Jan. 6 HearingsIn First Jan. 6 Hearing, Graphic Footage and Stark Testimony Show Depth of Attack

The bipartisan House panel investigating the attack, led by Representatives Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, opened its landmark series of public hearings by making the case for a methodical conspiracy led by former President Donald J. Trump.

Image
The hearing held by the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday included video footage from the day of the Capitol attack.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

Follow live updates on the House committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Pinned

The hearings put Trump at the center of the plot that resulted in the Capitol riot.

Video
Video player loading
Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, led the first Jan. 6 hearing, which included testimony from a Capitol police officer and a documentary filmmaker.CreditCredit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol opened a landmark set of hearings on Thursday by showing video of aide after aide to former President Donald J. Trump testifying that his claims of a stolen election were false, as the panel laid out in meticulous detail the extent of the former president’s efforts to keep himself in office.

Over about two hours, the panel offered new information about what it characterized as an attempted coup orchestrated by Mr. Trump that culminated in the deadly assault on the Capitol. The panel’s leaders revealed that investigators heard testimony that Mr. Trump endorsed the hanging of his own vice president as a mob of his supporters descended on Congress. They also said they had evidence that members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

The session kicked off an ambitious effort by the nine-member committee, which was formed after Republicans blocked the creation of a nonpartisan commission, to lay out the full story of a remarkable assault on U.S. democracy, orchestrated by a sitting president, that led to a deadly riot, an impeachment and a crisis of confidence in the political system.

“Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. “And ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy.”

The prime-time hearing featured dramatic video of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, leading the assault on the Capitol, and the emotional testimony of a Capitol Police officer who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the hands of the mob.

“What I saw was a war scene,” the officer, Caroline Edwards, one of the more than 150 officers injured in the rampage, testified. “I saw officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up.”

She added: “I was slipping on people’s blood. It was carnage. It was chaos.”

Image
Officer Caroline Edwards of the U.S. Capitol Police is believed to be the first officer injured in the attack. “I was slipping on people’s blood,” she testified. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Officer Edwards’s appearance reflected the potency of the committee’s seamless two-hour presentation — including never-before-seen video — in bringing home the violence of that day all over again.

The committee is publicly telling the story of how a sitting president undertook unprecedented efforts to overturn a democratic election, testing the guardrails of American democracy at every turn. Mr. Trump and his allies challenged President Biden’s victory in the courts, at state houses and, finally, in the streets.

“You will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had in fact lost the election,” said Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman and one of two Republicans on the panel. “But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election.”

Lawmakers contrasted Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat with every president who came before him. At one point, Mr. Thompson displayed a handwritten note from President Abraham Lincoln in which he said he would be duty-bound to cooperate with the newly elected president should he lose.

Using previously unreleased video of testimony from former Trump aides and even his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the panel left little doubt about the truth of the former president’s actions. In doing so, its leaders said they hoped to force the nation to grapple with a dark chapter in its history.

“Our democracy remains in danger,” Mr. Thompson said. “Jan. 6 and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here.”

Image
Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, the chairman of the committee, and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman, led the hearing.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The opening night contained several revelations, perhaps the most damning of which came from Ms. Cheney. She said the committee had received testimony that when Mr. Trump learned of the mob’s threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence, he said, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” and added that Mr. Pence “deserves it.”

The committee also revealed that several Republican congressmen, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, now the chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, asked for a presidential pardon after Jan. 6.

The hearings are unfolding five months before midterm elections in which the Democrats’ majority is at stake, at a time when they are eager to draw a sharp contrast between themselves and the Republicans who enabled and embraced Mr. Trump, including the members of Congress who abetted his efforts to invalidate the election results.

Image
Reporters preparing to go on television before the hearing, which was scheduled for prime time.Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times

Members of the panel see themselves as carrying out a critical function, much as fact-finding committees did in investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Watergate scandal in 1973 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

At a time of intense political polarization, members of the panel took pains to back up their assertions with clear evidence, turning frequently to videotaped testimony to drive home their points. When Mr. Thompson outlined how Mr. Trump had been told repeatedly that there was no election fraud, he added, “Don’t believe me?”

Then he paused for a video showing former Attorney General William P. Barr testifying that he knew the president’s claims were false.

“I told the president it was bullshit,” Mr. Barr is heard telling the committee’s investigators. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

The committee also played a series of video testimony. Ms. Trump conceded that Mr. Barr’s assertions affected her view. A Trump campaign adviser, Jason Miller, testified that a data specialist had showed him that the numbers were not there for Mr. Trump to win. Alex Cannon, a campaign lawyer, told the panel that he had relayed to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in November 2020 that he saw no evidence of irregularities sufficient to change the election result, prompting Mr. Meadows to reply, “So, there’s no there there.”

Later, the panel played a video montage of rioters storming the seat of American government.

Image
Serena Liebengood, whose husband, Officer Howard Liebengood, died by suicide after the attack, crying during the hearing.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times
Image
Sandra Garza’s partner, Officer Brian Sicknick, died after protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Members of the panel promised to reveal evidence in the days to come that would fundamentally change the public’s understanding of the Jan. 6 attack and bring into clearer focus exactly who is to blame.

“It’ll change history,” predicted Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the other Republican on the committee.

Mr. Thompson said the next session, scheduled for Monday, would detail how Mr. Trump “lit the fuse” for the riot with his lie of a stolen election.

Other hearings are expected to focus on Mr. Trump’s attempts to misuse the Justice Department to help him cling to power; his pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate electoral votes for Mr. Biden; the way the mob was assembled and how it descended on Washington on Jan. 6, 2021; and the fact that Mr. Trump did nothing to stop the violence for more than three hours while the assault was underway.

The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and accumulated more than 140,000 documents. It has a staff of about 45 employees, including more than a dozen former federal prosecutors and two former U.S. attorneys, and has spent millions on its work.

Many Republicans in Congress, whose leaders initially supported the idea of an independent commission, have spent the months since the assault trying to rewrite its history and downplay its severity.

They ramped up their fight Thursday morning, when the party’s House leaders took turns at a news conference on Capitol Hill bashing the panel’s work as “illegitimate” and a “sham.”

“Is Nancy Pelosi going to hold a prime-time hearing on inflation?” said Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican. “I’d sure like to see that. I think a lot of Americans would. Is Nancy Pelosi going to hold a prime-time hearing on lowering gas prices?”

Image
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California and other Republican leaders held a news conference in the Capitol on Thursday to attack the committee’s work.Credit...Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Four officers who suffered injuries defending the Capitol were on hand Thursday night. One, Officer Harry Dunn of the Capitol Police, wore a shirt with the definition of the word “insurrection” printed on it. Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who died after fighting off the mob, attended as did Mr. Sicknick’s partner, Sandra Garza.

Serena Liebengood, the wife of Howard Liebengood, a Capitol Police officer who died by suicide after the attack, was seated next to Ms. Garza. They both watched the hearing in tears.

The hearing also featured the testimony of a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the right-wing group the Proud Boys during the attack. Several members of the Proud Boys have been charged with conspiracy and sedition.

Mr. Quested, who has worked in the war zones of Afghanistan and elsewhere, spent a good deal of the postelection period filming the Proud Boys, including the group’s former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. Mr. Quested accompanied the Proud Boys to pro-Trump rallies in Washington in November and December 2020 and was on the ground with members of the group on Jan. 6, when several played a crucial role in breaching the Capitol.

The committee concluded the evening with a video compilation of rioters attributing their actions to the lies and the urging of Mr. Trump.

“We were invited by the president of the United States,” one of them said.

Alan Feuer and Katie Benner contributed reporting.

Jonathan Weisman
June 10, 2022, 12:40 a.m. ET

5 takeaways from the first Jan. 6 hearing.

Video
Video player loading
Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, led the first Jan. 6 hearing, which included testimony from a Capitol police officer and a documentary filmmaker.CreditCredit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

The opening House hearing into the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was a compact and controlled two hours, designed as an overview of what was described as a methodical conspiracy, led and coordinated by President Donald J. Trump, to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and democracy itself.

It was also an enticement to the American people to watch the next five scheduled hearings.

Here are some takeaways:

Trump was at the center of the plot.

The committee’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and vice chairwoman, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, began laying out what they described as an elaborate, intentional scheme by Mr. Trump to remain in power, one unprecedented in American history and with dangerous implications for democracy.

“Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup,” Mr. Thompson said.

Both leaders had blistering words for Mr. Trump and about the threat he poses to American democracy. They made it clear that, for all his ongoing bluster about stolen elections, Mr. Trump had knowingly spread claims about election fraud that people closest to him knew were false, tried to use the apparatus of government and the courts to cling to power, and then when all of that failed, sat back approvingly in the White House as a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol threatening to hang his vice president.

Key figures around Trump never believed his lie of a stolen election.

The hearing used the videotaped testimony of some of Mr. Trump’s closest aides and allies to show that the Trump campaign and his White House — and perhaps the president himself — had known well that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the 2020 election. It showed how Mr. Trump and his loyalists had used a calculated campaign of lies to bind his followers and build support for his attempt to stay in power, through extralegal means and violence.

The committee played excerpts from videotaped interviews of former Attorney General William P. Barr, who said he had told Mr. Trump that the talk of widespread fraud in the 2020 election was “bullshit.” There was a clip of his daughter Ivanka Trump saying that she accepted Mr. Barr’s conclusions and of a campaign lawyer, Alex Cannon, who told Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, that Trump allies had found no election issues that could reverse the results in key states. “So there’s no there there?” Mr. Meadows responded, according to Mr. Cannon’s account.

At one point, in one of the most potentially damaging moments of the videotaped interviews, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is shown dismissing the threats of Pat A. Cipollone, then the White House counsel, to resign in the face of Mr. Trump’s machinations as “whining.”

A Capitol Police officer who battled the rioters humanized the drama.

Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who is believed to have been the first injured during the riot, testified in chilling detail about the first breach of police lines, in which she was crushed beneath bike racks that were pushed on her and a handful of other officers who had no chance to hold back the mob.

“The back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me,” she testified, recounting the moment before she lost consciousness. Her testimony of continuing to fight off the rioters in efforts to protect the Capitol provided a striking contrast with the committee’s account of Mr. Trump sitting in the White House watching with apparent sympathy as the mob ransacked the building, yelling at aides who implored him to call off the violence and saying at one point, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea.”

Once she came to and beheld the scene from behind police lines, Officer Edwards said, her breath was taken away. She slipped in blood, saw fellow officers writhing in pain and suffering from bear spray and tear gas, and gazed out on what she described as a war scene unfolding outside the Capitol.

“It was carnage,” she said. “It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”

The Proud Boys mounted an organized effort.

One of the witnesses, a British documentary filmmaker named Nick Quested who was embedded with the extremist Proud Boys, gave testimony that indicated that group’s leadership had conspired with another extremist organization, the Oath Keepers, well ahead of the riot to plan an attack that would breach the Capitol.

Mr. Quested showed footage he had shot of the Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, meeting clandestinely with Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers on Jan. 5, and he told of the group breaking away from a morning rally behind the White House on Jan. 6 to scout police defenses around the Capitol.

“I am not allowed to say what is going to happen today because everyone’s just going to have to watch,” one woman said on video on the morning of Jan. 6, when no hint of an attack was evident.

There is more to come on the role of Trump and Republicans

The hearing concluded with a hint of what was to come in the next hearings, which committee members hope will show how Mr. Trump was personally responsible for the worst attack on the Capitol since the British ransacked it in 1814 and that he remains a threat to the American democratic experiment.

The committee concluded with videos of the rioters themselves saying they believed they were invited to Washington that day by their president, who had asked them to fight for him.

“He lit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of Jan. 6,” Mr. Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said of Mr. Trump.

Ms. Cheney, whose insistence on condemning Mr. Trump and participation in the investigation have rendered her a pariah in her own party, said the case the panel would make would taint Republicans indelibly.

“Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible,” she said. “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Zach Montague
June 9, 2022, 11:27 p.m. ET

The committee’s first witnesses helped depict chaos and violence on the ground.

Video
Video player loading
Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer, described to House committee members the events that unfolded and the injuries she endured during the Jan. 6 riot, including being temporarily knocked unconscious.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

To help paint a portrait of the mayhem and cruelty that unfolded during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, committee leaders introduced witnesses on Thursday who were caught in the crowd of rioters, and whose personal retelling of the day’s events helped underscore how violent the riot became.

The committee’s first witness was Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who clashed with rioters as they approached the building and suffered a concussion while trying to keep the crowd outside a police perimeter.

Ms. Edwards described in detail the difficulty she faced trying to fend off the crowd, which ultimately overwhelmed police and left more than 140 law enforcement officers injured.

“It was carnage. It was chaos,” Ms. Edwards said. “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.”

As the demonstrators reached the Capitol grounds, Ms. Edwards recalled, a scrum of “hours of hand-to-hand combat” ensued.

Ms. Edwards also recounted working alongside Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who would die from injuries sustained during the melee.

The other witness on Thursday was Nick Quested, an Emmy Award-winning British documentarian who was embedded with the Proud Boys during the riot, filming footage with the group’s blessing.

Video
Video player loading
Nick Quested, an Emmy-award winning British documentarian, described to House committee members the violence he witnessed during the attack on the Capitol.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mr. Quested had been following the Proud Boys during the months after the 2020 election, attending a number of rallies and meetings, including one between the Proud Boys’ former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, and Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, the day before the riot.

In his account, Mr. Quested helped describe the mood on the other side of the demonstrations, where he said he had followed “a couple of hundred” Proud Boys, some from as far away as Arizona, marching on the Capitol.

“I was surprised at the size of the group, the anger and the profanity,” he said. “And, for anyone who didn’t understand how violent that event was, I saw it. I documented it.”

The contrasting testimonies of Mr. Quested and Ms. Edwards helped complement video clips played in between them that showed furious groups of demonstrators blowing through barricades and anxious police officers retreating.

Mr. Quested’s testimony, in particular, helped set the stage for coming hearings, which are expected to home in on the role extremist groups and other political agitators played in inspiring the riot.

“The atmosphere was much darker at this date than it had been,” he said.

Michael S. Schmidt
June 9, 2022, 10:40 p.m. ET

In a preview of what we could see at the next hearing, the committee played a clip of Trump’s spokesman, Jason Miller, testifying about how Trump had been told by a campaign aide in the Oval Office in the days after the election that he was going to lose the election.

Michael S. Schmidt
June 9, 2022, 10:38 p.m. ET

The next hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday and will focus on how even though Donald J. Trump was told by aides that he lost the election, and it was not stolen, he still continued to push that lie to his supporters. “In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had in fact lost the election,” Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, said in her opening statement. “But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 10:28 p.m. ET

Chairman Thompson, speaking on CNN, says “we made a conscious effort to only put on what we could prove,” including the videos and tweets from former President Trump. He says “we are building a case based on the facts and circumstances that our investigation determines.”

Annie Karni
June 9, 2022, 10:23 p.m. ET

An outdoor watch party near the Capitol drew hundreds of viewers.

Image
Watching the first day of the televised Jan. 6 hearings at Taft Memorial Carillon in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times

The crowd clapped when Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said members of President Donald J. Trump’s cabinet had discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, arguing that he was “too dangerous to be left alone.”

The crowd erupted in cheers when Ms. Cheney addressed her Republican colleagues, saying, “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

It was dead silent as the committee aired graphic footage from the mob attack on the Capitol, which unfolded 17 months ago steps from where they sat outside.

An outdoor watch party under the shadow of the Capitol, organized by the activist group Public Citizen, promised free ice cream and a jumbo screen to encourage viewers to tune in to the first hearing of the Jan. 6 committee. But the mood was more somber than sociable in the crowd of a few hundred people who came out with lawn chairs to mark the moment.

“It’s comforting to be around like-minded people and watch it with them,” said Kathy Chamberlain, a retired federal government employee who said she had learned of the watch event from a text and was lured by the free treats and a beautiful evening. “We were around for Jan. 6 — it still feels fresh. Sadly, I don’t think the hearings are going to change minds.”

Leslie Womack, who works for a nongovernmental organization, said she happened upon the watch party as she was walking home from another event. “It felt like an iconic moment when you just stop and take a seat,” Ms. Womack said. “I’m from Texas originally. You wouldn’t see anything like this happen in Texas. I’m getting emotional.”

Ms. Womack said that with most of the country crouched in partisan corners, the hearings were unlikely to change anyone’s mind about Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results and direct a violent mob toward the Capitol. But she said she still hoped the hearings, two of which were scheduled to air in prime time, would have some political impact.

“It’s important to have a record in history and sound bites for the midterm elections and 2024,” she said. “I want it to remind the public of the mayhem and insanity that happened.”

Activists have scheduled more than 90 watch events in various states, hoping to drum up interest in the hearings.

Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 10:18 p.m. ET

The committee also teased a number of revelations — including that a number of House Republicans apparently sought presidential pardons in the days after Jan. 6. It will be interesting to see the testimony and basis for those, particularly after those pointed clips of Bill Barr, members of Trump’s family, and other White House aides acknowledging the undeniable truth that the 2020 election was fairly won by President Biden.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 10:16 p.m. ET

The Capitol and those who work there have had more than a year to reckon with what happened on Jan. 6: the violence that took place, the fear that it could have been worse, and the injuries, mental and physical. But the videos shown tonight have evoked a visceral reaction — and will continue to do so — among those who were there. It is still very, very raw.

Image
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Catie Edmondson
June 9, 2022, 10:14 p.m. ET

Despite a trove of reporting on what happened on Jan. 6 and in the lead up to the attack on the Capitol, this hearing delivered several new, indelible moments of horror. Among them: Ms. Edwards testifying that she was “slipping in people’s blood” outside the Capitol that day, and Ms. Cheney reading testimony that Mr. Trump agreeing with the rioters that his vice president “deserved” to be hung for refusing to overturn the election.

Carl Hulse
June 9, 2022, 10:13 p.m. ET

There is no doubt who the committee wants held responsible for the assault on the Capitol: Donald J. Trump. That was made very clear in the prime-time proceeding.

Alexandra Berzon
June 9, 2022, 10:05 p.m. ET

An important backdrop as the hearings continue next week is that the vast majority of Republicans still believe the election was stolen, and that number has stayed steady.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 10:04 p.m. ET

Cheney says Scott Perry and other G.O.P. House members sought pardons.

Image
Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, sought a presidential pardon after the Jan. 6 riot.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

The House committee suggested it had evidence that multiple House Republicans, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, had sought presidential pardons after the Jan. 6 riot for their efforts to challenge and overturn the 2020 election.

“Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after Jan. 6 to seek a presidential pardon,” Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said. “Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.”

She did not provide details regarding the basis for the assertion. In an email, Jay Ostrich, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, who has declined to testify before the committee, called the assertion “a ludicrous and soulless lie.”

While Mr. Perry is known to have played a key role in undermining the 2020 election and in Mr. Trump’s efforts to resist a peaceful transfer of power, Ms. Cheney’s comments appeared to be the first time the committee had publicly confirmed Mr. Perry’s efforts to seek a pardon.

The committee had previously said it was aware of an effort to secure a pardon, including in a letter to Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, who they said had been identified as a “potential participant.”

Former White House staff members, the committee wrote in the letter, had “identified an effort by certain House Republicans after Jan. 6 to seek a presidential pardon for activities taken in connection with President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

Committee members had said they wanted more information about the request, why it was made and what the scope of the potential pardon was. It was also unclear whether Mr. Biggs or other Republicans had directly approached Mr. Trump with the request.

Mr. Biggs, at the time the letter was sent, declined to answer questions about the potential pardons.

Michael S. Schmidt
June 9, 2022, 10:02 p.m. ET

What we learned in the second hour of the hearing: The Proud Boys and attacks on the police were the focus.

Image
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards and documentary filmmaker Nick Quested being sworn in to testify during the hearing.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

The second hour of the hearing focused on telling the story of the hourslong violent hand-to-hand combat that the Capitol Police were forced to engage in with the rioters. The committee focused much of its attention on how the armed group the Proud Boys had a direct role in planning the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, and took the lead in breaching of the Capitol’s perimeter.

Here are some of the key moments from the second hour of the hearing:

  • The committee played a clip of interviews with two members of the Proud Boys saying that after Donald J. Trump said at a presidential debate in September 2020 that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by” the group gained many new members. “I would say exponentially,” one Proud Boy leader said in an interview with the committee. “Tripled, probably.”

  • A committee investigator, Marcus Childress, explained in a video how the Proud Boys planned and coordinated their attack on the Capitol in response to Mr. Trump’s call for his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6. Mr. Childress showed how the Proud Boys initiated the first breach of the Capitol’s perimeter shortly before 1 p.m., allowing protesters to move directly toward the steps of the building.

  • Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who is believed to be one of the first officers to sustain injuries as rioters were trying to storm the building, described how she first confronted them at a perimeter established outside the building. Then, protesters pushed a bike rack into her, pinning her to the ground and knocking her unconscious.

    “So we started grappling over the bike racks,” Ms. Edwards testified. “I felt the bike rack come on top of my head. And I was pushed backwards, my foot caught the stair behind me, and I, my chin hit the handrail, and then at that point I had blocked out. But my, the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me.”

  • Ms. Edwards provided graphic detail of what the combat looked like, describing it as a “war scene.”

    “It was something like I had seen out of the movies,” she said. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground, they were bleeding, they were throwing up, they were, they had, I mean I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in peoples blood.”

    She added: “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. I’m trained to detain a couple of subjects and handle a crowd, but I’m not combat trained. And that day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat.”

  • The committee also played video clips of several protesters explaining that they stormed the Capitol because Mr. Trump told them to be there.

    “Trump asked me for my vote and to come on Jan. 6,” one demonstrator told the committee.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:57 p.m. ET

Representative Thompson, after showing video of Trump supporters saying that the former president asked them to come to Washington, says the next hearing will focus on the lies that convinced people to follow through. And with that, the hearing is adjourned.

Katie Benner
June 9, 2022, 9:56 p.m. ET

The committee caps off two hours of testimony, video footage and taped depositions about the violent attack on the Capitol with a montage of Trump supporters saying that they came to Washington that day because the president asked them to, using the words of Trump’s own supporters to tie him to their actions.

Carl Hulse
June 9, 2022, 9:56 p.m. ET

This is not the usual dry House hearing.

Image
Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

The prime-time hearing of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault broke the mold of congressional proceedings in multiple ways.

For one, committee sessions are almost always conducted during the day, in concert with the schedules of lawmakers, so the timing alone — a bid for a bigger audience — was unusual.

Second, the majority party, in this case the Democrats, almost always dominates a hearing by dint of their chair holding the gavel and controlling the process. In this case, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, was the clear star of the show as she laid out her case against former President Donald J. Trump in great detail.

By contrast, other members of the panel played nonspeaking roles rather than making their own opening statements or doing some questioning. Their opportunities will probably come later.

In a bow to the networks carrying the hearing, the committee conveniently took a break after the powerful footage of the breach of the Capitol to allow for advertisements and for news anchors to weigh in on what had transpired so far. But then again, most congressional hearings don’t get live network coverage.

The hearing also featured video of some of the witnesses who had appeared before the panel in private sessions, which was much more dramatic than the usual dry reading of transcripts. It made for a more persuasive case, especially since many of those talking were allies, aides or appointees of Mr. Trump.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:53 p.m. ET

Despite being temporarily knocked unconscious, Officer Edwards regained consciousness and went back to help her fellow officers defend the Capitol and treat officers who had been wounded or sprayed by pepper spray.

Jeremy W. Peters
June 9, 2022, 9:52 p.m. ET

Fox News gives its viewers a revisionist history lesson of Jan. 6.

Image
Protestors surround the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Despite not broadcasting the Jan. 6 hearing live, Fox News was conducting a Jan. 6 inquiry of sorts itself on Thursday night, one that the host Tucker Carlson said would reveal the truth about the event he said “was not an insurrection.”

Mr. Carlson, whose 8 p.m. show is typically the highest rated on cable news, spent a full hour — uninterrupted by commercials — belittling the Jan. 6 committee’s findings, mocking its members and comparing its work to that of a totalitarian government.

He downplayed the violence that day, calling it “forgettably minor.” He described it as mere “vandalism.”

“You know what will get you to insurrection?” he asked. “If you ignore the legitimate concerns of a population, if you brush them aside as if they don’t matter.”

As viewers on the other networks saw powerful footage from allies of former President Donald J. Trump saying that they did not agree with his claims of being cheated of victory — including his daughter, Ivanka, and the former attorney general, William P. Barr — the audience on Fox wouldn’t have known any of that was taking place. While Fox News showed a feed of the hearing room with no sound, it cut away during that testimony.

Mr. Carlson and Sean Hannity, who took over the broadcast at 9 p.m., both boasted about Fox News’s decision not to air the hearing live. Mr. Carlson said his show was “the only hour on American television that is not broadcasting unfiltered propaganda into the homes of unsuspecting viewers.”

Mr. Hannity declared in his opening monologue: “Unlike this committee and their cheerleaders in the media mob, we will actually be telling you the truth.”

Fox hosts offered their own version of events of what they said unfolded on Jan. 6 and who was at fault, even if they didn’t always agree on how serious the situation got. While Mr. Carlson spent his program dismissing the threat the rioters posed that day, Mr. Hannity said the threat was serious enough that it should have been treated as such by the United States Capitol Police and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Why didn’t they lift a finger,” Mr. Hannity asked, “to protect the Capitol?”

Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:51 p.m. ET

“Never in my wildest dream did I think as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, that I would find myself in the middle of a battle,” Officer Edwards said. She adds, “I’m not combat trained. That day, it was just hours of hand to hand combat, hours of dealing with things that were way beyond anything any law enforcement officer is ever trained for.”

Video
Video player loading
Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer, described to House committee members the events that unfolded and the injuries she endured during the Jan. 6 riot, including being temporarily knocked unconscious.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Catie Edmondson
June 9, 2022, 9:50 p.m. ET

Ms. Cheney said that the family of Officer Brian Sicknick, who suffered two strokes and died a day after responding to the rioters at the Capitol, asked her if she and her colleagues understand that Capitol Police officers rushed into danger to protect the lawmakers inside from the lawmakers. Some of Ms. Cheney’s colleagues in the House Republican conference have sought to downplay the violence of that day, even going so far as to equate the rioters to standard tourists,

Evan Hill
June 9, 2022, 9:50 p.m. ET

Officer Edwards said she shifted to a different point on the line after being attacked, where she happened to be stationed next to Officer Brian Sicknick, who died a day after the Capitol attack. Footage The Times previously analyzed showed how the chemical spray attack on Officer Sicknick unfolded.

Image
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:50 p.m. ET

Representative Cheney is now recounting a recent conversation with a Capitol Police officer, who asked her if lawmakers recognized that as they rushed to safety, officers rushed into the violence outside. She promises that they do recognize that, and acknowledges the widows of Capitol Police officers and the officers in the audience.

Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:46 p.m. ET

“I think we’re going to need a few more people down here,” Officer Edwards says she told her sergeant as rioters approached, in what she calls “the understatement of the century.” She is walking the committee through the moment she was knocked unconscious on the stairs.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:42 p.m. ET

The committee has now shown Officer Caroline Edwards footage of the moment when she was injured during the riot, where she sustained a traumatic brain injury.

Haley WillisDmitriy Khavin
June 9, 2022, 9:40 p.m. ET

Footage shows the moment that the witness Caroline Edwards was injured on Jan. 6.

Video
Video player loading

Footage from the morning of Jan. 6 showed how Caroline Edwards, a witness called in Thursday’s hearings, was among the first police officers to face the violent mob. Ms. Edwards, one of about 150 officers injured that day, sustained burns from rioters’ chemical spray and suffered a concussion resulting in a traumatic brain injury. The extent of her injuries has prevented her from returning to active duty on the Capitol Police force.

Ms. Edwards was seen, along with only four other officers, standing guard at a barricade at the edge of the Capitol lawn, closest to President Trump’s rally. None of the officers were equipped with riot gear. “I got a feeling they believe those five officers are going to stop some shit,” one person was filmed saying.

Minutes later, just before noon, the crowd surged forward against the barricades. Ms. Edwards’s head hit the concrete steps as she was pushed backward — the earliest in a series of injuries to officers that would occur as a result of the hourslong fight to enter the building on the west side of the Capitol.

Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:40 p.m. ET

As the testimony continues, reactions are most visceral over the video, particularly from those who were in the chamber that day.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Michael A. McCoy
June 9, 2022, 9:36 p.m. ET

The officers who defended the Capitol relive the day.

At the first public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, police officers who had defended the Capitol against the violent mob that day sat in the gallery to observe the proceedings. They watched graphic footage of the attack as it unfolded throughout the day.

Clockwise from top left: Former Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Washington Metropolitan Police Officer D.P. Hodges, and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn.
Malachy BrowneDmitriy Khavin
June 9, 2022, 9:30 p.m. ET

A Jan. 5 meeting between leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers was caught on video.

Video
Video player loading

Footage played in Thursday’s hearing showed a meeting between Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia, on the eve of Jan 6, 2021. The footage was recorded by a documentary team that had been embedded with the Proud Boys in the lead-up to Jan. 6.

It’s unclear whether the meeting between the two leaders was planned or accidental. The team filmed Mr. Tarrio’s release from prison and followed him to a parking lot in Washington, D.C., where he met a lawyer for Mr. Rhodes. Also present were Joshua Macias, a co-founder of Vets for Trump, and Bianca Gracia, a director of Latinos for Trump and organizer of Jan. 6 events.

Video
Video player loading

Under the terms of his release from prison, Mr. Tarrio was not permitted to remain in Washington. The videos show him being driven north to Maryland. “I’m going to stay close just to make sure my guys are OK tomorrow,” Mr. Tarrio says in the footage.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:28 p.m. ET

An investigative counsel is now describing what their investigation has found about the Proud Boys and their role in inciting the mob. It’s unusual to see a congressional aide, in this case Marcus Childress, play this role in a hearing — a public figure walking the audience through a narrative, as opposed to a quiet figure whispering in a lawmaker’s ear.

Malachy BrowneNatalie Reneau
June 9, 2022, 9:24 p.m. ET

Footage captured a key instigator in the Capitol mob speaking with the Proud Boys leader.

Video
Video player loading
CreditCredit...Nick Quested

Shortly before Congress was set to begin certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6, Proud Boys joined hundreds of other protesters near a western entrance to the Capitol building. The crowd became more boisterous and within minutes, the police protecting that access point were attacked.

What is often thought of as a tipping point in the Capitol attack began when Ryan Samsel, a Trump supporter from Pennsylvania, approached a Proud Boys leader, Joseph Biggs. The two men had a brief exchange and within a minute, Mr. Samsel walked to a nearby barricade and confronted police. Dozens of other protesters, including many Proud Boys, followed Mr. Samsel and overran the police line. Officers retreated up the Capitol steps where they held protesters for the next 90 minutes.

Mr. Samsel later told F.B.I. investigators that Mr. Biggs directed him to challenge the police. Mr. Biggs’s lawyer, J. Daniel Hull, denied that his client encouraged Mr. Samsel to confront the police. Mr. Biggs is one of five Proud Boys leaders charged on Monday with sedition for their roles in the storming of the Capitol.

Katie Benner
June 9, 2022, 9:22 p.m. ET

Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who was filming the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, said that he watched the crowd morph “from protestors, to rioters, to insurrectionists.”

Video
Video player loading
Nick Quested, an Emmy-award winning British documentarian, described to House committee members the violence he witnessed during the attack on the Capitol.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:21 p.m. ET

In her testimony, Edwards is reflecting on her time spent in the Capitol and how important it is to her. That speaks to a sentiment so many share here: you spend so much time in the Capitol, it becomes sort of a second home. It is still jarring and painful to see the violence.

Video
Video player loading
CreditCredit...Associated Press
Alan Feuer
June 9, 2022, 9:20 p.m. ET

The Witnesses

Nick Quested: A documentary filmmaker who had embedded with the Proud Boys is now in the spotlight.

Image
Nick Quested’s testimony will include several segments of video he took as he moved with the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, 2021.Credit...Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images

As a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested has made a career of telling other people’s stories — many of them under harsh conditions. Over the years, he has made films about soldiers under fire in Afghanistan and the inner workings of a Mexican drug cartel.

But on Thursday night, when he appears in front of the Jan. 6 committee, Mr. Quested, 52, will tell a part of his own story as he is called upon to relate where he went and what he saw when he was embedded with the far-right group the Proud Boys before and during the Capitol attack.

Mr. Quested’s testimony will begin with a brief opening statement, according to a person familiar with the matter, and will include several segments of video filmed as he moved with the Proud Boys from the early morning of Jan. 6, 2021, through the breach of the Capitol.

Mr. Quested was also present with a camera on the day before the riot, when the Proud Boys’ former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, met in an underground parking garage near the Capitol with Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia. (Both men have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the attack.)

Mr. Quested began spending time with the Proud Boys after the election as part of a project meant to explore the increasing polarization and extremism in American politics. He is also likely to testify about the Proud Boys’ actions at two pro-Trump rallies in Washington that preceded Jan. 6: one on Nov. 14, 2020, and the other a month later on Dec. 12.

Katie Benner
June 9, 2022, 9:20 p.m. ET

“I was an American, standing face to face with other Americans, asking myself many times how we got here,” Edwards, an officer who stood her ground before the mob, testifies before the committee.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Luke Broadwater
June 9, 2022, 9:18 p.m. ET

The ordeal of Officer Caroline Edwards, who is testifying, was featured in this New York Times Magazine story about the Capitol Police in the aftermath of the attack. She suffered a traumatic brain injury but went back to fighting off the mob that day.

Luke Broadwater
June 9, 2022, 9:14 p.m. ET

The Witnesses

Caroline Edwards: The first Capitol Police officer injured in the riot has said, ‘I’ve never experienced anything like it.’

Image
Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards preparing to testify on Thursday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

After Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards suffered a concussion during the mob attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, she didn’t stay down long.

Moments after rioters toppled the barricade where she was stationed outside the Capitol, she was back in the fight, trying to prevent others from entering the building.

“I received a traumatic brain injury on the west front,” she said in an interview with The New York Times last year. “One of the things about that kind of fight is you receive your injury, but you get back up and you get back on the line. And that’s what all we all did. Every single person that was injured that day, I didn’t see anybody kind of tap out. We were all just getting back on the line that day.”

Officer Edwards is expected to be one of two witnesses who will testify on Thursday at the first in a series of six public hearings laying out the findings of the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.

Ms. Edwards, a well-respected officer who serves on the union board, is believed to have been the first officer injured in the attack on the Capitol, when she was struck during an assault at a barricade at the base of Capitol Hill. A man who has been charged with taking part in the assault, Ryan Samsel, told the F.B.I. during an interview more than a year ago that just before he approached the barricade, Joseph Biggs, a high-ranking member of the Proud Boys, encouraged him to confront the police.

Other officers around the building recall hearing Officer Edwards call for help over the radio — one of the first signs the mob violence was beginning to overrun the police. Months after the attack, she continued to have fainting spells believed to be connected to her injuries.

“You took your blows, you shook yourself off and then you got back on the line, only to take another blow,” she said. “I’ve never experienced anything like it, and hopefully we’ll never experience anything like that ever again.”

Officer Edwards will be the fifth officer to testify live before the committee. Four others shared their experiences with the panel last year.

One of those officers, Harry Dunn, trained Officer Edwards.

“She is such a great officer and an even more amazing human being,” he wrote about her on Twitter. “She’s like a little sister to me and what she and other officers went thru that day, didn’t deserve. She is a SHERO and definition of AMERICAN PATRIOT. You will hear her testimony, her story on Thursday. I am so proud of her for her bravery that day and every day after.”

Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:14 p.m. ET

The committee has reconvened after a short recess.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Luke Broadwater
June 9, 2022, 9:13 p.m. ET

Officers are hugging Gladys Sicknick, whose son, Officer Brian Sicknick, died after fighting off the mob.

Evan Hill
June 9, 2022, 9:10 p.m. ET

Most of the footage of violence aired tonight has been publicized before, but the attack montage played just before the recess touched on the most dramatic and dangerous moments of Jan. 6, including the lead role played by the Proud Boys and the mob’s brutal attacks on police officers.

Katie Benner
June 9, 2022, 9:08 p.m. ET

While the work of the Jan. 6 committee is not a criminal proceeding, Thompson and Cheney have used witness testimony and compelling video footage to connect Trump’s refusal to accept his loss with the violent attack. Whether or not the Justice Department charges the former president with a crime, the committee is arguing that Trump is guilty of trying to tear down democracy itself.

Maggie Haberman
June 9, 2022, 9:07 p.m. ET

Kushner said he thought White House counsel was ‘whining’ when he spoke of resigning.

Video
Video player loading
In videotaped testimony, Jared Kushner, former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and a senior adviser, said he took the threats as “whining.”CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Jared Kushner, former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, was featured prominently in videotaped testimony saying that he was engrossed in pushing through dozens of pardons at the end of the administration and dismissed threats of resigning by the White House counsel as “whining.”

The video showed Representative Liz Cheney asking Mr. Kushner about repeated threats to resign made by the counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, over the questionable conduct by Mr. Trump.

“Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign?” she was shown asking.

“Like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many” pardons done as possible, Mr. Kushner said. “And I know him and the team were always saying, we are going to resign, we are not going to be there if this happened, if that happens. So I kind of took it up to be just whining, to be honest with you.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Carl Hulse
June 9, 2022, 9:06 p.m. ET

The riveting footage refutes the conspiracy theory that those who entered the Capitol were “waved through” by Capitol police and it was an ordinary tourist visit.

Emily Cochrane
June 9, 2022, 9:05 p.m. ET

On a personal note, the image of Capitol security pointing their guns at the shattered doors to the House chamber will always stay with me from that day. There were several people — staff, myself and other press, lawmakers — all in the upper gallery when rioters were trying to breach the House chamber.

Michael S. Schmidt
June 9, 2022, 9:02 p.m. ET

What we learned from the first part of the hearing’s opening.

At the first public hearing by a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, its chairman, Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and its vice chairwoman, Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, began with opening statements that painted the Jan. 6 attack as a brazen coup led by Donald J. Trump.

They depicted Mr. Trump as a craven autocrat who wanted to use a lie to remain in power, even as he was being told by aides and his attorney general that the election had not been stolen.

Here are some of the key moments from the first part of the hearing’s opening:

  • Mr. Thompson and Ms. Cheney played several video clips of Mr. Trump’s closest allies — including his attorney general, William P. Barr; his daughter Ivanka; Gen. Mark Milley, who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; former White House officials; and former campaign officials — making damaging statements that undermined Mr. Trump.

    “I told the president it was bullshit,” Mr. Barr said, referring to Mr. Trump’s claims. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”

  • Ms. Cheney said that in a series of hearings in the coming weeks the committee would lay out the range of ways that Mr. Trump and his allies tried to overturn the election results. All of this testimony, she said, will show how Mr. Trump was trying to “destroy” the U.S. government. She said that Mr. Trump was willing to foment lawless activity to stay in power, creating “a moment of maximum danger” for the republic.

  • In a preview of some of the new information the committee has uncovered, Ms. Cheney said the committee would show how the White House had intelligence that the protests on Jan. 6 could turn violent but did nothing. Ms. Cheney played audio of General Milley testifying that in the aftermath of the attacks, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, wanted him to push the false narrative that Mr. Trump was in charge and “things are steady or stable.”

  • After the opening statements, the committee played a roughly 10-minute video that showed on-the-ground footage of how the crowd massed at the Capitol, breached its outer perimeter, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police officers and stormed the building. The footage included a picture of the gallows that had been brought to the Capitol with protesters chanting in the background: “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT