White House. Pottinger was with the administration since the beginning.

Neither witness has been fully briefed on all the video clips that will be shown today, or the full extent of the committees evidence that will be presented, a source familiar with the conversations around the testimony tells CNN.

Former President Trump speaks during a rally in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

The House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, is returning to prime time for its eighth hearing that will seek to show in minute-by-minute detail how former President Donald Trump failed to act while the US Capitol was under attack.

The committee’s focus at Thursday’s 8 p.m. ET hearing will be on the 187 minutes that elapsed between Trump concluding his speech at the Ellipse at 1 p.m. ET, when he told his supporters to march to the Capitol, to when Trump released a video at 4:17 p.m ET — when he told the rioters to leave the Capitol.

Committee aides say that the panel will show how Trump “refused to act to defend the Capitol” while rioters were attacking it. The committee has spoken with multiple former Trump aides who were with him that day — including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone — and their video depositions are expected to be used to help tell the story of what was going on inside the White House on Jan. 6.

Cipollone, for instance, told former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that Trump needed to intervene or else “people are going to die,” former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson previously testified.

Meadows responded by telling Cipollone that Trump “doesn’t want to do anything,” Hutchinson said, and that Trump even agreed with the rioters chanting about hanging Vice President Mike Pence.

The House is also expected to show clips of video outtakes of Trump recording a message to his supporters on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the riot.

Two former White House aides who quit after Jan. 6 former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger and former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews — will testify at Thursday’s hearing, CNN has previously reported (the committee has not officially announced witnesses for the event).

Previous reporting from CNN and others, as well as excerpts from committee depositions that have been publicly released — have detailed how Trump was watching television outside the Oval Office as rioters breached the Capitol walls. Before Trump released his video telling the rioters to go home, he sent out several tweets that did not tell them to leave the Capitol — as well as one attacking Pence for not joining his scheme to try to overturn the 2020 election.

On Thursday, GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the Jan. 6 committee who will be leading the hearing, tweeted new video clips from depositions of Trump aides describing how he watched the Capitol riot unfolding on TV in his private dining room.

The deposition clips are from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Pence’s national security adviser Keith Kellogg, Trump’s executive assistant Molly Michael, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Read more about what to watch for at today’s hearing.

The House Jan. 6 committee’s prime-time hearing Thursday is all about 187 minutes.

That’s the period of a little more than three hours as the riot unfolded in the US Capitol — starting from when his speech at the Eclipse ended to when he sent a tweet telling people to leave the Capitol.

While lots of details about Trump’s response on Jan. 6, 2021 are already known, there are still lingering questions about what the former President was doing.

For instance, Trump spoke with at least two Republican lawmakers during the early stages of the insurrection: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, and Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville.

While there has been previous reporting about McCarthy’s heated phone call, including that Trump told him that the rioters were “more upset about the election than you are,” McCarthy has not spoken at length about the conversation. The committee issued a subpoena to McCarthy and four other lawmakers in an unprecedented move earlier this year, though McCarthy has not agreed to testify or hand over documents.

Questions also remain about who else Trump spoke with by phone on Jan. 6 during the period when the Capitol was breached. There are gaps in the White House call logs on Jan. 6, providing incomplete public accounting of the conversations Trump had that day.

Another key question the committee is likely to dive into is how it was that former Vice President Mike Pence — and not Trump — who ordered the National Guard to respond to the riot. At a hearing last month, the committee played testimony from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley saying it was Pence who gave him “very direct, unambiguous orders” to get the Guard to the Capitol.

But Milley testified that Meadows told him to say that it was Trump, not Pence, who gave the order.

“He said: We have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions,” Milley said in his video deposition about what Meadows told him. “We need to establish the narrative, you know, that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable, or words to that effect.”

Read more about what unfolded during the 187 minutes here.

Former President Donald Trump greets supporters after arriving in Harlingen, Texas, on January 12, 2021.

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general directed the Secret Service to stop its internal investigations into what happened to text messages related to Jan. 6 that may have been deleted, according to a letter reviewed by CNN.

The inspector general wrote that the Secret Service should stop investigating the matter because it could interfere with the inspector general’s own investigation into what happened to the agency’s text messages.

The letter adds to the growing tension between the Secret Service and the DHS inspector general over the potentially missing text messages, which are being sought by the House select committee as part of its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s actions and movements on Jan. 6, 2021.

The inspector general wrote that the Secret Service should explain what interviews had already been conducted related to the text messages, along with the “scope off the questioning, and what, if any, warnings were given to the witness(es).” The inspector general told the Secret Service to respond by Monday.

The new letter comes after the Secret Service was only able to provide a single text message to the inspector general, who had requested a month’s worth of records for 24 Secret Service personnel, according to a letter to the select committee.

Read more here.

Tear gas is fired as supporters of former President Trump storm the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

Tonight’s Jan. 6 select committee hearing will focus on what lawmakers have dubbed the “187 minutes” – the three-plus hours when then-President Donald Trump did not step in to stop the US Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, who will be leading Thursday’s hearing with GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, told CNN the committee will “go through pretty much minute by minute” of Trump’s actions. “He was doing nothing to actually stop the riot,” the Virginia Democrat told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday.

In the previous hearings, the committee has sought to tie Trump to the violence at the Capitol, showing how he was warned by his aides that his claims the election was stolen were baseless and that there was a risk of violence on Jan. 6, 2021. The committee’s final hearing in this series will attempt to illustrate how the former President “refused to act to defend the Capitol as a violent mob stormed the Capitol,” according to committee aides.

Here is when the window of time begins and when it ends:

The 187 minutes began at 1:10 p.m. ET, in the final moments of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, when he told his supporters to go to the Capitol.

After leaving the stage at the Ellipse, Trump got into his motorcade and angrily tried to convince his drivers to take him to the Capitol, according to testimony from Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. The agents refused, telling him that the scene was too dangerous and unstable.

Trump then watched TV news coverage of the chaos unfolding at the Capitol, according to a book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, and according to then-White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who said Trump was “gleefully” watching the news.

Trump posted three tweets during this critical timeframe. The first tweet criticized Pence for refusing to overturn the election. The second and third tweets told the rioters to “stay peaceful” and to “respect the law” — but notably, Trump did not instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.

During the 187 minutes, a wide array of Republican lawmakers, former Trump officials and conservative media personalities texted Meadows, saying Trump needed to intervene, CNN has previously reported. 

And the 187 minutes ended at 4:17 p.m. ET, when Trump tweeted out a video telling his supporters to leave the Capitol. He also heaped praise on the rioters and repeated his debunked lies about the election, which had spurred the riot in the first place.

Why this matters: This timeframe is central to the committee’s mission. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee’s GOP vice chair, has repeatedly said that the evidence obtained by the panel about these 187 minutes provides a clear example of Trump’s “supreme dereliction of duty” throughout the insurrection.

The panel’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said earlier this year, “The President was told, ‘You need to say directly to your people to go home, leave the Capitol.’ And so, it took over 187 minutes to make that simple statement. Something’s wrong with that.”

Read more about the 187 minutes here.

The Secret Service was only able to provide a single text exchange to the DHS inspector general who had requested a month’s worth of records for 24 Secret Service personnel, according to a letter to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, whose details were first reported by CNN.

The revelation provides insight into the concern raised in a recent letter to Congress by the inspector general, who accused the agency of not retaining records needed for the January 6 investigation.

Inspector General Joseph Cuffari — having already received an initial batch of documents including “hundreds of thousands of disclosures of agency documents, policies, radio communications, emails, briefings and interviews” — requested in June 2021 text messages sent and received by 24 Secret Service personnel between Dec. 7, 2020 and Jan. 8, 2021, according to the letter, the details of which had not been previously reported. The letter does not identify the 24 personnel.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren arrives for the House select committee's fifth hearing on June 23 in Washington, DC.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who is a member of the select committee, told CNN Wednesday that the information the Secret Service provided to the committee relating to January 5 and 6 specifically was “insufficient.” Lofgren added that the panel has “more requests for them.”

Lofgren said in an interview with MSNBC Tuesday that the panel had received “one text message” that she hadn’t yet seen but that the panel would be “pursuing more information as a committee soon.”

“In their letter they gave no indication that they have secured the phones in question and done some forensic work with them. That’s something we want to know,” Lofgren said. “This obviously, this doesn’t look good. Coincidences can happen but we really need to get t the bottom of this and get a lot more information than we have .urrently.”

Beyond the inspector general requests, the Department of Homeland Security was also sent a broad preservation and production re.t by Congr.on January 16, 2021, which asked for documents and materials related to January 6. That letter was addressed to DHS’s Intelligence and Analysis office but also noted it applied to “other appropriate components of the Department of Homeland Security.” DHS oversees the Secret Service.

Keep reading.e.

A video deposition of former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone is played on screen during the House select committee's hearing on July 12.

Last week’s Jan. 6 hearing was the select committee’s first chance to show video clips from former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who was interviewed by the committee in a video deposition earlier this month.

Cipollone’s testimony added a top voice to the chorus of former Trump aides who have testified to the committee they told the President there was no substantial evidence that the election was stolen from him.

The video clips of Trump’s former aides, which have been played throughout the Jan. 6 hearings, have helped the committee illustrate how those around Trump didn’t believe his baseless claims about the election, even as he continued to plow ahead with efforts to try to overturn the election leading up to Jan 6.

The committee issued a subpoena to ultimately obtain Cipollone’s video testimony after he was called out at an earlier hearing for not agreeing to sit for a deposition. The committee played 14 clips from Cipollone’s pivotal eight-hour interview, which highlighted the split that had grown between Trump and his highest-ranking legal adviser.

In the clips played during the committee’s last hearing, Cipollone said he was told by then-chief of staff Mark Meadows that in November 2020 Trump would eventually agree to make a graceful departure, that he believed Trump should concede, and that he argued the proposal for the federal government to seize voting machines was a “terrible idea.”

“That’s not how we do things in the United States. There’s no legal authority to do that,” Cipollone said. “There is a way to contest elections. You know, that happens all the time. But the idea that the federal government could come in and seize election machines — I don’t understand why I would even have to tell you why that’s a bad idea for the country. That’s a terrible idea.”

There were numerous clips of Cipollone’s interview played, but he could play an even larger role in Thursday’s hearing that is expected to focus on what was going on inside the West Wing while the Capitol attack occurred on Jan. 6.

Read more about last week’s hearing and Cipollone’s deposition here.

A visual of former President Donald Trump is shown at the House select committee's public hearing on July 12.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection will hold its last scheduled public hearing tonight at 8 p.m. ET. 

In its hearings so far, the committee has focused squarely on former President Donald Trump, connecting his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election to the violent attack at the US Capitol.

Through nearly 20 hours of public hearings, the committee has heard live testimony from more than a dozen witnesses and played clips from the recorded depositions of more than 40 others, including members of the Trump family, former administration officials, GOP officials from key battleground states and members of the former President’s legal team.

Almost all the witnesses featured so far are Republicans. The committee has sought to use their testimony to demonstrate how Trump was told repeatedly that the election was not stolen, and yet he continued to plot for how to stay in power and that he knew the protesters who showed up in Washington on January 6 were armed. Trump not only urged them to march on the Capitol but had hopes of joining them.

Last week’s hearing focused on links between Trump and the far-right extremist groups that were at the vanguard of the violent effort to stop the transition of power and keep him in office, despite his election loss.

Here are some key things the committee has revealed so far:

No evidence of election fraud

The committee has presented testimony from several witnesses, including former Attorney General William Barr and members of the Trump campaign, who made clear that those around the former President told him he lost the 2020 election.

The panel showed video clips from its deposition of Barr in which he detailed why Trump’s fraud claims were “bogus” and stated unequivocally that he has seen nothing since to convince him there was fraud.

Trump’s pressure campaign

The committee has used its public hearings to show how Trump used the power of the presidency to pressure officials at nearly every level of government to join his scheme to overturn the 2020 election.

Many were fellow Republicans who refused to help upend Joe Biden’s legitimate electoral victory in key battleground states — recognizing that what Trump was asking them to do was likely unconstitutional and potentially illegal.

Trump disregarded warnings that his plan to overturn the election was illegal

The committee walked through how Trump’s White House attorneys, DOJ officials and then-Vice President Mike Pence’s team roundly rejected the legal theory put forward by conservative Trump attorney John Eastman that Pence could unilaterally block certification of the election.

According to witness testimony, Pence himself and Eastman, the lawyer who concocted the scheme advised Trump directly that the plan was unconstitutional and violated federal law. Committee members argued that this shows Trump’s corrupt intentions and could lay the groundwork for a potential indictment.

Trump’s attempts to enlist the DOJ

The committee has also detailed Trump’s attempts to enlist the DOJ in his efforts to claim the election was rigged and sought to replace his attorney general for not bending to his will.

Public testimony by former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and Donoghue, his deputy, and previous interviews with the committee underscored the lengths Trump was willing to go in order to overturn the election and how he may have succeeded if not for the courage of public servants like them willing to stand in his way.

Trump’s intentions were laid bare by Donoghue who recalled a 90-minute phone call in late December 2020 where Trump told him “just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” according to notes he shared with the committee.

Trump knew Jan. 6 protesters were armed

Testimony from Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson revealed that Trump knew protesters coming to the Capitol on January 6 were armed, and yet he wanted them to attend his rally and even join them at the Capitol.

When Trump was told armed individuals were not being let into his rally Hutchinson said he instructed staffers to “take the mags away” — referring to the metal detectors — because the people in the crowd were “not here to hurt [him].”

The committee also revealed a mix of witness testimony and White House records to show not only did Trump intend to join his supporters at the Capitol but also that people around Trump had advance knowledge of this plan.

Trump made no effort to stop or condemn the violence

Hutchinson also testified that Trump defended the rioters chanting for the hanging of Pence on Jan. 6.

Hutchinson relayed a conversation she observed between White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Meadows after they discussed with Trump the chants to inflict violence on Pence.

“I remember Pat saying something to the effect of ‘Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice president to be f***ing hung,’” Hutchinson recalled.

Meadows replied, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” according to Hutchinson.

Instead of listening to advisers telling him to condemn the violence, Trump issued a tweet criticizing Pence for not having the courage to refuse to count electoral votes, which would have been illegal.

Keep reading here.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney participate in a House select committee hearing on July 12.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, the chair and vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, said in a statement they “have concerns” about how the US Secret Service cell phone data was deleted after receiving documents from the agency in response to its subpoena.

“We have concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone data,” Thompson and Cheney said.

The new statement comes in response to the ongoing questions around the Secret Service erasing text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, shortly after they were requested by oversight officials investigating the agency’s response to the US Capitol riot. 

The leaders of the House select committee point out that the Secret Service system migration process went forward on Jan. 27, 2021, even after a request was made.

Thompson and Cheney also raise questions about the procedure for how content is preserved prior to the purge of cell phone data.

“The procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act,” they said.

The committee reiterated its concern on Twitter Wednesday, saying the Secret Service migration process happened “just three weeks after the attack on the Capitol in which the Vice President of the United States while under the protection of the Secret Service, was steps from a violent mob hunting for him.”

The statements come in response to the thousands of pages the Secret Service turned over to the committee, which only included one text message.

The Secret Service agency has previously explained that it was up to employees to conduct the necessary preservation of records from their phones. The letter said the service did provide personnel with a “step-by-step” guide to preserve mobile phone content, including text messages, prior to the phone migration that began Jan. 27. It went on to explain that “all Secret Service employees are responsible for appropriately preserving government records that may be created via text messaging.” 

The Secret Service wrote in the letter that it was still working to determine if any relevant information was lost in the phone migration but said it was “currently unaware of text messages issued by Secret Service employees” that were requested by the inspector general “that were not retained.

Read the tweets:

Members of the House select committee have been investigating what happened before, after and during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and now they are presenting what they discovered to the public. 

The committee is made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans. It was formed after efforts to create an independent 9/11-style commission failed. 

Rep. Liz Cheney is one of two Republicans on the panel appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled all five of his selections because Pelosi would not accept two of his picks. In July 2021, Pelosi invited GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to join the committee, making him the second GOP lawmaker to sit on the committee. 

Here’s who is on the panel — and key things to know about them: 

Republicans 

Former President Donald Trump stands in front of his supporters on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack will lay out in Thursday’s prime-time hearing the inaction from former President Donald Trump as the violence at the Capitol unfolded, select committee aides tell CNN. 

The committee will fill in the gaps of the 187 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 starting at 1:10 p.m. ET when Trump spoke at the Ellipse and told his supporters to go to the Capitol, and ended at 4:17 p.m. ET, when Trump tweeted out a video telling his supporters to leave the Capitol.

Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, who has Covid-19, will chair Thursday’s hearing remotely, aides say. 

The hearing will feature testimony from individuals who spoke to Trump on Jan. 6, and individuals who were in the West Wing to “ultimately show that despite pleas from people inside the White House, from people on Capitol Hill, from allies elsewhere, the President didn’t tell his supporters to leave the Capitol and go home until after 4:17 p.m.,” the aide said. 

In addition to videotaped testimony, CNN has previously reported that the hearing will feature live testimony from Matthew Pottinger, who served on Trump’s National Security Council, and Sarah Matthews, Trump’s former deputy press secretary.

Testimony about the speech that Trump recorded in the Rose Garden instructing people to leave the Capitol will also be presented. 

The panel will further demonstrate that Trump returned to the White House on January 6 after his Ellipse speech against his wishes, a point that was brought to light in previous testimony from Trump’s former aide Cassidy Hutchinson. 

“What we’ll get into tomorrow is what happened when that speech ended, and President Trump against his wishes, was returned to the White House” the aide said. “We’ll show of course that he expressed that desire before he got back to the White House and then even after he got back to the to the White House.”

While Thursday’s prime-time hearing is the final one for this series, committee aides said that doesn’t rule out they may hold additional hearings later this year.

Read more about today’s hearing here.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

The latest hearing from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection fleshed out the links between former President Donald Trump and the far-right extremist groups that were at the vanguard of the violent effort to stop the transition of power and keep him in office, despite his election loss.

The July 12 hearing focused on the loose affiliations between Trump, his informal political advisers, and members of far-right militia groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.

The committee walked through snippets of witness depositions, court documents, previously unseen emails and other materials, to make the case that Trump coyly courted these militants and saw them as his troops on the ground, to pressure Congress to overturn the 2020 election.

“All of these efforts would converge and explode on January 6,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and committee member who led parts of Tuesday’s hearing, said during his opening statements.

Here are some takeaways from the hearing:

Panel highlights Trump’s “call to arms” tweet

The panel repeatedly highlighted a Trump tweet from December 2020, which they said was a galvanizing call-to-arms that motivated his supporters to come to Washington and disrupt the transition of power.

The tweet claimed that it was “statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” and said there would be a “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.” Trump infamously added, “Be there, will be wild!”

Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Florida Democrat who led part of the hearing, said that the post was “a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms, for many of President Trump’s most loyal supporters,” citing comments from many of the rioters and far-right extremists, who said they were inspired by the tweet.

After the tweet, pro-Trump groups rescheduled planned protests for late January and switched the date to Jan. 6, according to the committee. “Stop the Steal” leader Ali Alexander quickly registered the website WildProtest.com and used the site as a clearinghouse for information about the protest.

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones promoted Trump’s tweet and urged people to flock to DC. Jim Watkins, the administrator of 8kun, an online forum that is the home of the QAnon conspiracy, told the House panel that he decided to go to Washington on Jan. 6 after Trump’s tweet.

“There is going to be a red wedding going down Jan. 6,” a person identified as Salty Cracker said in another clip, referring to a massacre from the television show “Game of Thrones.”

Details uncovered for the planning behind Trump’s “unexpected” call to march to the Capitol

The committee unveiled evidence Tuesday showing how Trump’s call for his supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 had been planned in advance.

The committee showed a draft tweet – which Trump did not send – calling for marching to the Capitol. “I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!” the draft tweet says. The tweet, which the committee obtained from the National Archives, includes a stamp saying “President has seen.”

In addition, the committee showed a text message it obtained from rally organizer Kylie Jane Kremer to right-wing businessman Mike Lindell that said the President would “unexpectedly” tell his supporters to march to another stage outside the Supreme Court building, which is behind the Capitol.

“It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly,’” Kremer wrote.

Katrina Pierson, who also helped organize the rally, wrote in an email to her fellow organizers on Jan. 2: “POTUS expectations are to have something intimate at the ellipse and call on everyone to march to the capitol.”

Alexander, another organizer, sent a text message on Jan. 5, 2021, that was obtained by the committee: “Tomorrow: Ellipse then US capitol. Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech but we will see.”

Read more takeaways here.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump rally at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol is set to lay out its findings during another public hearing. When and how the events occurred that day have been a key part of the committee’s probe. 

Supporters of then-President Trump breached the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, engulfing the building in chaos after Trump urged his supporters to protest against the ceremonial counting of the electoral votes to certify President Biden’s win. 

Here’s how key events unfolded throughout the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump’s speech: 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement earlier on the evening of Jan. 6 that congressional leadership wanted to continue with the joint session that night. 

Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor that the “United States Senate will not be intimidated. We will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs or threats.” 

It took until deep in the early hours of Thursday morning (Jan. 7, 2021), but Congress eventually counted and certified Biden’s election win. 

See a minute-by-minute timeline of events here.