The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol kicked off the first in a series of public hearings with never-before-seen footage from the attack that day as well as clips of videotaped testimony from some of people in former President Donald Trump’s orbit, including his daughter Ivanka Trump.
Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney in their extraordinary opening statements detailed how many Trump administration officials themselves did not believe the former president’s baseless claims of a stolen election.
Former Attorney General William Barr, for example, told the Jan. 6 committee in his testimony that he told Trump his claims of a stolen election were “bullsh**.” Ivanka Trump said she “trusted” that there was no fraud because she respected Barr.
Cheney and Thompson called the events a “conspiracy” — and noted how many people were involved. In fact, Cheney said there were Republican members of Congress who sought pardons for their actions on Jan. 6.
At times, from Cheney’s opening statement, it appeared that Vice President Mike Pence acted as a shadow president – he was the person who called the National Guard, not Trump. And during the attack, Trump suggested the rioters had the right idea when they chanted they wanted to hang Pence.
Cheney had harsh words for her fellow Republicans who were involved and those who have fallen in line since the attack: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone but your dishonor will remain.”
But the main theme of the hearing was detailing the chaos and violence of Jan. 6, 2021. Cheney said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy texted Trump family members and told them he was “scared” about what was happening.
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who sustained a traumatic brain injury that day, testified about her experience on Jan. 6, describing it as “carnage” and “chaos.” In the footage that was shown of the attack, no one tried to help Edwards as she lost consciousness after being hit with a bike rack and striking her head on the stairs.
She said one memory that stuck out for her was when “I saw – I can just remember my breath catching in my throat, because what I saw was just a war scene. It was something like what I had seen out of the movies. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground, they were bleeding, they were throwing up … I saw friends with blood all on their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell … it was carnage, it was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams, did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”
Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who was filming the Proud Boys the day of the attack, was the other witness who testified Thursday. He described how the Proud Boys began walking toward the Capitol at 10:30 a.m., before Trump had begun his speech. He described it as “much darker” than other days he had shadowed the group.
In a statement issued late Thursday night, Trump called the select committee members “political hacks” and accused them of not playing “any of the many positive witnesses and statements” during the hearing.
“Our Country is in such trouble!” the former president wrote.
The committee is planning several more hearings this month to continue laying out the findings of the 11-month investigation. The next one will be Monday, June 13 at 10 a.m., followed by June 15 and June 16.
