[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]






 
                HEARING ON THE JANUARY 6TH INVESTIGATION

=======================================================================


                                HEARING

                               before the

                          SELECT COMMITTEE TO
                      INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH
                             ATTACK ON THE
                         UNITED STATES CAPITOL

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 12, 2022

                               __________

                            Serial No. 117-8

                               __________

Printed for the use of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 
                6th Attack on the United States Capitol
                                     


[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                     

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                               __________
                               
               U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
49-355 PDF             WASHINGTON : 2022                             
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               

 SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE UNITED 
                             STATES CAPITOL

               Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
                    Liz Cheney, Wyoming, Vice Chair
                        Zoe Lofgren, California
                       Adam B. Schiff, California
                        Pete Aguilar, California
                      Stephanie N. Murphy, Florida
                         Jamie Raskin, Maryland
                       Elaine G. Luria, Virginia
                        Adam Kinzinger, Illinois
                            COMMITTEE STAFF

                    David B. Buckley, Staff Director
      Kristin L. Amerling, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel
               Hope Goins, Senior Counsel to the Chairman
           Joseph B. Maher, Senior Counsel to the Vice Chair
             Timothy J. Heaphy, Chief Investigative Counsel
                      Jamie Fleet, Senior Advisor
               Timothy R. Mulvey, Communications Director
           Candyce Phoenix, Senior Counsel and Senior Advisor
 John F. Wood, Senior Investigative Counsel and Of Counsel to the Vice 
                                 Chair

Katherine B. Abrams, Staff              Thomas E. Joscelyn, Senior 
    Associate                           Professional Staff Member
Temidayo Aganga-Williams, Senior         Rebecca L. Knooihuizen, Financial 
    Investigative Counsel                       Investigator
Alejandra Apecechea, Investigative      Casey E. Lucier, Investigative 
    Counsel                                       Counsel
Lisa A. Bianco, Director of Member      Damon M. Marx, Professional Staff 
    Services and Security Manager                  Member
Jerome P. Bjelopera, Investigator       Evan B. Mauldin, Chief Clerk
Bryan Bonner, Investigative Counsel     Yonatan L. Moskowitz, Senior 
Richard R. Bruno, Senior                         Counsel
    Administrative Assistant            Hannah G. Muldavin, Deputy 
Marcus Childress, Investigative          Communications Director
    Counsel                            Jonathan D. Murray, Professional 
John Marcus Clark, Security                   Staff Member
    Director                           Jacob A. Nelson, Professional 
Jacqueline N. Colvett, Digital                Staff Member
    Director                           Elizabeth Obrand, Staff Associate
Heather I. Connelly, Professional        Raymond O'Mara, Director of 
    Staff Member                            External Affairs
Meghan E. Conroy, Investigator         Elyes Ouechtati, Technology 
Heather L. Crowell, Printer                     Partner
    Proofreader                        Robin M. Peguero, Investigative 
William C. Danvers, Senior                      Counsel
    Researcher                         Sandeep A. Prasanna, Investigative 
Soumyalatha Dayananda, Senior                   Counsel
    Investigative Counsel              Barry Pump, Parliamentarian
Stephen W. DeVine, Senior Counsel      Sean M. Quinn, Investigative 
Lawrence J. Eagleburger,                         Counsel
    Professional Staff Member          Brittany M. J. Record, Senior 
Kevin S. Elliker, Investigative                 Counsel
    Counsel                           Denver Riggleman, Senior Technical 
Margaret E. Emamzadeh, Staff                   Advisor
    Associate                         Joshua D. Roselman, Investigative 
Sadallah A. Farah, Professional                   Counsel
    Staff Member                       James N. Sasso, Senior 
Daniel A. George, Senior               Investigative Counsel
    Investigative Counsel              Grant H. Saunders, Professional 
Jacob H. Glick, Investigative             Staff Member
    Counsel                            Samantha O. Stiles, Chief 
Aaron S. Greene, Clerk                Administrative Officer
Marc S. Harris, Senior                Sean P. Tonolli, Senior 
    Investigative Counsel             Investigative Counsel
Alice K. Hayes, Clerk                 David A. Weinberg, Senior 
Quincy T. Henderson, Staff            Professional Staff Member
    Assistant                         Amanda S. Wick, Senior 
Jenna Hopkins, Professional Staff        Investigative Counsel
    Member                             Darrin L. Williams, Jr., Staff 
Camisha L. Johnson, Professional 
    Staff Member                         Assistant
                                         Zachary S. Wood, Clerk
         
 
                                         
                                     
                       CONTRACTORS & CONSULTANTS

                             Rawaa Alobaidi
                             Melinda Arons
                              Steve Baker
                            Elizabeth Bisbee
                              David Canady
                             John Coughlin
                             Aaron Dietzen
                              Gina Ferrise
                           Angel Goldsborough
                             James Goldston
                              Polly Grube
                          L. Christine Healey
                             Danny Holladay
                              Percy Howard
                              Dean Jackson
                           Stephanie J. Jones
                              Hyatt Mamoun
                               Mary Marsh
                               Todd Mason
                              Ryan Mayers
                              Jeff McBride
                               Fred Muram
                             Alex Newhouse
                              John Norton
                             Orlando Pinder
                               Owen Pratt
                              Dan Pryzgoda
                              Brian Sasser
                            William Scherer
                              Driss Sekkat
                              Chris Stuart
                            Preston Sullivan
                              Brian Young

                           Innovative Driven
                           
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               Statements

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Select Committee 
  to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States 
  Capitol........................................................     1
The Honorable Liz Cheney, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Wyoming, and Vice Chair, Select Committee to 
  Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol     2
The Honorable Stephanie N. Murphy, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Florida......................................     3
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Maryland..............................................     4

                               Witnesses

Mr. Jason Van Tatenhove, Former National Media Director for the 
  Oath Keepers...................................................    31
Mr. Stephen Ayres, January 6th Defendant.........................    32

                                Appendix

Prepared Statement of Jason Van Tatenhove, Former National Media 
  Director for the Oath Keepers..................................    43


                HEARING ON THE JANUARY 6TH INVESTIGATION

                              ----------                              


                         Tuesday, July 12, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives,
 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on 
                                 the United States Capitol,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:01 p.m., in 
room 390, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Bennie G. Thompson 
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Thompson, Cheney, Lofgren, Schiff, 
Aguilar, Murphy, Raskin, Luria, and Kinzinger.
    Chairman Thompson. The Select Committee to Investigate the 
January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will be in 
order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare the 
Committee in recess at any point.
    Pursuant to House Deposition Authority Regulation 10, the 
Chair announces the Committee's approval to release the 
deposition material presented during today's hearing.
    Good afternoon.
    When I think about the most basic way to explain the 
importance of elections in the United States, there is a phrase 
that always comes to mind. It may sound straightforward, but it 
is meaningful: We settle our differences at the ballot box.
    Sometimes my choice prevails; sometimes yours does. But it 
is that simple. We cast our votes. We count the votes. If 
something seems off with the results, we can challenge them in 
court. Then we accept the results.
    When you are on the losing side, that doesn't mean you have 
to be happy about it. In the United States, there is plenty you 
can do to say so. You can protest. You can organize. You can 
get ready for the next election to try to make sure your side 
has a better chance the next time the people settle their 
differences at the ballot box.
    But you can't turn violent. You can't try to achieve your 
desired outcome through force or harassment or intimidation.
    Any real leader who sees their supporters going down that 
path, approaching that line, has a responsibility to say, 
``Stop. We gave it our best. We came up short. We'll try again 
next time. Because we settle our differences at the ballot 
box.''
    On December 14, 2020, the Presidential election was 
officially over. The electoral college had cast its vote. Joe 
Biden was the President-elect of the United States.
    By that point, many of Donald Trump's supporters were 
already convinced that the election had been stolen, because 
that is what Donald Trump had been telling them. So what Donald 
Trump was required to do in that moment--what would have been 
required of any American leader--was to say, ``We did our best, 
and we came up short.''
    He went the opposite way. He seized on the anger he had 
already stoked among his most loyal supporters. As they 
approached the line, he didn't wave them off; he urged them on.
    Today, the Committee will explain how, as a part of his 
last-ditch effort to overturn the election and block the 
transfer of power, Donald Trump summoned a mob to Washington, 
DC, and ultimately spurred that mob to wage a violent attack on 
our democracy.
    Our colleagues Mrs. Murphy of Florida and Mr. Raskin of 
Maryland will lay out this story.
    First, I am pleased to recognize our distinguished Vice 
Chair, Ms. Cheney of Wyoming, for any opening comments she 
would care to offer.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Our Committee did not conduct a hearing last week, but we 
did conduct an on-the-record interview of President Trump's 
former White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone.
    If you have watched these hearings, you have heard us call 
for Mr. Cipollone to come forward to testify. He did. Mr. 
Cipollone's testimony met our expectations.
    We will save for our next hearing President Trump's 
behavior during the violence of January 6th. Today's hearing 
will take us from December 14, 2020, when the electoral college 
met and certified the results of the 2020 Presidential 
election, up through the morning of January 6th.
    You will see certain segments of Pat Cipollone's testimony 
today. We will also see today how President Trump summoned a 
mob to Washington and how the President's ``stolen election'' 
lies provoked that mob to attack the Capitol. We will hear from 
a man who was induced by President Trump's lies to come to 
Washington and join the mob and how that decision has changed 
his life.
    Today's hearing is our seventh. We have covered significant 
ground over the past several weeks. We have also seen a change 
in how witnesses and lawyers in the Trump orbit approach this 
Committee.
    Initially, their strategy in some cases appeared to be to 
deny and delay. Today, there appears to be a general 
recognition that the Committee has established key facts, 
including that virtually everyone close to President Trump--his 
Justice Department officials, his White House advisors, his 
White House Counsel, his campaign--all told him the 2020 
election was not stolen.
    This appears to have changed the strategy for defending 
Donald Trump. Now the argument seems to be that President Trump 
was manipulated by others outside the administration, that he 
was persuaded to ignore his closest advisors, and that he was 
incapable of telling right from wrong.
    This new strategy is to try to blame only John Eastman or 
Sidney Powell or Congressman Scott Perry or others and not 
President Trump. In this version, the President was ``poorly 
served'' by these outside advisors. The strategy is to blame 
people his advisors called ``the crazies'' for what Donald 
Trump did.
    This, of course, is nonsense.
    President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an 
impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, 
he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.
    As our investigation has shown, Donald Trump had access to 
more detailed and specific information showing that the 
election was not actually stolen than almost any other 
American, and he was told this over and over again.
    No rational or sane man in his position could disregard 
that information and reach the opposite conclusion. Donald 
Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind. 
Nor can any argument of any kind excuse President Trump's 
behavior during the violent attack on January 6th.
    As you watch our hearing today, I would urge you to keep 
your eye on two specific points.
    First, you will see evidence that Trump's legal team, led 
by Rudy Giuliani, knew that they lacked actual evidence of 
wide-spread fraud sufficient to prove that the election was 
actually stolen. They knew it. But they went ahead with January 
6th anyway.
    Second, consider how millions of American were persuaded to 
believe what Donald Trump's closest advisors in his 
administration did not. These Americans did not have access to 
the truth like Donald Trump did. They put their faith and their 
trust in Donald Trump. They wanted to believe in him. They 
wanted to fight for their country. He deceived them.
    For millions of Americans, that may be painful to accept, 
but it is true.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Without objection, the Chair recognizes 
the gentlewoman from Florida, Mrs. Murphy, and the gentleman 
from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, for opening statements.
    Mrs. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that then-President 
Donald Trump lost in a free and fair election. Yet President 
Trump insisted that his loss was due to fraud in the election 
process rather than to the democratic will of the voters.
    The President continued to make this claim despite being 
told again and again--by the courts, by the Justice Department, 
by his campaign officials, and by some of his closest 
advisors--that the evidence did not support this assertion.
    This was the Big Lie, and millions of Americans were 
deceived by it. Too many of our fellow citizens still believe 
it to this day. It is corrosive to our country and damaging to 
our democracy.
    As our Committee has shown in prior hearings, following the 
election, President Trump relentlessly pursued multiple, 
interlocking lines of effort, all with a single goal: To remain 
in power despite having lost.
    The lines of effort were aimed at his loyal Vice President, 
Mike Pence; at State election and elected officials; and at the 
U.S. Department of Justice.
    The President pressured the Vice President to obstruct the 
process to certify the election result. He demanded that State 
officials ``find'' him enough votes to overturn the election 
outcome in that State. And he pressed the Department of Justice 
to find wide-spread evidence of fraud. When Justice officials 
told the President that such evidence did not exist, the 
President urged them to simply declare that the election was 
corrupt.
    On December 14th, the electoral college met to officially 
confirm that Joe Biden would be the next President.
    The evidence shows that, once this occurred, President 
Trump and those who were willing to aid and abet him turned 
their attention to the joint session of Congress scheduled for 
January 6th, at which the Vice President would preside.
    In their warped view, this ceremonial event was the next, 
and perhaps the last, inflection point that could be used to 
reverse the outcome of the election before Mr. Biden's 
inauguration. As President Trump put it, the Vice President and 
enough Members of Congress simply needed to summon the 
``courage'' to act.
    To help them find that courage, the President called for 
backup. Early in the morning of December 19th, the President 
sent out a tweet urging his followers to travel to Washington, 
DC, for January 6th. ``Be there, will be wild!'' the President 
wrote. As my colleague Mr. Raskin will describe in detail, this 
tweet served as a call to action and, in some cases, as a call 
to arms for many of President Trump's most loyal supporters.
    It is clear the President intended the assembled crowd on 
January 6th to serve his goal. As you have already seen and as 
you will see again today, some of those who were coming had 
specific plans. The President's goal was to stay in power for a 
second term despite losing the election. The assembled crowd 
was one of the tools to achieve that goal.
    In today's hearing, we will focus on events that took place 
in the final weeks leading up to January 6th, starting in mid-
December. We will add color and context to evidence you have 
already heard about, and we will also provide additional new 
evidence.
    For example, you will hear about meetings in which the 
President entertained extreme measures designed to help him 
stay in power, like the seizure of voting machines.
    We will show some of the coordination that occurred between 
the White House and Members of Congress as it relates to 
January 6th. Some of these Members of Congress would later seek 
pardons.
    We will also examine some of the planning for the January 
6th protest, placing special emphasis on one rally planner's 
concerns about the potential violence.
    We will describe some of the President's key actions on the 
evening of January 5th and the morning of January 6th, 
including how the President edited and ad-libbed his speech 
that morning at the Ellipse, directed the crowd to march to the 
Capitol, and spoke off-script in a way that further inflamed an 
already angry crowd.
    I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mrs. Murphy.
    Mr. Chairman, Madam Vice Chair, four days after the 
electors met across the country and made Joe Biden the 
President-elect, Donald Trump was still trying to find a way to 
hang on to the Presidency.
    On Friday, December 18th, his team of outside advisors paid 
him a surprise visit in the White House that would quickly 
become the stuff of legend. The meeting has been called 
``unhinged,'' ``not normal,'' and the ``craziest meeting of the 
Trump Presidency.''
    The outside lawyers who had been involved in dozens of 
failed lawsuits had lots of theories supporting the Big Lie but 
no evidence to support it. As we will see, however, they 
brought to the White House a draft Executive Order that they 
had prepared for President Trump to further his ends.
    Specifically, they proposed the immediate mass seizure of 
State election machines by the U.S. military. The meeting ended 
after midnight with apparent rejection of that idea.
    In the wee hours of December 19th, dissatisfied with his 
options, Donald Trump decided to call for a large and ``wild'' 
crowd on Wednesday, January 6th, the day when Congress would 
meet to certify the electoral votes.
    Never before in American history had a President called for 
a crowd to come contest the counting of electoral votes by 
Congress or engaged in any effort designed to influence, delay, 
or obstruct the joint session of Congress in doing its work 
required by our Constitution and the Electoral Count Act.
    As we will see, Donald Trump's 1:42 a.m. tweet electrified 
and galvanized his supporters, especially the dangerous 
extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and other 
racist and White nationalist groups spoiling for a fight 
against the Government.
    Three rings of interwoven attack were now operating toward 
January 6th. On the inside ring, Trump continued trying to work 
to overturn the election by getting Mike Pence to abandon his 
oath of office as Vice President and assert the unilateral 
power to reject electoral votes. This would have been a 
fundamental and unprecedented breach of the Constitution that 
would promise Trump multiple ways of staying in office.
    Meanwhile, in the middle ring, members of domestic violent 
extremist groups created an alliance, both online and in 
person, to coordinate a massive effort to storm, invade, and 
occupy the Capitol. By placing a target on the joint session of 
Congress, Trump had mobilized these groups around a common 
goal, emboldening them, strengthening their working 
relationships, and helping build their numbers.
    Finally, in the outer ring, on January 6th there assembled 
a large and angry crowd--the political force that Trump 
considered both the touchstone and the measure of his political 
power. Here were thousands of enraged Trump followers, 
thoroughly convinced by the Big Lie, who traveled from across 
the country to join Trump's ``wild'' rally to ``stop the 
steal.''
    With the proper incitement by political leaders and the 
proper instigation from the extremists, many members of this 
crowd could be led to storm the Capitol, confront the Vice 
President and Congress, and try to overturn the 2020 election 
results.
    All of these efforts would converge and explode on January 
the 6th.
    Mr. Chairman, as you know better than any other Member of 
this Committee from the wrenching struggle for voting rights in 
your beloved Mississippi, the problem of politicians whipping 
up mob violence to destroy fair elections is the oldest 
domestic enemy of constitutional democracy in America.
    Abraham Lincoln knew it too. In 1837, a racist mob in 
Alton, Illinois, broke into the offices of an abolitionist 
newspaper and killed its editor, Elijah Lovejoy.
    Lincoln wrote a speech in which he said that no ``trans-
Atlantic military giant'' could ever crush us as a Nation, even 
with all of the fortunes in the world. But if downfall ever 
comes to America, he said, we ourselves would be its ``author 
and finisher.''
    If racist mobs are encouraged by politicians to rampage and 
terrorize, Lincoln said, they will violate the rights of other 
citizens and quickly destroy the bonds of social trust 
necessary for democracy to work. Mobs and demagogues will put 
us on a path to political tyranny, Lincoln said.
    As we will see today, this very old problem has returned 
with new ferocity today, as a President who lost an election 
deployed a mob, which included dangerous extremists, to attack 
the constitutional system of election and the peaceful transfer 
of power.
    As we will see, the creation of the internet and social 
media has given today's tyrants tools of propaganda and 
disinformation that yesterday's despots could only have dreamed 
of.
    I yield back to the gentlewoman of Florida, Mrs. Murphy.
    Mrs. Murphy. Article II of the United States Constitution 
establishes the electoral college. Each State's laws provide 
that electors are to be chosen by a popular vote. On December 
14, 2020, electors met in all 50 States and the District of 
Columbia to cast their votes.
    Joseph Biden won by a margin of 306 to 232. The election 
was over. Mr. Biden was the President-elect.
    Before the electoral college met, Donald Trump and his 
allies filed dozens of legal challenges to the election, but 
they lost over and over again, including in front of multiple 
judges President Trump had nominated to the bench.
    In many of these cases, the judges were highly critical of 
the arguments put forward, explaining that no genuine evidence 
of wide-spread fraud had been presented.
    For example, a Federal judge in Pennsylvania said:

[T]his Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without 
merit and speculative accusations . . . unsupported by evidence. In the 
United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of 
a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated 
State.

    On December 15th, after the electoral college certified the 
outcome, the Republican Majority leader in the Senate 
acknowledged Mr. Biden's victory.

    Senator McConnell. Yesterday, electors met in all 50 States. So as 
of this morning, our country has officially a President-elect and a 
Vice President-elect. Many millions of us had hoped the Presidential 
election would yield a different result. But our system of government 
has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20th. 
The electoral college has spoken. So today, I want to congratulate 
President-elect Joe Biden.

    Mrs. Murphy. Even members of President Trump's Cabinet and 
his White House staff understood the significance of his losses 
in the courts and the absence of evidence of fraud. They also 
respected the constitutional certification by the electoral 
college.
    Many of them told President Trump that it was time to 
concede the election to Mr. Biden. For example, then-Secretary 
of Labor Gene Scalia, an accomplished lawyer and the son of 
late Justice Scalia, called President Trump in mid-December and 
advised him to concede and accept the rulings of the courts.

    Secretary Scalia. So, I had to put a call into the President. I 
might have called on the 13th. We spoke, I believe, on the 14th, in 
which I conveyed to him that I thought that it was time for him to 
acknowledge that President Biden had prevailed in the election.
    But I communicated to the President that when that legal process is 
exhausted and when the electors have voted, that that's the point at 
which that outcome needs to be expected.
    I told him that I did believe yes, that once those legal processes 
were run, if fraud had not been established that had affected the 
outcome of the election, then unfortunately, I believed that what had 
to be done was concede the outcome.

    Mrs. Murphy. As you have seen in prior hearings, President 
Trump's Justice Department, his White House staff, and his 
campaign officials were repeatedly telling him that there was 
no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 
election.
    Last week, we conducted an 8-hour interview with President 
Trump's White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone. You will see a 
number of excerpts of that interview today and even more in our 
next hearing.
    Mr. Cipollone told us that he agreed with the testimony 
that there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn the 
election.

    Mr. Heaphy. I want to start by asking if you agree, Mr. Cipollone, 
with the conclusions of Matt Morgan and Bill Barr, of all of the 
individuals who evaluated those claims, that there is no evidence of 
election fraud sufficient to undermine the outcome in any particular 
State?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes, I agree with that.

    Mrs. Murphy. Mr. Cipollone also specifically testified that 
he believed that Donald Trump should have conceded the 
election.

    Mr. Heaphy. Did you believe, Mr. Cipollone, that the President 
should concede once you made the determination based on the 
investigations that you credited--DOJ did. Did you in your mind form 
the belief that the President should concede the election loss at a 
certain point after the election?
    Mr. Cipollone. Well, again, I was the White House Counsel. Some of 
those decisions are political. So, to the extent that--but--but if your 
question is, Did I believe he should concede the election at a point in 
time? Yes, I did.
    I believe Leader McConnell went on to the floor of the Senate, I 
believe in late December, and basically said, you know, the process is 
done. You know, that would be in line with my thinking on these things.

    Mrs. Murphy. As Attorney General Bill Barr testified, 
December 14th should have been the end of the matter.

    Attorney General Barr. December 14th was the day that the States 
certified their votes and sent them to Congress. And in my view, that 
was the end of the matter. I didn't see--you know, I thought that this 
would lead inexorably to a new administration.

    Mrs. Murphy. Mr. Cipollone also testified that the 
President's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said he shared this 
view.

    Mr. Heaphy. As early as that November 23rd meeting, we understand 
that there was discussion about the President possibly conceding the 
election. And specifically, we understand that Mark Meadows assured 
both you and Attorney General Barr that the President would eventually 
agree to a graceful exit. Do you remember Mr. Meadows making any such 
representation?
    Mr. Cipollone. Are you saying as part of that meeting or 
separately? Again, without--without getting into that meeting, I would 
say that that is a--that is a statement and a sentiment that I heard 
from Mark Meadows.
    Mr. Heaphy. I see. And again, do you know if it was on November 
23rd or some point?
    Mr. Cipollone. Again, I--it was probably, you know, around that 
time and it was probably subsequent to that time. It wasn't a one-time 
statement.

    Mrs. Murphy. Mr. Meadows has refused to testify, and the 
Committee is in litigation with him. But many other White House 
officials shared the view that, once the litigation ended and 
the electoral college met, the election was over.
    Here is President Trump's former press secretary.

    Vice Chair Cheney. I wanted to clarify, Ms. McEnany, so back to my 
previous question. It was your view then--or was it your view that the 
efforts to overturn the election should have stopped once the 
litigation was complete?
    Ms. McEnany. In my view, upon the conclusion of litigation was when 
I began to plan for life after the administration.

    Mrs. Murphy. This is what Ivanka Trump told us.

    Mr. Heaphy. December 14th was the day on which the electoral 
college met, when these electors around the country met and cast the 
electoral votes consistent with the--the popular vote in each State. 
And--and it was obviously a public proceeding or a series of 
proceedings that President Biden had obtained the requisite number of 
electors. Was that an important day for you? Did that affect sort-of 
your planning or your realization as to whether or not there was going 
to be an end of this administration?
    Ms. Trump. I think so. I think it was my--my sentiment probably 
prior as well.

    Mrs. Murphy. Judd Deere was a White House deputy press 
secretary. This was his testimony about what he told President 
Trump.

    Mr. Deere. I told him that my personal viewpoint was that the 
electoral college had met, which is the system that our country is--is 
set under to elect a President and Vice President. And I believed at 
that point that the means for him to pursue litigation was probably 
closed.
    Mr. Wood. And do you recall what his response, if any, was?
    Mr. Deere. He disagreed.

    Mrs. Murphy. We have also seen this testimony from Attorney 
General Barr reflecting a view of the White House staff in late 
November 2020.

    Attorney General Barr. And then at that point I left. And as I 
walked out of the Oval Office, Jared was there with Dan Scavino, who 
ran his--ran the President's social media and who I thought was a 
reasonable guy and believe is a reasonable guy. And I said, how long 
is--how long is he going to carry on with this stolen election stuff? 
Where is this going to go?
    And by that time, Meadows had caught up with me and--leaving the 
office, and caught up to me and--and said that--he said, ``Look, I--I 
think that he's becoming more realistic and knows that there's a limit 
to how far he can take this.'' And then Jared said, ``You know, yeah, 
we're working on this. We're working on it.''

    Mrs. Murphy. Likewise, in this testimony, Cassidy 
Hutchinson, an aide to Mark Meadows, described her 
conversations with President Trump's Director of National 
Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, a former Republican Congressman.

    Ms. Hutchinson. He had expressed that he was concerned that it 
could spiral out of control and potentially be dangerous, either for 
our democracy or the way that things were going for the 6th.

    Mrs. Murphy. Of course, underlying all of this is the 
fundamental principle that the President of the United States 
cannot simply disregard the rulings of State and Federal 
courts, which are empowered to address specific election-
related claims. The President cannot simply pretend that the 
courts had not ruled.

    Vice Chair Cheney. By that time, the President or his associates 
had brought--had lost 60 out of 61 cases that they had brought to 
challenge different aspects of the election in a number of States. They 
lost 60 out of 61 of those cases. So, by the time we get to January 
3rd, that's--that's been clear. I assume, Pat, that you would agree the 
President is--is obligated to abide by the rulings of the courts.
    Mr. Cipollone. Of course.
    Vice Chair Cheney. And I assume you also----
    Mr. Cipollone. Everybody is obligated to abide by rulings of 
courts.
    Vice Chair Cheney. And I assume you also would agree the President 
has a particular obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed.
    Mr. Cipollone. That is one of the President's obligations, correct.

    Mrs. Murphy. Yet President Trump disregarded these court 
rulings and the counsel from his closest advisors and continued 
his efforts to cling to power.
    In our prior hearings, you have heard considerable 
testimony about President Trump's attempts to corruptly 
pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral 
votes, to corrupt the Department of Justice, to pressure State 
officials and State legislatures, and to create and submit a 
series of fake electoral slates.
    Now we will show you what other actions President Trump was 
taking between December 14, 2020, and January 6th.
    I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mrs. Murphy.
    Throughout our hearings, you have heard how President Trump 
made baseless claims that voting machines were being 
manipulated by foreign powers in the 2020 election.
    You have also heard Trump's Attorney General, Bill Barr, 
describe such claims as ``complete nonsense,'' which he told 
the President. Let's review that testimony.

    Attorney General Barr. I saw absolutely zero basis for the 
allegations. But they were made in such a sensational way that they 
obviously were influencing a lot of people--members of the public--that 
there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes 
didn't count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were 
actually determining it, which was complete nonsense.
    And it was being laid out there. And I told them that it was--it 
was crazy stuff, and they were wasting their time on that. And it was 
doing a great, grave disservice to the country.

    Mr. Raskin. We have learned that President Trump's White 
House Counsel agreed with the Department of Justice about this.

    Mr. Heaphy. Attorney General Barr made a public announcement on 
December 1st, less than a month after the election, that he had seen no 
systemic fraud sufficient to undermine the outcome of the election. Is 
it fair to say that by December 1st, you had reached the same 
conclusion?
    Mr. Cipollone. It's fair to say that I agreed with Attorney 
General's--Attorney General Barr's conclusion on December 1st. Yes, I 
did. And I supported that conclusion.

    Mr. Raskin. However, the strong rejection of the Attorney 
General and the White House Counsel of these claims did not 
stop the President from trying to press them in public.
    But that is not all they did. Indeed, as you will see in 
this clip, the President asked Attorney General Bill Barr to 
have the Department of Justice seize voting machines in the 
States.

    Attorney General Barr. My recollection is the President said 
something like, ``Well, we could get to the bottom--you know, some 
people say we could get to the bottom of this if--if the Department 
seizes the machines.'' It was a typical way of raising a point. And I 
said, absolutely not. There's no probable cause, and I'm not going to 
seize any machines. And that was that.
    Mr. Heaphy. Yeah.

    Mr. Raskin. But this wasn't the end of the matter. On the 
evening of December 18, 2020, Sidney Powell, General Michael 
Flynn, and others entered the White House for an unplanned 
meeting with the President--the meeting that would last 
multiple hours and become hot-blooded and contentious.
    The Executive Order behind me on the screen was drafted on 
December the 16th, just 2 days after the electoral college 
vote, by several of the President's outside advisors over a 
luncheon at the Trump International Hotel.
    As you can see here, this proposed order directs the 
Secretary of Defense to seize voting machines ``effective 
immediately.''
    But it goes even further than that.
    Under the order, President Trump would appoint a Special 
Counsel with the power to seize machines and then charge people 
with crimes, with ``all resources necessary to carry out her 
duties.''
    The specific plan was to name Sidney Powell as Special 
Counsel, the Trump lawyer who had spent the post-election 
period making outlandish claims about Venezuelan and Chinese 
interference in the election, among others.
    Here is what White House Counsel Pat Cipollone had to say 
about Sidney Powell's qualifications to take on such expansive 
authority.

    Mr. Cipollone. I don't think Sidney--Sidney Powell would say that I 
thought it was a good idea to appoint her Special Counsel. I was 
vehemently opposed--I didn't think she should have been appointed to 
anything.

    Mr. Raskin. Sidney Powell told the President that these 
steps were justified because of her evidence of foreign 
interference in the 2020 election. However, as we have seen, 
Trump's allies had no such evidence and, of course, no legal 
authority for the Federal Government to seize State voting 
machines.
    Here is Mr. Cipollone again denouncing Sidney Powell's 
``terrible idea.''

    Mr. Cipollone. There was a real question in my mind and a real 
concern, you know, particularly after the Attorney General had reached 
a conclusion that there wasn't sufficient election fraud to change the 
outcome of the election when other people kept suggesting that there 
was. The answer is, what is it? And at some point, you have to put up 
or shut up. That was my view.
    Mr. Heaphy. Why was this, on a broader scale, a bad idea for the 
country?
    Mr. Cipollone. To have the Federal Government seize voting 
machines? That's a terrible idea for the country. That's not how we do 
things in the United States. There's no legal authority to do that. And 
there is a way to contest elections. You know, that--that happens all 
the time. But the idea that the Federal Government could come in and 
seize election machines, no. That--that's--I don't--I don't understand 
why we even have to tell you why that's a bad idea for the country. 
It's a terrible idea.

    Mr. Raskin. For all of its absurdity, the December 18th 
meeting was critically important, because President Trump got 
to watch up close for several hours as his White House Counsel 
and other White House lawyers destroyed the baseless factual 
claims and ridiculous legal arguments being offered by Sidney 
Powell, Mike Flynn, and others.
    President Trump now knew all these claims were nonsense, 
not just from his able White House lawyers but also from his 
own Department of Justice officials and, indeed, his own 
campaign officials.
    As White House Counsel Cipollone told us:

    Mr. Cipollone. With respect to the whole election fraud issue, it 
to me is sort of if you're going to make those kind of claims--and 
people were open to them early on because people were making all sorts 
of claims. And the real question is: show the evidence. Okay?

    Mr. Raskin. It wasn't just the Justice Department, the 
Trump Campaign, and the Trump White House lawyers who knew it. 
Even Rudy Giuliani's own legal team admitted that they did not 
have any real evidence of fraud sufficient to change the 
election result.
    Here is an email from Rudy Giuliani's lead investigator, 
Bernie Kerik, on December 28, 2020, to Chief of Staff Mark 
Meadows. Mr. Kerik did not mince any words. ``We can do all the 
investigations we want later, but if the President plans on 
winning, it's the legislators that have to be moved, and this 
will do just that.''
    Mr. Kerik wanted the President to win. What he didn't say 
in this email was what he would later tell the Select Committee 
in a letter that his lawyer wrote to us in November.
    The letter said, ``It was impossible for Mr. Kerik and his 
team to determine conclusively whether there was wide-spread 
fraud or whether that wide-spread fraud would have altered the 
outcome of the election.''
    In other words, even Rudy Giuliani's own legal team knew 
before January 6th that they hadn't collected enough actual 
evidence to support any of their ``stolen election'' claims.
    Here is what Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Jason Miller 
told the Committee about some of the so-called evidence of 
fraud that the campaign had seen from the Giuliani team.

    Mr. George. So do you know what the examples of fraud--numbers, 
names, and supporting evidence--was that you sent to Mo Brooks's 
office. And when I say you, I mean you or the campaign.
    Mr. Jason Miller. There are some very, very general documents as 
far as--as far as, say, for example, here are the handful of dead 
people in several different States. Here are explanations on a couple 
of the legal challenges as far as the saying that the--the rules were 
changed an unconstitutional manner. But it was--to say that it was spin 
is--is probably an understatement.

    Mr. Raskin. Here is how President Trump's deputy campaign 
manager described the evidence of fraud that the campaign had 
seen.

    Ms. Lucier. You never came to learn or understand that Mayor 
Giuliani had--had produced evidence of election fraud. Is that fair?
    Mr. Justin Clark. That's fair.

    Mr. Raskin. Here is testimony that we received from the 
speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers, 
about an exchange that he had with Rudy Giuliani after the 
election.

    Mr. Schiff. At some point, did one of them make a comment that they 
didn't have evidence but they had a lot of theories?
    Mr. Bowers. That was Mr. Giuliani.

    Mr. Raskin. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told people that he 
thought Trump should concede around the time the electoral 
college certified the result. But, nonetheless, he later worked 
to try to facilitate President Trump's wishes.
    Here is what Cassidy Hutchinson told us.

    Ms. Hutchinson. During this period, he--I perceived his goal with 
all of this to keep Trump in office. You know, he had very seriously 
and deeply considered the allegations of voter fraud. But when he began 
acknowledging that maybe there wasn't enough voter fraud to overturn 
the election, you know, I--I witnessed him start to explore potential 
constitutional loopholes more extensively, which I then connected with 
John Eastman's theories.

    Mr. Raskin. The startling conclusion is this: Even an 
agreed-upon complete lack of evidence could not stop President 
Trump, Mark Meadows, and their allies from trying to overturn 
the results of a free and fair election.
    So, let's return to that meeting at the White House on the 
evening of December 18th. That night, a group showed up at the 
White House, including Sidney Powell, retired Lieutenant 
General Michael Flynn, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick 
Byrne.
    After gaining access to the building from a junior White 
House staffer, the group made their way to the Oval Office. 
They were able to speak with the President by himself for some 
time until White House officials learned of the meeting.
    What ensued was a heated and profane clash between this 
group and President Trump's White House advisors, who traded 
personal insults, accusations of disloyalty to the President, 
and even challenges to physically fight.
    The meeting would last over 6 hours, beginning here in the 
Oval Office, moving around the West Wing, and many hours later 
ending up in the President's private residence.
    The Select Committee has spoken with six of the 
participants, as well as staffers who could hear the screaming 
from outside the Oval Office. What took place next is best told 
in their own words, as you will see from this video.

    Mr. Harris. Did you believe that it was going to work, that you 
were going be able to get to see the President without an appointment?
    Ms. Powell. I had no idea.
    Mr. Harris. In fact, you did get to see the President without an 
appointment.
    Ms. Powell. We did.
    Mr. Harris. How much time did you have alone with the President? I 
say alone, you had other people with you----
    Ms. Powell. Right.
    Mr. Harris [continuing]. But, I think from his aides before the 
crowd came running.
    Ms. Powell. Probably no more than 10 or 15 minutes.
    Mr. Harris. Was in that----
    Ms. Powell [continuing]. I bet Pat Cipollone set a new land speed 
record.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. I got a call either from Molly or from Eric 
Herschmann that I needed to get to the Oval Office.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Hutchinson. So that was the first point that I had recognized, 
okay, there is nobody in there from the White House. Mark's gone. 
What's going on right now.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. I opened the door, and I walked in. I saw General 
Flynn; I saw Sidney Powell sitting there. [ . . . ]
    I was not happy to see the people who were in the Oval Office.
    Mr. Heaphy. Explain why.
    Mr. Cipollone. Well, again, I--I don't think they were providing--
well, first of all, the Overstock person I--I've never met--never. I 
never knew who this guy was. Actually, the first thing I did, I walked 
in, I looked at him, and I said, who are you? And he told me. I don't 
think--I don't think any of these people were providing the President 
with good advice. And so, I--I--I didn't understand how they had gotten 
in.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Harris. In the short period of time that you had with the 
President, did he seem receptive to the presentation that you were 
making?
    Ms. Powell. He was very interested in hearing particularly about 
the CISA findings and the terms of 13848 that apparently nobody else 
had bothered to inform him of.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Herschmann. And I was asking, like, are you're claiming the 
Democrats were working with Hugo Chavez, Venezuelans, and whomever 
else. And at one point, General Flynn took out a diagram that 
supposedly showed IP addresses all over the world. And--or ISP--who 
was--who was communicating with whom via the machines and some comment 
about like Nest thermostats being hooked up to the internet.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. George. So, it's been reported that during this meeting Ms. 
Powell talked about Dominion voting machines and made various election 
fraud claims that involve foreign countries such as Venezuela, Iran, 
and China. Is that accurate?
    General Flynn. The Fifth.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. George. Was the meeting tense?
    Mr. Lyons. Oh yeah. I--it was not a casual meeting.
    Mr. George. Explain.
    Mr. Lyons. I mean, at times, there were people shouting at each 
other, hurling insults at each other. It wasn't just sort of people 
sitting around on the couch like chit-chatting.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Lucier. Do you recall whether he raised to Ms. Powell the fact 
that she and the campaign had lost all of the 60 cases that they had 
brought in litigation?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes. He raised that.
    Ms. Lucier. And what was the response?
    Mr. Cipollone. I don't remember what she said. I don't think it was 
a good response.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Powell. Cipollone and Herschmann and whoever the other guy was 
showed nothing but contempt and disdain of the President.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. I remember the three of them were really sort-of 
forcefully attacking me verbally. Eric, Derek, and we were pushing 
back, and we were asking one simple question as a--as a general matter: 
Where is the evidence? So----
    Mr. Heaphy. What response did you get when you asked Ms. Powell and 
her colleagues where's the evidence?
    Mr. Cipollone. A variety of responses based on my current 
recollection including, you know, I can't believe you would say 
something, like, you know, things like this. Like, ``What do you mean 
where's the evidence? You should know.'' Yeah, I--things like that or, 
you know, a disregard, I would say, a general disregard for the 
importance of actually backing up what you say with facts.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Lyons. And, you know, then there was discussion of, well, you 
know, we don't have it now, but we will have it or whatever.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Powell. I mean, if--if it had been me sitting in his chair, I 
would have fired all of `em that night and had `em escorted out of the 
building.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Herschmann. Which Derek and I both challenged what she was 
saying. And she says, ``Well, the judges are corrupt.'' And I was like, 
every one? Every single case that you've done in the country you guys 
lost, every one of them is corrupt? Even the ones we appointed? And 
[inaudible] I'm being nice. I was much more harsh to her.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Apecechea. So, one of the other things that's been reported 
that was said during this meeting was that President Trump told White 
House lawyers, Mr. Herschmann and Mr. Cipollone, that they weren't 
offering him any solutions, but Ms. Powell and others were. So, why not 
try what Ms. Powell and others were proposing? Do you remember anything 
along those lines being said by President Trump?
    Mr. Lyons. I do. That sounds right.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Herschmann. I think that it got to the point where the 
screaming was completely, completely out there. [ . . . ]
    I mean, you had people walk in, it was late at night, had been a 
long day. And what they were proposing, I thought, was nuts.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Giuliani. I'm gonna--I'm gonna categorically describe it as: 
You guys are not tough enough. Or maybe I put it another way: You're a 
bunch of pussies. Excuse the expression, but that--that's I--I'm almost 
certain the word was used.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Herschmann. Flynn screamed at me that I was a quitter and 
everything, kept on standing up and turning around and screaming at me. 
And at a certain point, I had it with him. So, I yelled back: Better 
come over, better sit your F'ing ass back down.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Giuliani. The President and the White House team went upstairs 
to the residence, but to the public part of the residence. You know, 
the big--the big parlor where you can have meetings in the conference 
room.
    Mr. Harris. Yellow oval. They call that the yellow oval.
    Mr. Giuliani. Yes, exactly. The yellow oval office. I always called 
it the upper. And I'm not exactly sure where the Sidney group went. I 
think maybe the Roosevelt Room. And I stayed in the Cabinet Room, which 
is kind of cool. I really liked that, all my--all by myself.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Lyons. At the end of the day, we landed where we started the 
meeting, at least from a structural standpoint, which was Sidney Powell 
was fighting. Mike Flynn was fighting. They were looking for avenues 
that would enable--that would result in President Trump remaining 
President Trump for a second term.

    Mr. Raskin. The meeting finally ended after midnight.
    Here are text messages sent by Cassidy Hutchinson during 
and after the meeting.
    As you can see, Ms. Hutchinson reported that the meeting in 
the West Wing was ``unhinged.''
    The meeting finally broke up after midnight, during the 
early morning of December 19th. Cassidy Hutchinson captured the 
moment of Mark Meadows escorting Rudy Giuliani off the White 
House grounds to ``make sure he didn't wander back to the 
mansion.''
    Certain accounts of this meeting indicate that President 
Trump actually granted Ms. Powell a security clearance and 
appointed her to a somewhat-ill-defined position of Special 
Counsel.

    Ms. Powell. He asked Pat Cipollone if he had the authority to name 
a Special Counsel, and he said yes. And then he asked him if he had the 
authority to give me whatever security clearance I needed, and Pat 
Cipollone said yes. And then the President said, ``Okay, you know, I'm 
naming her that, and I'm giving her security clearance.'' And then 
shortly before we left and it totally blew up, that's when Cipollone 
and/or Herschmann and whoever the other young man was said, ``You can 
name her whatever you want to name her, and no one's going to pay any 
attention to it.''
    Mr. Harris. How did he respond? How did the President respond to 
that?
    Ms. Powell. Something like, ``You see what I deal with. I deal with 
this all the time.''

    Mr. Raskin. Over the ensuing days, no further steps were 
taken to appoint Sidney Powell. But there is some ambiguity 
about what the President actually said and did during the 
meeting.
    Here is how Pat Cipollone described it.

    Mr. Cipollone. I don't know what her understanding of whether she 
had been appointed, what she had been appointed to, okay? In my view, 
she hadn't been appointed to anything and ultimately wasn't appointed 
to anything, because there had to be other steps taken. And that was my 
view when I left the meeting. But she may have a different view, and 
others may have a different view, and--and the President may have a 
different view.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Were any steps taken, including the President 
himself telling her she'd been appointed?
    Mr. Cipollone. Again, I'm not going to get into what the President 
said in the meeting. You know, my recollection is you're not appointed 
even--you're not appointed until--until steps are taken to get the 
paperwork done, get--and when I left the meeting, okay--I guess--I 
guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not going to get into what the 
President said or want--said he wanted.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Cipollone, when the matter continued to flare up 
over the next several days, was it your understanding that Sidney 
Powell was still seeking an appointment or that she was asserting that 
she had been appointed by the President at the December 18th meeting?
    Mr. Cipollone. You know, now that you mention it, probably both, 
you know, in--in terms of like I think she was--I think she may have 
been of the view that she had been appointed and was seeking to, you 
know, get--get that done, and--and--and that she should be appointed.

    Mr. Raskin. As you listen to these clips, remember that Ms. 
Powell, the person who President Trump tried to make Special 
Counsel, was ultimately sanctioned by a Federal court and sued 
by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation. In her own defense 
to that lawsuit, Sidney Powell argued that ``no reasonable 
person would conclude that the statements were truly statements 
of fact.''
    Not long after Sidney Powell, General Flynn, and Rudy 
Giuliani left the White House in the early hours of the 
morning, President Trump turned away from both his outside 
advisors' most outlandish and unworkable schemes and his White 
House Counsel's advice to swallow hard and accept the reality 
of his loss. Instead, Donald Trump issued a tweet that would 
galvanize his followers, unleash a political firestorm, and 
change the course of our history as a country.
    Trump's purpose was to mobilize a crowd. How do you 
mobilize a crowd in 2020? With millions of followers on 
Twitter, President Trump knew exactly how to do it.
    At 1:42 a.m. on December 19, 2020, shortly after the last 
participants left the unhinged meeting, Trump sent out the 
tweet with his explosive invitation.
    Trump repeated his Big Lie and claimed it was 
``statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election'' 
before calling for a ``Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be 
there, will be wild!''
    Trump supporters responded immediately.
    Women for America First, a pro-Trump organizing group, had 
previously applied for a rally permit for January 22nd and 23rd 
in Washington, DC, several days after Joe Biden was to be 
inaugurated. But in the hours after the tweet, they moved their 
permit to January 6th, 2 weeks before. This rescheduling 
created the rally where Trump would eventually speak.
    The next day, Ali Alexander, leader of the Stop the Steal 
organization and a key mobilizer of Trump supporters, 
registered WildProtest.com, named after Trump's tweet. 
WildProtest.com provided comprehensive information about 
numerous newly-organized protest events in Washington. It 
included event times, places, speakers, and details on 
transportation to Washington, DC.
    Meanwhile, other key Trump supporters, including far-right 
media personalities, began promoting the wild protest on 
January 6th.

    Mr. Jones. It's Saturday, December 19th. The year is 2020, and one 
of the most historic events in American history has just taken place. 
President Trump, in the early morning hours today, tweeted that he 
wants the American people to march on Washington, DC, on January 6, 
2021.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Pool. And now Donald Trump is calling on his supporters to 
descend on Washington, DC, January 6th.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Jones. He is now calling on we the people to take action and to 
show our numbers.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Bracken. We're going to only be saved by millions of Americans 
moving to Washington, occupying the entire area, if--if necessary, 
storming right into the Capitol. You know, they're--we know the rules 
of engagement. If you have enough people, you can push down any kind of 
a fence or a wall.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Pool. This could be Trump's last stand. And it's a time when he 
has specifically called on his supporters to arrive in DC. That's 
something that may actually be the big push Trump supporters need to 
say: This is it. It's now or never.
                                 ______
                                 
    Salty Cracker. Ya better understand something, son. Ya better 
understand something. Red wave, bitch. Red wed--there's gonna be a red 
wedding going down January 6th.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Pool. On that day, Trump says: Show up for a protest. It's 
gonna be wild. And based on what we've already seen from the previous 
events, I think Trump is absolutely correct.
                                 ______
                                 
    Salty Cracker. Motherfucker, you better look outside. You better 
look out--January 6th. Kick that fucking door open, look down the 
street. There're gonna be a million plus geeked up, armed Americans.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Jones. The time for games is over. The time for action is now. 
Where were you when history called? Where were you when you and your 
children's destiny and future was on the line?

    Mr. Raskin. In that clip, you heard one of Trump's 
supporters predict a ``red wedding,'' which is a pop culture 
reference to mass slaughter.
    But the point is that Trump's call to Washington 
reverberated powerfully and pervasively online.
    The Committee has interviewed a former Twitter employee who 
explained the effect that Trump had on the Twitter platform. 
This employee was on the team responsible for platform and 
content moderation policies on Twitter throughout 2020 and 
2021.
    The employee testified that Twitter considered adopting a 
stricter content moderation policy after President Trump told 
the Proud Boys to ``stand back and stand by'' from the lectern 
at the September 29th Presidential debate, but Twitter chose 
not to act.
    Here is the former employee, whose voice has been obscured 
to protect their identity, discussing Trump's ``stand back and 
stand by'' comment and the effect it had.

    Former Twitter Employee. My concern was that the former President, 
for seemingly the first time, was speaking directly to extremist 
organizations and giving them directives. We had not seen that sort-of 
direct communication before, and that concerned me.
    Mr. Glick. So, just to clarify further, you were worried, others at 
Twitter were worried, that the President might use your platform to 
speak directly to folks who might be incited to violence?
    Former Twitter Employee. Yes. I believe that Twitter relished in 
the knowledge that they were also the favorite and most used service of 
the former President and enjoyed having that sort of power within the 
social media ecosystem.
    Mr. Glick. If President Trump were anyone else, would it have taken 
until January 8, 2021, for him to be suspended?
    Former Twitter Employee. Absolutely not. If Donald--if former-
President Donald Trump were any other user on Twitter, he would have 
been permanently suspended a very long time ago.

    Mr. Raskin. Despite these grave concerns, Trump remained on 
the platform completely unchecked. Then came the December 19th 
tweet and everything it inspired.

    Former Twitter Employee. It was--it felt as if--if a mob was being 
organized, and they were gathering together their weaponry and their 
logic and their reasoning behind why they were prepared to fight.
    Prior to December 19th, again, it was--it was vague. It was--it was 
nonspecific but very clear that individuals were ready, willing, and 
able to take up arms. After this tweet on December 19th, again, it 
became clear not only were these individuals ready and willing, but the 
leader of their cause was asking them to join him in this cause and in 
fighting for this cause in DC on January 6th as well.
    I will also say what shocked me was the responses to these tweets, 
right? So, these were--a lot of the ``locked and loaded,'' ``stand 
back, stand by,'' those tweets were in response to Donald Trump saying 
things like this, right? So, there would be a response that said, ``Big 
protest in DC on January 6th, be there, be wild,'' and someone would 
respond and say, ``I'm locked and loaded and ready for civil war part 
two,'' right?
    I very much believe that Donald Trump posting this tweet on 
December 19th was essentially staking a flag in DC on January 6th for 
his supporters to come and rally.
    Mr. Glick. And you were concerned about the potential for this 
gathering becoming violent?
    Former Twitter Employee. Absolutely.

    Mr. Raskin. Indeed, many of Trump's followers took to 
social media to declare that they were ready to answer Trump's 
call.
    One user asked: ``Is the 6th D-Day? Is that why Trump wants 
everyone there?''
    Another asserted: ``Trump just told us all to come armed. 
Fucking A, this is happening.''
    A third took it even further: ``It `will be wild' means we 
need volunteers for the firing squad.''
    Jim Watkins, the owner of 8kun, the fringe online forum 
that was birthplace of the QAnon extremist movement, confirmed 
the importance of Trump's tweet.

    Mr. Glick. Why did you first decide to go to DC for January 6th?
    Mr. Watkins. When--when the President of the United States 
announced that he was going to have a rally, then I bought a ticket and 
went.

    Mr. Raskin. Watkins was at the Capitol on January 6th. Some 
who have since been indicted for their involvement in the 
attack on the Capitol also responded. One of them posted on the 
19th: ``Calling all patriots. Be in Washington, DC, January 
6th. This wasn't organized by any group. DJT has invited us, 
and it is going to be `wild.' ''
    Some of the online rhetoric turned openly homicidal and 
White nationalist.
    Such as: ``Why don't we just kill them? Every last 
Democrat, down to the last man, woman, and child?''
    And: ``It's time for the day of the rope. White revolution 
is the only solution.''
    Others realized that police would be standing in the way of 
their effort to overturn the election.
    So one wrote: ``I am ready to die for my beliefs. Are you 
ready to die police?''
    Another wrote on TheDonald.win: ``Cops don't have 
`standing' if they are laying on the ground in a pool of their 
own blood.''
    TheDonald.win was an openly racist and antisemitic forum.
    The Select Committee deposed that site's founder, Jody 
Williams. He confirmed how the President's tweet created a 
laser-like focus on the date of January the 6th.

    Mr. Williams. And people had been talking about going to DC since 
the election was over.
    Mr. Glick. And do you recall whether or not the conversation around 
those dates centered on the 6th after the President's tweet?
    Mr. Williams. Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean after it was announced that, 
you know, he was going to be there on the 6th to talk, yes. Then--then 
anything else was kind of shut out, and it was just gonna be on the 
6th.
    Mr. Glick. Okay. And that was pretty clearly reflected in the--the 
content on--on the site?
    Mr. Williams. Yeah. Yeah, sure.

    Mr. Raskin. On that site, many shared plans and violent 
threats.
    ``Bring handcuffs and wait near the tunnels,'' wrote one 
user.
    A commenter replied suggesting ``zip ties'' instead. One 
post encouraged others to come with ``body armor, knuckles, 
shields, bats, pepper spray, whatever it takes.'' All of those 
were used on the 6th.
    The post concluded: ``Join your local Proud Boys chapter as 
well.''
    TheDonald.win featured discussions of the tunnels beneath 
the Capitol Complex, suggestions for targeting Members of 
Congress, and encouragement to attend this once-in-a-lifetime 
event.
    While Trump supporters grew more aggressive online, he 
continued to rile up his base on Twitter.
    He said there was overwhelming evidence that the election 
was the ``biggest scam in our nation's history.''
    As you can see, the President continued to boost the event, 
tweeting about it more than a dozen times in the lead-up to 
January the 6th.
    Mr. Chairman, I reserve.
    Chairman Thompson. The Chair requests that those in the 
hearing room remain seated until the Capitol Police have 
escorted Members from the room.
    Pursuant to the order of the Committee of today, the Chair 
declares the Committee in recess for a period of approximately 
10 minutes.
    [Accordingly, at 2:08 p.m., the Committee recessed until 
2:33 p.m., when it was called to order by the Chairman.]
    Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland, Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, President Trump's tweet drew tens 
of thousands of Americans to Washington to form the angry crowd 
that would be transformed on January the 6th into a violent 
mob.
    Dr. Donell Harvin, who was the chief of Homeland Security 
and Intelligence for D.C., told the Committee how his team saw 
Trump's December 19th tweet unite violent groups across the 
spectrum on the far right.

    Dr. Harvin. We got derogatory information through OSINT suggesting 
that some very, very violent individuals were organizing to come to 
D.C.; and not only were they organizing to come to D.C., but they 
were--these groups, these nonaligned groups were aligning.
    And so all the red flags went up at that point, you know, when you 
have armed militia, you know, collaborating with White supremacy 
groups, collaborating with conspiracy theory groups online all toward a 
common goal, you start seeing what we call in, you know, terrorism, a 
blended ideology, and that's a very, very bad sign. [ . . . ]
    [T]hen, when they were clearly across--not just across one platform 
but across multiple platforms of these groups coordinating, not just 
like chatting, ``Hey, how's it going? What's the weather like where 
you're at?'' But like, ``What are you bringing? What are you wearing? 
You know, where do we meet up? Do you have plans for the Capitol?'' 
That's operational--that's like preoperational intelligence, right, and 
that is something that's clearly alarming.

    Mr. Raskin. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are two key 
groups that responded immediately to President Trump's call. 
The Proud Boys are a far-right street-fighting group that 
glorifies violence and White supremacy.
    The Oath Keepers are extremists who promote a wide range of 
conspiracy theories and sought to act as a private paramilitary 
force for Donald Trump. The Department of Justice has charged 
leaders of both groups with seditious conspiracy to overthrow 
the Government of the United States on January the 6th.
    Trump's December 19th tweet motivated these two extremists 
groups, which have historically not worked together, to 
coordinate their activities.
    December 19th, at 10:22 a.m., just hours after President 
Trump's tweet, Kelly Meggs, the head of the Florida Oath 
Keepers, declared an alliance among the Oath Keepers, the Proud 
Boys, and the Florida Three Percenters, another militia group. 
He wrote: ``We have decided to work together and shut this shit 
down.''
    Phone records obtained by the Select Committee show that, 
later that afternoon, Mr. Meggs called Proud Boys leader 
Enrique Tarrio, and they spoke for several minutes. The very 
next day, the Proud Boys got to work.
    The Proud Boys launched an encrypted chat called the 
Ministry of Self-Defense. The Committee obtained hundreds of 
these messages, which show strategic and tactical planning 
about January the 6th, including maps of Washington, DC, that 
pinpoint the location of police.
    In the weeks leading up to the attack, leaders in both the 
Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers worked with Trump allies. One 
such ally was Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Trump's former 
National Security Advisor and one of the participants in the 
unhinged meeting at the White House on December 18th.
    He also had connections to the Oath Keepers.
    This photo from December 12th shows Flynn and Patrick 
Byrne, another Trump ally, who was present at that December 
18th meeting, guarded by indicted Oath Keeper Roberto Minuta.
    Another view of the scene shows Oath Keepers leader Stewart 
Rhodes in the picture as well.
    Another central figure with ties to this network of 
extremist groups was Roger Stone, a political consultant and 
long-time confidant of President Trump. He pardoned both Flynn 
and Stone in the weeks between the election on November 3rd and 
January 6th.
    In the same time frame, Stone communicated with both the 
Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers regularly. The Committee 
obtained encrypted content from a group chat called Friends of 
Stone, FOS, which included Stone, Rhodes, Tarrio, and Ali 
Alexander. The chat focused on various pro-Trump events in 
November and December of 2020, as well as January 6th.
    As you can see here, Stewart Rhodes himself urged the 
Friends of Stone to have people go to their State capitols if 
they could not make it to Washington for the first Million MAGA 
March on November 14th.
    These Friends of Roger Stone had a significant presence at 
multiple pro-Trump events after the election, including in 
Washington on December the 12th. On that day, Stewart Rhodes 
called for Donald Trump to invoke martial law promising blood-
shed if he did not.

    Mr. Rhodes. He needs to know from you that you are with him--that 
if he does not do it now, when he is Commander in Chief, we're going to 
have to do it ourselves later in a much more desperate, much more 
bloody war. Let's get it on now while he is still the Commander in 
Chief. Hooah!

    Mr. Raskin. That night, the Proud Boys engaged in violence 
on the streets of Washington and hurled aggressive insults at 
the police.

    Voice. You're oath breakers. Do your fucking job! Give us 1 hour! 
One hour!

    Mr. Raskin. Just the previous night, the co-host of 
InfoWars issued an ominous warning at a rally alongside Roger 
Stone and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

    Voice. I don't give a shit. [inaudible]
    Mr. Shroyer. We will be back in January! [applause]

    Mr. Raskin. Encrypted chats obtained by the Select 
Committee show that Kelly Meggs, the indicted leader of the 
Florida Oath Keepers, spoke directly with Roger Stone about 
security on January 5th and 6th. In fact, on January 6th, Stone 
was guarded by two Oath Keepers who have since been criminally 
indicted for seditious conspiracy.
    One of them later pleaded guilty and, according to the 
Department of Justice, admitted that the Oath Keepers were 
ready to use ``lethal force, if necessary, against anyone who 
tried to remove President Trump from the White House, including 
the National Guard.''
    As we have seen, the Proud Boys were also part of the 
Friends of Stone network. Stone's ties to the Proud Boys go 
back many years. He has even taken their so-called ``Fraternity 
Creed'' required for the first level of initialization to the 
group.

    Mr. Stone. Hi, I'm Roger Stone. I'm a Western chauvinist, and I 
refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.
    Voice. Thank you, Roger.

    Mr. Raskin. Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer who assists the Oath 
Keepers and a volunteer lawyer for the Trump Campaign, 
explained to the Committee how Roger Stone and other figures 
brought extremists of different stripes and views together.

    Mr. Childress. You mentioned that Mr. Stone wanted to start this 
Stop the Steal series of rallies. Who did you consider the leader of 
these rallies? It sounds like from what you just said it was Mr. Stone, 
Mr. Jones, and Mr. Ali Alexander. Is that correct?
    Ms. SoRelle. Those are the ones that became, like, the center point 
for everything.

    Mr. Raskin. We will learn more from Mrs. Murphy about these 
individuals and their involvement in the days leading up to the 
violent attack on January 6th. We will also hear how they were 
allowed to speak at a rally for President Trump the night 
before January 6th, even though organizers had expressed 
serious concerns about their violent and extremist rhetoric 
directly to Mark Meadows.
    You will hear testimony from White House aides who were 
with the President as he watched the crowd from the Oval Office 
and will testify about how excited he was for the following 
day.
    Let me note now that our investigation continues on these 
critical issues. We have only shown a small fraction of what we 
have found.
    I look forward to the public release of more of our 
findings later, Mr. Chairman.
    I now yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Florida, Mrs. 
Murphy.
    Mrs. Murphy. During our most recent hearing, the Committee 
showed some evidence of what President Trump, Chief of Staff 
Mark Meadows, and other White House officials knew about the 
potential for violence on January 6th. Despite this 
information, they made no effort to cancel the rally, halt the 
march to the Capitol, or even to lower the temperature among 
President Trump's supporters.
    Katrina Pierson, one of the organizers of January 6th rally 
and a former campaign spokeswoman for President Trump, grew 
increasingly apprehensive after learning that multiple 
activists had been proposed as speakers for the January 6th 
rally. These included some of the people we discussed earlier 
in this hearing: Roger Stone, a long-time outside advisor to 
President Trump; Alex Jones, the founder of the conspiracy 
theory website InfoWars; and Ali Alexander, an activist known 
for his violent political rhetoric.
    On December 30th, Ms. Pierson exchanged text messages with 
another key rally organizer about why people like Mr. Alexander 
and Mr. Jones were being suggested as speakers at the 
President's rally on January 6th.
    Ms. Pierson's explanation was: ``POTUS.''
    She remarks that the President ``likes the crazies.''
    The Committee asked Ms. Pierson about these messages, and 
this is what she said:

    Mr. Tonolli. So when you said that he likes the crazies, were you 
talking about President Trump?
    Ms. Pierson. Yes, I was talking about President Trump. He loved 
people who viciously defended him in public.
    Mr. Tonolli. But consistent in terms of the support for these 
people, at least with what the President likes, from what you could 
tell?
    Ms. Pierson. Yes. The--the people that would be very, very vicious 
in publicly defending him.

    Mrs. Murphy. On January 2nd, Ms. Pierson's concerns about 
the potential rally speakers had grown serious enough that she 
reached out to Mr. Meadows directly.
    She wrote: ``Good afternoon. Would you mind giving me a 
call regarding this January 6th event? Things have gotten 
crazy, and I desperately need some direction. Please.''
    According to phone records obtained by the Committee, Ms. 
Pierson received a phone call from Mr. Meadows 8 minutes later. 
Here is what Ms. Pierson said about that conversation.

    Mr. Tonolli. So what specifically did you tell him, though, about 
other--other events?
    Ms. Pierson. Just that there were a bunch of entities coming in. 
Some were very suspect, but they're going to be on other--on other 
stages, some on other days. A very, very brief overview of what was 
actually happening and why I raised red flags.
    Mr. Tonolli. And when you told him that people were very suspect, 
what--what did--did you tell him what you meant by that, or what did 
you convey to him about what you were--the problems with these folks?
    Ms. Pierson. I think I even texted him some of my concerns. But I 
did briefly go over some of the concerns that I had raised to everybody 
with Alex Jones or Ali Alexander and some of the rhetoric that they 
were doing. I probably mentioned to him that they had already caused 
trouble at the other capitols or at the previous event--the previous 
march that they did for protesting. And I just had a concern about it.

    Mrs. Murphy. Ms. Pierson was especially concerned about Ali 
Alexander and Alex Jones because, in November 2020, both men 
and some of their supporters, had entered the Georgia State 
Capitol to protest the results of the 2020 election.
    Ms. Pierson believed that she mentioned this to Mark 
Meadows on this January 2nd call. Notably, January 2nd is the 
same day on which, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, Mr. Meadows 
warned her of things--that things might get ``real, real bad'' 
on January 6th.
    After her January 2nd call with Mr. Meadows, Katrina 
Pierson sent an email to fellow rally organizers. She wrote: 
``POTUS expectations are to have something intimate at the 
Ellipse and call on everyone to march to the Capitol.''
    The President's own documents suggest that the President 
had decided to call on his supporters to go to the Capitol on 
January 6th but that he chose not to widely announce it until 
his speech on the Ellipse that morning.
    The Committee has obtained this draft, undated tweet from 
the National Archives. It includes a stamp stating: ``President 
has seen.''
    The draft tweet reads: ``I will be making a big speech at 
10 a.m. 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.''
    Although this tweet was never sent, rally organizers were 
discussing and preparing for the march to the Capitol in the 
days leading up to January 6th.
    This is a January 4th text message from a rally organizer 
to Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO. The organizer says: ``You 
know, this stays between us. We are having a second stage at 
the Supreme Court again after the Ellipse. POTUS is going to 
have us march there/the Capitol. It cannot get out about the 
second stage because people will try and set up another and 
sabotage it. 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.' ''
    The end of the message indicates that the President's plan 
to have his followers march to the Capitol was not being 
broadly discussed. Then, on the morning of January 5th, Ali 
Alexander, whose firebrand style concerned Katrina Pierson, 
sent a similar text to a conservative journalist.
    Mr. Alexander said: ``Tomorrow: Ellipse then U.S. Capitol. 
Trump is supposed to order us to the Capitol at the end of his 
speech, but we will see.''
    President Trump did follow through on his plan, using his 
January 6th speech to tell his supporters to march to the 
Capitol on January 6th. The evidence confirms that this was not 
a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate 
strategy decided upon in advance by the President.
    Another part of the President's strategy involves certain 
Members of Congress who amplified his unsupported assertions 
that the election had been stolen. In the weeks after the 
election, the White House coordinated closely with President 
Trump's allies in Congress to disseminate his false claims and 
to encourage members of the public to fight the outcome on 
January 6th.
    We know that the President met with various Members to 
discuss January 6th well before the joint session.
    The President's private schedule for December 21, 2020, 
shows a private meeting with Republican Members of Congress. We 
know that Vice President Pence, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, 
and Rudy Giuliani also attended that meeting. We obtained an 
email that was sent from Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama to 
Mark Meadows setting up that meeting.
    The subject line is: ``White House meeting December 21st 
regarding January 6th.''
    In his email, Congressman Brooks explained that he had not 
asked anyone to join him in the ``January 6th effort,'' because 
in his view ``only citizens can exert the necessary influence 
on Senators and Congressmen to join this fight against massive 
voter fraud and election theft.''
    At this point, you may also recall testimony given in our 
earlier hearing by Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard 
Donoghue, who said that the President asked the Department of 
Justice to ``Just say that the election was corrupt and leave 
the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.''
    According to White House visitor logs obtained by the 
Committee, Members of Congress present at the White House on 
December 21st included Congressmen Brian Babin, Andy Biggs, 
Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Andy Harris, Jody Hice, 
Jim Jordan, and Scott Perry. Then-Congresswoman-elect Marjorie 
Taylor Greene was also there.
    We heard testimony in an early hearing that a pardon was 
ultimately requested by Congressman Mo Brooks and other Members 
of Congress who attended this meeting. We have asked witnesses 
what happened during the December 21st meeting, and we have 
learned that part of the discussion centered on the role of the 
Vice President during the counting of the electoral votes.
    These Members of Congress were discussing what would later 
be known as the Eastman theory, which was being pushed by 
attorney John Eastman. In one of our earlier hearings, you 
heard in great detail that President Trump was trying to 
convince Vice President Pence to do something illegal.
    His White House counsel confirmed all of that in testimony 
last week.

    Mr. Heaphy. And tell us your view, Mr. Cipollone, upon those 
discussions with Mr. Philbin, with Greg Jacob, what was your assessment 
as to what the Vice President could or could not do at the joint 
session?
    Mr. Cipollone. What was my assessment----
    Mr. Heaphy. Yes.
    Mr. Cipollone [continuing]. About what he could or couldn't do?
    Mr. Heaphy. Yes, your view of the issue.
    Mr. Cipollone. My view was that the Vice President didn't have the 
legal authority to do anything except what he did.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. They have both told us, Mr. Philbin and Mr. Jacob, that 
they looked very closely at the Eastman memos, the Eastman theory, and 
thought that it had no basis, that it was not a strategy that the 
President should pursue. It sounds like that's consistent with your 
impression as well.
    Mr. Cipollone. My impression would've been informed, certainly, by 
them.

    Mrs. Murphy. Campaign senior advisor Jason Miller told us 
that Mr. Cipollone thought John Eastman's theories were nutty. 
Something Mr. Cipollone wouldn't refute.

    Mr. Heaphy. We've received testimony from various people about 
this. One was Jason Miller, who was on the campaign. He said that, 
``The way it was communicated to me was that Pat Cipollone thought the 
idea was nutty, and at one point, confronted Eastman basically with the 
same sentiment.''
    Mr. Cipollone. I don't have any reason to contradict what he said.

    Mrs. Murphy. On January 4th, John Eastman went to the White 
House to meet with the President and Vice President. Mr. 
Cipollone tried to participate in this meeting, but he was 
apparently turned away.

    Mr. Heaphy. You didn't go to the meeting in the Oval Office where 
Eastman met with the President and Vice President. Do you remember why 
you didn't personally attend?
    Mr. Cipollone. I did walk to that meeting, and I did go into the 
Oval Office with the idea of attending that meeting. And then, I 
ultimately did not attend that meeting.
    Mr. Heaphy. Why not?
    Mr. Cipollone. The reasons for that are privileged.
    Mr. Heaphy. Okay. Were you asked to not attend the meeting, or did 
you make a personal decision not to attend the meeting?
    Mr. Cipollone. Again, without getting into.
    Mr. Purpura. Privilege.

    Mrs. Murphy. Recall that Greg Jacob, the Vice President's 
counsel, stated that Mr. Eastman acknowledged he would lose 9 
to 0 if his legal theory were challenged in the Supreme Court. 
Mr. Cipollone had reviewed Mr. Eastman's legal theory and 
expressed his view repeatedly that the Vice President was 
right. He even offered to take the blame for the Vice 
President's position.

    Mr. Cipollone. I thought that the Vice President did not have the 
authority to do what was being suggested under a proper reading of the 
law. I conveyed that. Okay? I think that I had actually told somebody 
that, you know, in the Vice President's--just blame me, I'm not a 
politician. And, you know, I just said, ``I'm a lawyer. This is my 
legal opinion.''
    But, let me tell you this, can I say a word about the Vice 
President?
    Mr. Heaphy. Please.
    Mr. Cipollone. I think the Vice President did the right thing. I 
think he did the courageous thing. I have a great deal of respect for 
Vice President Pence. I worked with him very closely. I think he 
understood my opinion. I think he understood my opinion afterwards as 
well. I think he did a great service to this country, and I think I 
suggested to somebody that he should be given the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom for his actions.

    Mrs. Murphy. Earlier this year, a Federal district court 
judge concluded that President Trump and Mr. Eastman relying on 
Mr. Eastman's theory more likely than not violated multiple 
Federal criminal laws in their pressure campaign against the 
Vice President.
    Also, recall earlier in this hearing, we saw that Rudy 
Giuliani's team did not have actual evidence of fraud 
sufficient to change the result of the election. That is 
important because, as January 6th approached, the Republican 
Members of the House and Senate were looking for reason to 
object to the electors. No real evidence was ever given to 
them.
    We know that Republican Members of the House received a 
memorandum from the Chairwoman of the House Republican 
Conference in the days before January 6th explaining in detail 
the many constitutional and legal problems with objections and 
describing the principal judicial rulings dismissing the claims 
of wide-spread fraud.
    But their plan to object to the certification of the 
election on January 6th went forward anyway. The next day on 
January 5th, the day before the attack on the Capitol, tens of 
thousands of people converged on Washington. While certain 
close associates of President Trump privately expressed 
concerns about what would occur on January 6th, other members 
of the President's inner circle spoke with great anticipation 
about the events to come.
    The Committee has learned from the White House phone logs 
that the President spoke to Steve Bannon, his close advisor at 
least twice on January 5th.
    The first conversation they had lasted for 11 minutes. 
Listen to what Mr. Bannon said that day, after the first call 
he had with the President.

    Mr. Bannon. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Bannon. It's all converging, and now we're on, as they say, the 
point of attack. Right? The point of attack tomorrow.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Bannon. l'll tell you this, it's not going to happen like you 
think it's going to happen. Okay? It's going to be quite 
extraordinarily different. And all I can say is, strap in . . . 

    Mrs. Murphy. From those same phone logs, we know that the 
President and Mr. Bannon spoke again on the phone that evening 
this time for 6 minutes.
    That same day, on the eve of January 6th, supporters of 
President Trump gathered in Washington, DC, at another rally. 
This rally was held at Freedom Plaza, which is located near the 
White House and featured some of the speakers who Katrina 
Pierson and others deemed too extreme to share the stage with 
the President the next morning.
    As this rally was under way, the President asked members of 
his staff to come to the Oval Office. Let's hear from the White 
House aides who were in the Oval Office that night.

    Mr. Luna. I was in the office--in the Oval Office--and he had asked 
me to open the door so that he could hear, I guess, there was a concert 
or a--or something going on.
    Mr. George. Did he say anything other than just, ``Open the door''?
    Mr. Luna. He--he made a comment, I don't remember specifically what 
he said, but there was a lot of energy.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Matthews. When we walked in the staff was kind-of standing up 
and assembled along the wall, and the President was at the desk. And 
Dan Scavino was on the couch. And the President was dictating a tweet 
that he wanted Scavino to send out. Then, the President started talking 
about the rally the next day.
    He had the door of the Oval open to the Rose Garden because you 
could hear the crowd already assembled outside on the Ellipse. And they 
were playing music. And it was so loud that you could feel it shaking 
in the Oval.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Matthews. He was in a very good mood. And I say that because he 
had not been in a good mood for weeks leading up to that. And then it 
seemed like he was in a fantastic mood that evening.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Deere. He asked if--if Members of Congress would be with him 
tomorrow.
    Mr. Wood. And what did you understand by--meaning voting in his 
favor, as opposed to physically with him or anything like that?
    Mr. Deere. Yeah, I took that to mean not voting to certify the 
election.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Matthews. Then, he did look to the staff and asked for ideas of 
how, if I recall, he said that we could make the RINOs do the right 
thing, is the way he phrased it. And no one spoke up initially because 
I think everyone was trying to process what that--he meant by that.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Craighead. The President was making notes--talking then about: 
``We should go up to the Capitol. What's the best route to go to the 
Capitol?''
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Deere. I said he should focus on policy accomplishments, and I 
didn't mention the 2020 election.
    Mr. Wood. What was his response?
    Mr. Deere. He acknowledged that and said, ``We've had a lot.'' 
Something along those lines. And then, he fairly quickly moved to how 
fired up the crowd is--was going to be.
    Mr. Wood. And what did he say about it?
    Mr. Deere. Just that they were--they were fired up. They were 
angry. They feel like the election's been stolen, that the election was 
rigged.
    Mr. Wood. Did he give you any indication of how he knew that the 
crowd was fired up or angry?
    Mr. Deere. He continued to reference being able to hear them 
outside.

    Mrs. Murphy. Through the open door of the Oval Office, the 
President could hear the sound of the crowd and the music at 
the rally at the Freedom Plaza. These are some of the things 
that they were saying there at the plaza just blocks from where 
the President sat that evening excited for the next day.

    Mr. Stone. This is nothing less than an epic struggle for the 
future of this country between dark and light. Between the godly and 
the godless. Between good and evil. And we will win this fight or 
America will step off into a thousand years of darkness.
    General Flynn. Tomorrow, tomorrow, trust me, the American people 
that are standing on the soil that we are standing on tonight--and 
they're gonna be standing on this soil tomorrow--this is soil that we 
have fought over, fought for, and we will fight for in the future.
    The Members, the Members of Congress, the Members of the House of 
Representatives, the Members of the United States Senate, those of you 
who are feeling weak tonight, those of you that don't have the moral 
fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow, we the people 
are going to be here, and we want you to know that we will not stand 
for a lie. We will not stand for a lie.
    Mr. Alexander. I want them to know that 1776 is always an option. 
These degenerates in the deep state are going to give us what we want, 
or we are going to shut this country down.
    Mr. Jones. It's 1776! 1776! 1776! 1776!
    Crowd. 1776!

    Mrs. Murphy. At 5:05 p.m., as the Freedom Plaza rally was 
under way just blocks away, President Trump tweeted: 
``Washington is being inundated with people who don't want to 
see an election victory stolen by emboldened radical left 
Democrats. Our country has had enough. They won't take it 
anymore.''
    To the crowds gathering in D.C., he added: ``We hear you 
and love you from the Oval Office.''
    The Committee has learned that on January 5th, there were 
serious concerns at Twitter about the anticipated violence the 
next day. Listen to what the Twitter witness told us about 
their desperate efforts to get Twitter to do something.

    Mr. Jackson. What was your gut feeling on the night of January 5th?
    Former Twitter Employee. I believe I sent a Slack message to 
someone that said something along the lines of, ``When people are 
shooting each other tomorrow, I will try and rest in the knowledge that 
we tried.''
    And so, I went to--I don't know that I slept that night to be 
honest with you. I--I was on pins and needles. Because, again, for 
months, I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the 
reality that if nothing--if we made no intervention into what I saw 
occurring, people were going to die.
    And on January 5th, I realized no intervention was coming. And even 
as hard as I had tried to create one or implement one, there was 
nothing. And we were--we were at the whims and mercy of a violent crowd 
that was locked and loaded.
    Mr. Jackson. And just for the record, this was content that was 
echoing Statements from the former President but also Proud Boys and 
other known violent extremist groups?
    Former Twitter Employee. Yes.

    Mrs. Murphy. There were also concerns among Members of 
Congress. We have a recently released recording of a 
conversation that took place among Republican Members in the 
U.S. Capitol on the eve of January 6th. This is Republican 
Congresswoman Debbie Lesko from Arizona, who led some of the 
unfounded objections to the election results.

    Mrs. Lesko. I also asked leadership to come up with a safety plan 
for Members. I'm actually very concerned about this because we have who 
knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming here. We have 
Antifa. We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actually 
believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that 
doesn't happen--most likely will not happen, they are going to go nuts.

    Mrs. Murphy. That same evening, as President Trump listened 
to the rally from the Oval Office, he was also working on his 
speech to be delivered the next day. Based on documents we have 
received from the National Archives, including multiple drafts 
of the President's speech, as well as from witness testimony, 
we understand how that speech devolved into a call to action 
and a call to fight.
    One of the first edits President Trump made to his speech 
was to incorporate his 5:05 p.m. tweet, revising his speech to 
say: ``All of us here today do not want to see our election 
victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats. Our 
country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.''
    He also added: ``Together, we will Stop the Steal.''
    President Trump's edits continued into the morning of 
January 6th.
    As you can see from the President's daily diary here, the 
President spoke to his chief speechwriter Stephen Miller for 
over 25 minutes that morning. Following his call with Mr. 
Miller, President Trump inserted for the first time a line in 
his speech that said: ``And we will see whether Mike Pence 
enters history as a truly great and courageous leader. All he 
has to do is refer the illegally submitted electoral votes back 
to the States that were given false and fraudulent information 
where they want to recertify.''
    No prior version of this speech had referenced Vice 
President Pence or his role during the joint session on January 
6th. These last-minute edits by President Trump to his speech 
were part of the President's pressure campaign against his own 
Vice President.
    But not everyone wanted these lines regarding the Vice 
President included in the President's speech, including White 
House lawyer Eric Herschmann.

    Mr. George. Did you ever speak to anybody in the White House at the 
time about this disagreement between the President and the Vice 
President, other than the President, based on the objection from your 
counsel?
    Mr. Stephen Miller. Maybe had a brief conversation about it with 
Eric Herschmann.
    Mr. George. Tell me about that. What do you remember him saying to 
you about this disagreement?
    Mr. Stephen Miller. I just remember him saying that--that he had 
a--I'm trying to remember. I don't want to get this wrong. Sort-of 
something to the effect of thinking that it would be counterproductive, 
I think he thought to--to discuss the matter publicly.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. George. So it came up in the context of editing the President's 
speech on January the 6th?
    Mr. Stephen Miller. It just came up in the conversation where Eric 
knew it was in the speech, and so he had a--a sidebar with me about it.

    Mrs. Murphy. So the speechwriters took that advice and 
removed the lines about Vice President Pence. Later that 
morning at 11:20 a.m., President Trump had a phone call with 
the Vice President.
    As the Committee detailed in an earlier hearing, that phone 
call was, by all accounts, tense and heated.
    During this call, the Vice President told the President 
that he would not attempt to change the outcome of the 
election. In response, the President called the Vice President 
of the United States a ``wimp'' and other derogatory words.
    As you can see in this email, after Vice President Pence 
told President Trump that he would not unilaterally deliver him 
a second term in office, the speechwriters were directed to 
reinsert the Mike Pence lines. Here is how one of the 
speechwriters described President Trump's last-minute change to 
the speech.

    Mr. Haley. And as I recall, there was a very tough--a tough 
sentence about the Vice President that was--that was added.

    Mrs. Murphy. President Trump wanted to use his speech to 
attack Vice President Pence in front of a crowd of thousands of 
angry supporters who had been led to believe the election was 
stolen. When President Trump arrived at the Ellipse to deliver 
his speech, he was still worked up from his call with Vice 
President Pence. Although Ivanka Trump would not say so, her 
chief of staff gave the Committee some insight into the 
President's frustration.

    Mr. Heaphy. It's been reported that you ultimately decided to 
attend the rally because you hoped that you would calm the President 
and keep the event on an even keel. Is that accurate?
    Ms. Trump. No. I don't know who said that or where that came from.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Tonolli. What did she share with you about why it was 
concerning that her father was upset or agitated after that call with 
Vice President Pence in relation to the Ellipse rally? Why did that 
matter? Why did he have to be calmed down, I should say.
    Ms. Radford. Well, she shared that he had called the Vice President 
a not--an expletive word. I think that bothered her. And I think she 
could tell, based on the conversations and what was going on in the 
office, that he was angry and upset and people were providing 
misinformation. And she felt like she might be able to help calm the 
situation down, at least before he went onto stage.

    Mrs. Murphy. The President did go on stage, and then he 
gave the speech that he wanted to give. It included the formal 
changes he had requested the night before and in that morning, 
but also many important last-minute, ad-libbed changes.
    A single, scripted reference in the speech to Mike Pence 
became eight. A single, scripted reference to rally-goers 
marching to the Capitol became four, with President Trump ad-
libbing that he would be joining the protesters at the Capitol. 
Added throughout his speech were references to fighting and the 
need for people to have courage and to be strong. The word 
``peacefully'' was in the staff-written script and used only 
once.
    Here are some of these ad-libbed changes that the President 
made to his speech.

    President Trump. Because you'll never take back our country with 
weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. So, I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has 
to do. And I hope he doesn't listen to the RINOs and the stupid people 
that he's listening to.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like 
hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. But we're going to try and give our Republicans--
the weak ones, because the strong ones don't need any of our help. 
We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that 
they need to take back our country. So, let's walk down Pennsylvania 
Avenue.

    Mrs. Murphy. White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his 
deputy did not attend the speech, and they were concerned that 
the statements in the speech about the election were false. In 
fact, the message that President Trump delivered that day was 
built on a foundation of lies. He lied to his supporters that 
the election was stolen. He stoked their anger. He called for 
them to fight for him. He directed them to the U.S. Capitol. He 
told them he would join them, and his supporters believed him, 
and many headed toward the Capitol.
    As a result, people died. People were injured. Many of his 
supporters' lives will never be the same.
    President Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale 
recognized the impact of the speech immediately, and this is 
what he said on January 6th in excerpts from text messages to 
Katrina Pierson.
    Mr. Parscale said: ``This is about Trump pushing for 
uncertainty in our country. A sitting President asking for 
civil war.''
    Then when he said, ``This week I feel guilty for helping 
him win,'' Katrina Pierson responded: ``You did what you felt 
right at the time, and, therefore, it was right.''
    Mr. Parscale added: ``Yeah, but a woman is dead.''
    And: ``Yeah. If I was Trump and I knew my rhetoric killed 
someone.''
    When Ms. Pierson replied, ``It wasn't the rhetoric,'' Mr. 
Parscale said: ``Katrina, yes, it was.''
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentlewoman yields back. We are 
joined today by Mr. Jason Van Tatenhove and Mr. Stephen Ayres. 
Mr. Tatenhove is an artist and journalist. He is a former 
spokesman of the Oath Keepers and a former close associate of 
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the founder and president of the Oath 
Keepers, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in 
relation to the Capitol attack.
    Mr. Van Tatenhove broke with the Oath Keepers and has since 
spoken out forcefully against the violent group.
    Mr. Ayres is a former supporter of President Trump. He 
answered the President's call to come to Washington, DC, on 
January 6th. He marched to the Capitol on the President's 
orders. He pleaded guilty last month to disorderly and 
disruptive conduct at the Capitol.
    Mr. Ayres, who no longer supports President Trump, came 
forward voluntarily to share his story as a warning.
    I will now swear in our witnesses.
    The witnesses will please stand and raise their right 
hands.
    [Witnesses sworn.]
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you. You may be seated.
    Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the 
affirmative.
    I recognize myself for questions.
    Today we have discussed how President Trump summoned an 
angry mob of supporters to Washington, DC, many of whom came 
prepared to do battle against police and politicians alike.
    We are fortunate enough to be joined by two witnesses who 
can help us understand who was in the mob that day, both hard-
core violent extremists like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys 
and average Trump supporters swept up in the fervor of the day.
    Mr. Van Tatenhove, can you help us understand who the Oath 
Keepers are?
    Mr. Van Tatenhove.\1\ I can. Thank you. My time with the 
Oath Keepers began back at Bundy Ranch at that first stand-off 
when I went to cover them as an independent journalist. I then 
subsequently covered two more stand-offs, the Sugar Pine Mine 
stand-off and the White Hope Mine stand-off. It was at that 
time that I was offered a job as national media director and an 
associate editor for the web page.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Van Tatenhove has been included 
in the Appendix and may be found on page 43.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    So I spent a few years with the Oath Keepers, and I can 
tell you that they may not like to call themselves a militia, 
but they are. They are a violent militia, and they are largely 
Stewart Rhodes. They--I think, rather than try to use words, I 
think the best illustration for what the Oath Keepers are 
happened January 6th when we saw that stacked military 
formation going up the stairs of our Capitol.
    I saw radicalization that started with the beginning of my 
time with them and continued over a period of time as the 
member base and who it was that Stewart Rhodes was courting 
drifted further and further right into the alt-right world, 
into White nationalists, and even straight-up racists.
    It came to a point where I could no longer continue to work 
for them, but the Oath Keepers are a dangerous militia that is 
in large part fed by the ego and drive of Stewart Rhodes, who, 
at times, seemed to see himself as this paramilitary leader. I 
think that drove a lot of it.
    So, in my opinion, the Oath Keepers are a very dangerous 
organization.
    Chairman Thompson. Well, thank you very much. You have 
talked a little bit about that danger. So what is the Oath 
Keepers' vision for America and why should Americans be 
concerned about it?
    Mr. Van Tatenhove. I think we saw a glimpse of what the 
vision of the Oath Keepers is on January 6th. It doesn't 
necessarily include the rule of law. It doesn't necessarily 
include--it includes violence. It includes trying to get their 
way through lies, through deceit, through intimidation, and 
through the perpetration of violence. The swaying of people who 
may not know better through lies and rhetoric and propaganda 
that can get swept up in these moments. I will admit I was 
swept up at one point as well, too.
    But I don't know if that answers the question.
    Chairman Thompson. Well, it does. You talk about being 
swept up. So at what point did you break with the Oath Keepers?
    Mr. Van Tatenhove. There came a point--there were many red 
flags, and I probably should have broke with them much earlier 
than I did, but the straw that broke the camel's back really 
came when I walked into a grocery store. We were living up in 
the very remote town of Eureka, Montana, and there was a group 
of core members of the group--of the Oath Keepers and some 
associates, and they were having a conversation at that public 
area where they were talking about how the Holocaust was not 
real.
    That was, for me, something I just could not abide. You 
know, we were not--we were not wealthy people at all. We were 
barely surviving, and it didn't matter. I went home to my wife 
and my kids, and I told them that I have got to walk away at 
this point. I don't know how we are going to survive or where 
we are going to go or what we are going to do, but I just can 
no longer continue, and I put in my resignation.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Ayres, there were many people in the crowd that day 
January 6th, including you, who were not part of an extremist 
group. I would like to start by having you tell the American 
people a little bit about yourself.
    Can you tell us about your life before January 6th?
    Mr. Ayres. Yeah. Basically nothing but a family man and a 
working man. Worked at the company, a cabinet company up in 
northeast Ohio for going on 20 years. You know, family is my 
life. You know, I was a supervisor there. So that took up a lot 
of my other--you know, a lot of my free time. Other than that, 
I'm with my family, camping, playing basketball, playing games 
with my son.
    Chairman Thompson. Just what any ordinary, American 
citizen, family man would do.
    Mr. Ayres. Yep, exactly.
    Chairman Thompson. So this Committee has reviewed thousands 
of hours of surveillance footage from January 6th. During this 
review, we identified you entering the Capitol, as we see in 
this video.
    Mr. Ayres, why did you decide to come to Washington on 
January 6th?
    Mr. Ayres. For me personally, you know, I was, you know, 
pretty hard core into the social media, Facebook, Twitter, 
Instagram. I followed, you know, President Trump, you know, on 
all the websites, you know. He basically put out, you know: 
Come to Stop the Steal rally.
    You know, and I felt like I needed to be down here.
    Chairman Thompson. So, you basically learned about the 
rally on social media and at some point made a decision to come 
to Washington?
    Mr. Ayres. Yep, yep. I had some friends I found out were 
coming down. I just hopped--you know, hopped on with them right 
at the tail end when I found out, and came down here with them.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
    The Chair recognizes the Vice Chair, Ms. Cheney of Wyoming, 
with any questions she may have.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Ayres, when you entered the Capitol last year, did you 
believe that the election had been stolen?
    Mr. Ayres. At that time, yeah. You know, everything that I 
was seeing online, I definitely believed that that is exactly 
what--that was the case.
    Vice Chair Cheney. When you heard from President Trump that 
the election was stolen, how did that make you feel?
    Mr. Ayres. Oh, I was very upset, as were most of his 
supporters. You know, that is basically what got me to come 
down here.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Do you still believe the election was 
stolen?
    Mr. Ayres. Not so much now. I got away from all the social 
media when January 6th happened, basically deleted it all. You 
know, I started doing my own research and everything. For me, 
for me--for something like that to be that--for that to 
actually take place, it is too big, you know. There is no way 
to keep something like that quiet, as big as something like 
that, you know. With all the--you know, all the lawsuits being 
shot down one after another, that was mainly what convinced me.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Well, and I think that is very 
important. We've also talked about today and in previous 
hearings the extent to which the President himself was told 
that the election hadn't been stolen, by his Justice 
Department, by his White House counsel, by his campaign.
    Would it have made a difference to you to know that 
President Trump himself had no evidence of wide-spread fraud?
    Mr. Ayres. Oh, definitely, you know. Who knows, I may not 
have come down here then, you know.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Florida, Mrs. 
Murphy.
    Mrs. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You know, earlier today we showed how Donald Trump's 
December 19th tweet summoned both extremist groups as well as 
rank-and-file supporters of President Trump to come to 
Washington, DC, average Americans. He told them to ``Be there, 
Will be wild,'' and they came. We showed how President Trump 
repeatedly told them fight, fight, fight, and they marched to 
the Capitol.
    Mr. Ayres, you were in that crowd at the rally and then the 
crowd that marched to the Capitol. When you arrived on the 
Ellipse that morning, were you planning on going to the 
Capitol?
    Mr. Ayres. No, we didn't actually plan to go down there. 
You know, we went basically to see the Stop the Steal rally, 
and that was it.
    Mrs. Murphy. So why did you decide to march to the Capitol?
    Mr. Ayres. Well, basically, you know, the President, he had 
got everybody riled up, told everybody to head on down. So, we 
basically were just following what he said.
    Mrs. Murphy. After the President's speech, as you were 
marching down to the Capitol, how did you feel?
    Mr. Ayres. You know, I am angry, you know, after everything 
that was basically said in the speech. You know, a lot of the 
stuff he said he already put out in tweets. A lot of it I had 
already seen it and heard it before. So, I mean, I was already 
worked up, and so were most of the people there.
    Mrs. Murphy. So as you started marching, did you think 
there was still a chance the election would be overturned?
    Mr. Ayres. Yeah, at that time I did, because everybody was 
kind-of, like, in the hope that, you know, Vice President Pence 
was not going to certify the election. You know, also, the 
whole time on our way down there, we kept hearing about this 
big reveal I remember us talking about, and we kind-of thought 
maybe that was it. So that hope was there.
    Mrs. Murphy. Did you think that the President would be 
marching with you?
    Mr. Ayres. Yeah. I think everybody thought he was going to 
be coming down. You know, he said in his speech, you know, 
kind-of like he was going to be there with us. So, I mean, I 
believed it.
    Mrs. Murphy. I understand.
    We know that you illegally entered the Capitol that 
afternoon and then left the Capitol area later on. What made 
you decide to leave?
    Mr. Ayres. Basically when President Trump put his tweet 
out, we literally left right after that come out. You know, to 
me, if he would have done that earlier in the day, 1:30, you 
know, we wouldn't be in this--maybe we wouldn't be in this bad 
of a situation or something.
    Mrs. Murphy. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland, Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Van Tatenhove, in the run-up to January 6th, Stewart 
Rhodes publicly implored President Trump to invoke the 
Insurrection Act, the 1807 law that allows the President to 
call up militias to put down a rebellion against the United 
States. I want to get your thoughts about this in the context 
of your prior relationship with Stewart Rhodes.
    I understand that you had conversations with Rhodes about 
the Insurrection Act. Why was he so fixated on that and what 
did he think it would enable the Oath Keepers to do?
    Mr. Van Tatenhove. Well, I think it gave him a sense of 
legitimacy, that it was a path forward to move forward with his 
goals and agendas.
    I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about 
truths. What it was going to be was an armed revolution. I 
mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this 
day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This 
could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no 
one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.
    He was always looking for ways to legitimize what he was 
doing, whether by wrapping it in the trappings of it is not a 
militia, it is community preparedness team. We're not a 
militia, we're an educational outreach group. It is a veterans 
support group. But, again, we've got to stop with this 
dishonesty and the mincing of words and just call things for 
what they are. You know, he is a militia leader. He had these 
grand visions of being a paramilitary leader, and the 
Insurrection Act would have given him a path forward with that. 
You know, the fact that the President was communicating, 
whether directly or indirectly, messaging, you know, kind-of--
that gave him the nod. All I can do is thank the gods that 
things did not go any worse that day.
    Mr. Raskin. What did the Oath Keepers see in President 
Trump?
    Mr. Van Tatenhove. They saw a path forward that would have 
legitimacy. They saw opportunity I think, in my opinion, to 
become a paramilitary force, you know.
    Mr. Raskin. Last week the Department of Justice indicated 
that it has evidence of the Oath Keepers bringing not just 
firearms, but explosives to Washington, ahead of January 6th. 
The Committee has also learned that Stewart Rhodes stopped to 
buy weapons on his way to Washington and shipped roughly $7,000 
worth of tactical gear to a January 6th rally planner in 
Virginia before the attack.
    Did you ever hear Rhodes discuss committing violence 
against elected political leaders?
    Mr. Van Tatenhove. Yeah. I mean, that went back from the 
very beginning of my tenure. One of the first assignments that 
he brought to me wanting me to do as more of a graphic artist 
function was to create a deck of cards. You may remember back 
to the conflict in the Middle East where our own military 
created a deck of cards, which was a who's who of kind-of the 
key players on the other side that they wanted to take out. 
Stewart was very intrigued by that notion and influenced by it, 
I think, and he wanted me to create a deck of cards that would 
include different politicians, judges, including up to Hillary 
Clinton as the queen of hearts.
    This was a project that I refused to do, but from the very 
start, we saw that. There was always the push for military 
training, including there were courses in that community that 
went over explosives training. So, yeah, this all falls in 
line.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Van Tatenhove, you say in your very 
thoughtful written testimony that we received today that you 
fear what the next election cycle will bring, and you also say 
that we have been exceedingly lucky in that we have not seen 
more bloodshed so far. I wonder if you would elaborate on those 
two statements.
    Mr. Van Tatenhove. I think as far as the luck goes, we've 
had the potential from Bundy Ranch on, I mean, being boots on 
the ground at these stand-offs--and they were stand-offs--where 
there were firearms pointed across lines at Federal law 
enforcement agencies, you know, whatever it may be with that 
particular stand-off. But I do--I think we have gotten 
exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because 
the potential has been there from the start, and we got very 
lucky that the loss of life was--and as tragic as it is, was 
that we saw on January 6th, the potential was so much more.
    Again, all we have to look at is the iconic images of that 
day with the gallows set up for Mike Pence, for the Vice 
President of the United States, you know. I do fear for this 
next election cycle because who knows what that might bring. If 
a President that is willing to try to instill and encourage to 
whip up a civil war amongst his followers using lies and 
deceit, and snake oil, and regardless of the human impact, what 
else is he going to do if he gets elected again? All bets are 
off at that point, and that is a scary notion. I have three 
daughters. I have a granddaughter. I fear for the world that 
they will inherit if we do not start holding these people to 
account.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Van 
Tatenhove.
    Mr. Ayres, I first want to ask you about what finally 
caused you to leave on January the 6th. We know that the 
medieval-style combat with our police, the occupation of the 
building, this was going on for several hours until the 
President issued at 4:17 a tweet, I believe, that included a 
video telling people to go home.
    Did you see that and did that have any effect on what you 
were doing?
    Mr. Ayres. Well, we were there. As soon as that come out, 
everybody started talking about it, and it seemed like it 
started to disperse, you know, some of the crowd. Obviously, 
you know, once we got back to the hotel room, we seen that it 
was still going on, but it definitely dispersed a lot of the 
crowd.
    Mr. Raskin. Did you leave at that point?
    Mr. Ayres. Yeah, we did. Yeah, we left.
    Mr. Raskin. So, in other words, that was the key moment 
when you decided to leave when President Trump told people to 
go home?
    Mr. Ayres. Yeah, yep. We left right when that come out.
    Mr. Raskin. You were not a member of an organized group 
like the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys as most of the crowd 
wasn't. I wonder, on January 6th, was it your view that these 
far-right groups, like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and 
Three Percenters and others were on your side? Did you have any 
reservations about marching with them and rallying with them?
    Mr. Ayres. Well, I definitely didn't have a problem, you 
know. I was probably following them online myself. You know, I 
liked--I thought, you know, hey they're on our team. Good. That 
is how I kind-of looked at it at the time, you know, like, I 
didn't have a problem with it. I thought it was a good thing.
    Mr. Raskin. I am interested in hearing about what has 
happened to you since the events of January 6th. You told the 
Vice Chair that you no longer believe Trump's Big Lie about the 
election, but that is what brought you originally to 
Washington. Looking back on it now, how do you reflect on the 
role that you played in the crowd that day and what is going on 
in your life?
    Mr. Ayres. Basically, you know, I lost my job since this 
all happened, you know, pretty much sold my house. So 
everything that happened with the charges, you know, thank God, 
a lot of them did get dismissed because I was just holding my 
phone, but at the same time I was there. So, I mean, it 
definitely--it changed my life, you know, and not for the good, 
definitely not for, you know, the better. Yeah, I mean, that is 
what I would say.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, President Trump is still promoting the 
Big Lie about the election. How does it make you feel?
    Mr. Ayres. It makes me mad because I was hanging on every 
word he was saying. Everything he was putting out, I was 
following it. I mean, if I was doing it, hundreds of thousands 
or millions of other people are doing it or maybe even still 
doing it. It is like he just said about that, you know, you 
have got people still following and doing that. Who knows, the 
next election could come out, you know, they could end up being 
down the same path we are right now. I mean, you just don't 
know.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Ayres, I see that your wife has joined you 
today, and welcome to Washington. We know this has been very 
difficult on you both and your family.
    What lessons finally do you want the American people to 
learn from the way you and your family have suffered as a 
result of these events?
    Mr. Ayres. The biggest thing is, I consider myself a family 
man, and I love my country. I don't think any one man is bigger 
than either one of those. I think that is what needs to be 
taken. You know, people dive into the politics, and for me, I 
felt like I had, you know, like, horse blinders on. I was 
locked in the whole time. The biggest thing for me is take the 
blinders off and make sure you step back and see what's going 
on before it is too late.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, I want to thank you for your testimony 
and for appearing, both of you, today.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentleman yields back.
    I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today.
    The Members of the Select Committee may have additional 
questions for today's witnesses, and we ask that you respond 
expeditiously in writing to those questions.
    Without objection, the Members will be permitted 10 
business days to submit statements for the record, including 
opening remarks and additional questions for the witnesses.
    Without objection, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland, Mr. Raskin, for a closing statement.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    When Donald Trump sent out his tweet, he became the first 
President ever to call for a crowd to descend on the Capital 
City to block the constitutional transfer of power.
    He set off an explosive chain reaction amongst his 
followers. But no one mobilized more quickly than the dangerous 
extremists that we have looked at today. Seizing upon his 
invitation to fight, they assembled their followers for an 
insurrectionary showdown against Congress and the Vice 
President. On January 6th, Trump knew the crowd was angry. He 
knew the crowd was armed. He sent them to the Capitol anyway.
    You might imagine that our Founders would have been shocked 
to learn that an American President would one day come to 
embrace and excuse political violence against our own 
institutions or knowingly send an armed mob to attack the 
Capitol to usurp the will of the people.
    But, you know, Mr. Chairman, the Founders were pretty wise 
about certain things. At the start of the Republic, they 
actually warned everyone about Donald Trump, not by name, of 
course, but in the course of advising about the certain 
prospect that ambitious politicians would try to mobilize 
violent mobs to tear down our own institutions in service of 
their insatiable ambitions.
    In the very first Federalist Paper, Alexander Hamilton 
observed that history teaches that opportunistic politicians 
who desire to rule at all costs will begin first as demagogues 
pandering to the angry and malignant passions of the crowd but 
then end up as tyrants trampling the freedoms and the rights of 
the people.
    A violent insurrection to overturn an election is not an 
abstract thing as we've heard. Hundreds of people were 
bloodied, injured, and wounded in the process, including more 
than 150 police officers, some of them sitting in this room 
today.
    I want to give you an update on one officer who was badly 
wounded in the attack and is well-known to the Members of this 
Committee because he testified before us last year.
    Sergeant Aquilino Gonell is an Army veteran who spent a 
year on active combat duty in the Iraq War, and then 16 years 
on the Capitol force. Nothing he ever saw in combat in Iraq, he 
has said, prepared him for the insurrection where he was 
savagely beaten, punched, pushed, kicked, shoved, stomped, and 
sprayed with chemical irritants, along with other officers, by 
members of a mob carrying hammers, knives, batons, and police 
shields taken by force and wielding the American flag against 
police officers as a dangerous weapon.
    Last month, on June 28th, Sergeant Gonell's team of doctors 
told him that permanent injuries he has suffered to his left 
shoulder and right foot now make it impossible for him to 
continue as a police officer. He must leave policing for good 
and figure out the rest of his life.
    Sergeant Gonell, we wish you and your family all the best. 
We are here for you. We salute you for your valor, your 
eloquence, and your beautiful commitment to America.
    I wonder what former President Trump would say to someone 
like Sergeant Gonell who must now go about remaking his life. I 
wonder if he could even understand what motivates a patriot 
like Sergeant Gonell.
    In his inaugural address Trump introduced one commanding 
image, ``American carnage.'' Although that turn of phrase 
explained little about our country before he took office, it 
turned out to be an excellent prophecy of what his rage would 
come to visit on our people.
    Mr. Ayres just described how the trust he placed in 
President Trump as a camp follower derailed his life and nearly 
wrecked his reputation and his family.
    A few weeks ago, we heard Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby 
Freeman, Speaker Rusty Bowers from Arizona, and Georgia's 
secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, describe how hate-
filled intimidation campaigns by Trump and his followers made 
them prisoners in their homes and drove their stress and 
anxiety to soaring new heights when they refused to do Trump's 
bidding.
    American carnage, that is Donald Trump's true legacy. His 
desire to overthrow the people's election and seize the 
Presidency--interrupt the counting of electoral college votes 
for the first time in American history--nearly toppled the 
constitutional order, and brutalized hundreds and hundreds of 
people. The Watergate break-in was like a Cub Scout meeting 
compared to this assault on our people and our institutions.
    Mr. Chairman, these hearings have been significant for us 
and for millions of Americans, and our hearing next week will 
be a profound moment of reckoning for America. But the crucial 
thing is the next step: What this Committee, what all of us 
will do to fortify our democracy against coups, political 
violence, and campaigns to steal elections away from the 
people.
    Unlike Mr. Ayres and Mr. Van Tatenhove, people who have 
recovered and evolved from their descent into the hell of 
fanaticism, Donald Trump has only expanded his Big Lie to cover 
January 6th itself. He asserts the insurrection was the real 
election and the election was the real insurrection. He says 
his mob greeted our police officers on January 6th with hugs 
and kisses.
    He threatens to take one of America's two major political 
parties with him down the road to authoritarianism, and it is 
Abraham Lincoln's party, no less.
    The political scientists tell us that authoritarian parties 
have two essential features in common in history and around the 
world: They do not accept the results of democratic elections 
when they lose, and they embrace political violence as 
legitimate. The problem of incitement to political violence has 
only grown more serious in the internet age as we have just 
heard.
    But this is not the problem of one party. It is the problem 
of the whole country now. American democracy, Mr. Chairman, is 
a precious inheritance, something rare in the history of the 
world and even on earth today. Constitutional democracy is the 
silver frame, as Lincoln put it, upon which the golden apple of 
freedom rests. We need to defend both our democracy and our 
freedom with everything we have and declare that this American 
carnage ends here and now. In a world of resurgent 
authoritarianism and racism and antisemitism, let's all hang 
tough for American democracy.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentleman yields back.
    Without objection, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman 
from Florida, Mrs. Murphy, for a closing statement.
    Mrs. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    At one of our first hearings, Chairman Thompson explained 
that the Members of this Committee would not spend much time 
talking about ourselves. Rather, we would let the evidence play 
the leading role. The Chairman was right because this isn't 
about promoting ourselves as individuals. It is about 
protecting the country we love. It is about preserving what 
actually makes America great, the rule of law, free and fair 
elections, and the peaceful transfer of power from one elected 
leader to the next.
    But if I may say a word about myself, and why I am proud to 
serve on this Committee, I am the only Member of this Committee 
who is not blessed to be born an American. I was born in 
Vietnam after the Vietnam War, and my family and I fled a 
communist government, and were rescued by the U.S. Navy, and 
were given sanctuary in America. My patriotism is rooted in my 
gratitude for America's grace and generosity. I love this 
country.
    On January 6th, four decades after my family fled a place 
where political power was seized through violence, I was in the 
United States Capitol, fleeing my fellow Americans.
    Members of the angry mob had been lied to by a President 
and the other powerful people who tried to convince them 
without evidence that the election had been stolen from them. 
Some of them then tried to use physical violence to overturn 
the outcome of a free and fair election.
    Our Committee's overriding objective is to fight fiction 
with facts, to create a full account for the American people 
and for the historical record, to tell the truth of what 
happened and why it happened, to make recommendations so it 
never happens again, to defend our democracy. To me, there is 
nothing more patriotic than that.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentlewoman yields back.
    Without objection, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman 
from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney, for a closing statement.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Chairman, let me put what you have seen today in a 
broader context. At the very outset of our hearings, we 
described several elements of President Trump's multi-part plan 
to overturn the 2020 election. Our hearings have now covered 
all but one of those elements: An organized campaign to 
persuade millions of Americans of a falsehood that the 2020 
election was stolen by wide-spread fraud; a corrupt effort to 
pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral 
votes; an effort to corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice; 
efforts to pressure State election officials and legislators to 
change State election results; a scheme to create and submit 
fake electoral slates for multiple States.
    Today, you saw how President Trump summoned a mob to 
Washington for January 6th, and then knowing that that mob was 
armed, directed that mob to the United States Capitol.
    Every one of these elements of the planning for January 6th 
is an independently serious matter. They were all ultimately 
focused on overturning the election, and they all have one 
other thing in common: Donald Trump participated in each 
substantially and personally. He oversaw or directed the 
activity of those involved.
    Next week, we will return to January 6th itself. As we have 
shown in prior hearings, Donald Trump and his legal team, led 
by Rudy Giuliani, were working on January 6th to delay or halt 
Congress's counting of electoral votes. The mob attacking and 
invading the Capitol on that afternoon of January 6th was 
achieving that result. For multiple hours, Donald Trump refused 
to intervene to stop it. He would not instruct the mob to leave 
or condemn the violence. He would not order them to evacuate 
the Capitol and disperse.
    The many pleas for help from Congress did no good. His 
staff insisted that President Trump call off the attack. He 
would not.
    Here are a few of the many things you will hear next week 
from Mr. Cipollone.

    Mr. Heaphy. My question's exactly that. It sounds like you, from 
the very onset of violence at the Capitol right around 2 o'clock, were 
pushing for a strong statement that people should leave the Capitol. Is 
that right?
    Mr. Cipollone. I was and others were as well.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. Was it necessary for you to continue to push for a 
statement directing people to leave all the way through that period of 
time until it was ultimately issued after 4----
    Mr. Cipollone. I felt it was my obligation to continue to push for 
that, and others felt that it was their obligation as well.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. Would it have been possible at any moment for the 
President to walk down to the podium in the briefing room and talk to 
the Nation at any time between when you first gave him that advice at 2 
o'clock and 4:17 when the video statement went out? Would that have 
been possible?
    Mr. Cipollone. Would that have been possible?
    Mr. Heaphy. Yes.
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes, it would have been possible.

    Vice Chair Cheney. You will hear that Donald Trump never 
picked up the phone that day to order his administration to 
help. This is not ambiguous. He did not call the military. His 
Secretary of Defense received no order. He did not call his 
Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland 
Security. Mike Pence did all of those things; Donald Trump did 
not.
    We will walk through the events of January 6th next week 
minute by minute.
    One more item. After our last hearing, President Trump 
tried to call a witness in our investigation, a witness you 
have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to 
answer or respond to President Trump's call, and instead 
alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us, and 
this Committee has supplied that information to the Department 
of Justice.
    Let me say one more time, we will take any efforts to 
influence witness testimony very seriously.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you. The gentlewoman yields back.
    In my opening, I mentioned how we look to our leaders to 
serve as a fail-safe if people in this country refuse to accept 
the results of an election. That is part of the way those in 
positions of public trust uphold their oath, how they show 
fidelity to the Constitution.
    In the run-up to January 6th, Donald Trump had an 
obligation to tell his supporters to accept the results of the 
election. Instead, he urged them further along the path toward 
mob violence.
    The idea of mob violence makes me think of another sort of 
fail-safe. All across this country, there are different ideas 
about what role the Federal Government should play in our 
lives. In fact, up here on this dais, there are plenty of 
different ideas. But there are moments when the institutions of 
our Federal Government are the fail-safe.
    I am from a part of the country where had it not been for 
the Federal Government and the Constitution, my parents and 
many more Americans like them would have continued to be 
treated as second-class citizens. The freedom to be able to 
vote without harassment, travel in relative safety, and dine 
and sleep where you choose is because we have a Government that 
looks over the well-being of its citizens.
    This is especially important in moments of crisis. When we 
have a natural disaster that State governments can't handle on 
their own, when there is an emergency that requires action by 
our public health services or our military, we have the Federal 
Government.
    What happened on January 6, 2021, was another one of those 
moments in history that tests the strength of our Federal 
Government. January 6th was an attack on our country. It was an 
attack on our democracy, on our Constitution. A sitting 
President with a violent mob trying to stop the peaceful 
transfer of power from one President to another, it still makes 
my blood boil to think of it.
    In a moment like that, what would you expect to see? You 
expect to see the President of the United States sitting behind 
the Resolute desk in the Oval Office assuring the American 
people that the attack would be repelled and the threat would 
be dealt with. You would expect to be reassured that there was 
a fail-safe.
    Instead, the President of the United States sent the mob. 
He disregarded the advice of the people who had taken an oath 
to the Constitution. He oversaw a scheme aided by people whose 
loyalty was only to Donald Trump.
    There is nothing we could compare that to. There is nothing 
in our great Nation's history that has ever come close to that 
sort of betrayal and dereliction. Thank goodness our system of 
government held in spite of a Commander-in-Chief who worked in 
opposition to what the Constitution designed.
    When this Committee reconvenes, we will tell the story of 
that supreme dereliction by the Commander-in-Chief, how close 
we came to a catastrophe for our democracy, and how we remain 
in serious danger.
    The Chair requests those in the hearing room remain seated 
until the Capitol Police have escorted witnesses and Members 
from the room.
    Without objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:57 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]



                            A P P E N D I X

                              ----------                              


   Prepared Statement of Jason Van Tatenhove, Former National Media 
                     Director for the Oath Keepers
                             July 12, 2022
    My name is Jason Van Tatenhove, and I am a journalist and author 
living in Colorado. I am here giving testimony to the Select Committee 
to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol 
because, for a short period, I had access to an inside view of both the 
inner workings of the Oath Keepers and its founder and president, 
Stewart Rhodes. From the beginning, I knew this would be a story that 
the world would someday need to hear. I am deeply saddened by how 
correct this intuition was.
    I come from a family of artists and writers and have always worked 
in some way as an artist and journalist. I am local to Colorado, where 
I have written for several outlets in Northern Colorado. It is 
important for me to be here today in front of the Select Committee 
because all Americans need to pay attention to the genuine danger that 
extremist groups like the Oath Keepers pose to us and our society. 
Because of the actions taken on January 6th and the increased political 
and ideological polarization in our society, I fear what the next 
election cycle will bring. We need to re-learn how to communicate with 
one another without guns, body armor, or standoffs. I am trying to make 
amends for what I did during my time with the Oath Keepers because I am 
remorseful for helping them push their dangerous propaganda. In light 
of the Select Committee's work and the truth they have uncovered, I am 
optimistic that this experience and my voice can help to shed light on 
these issues and to embolden others to walk away from extremist groups 
like the Oath Keepers.
    I want to note at the outset that my first-hand knowledge of the 
Oath Keepers stopped when I resigned, as I will describe. But given my 
insider access and close proximity to Stewart Rhodes--including during 
several months when he lived in my basement--I can help to paint a 
picture of the Oath Keepers, how they worked, how they operated, and 
how dangerous they are. I do not know about the planning or execution 
of events surrounding what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, 
2021. Still, from my experience with the ever-radicalizing 
organization, I know the troubling signs were there years before.
    My journey with the Oath Keepers began during the 2014 Bundy Ranch 
Standoff. I was embedded with Stewart Rhodes in his vehicle as he made 
his second trip down to the standoff in the desert of Nevada. I was 
given unprecedented access to Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers, 
including the organization's inner workings. This access continued as I 
covered the subsequent two standoffs: the Sugar Pine Mine standoff and 
the White Hope Mine standoff.
    This culminated in a job offer with the Oath Keepers after my name 
was included in a press release by the group, which led to my 
resignation from working for the State of Montana. I was offered a job 
as the National Media Director and Webpage Associate Editor for the 
organization. I worked closely with Stewart Rhodes for the next year 
and a half and often traveled with him to various events throughout the 
United States.
    During this period, I saw Stewart Rhodes courting members of the 
alt-right. Having issues with this radicalization, I knew I had to make 
a break with the group, even if it would be financially devastating to 
my family. There came the point when I walked in on a conversation in a 
local grocery store where long-standing, influential Oath Keeper 
members and associates were discussing their thoughts openly, denying 
that the Holocaust had ever actually happened. At that moment, I 
decided that no matter what, I would need to break ties with this ever-
radicalizing group. I am not a racist, I am not an anti-Semite, I am 
not a white supremacist, I am not violent, and I could no longer be 
associated with the Oath Keepers, whatever the consequences might have 
been.
    I now view it as my obligation to sound the alarm and raise public 
awareness about the Oath Keepers and to get my perspective on this 
paramilitary group into the public conversation. While this may come as 
a surprise to some, many of the true motivations of this group revolve 
around raising funds, and not the propaganda they push. Stewart Rhodes 
and the Oath Keepers insert themselves into crises, situations that 
they would not usually have any part of, and seek to make themselves 
relevant and fundraise on the back of these conflicts to increase the 
membership rolls.
    Recruitment is a crucial focus for the Oath Keepers, and a target 
demographic is people that feel marginalized. I have seen these 
individuals whipped up into dangerous action by the group's leadership, 
just as we saw on January 6th.
    This, combined with catering to the conspiracy theories of the day 
and an attempt to connect with ever-radicalizing communities within the 
alt-right, white nationalists, and even outright racists to gain more 
influence and money, is a dangerous proposition for our country. We 
cannot allow these groups to continue threatening our democracy. We 
must focus on understanding this reality and, most importantly, 
combating them.
    There have been times when I have personally discounted the reach 
of this group and its violent messaging. This was a mistake. Because in 
the end, they were able to muster a group of heavily armed and 
outfitted members who had been trained in modern warfare techniques, 
including those we now know had explosives, to storm the Capitol to 
stop the process of inaugurating the duly elected president.
    We have been exceedingly lucky in that we have not seen much more 
bloodshed. But luck is not a good strategy for a country looking for 
better ways to move forward.
    It is time to speak the truth about these groups and the violent 
influence they wield. It is time to show an exit ramp to others like me 
who may have been caught up in the rhetoric of these groups and used as 
pawns in a dishonest campaign to capture more money, influence, and 
power. I have been frightened by what I saw when I was associated with 
the Oath Keepers and even more so by what I saw on January 6th. I am 
honored to provide my perspective to the Select Committee and the 
American people.