[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 21, 2022

                               __________

                            Serial No. 117-9

                               __________

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 
49-356PDF              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                    Assistant
    Staff Member                     
                                         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 Elaine G. Luria, a Representative in Congress From 
  the State of Virginia..........................................     4
The Honorable Adam Kinzinger, a Representative in Congress From 
  the State of Illinois..........................................     5

                               Witnesses

Mr. Matthew Pottinger, Former Deputy National Security Advisor...     6
Ms. Sarah Matthews, Former Deputy Press Secretary and Special 
  Assistant to the President.....................................     7


                HEARING ON THE JANUARY 6TH INVESTIGATION

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, July 21, 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 8:01 p.m., in 
room 390, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Liz Cheney (Vice 
Chair of the Committee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Thompson, Cheney, Lofgren, Schiff, 
Aguilar, Murphy, Raskin, Luria, and Kinzinger.
    Vice Chair Cheney. The Committee will be in order.
    Chairman Thompson. Good evening. Earlier this week, I 
received a positive COVID diagnosis. Per CDC guidelines, I 
received the initial two shots and all of the boosters. Thus 
far, I have been blessed to experience very minimal symptoms. 
Because I am still quarantined, I cannot participate in person 
with my colleagues. I have asked our Vice Chair, Ms. Cheney, to 
preside over this evening's hearing, including maintaining 
order in the room and swearing in our witnesses.
    Over the last month and a half, the Select Committee has 
told the story of a President who did everything in his power 
to overturn an election. He lied. He bullied. He betrayed his 
oath. He tried to destroy our democratic institutions. He 
summoned a mob to Washington.
    Afterwards, on January 6th, when he knew that the assembled 
mob was heavily armed and angry, he commanded the mob to go to 
the Capitol, and he emphatically commanded the heavily-armed 
mob to ``fight like hell.'' For the weeks between the November 
election and January 6th, Donald Trump was a force to be 
reckoned with. He shrugged off the factually and legally 
correct sober advice of his knowledgeable and sensible 
advisers. Instead, he recklessly blazed a path of lawlessness 
and corruption, the cost of which democracy be damned.
    Then he stopped. For 187 minutes on January 6th, this man 
of unbridled, destructive energy could not be moved, not by his 
aides, not by his allies, not by the violent chants of rioters, 
or the desperate pleas of those facing down the riot. More 
tellingly, Donald Trump ignored and disregarded the desperate 
pleas of his own family, including Ivanka and Don, Jr. Even 
though he was the only person in the world who could call off 
the mob he sent to the Capitol, he could not be moved to rise 
from his dining room table and walk the few steps down the 
White House hallway into the Press Briefing Room where cameras 
were anxiously and desperately waiting to carry his message to 
the armed and violent mob, savagely beating and killing law 
enforcement officers, ravaging the Capitol, and hunting down 
the Vice President and various Members of Congress.
    He could not be moved. This evening, my colleagues Mr. 
Kinzinger of Illinois and Mrs. Luria of Virginia will take you 
inside the White House during those 187 minutes. We also remind 
you of what was happening at the Capitol minute by minute, as a 
final violent tragic part of Donald Trump's scheme to cling to 
power unraveled, while he ignored his advisers, stood by, and 
watched it unfold on television.
    Let me offer a final thought about the Select Committee's 
work so far. As we have made clear throughout these hearings, 
our investigation goes forward. We continue to receive new 
information every day. We continue to hear from witnesses. We 
will reconvene in September to continue laying out our findings 
to the American people.
    But, as that work goes forward, a number of facts are 
clear. There can be no doubt that there was a coordinated, 
multi-step effort to overturn an election, overseen and 
directed by Donald Trump. There can be no doubt that he 
commanded a mob, a mob he knew was heavily armed, violent and 
angry, to march on the Capitol to try to stop the peaceful 
transfer of power, and he made targets out of his own Vice 
President and the lawmakers gathered to do the people's work.
    These facts have gone undisputed. So there needs to be 
accountability, accountability under the law, accountability to 
the American people, accountability at every level, from the 
local precincts in many States where Donald Trump and his 
allies attacked election workers for just doing their jobs, all 
the way up to the Oval Office, where Donald Trump embraced the 
illegal advice of insurrectionists that a Federal judge has 
already said was ``a coup in search of a legal theory.''
    Our democracy withstood the attack on January 6th. If there 
is no accountability for January 6th for every part of this 
scheme, I fear that we will not overcome the on-going threat to 
our democracy. There must be stiff consequences for those 
responsible.
    Now, I will turn things over to our Vice Chair to start 
telling this story.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Without objection, the presiding officer is authorized to 
declare the Committee in recess at any point. Pursuant to House 
Deposition Authority Regulation 10, I announce that the 
Committee has approved the release of the deposition material 
presented during today's hearing.
    Let me begin tonight by wishing Chairman Thompson a rapid 
recovery from COVID. He has expertly led us through eight 
hearings so far, and he has brought us to the point we are 
today. In our initial hearing, the Chairman and I described 
what ultimately became Donald Trump's seven-part plan to 
overturn the 2020 Presidential election, a plan stretching from 
before election day through January 6th.
    At the close of today's hearing, our ninth, we will have 
addressed each element of that plan. But, in the course of 
these hearings, we have received new evidence, and new 
witnesses have bravely stepped forward. Efforts to litigate and 
overcome immunity and executive privilege claims have been 
successful, and those continue. Doors have opened, new 
subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break.
    Now, even as we conduct our ninth hearing, we have 
considerably more to do. We have far more evidence to share 
with the American people and more to gather. So, our Committee 
will spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple 
fronts before convening further hearings this September.
    Today, we know far more about the President's plans and 
actions to overturn the election than almost all Members of 
Congress did when President Trump was impeached on January 13, 
2021, or when he was tried by the Senate in February that year. 
Fifty-seven of 100 Senators voted to convict President Trump at 
that time, and more than 20 others said they were voting 
against conviction because the President's term had already 
expired. At the time, the Republican leader of U.S. Senate said 
this about Donald Trump:

    Senator McConnell. A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. 
These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and 
screaming their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President 
Trump could end this. He was the only one.

    Vice Chair Cheney. Leader McConnell reached those 
conclusions based on what he knew then without any of the much 
more detailed evidence you will see today. Lawlessness and 
violence began at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, before 1 
p.m., and continued until well after darkness fell. What 
exactly was our Commander-in-Chief doing during the hours of 
violence? Today, we address precisely that issue.
    Everything you've heard in these hearings thus far will 
help you understand President Trump's motives during the 
violence. You already know Donald Trump's goal: To halt or 
delay Congress's official proceedings to count certified 
electoral votes. You know that Donald Trump tried to pressure 
his Vice President to illegally reject votes and delay the 
proceedings. You know he tried to convince State officials and 
State legislators to flip their electoral votes from Biden to 
Trump, and you know Donald Trump tried to corrupt our 
Department of Justice to aid his scheme.
    But, by January 6th, none of that had worked. Only one 
thing was succeeding on the afternoon of January 6th. Only one 
thing was achieving President Trump's goal. The angry armed mob 
President Trump sent to the Capitol broke through security, 
invaded the Capitol, and forced the vote counting to stop. That 
mob was violent and destructive, and many came armed.
    As you will hear, Secret Service agents protecting the Vice 
President were exceptionally concerned about his safety and 
their own. Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy was scared, as were 
others in Congress, even those who themselves helped to provoke 
the violence. As you will see today, Donald Trump's own White 
House Counsel, his own White House staff, members of his own 
family all implored him to immediately intervene to condemn the 
violence and instruct his supporters to stand down, leave the 
Capitol, and disperse.
    For multiple hours, he would not. Donald Trump would not 
get on the phone and order the military or law enforcement 
agencies to help. For hours, Donald Trump chose not to answer 
the pleas from Congress from his own party and from all across 
our Nation to do what his oath required. He refused to defend 
our Nation and our Constitution. He refused to do what every 
American President must.
    In the days after January 6th, almost no one of any 
political party would defend President Trump's conduct, and no 
one should do so today.
    Thank you. I now recognize the gentlewoman from Virginia.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
    Article II of our Constitution requires that the President 
swear a very specific oath every 4 years.
    Every President swears or affirms to faithfully execute the 
office of the President of the United States and, to the best 
of their ability, preserve, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States. The President also assumes 
the constitutional duty to take care that our Nation's laws be 
faithfully executed, and as the Commander-in-Chief of our 
military.
    Our hearings have shown the many ways in which President 
Trump tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the days 
leading up to January 6th. With each step of his plan, he 
betrayed his oath of office and was derelict in his duty. 
Tonight, we will further examine President Trump's actions on 
the day of the attack on the Capitol.
    Early that afternoon, President Trump instructed tens of 
thousands of supporters at and near the Ellipse rally, a number 
of whom he knew were armed with various types of weapons, to 
march to the Capitol.
    After telling the crowd to march multiple times, he 
promised he would be with them, and finished his remarks at 
1:10 p.m. like this:

    President Trump. We're going to walk down and I'll be there with 
you. We're going to walk down--[applause]--we're going to walk down, 
anyone you want, but I think right here we're going to walk down to the 
Capitol. [applause] So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

    Mrs. Luria. At this time, the Vice President was in the 
Capitol. The joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden's 
victory was under way, and the Proud Boys and other rioters had 
stormed through the first barriers and begun the attack. Radio 
communications from law enforcement informed Secret Service and 
those in the White House Situation Room of these developments 
in real time.
    At the direction of President Trump, thousands more rioters 
marched from the Ellipse to the Capitol, and they joined the 
attack. As you will see in great detail tonight, President 
Trump was being advised by nearly everyone to immediately 
instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol, disperse, and 
halt the violence. Virtually everyone told President Trump to 
condemn the violence in clear and unmistakable terms, and those 
on Capitol Hill and across the Nation begged President Trump to 
help.
    But the former President chose not to do what all of those 
people begged. He refused to tell the mob to leave until 4:17, 
when he tweeted out a video statement filmed in the Rose Garden 
ending with this.

    President Trump. So go home. We love you. You're very special. 
You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are 
so bad and so evil. I know how you feel but go home and go home in 
peace.

    Mrs. Luria. By that time, two pipe bombs had been found at 
locations near the Capitol, including where the Vice President-
elect was conducting a meeting. Hours of hand-to-hand combat 
had seriously injured scores of law enforcement officers. The 
Capitol had been invaded. The electoral count had been halted 
as Members were evacuated. Rioters took the floor of the 
Senate. They rifled through desks and broke into offices. They 
nearly caught up to Vice President Pence. Guns were drawn on 
the House floor, and a rioter was shot attempting to infiltrate 
the Chamber.
    We know that a number of rioters intended acts of physical 
violence against specific elected officials. We know virtually 
all the rioters were motivated by President Trump's rhetoric 
that the election had been stolen, and they felt they needed to 
take their country back.
    This hearing is principally about what happened inside of 
the White House that afternoon.
    From the time when President Trump ended his speech until 
the moment when he finally told the mob to go home, was a span 
of 187 minutes, more than 3 hours. What you will learn is that 
President Trump sat in his dining room and watched the attack 
on television while his senior-most staff, closest advisers, 
and family members begged him to do what is expected of any 
American President.
    I served proudly for 20 years as an officer in the United 
States Navy. Veterans of our Armed Forces know first-hand the 
leadership that is required in a time of crisis, urgent and 
decisive action that puts duty and country first.
    But, on January 6th, when lives and our democracy hung in 
the balance, President Trump refused to act because of his 
selfish desire to stay in power.
    I yield to the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Kinzinger.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Luria.
    One week after the attack, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy 
acknowledged the simple truth: President Trump should have 
acted immediately to stop the violence.
    During our investigation, General Mark Milley, the Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also remarked on the President's 
failure to act.
    Let's hear what they had to say.

    Mr. McCarthy. The President bears responsibility for Wednesday's 
attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced 
the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate 
action by President Trump.
                                 ______
                                 
    General Milley. Yeah. You know, Commander in Chief, you got an 
assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America, and 
there's nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?

    Mr. Kinzinger. Like my colleague from Virginia, I am a 
veteran. I served in the Air Force, and I serve currently in 
the Air National Guard. I can tell you that General Milley's 
reaction to President Trump's conduct is 100 percent correct, 
and so was Leader McCarthy's.
    What explains President Trump's behavior? Why did he not 
take immediate action in a time of crisis? Because President 
Trump's plan for January 6th was to halt or delay Congress's 
official proceeding to count the votes. The mob attacking the 
Capitol quickly caused the evacuation of both the House and the 
Senate. The count ground to an absolute halt and was ultimately 
delayed for hours. The mob was accomplishing President Trump's 
purpose, so of course he didn't intervene.
    Here is what will be clear by the end of this hearing: 
President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes 
between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home; he 
chose not to act.
    But there were hundreds that day who honored their oaths 
and put their lives on the line to protect the people inside 
the Capitol and to safeguard our democracy.
    Many of them are here tonight with us, and many more are 
watching from home. As you already know, and we will see again 
tonight, their service and sacrifice shines a bright light on 
President Trump's dishonor and dereliction of duty.
    I yield to the Vice Chair.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Kinzinger.
    I would like to begin by welcoming our witnesses this 
evening. Tonight, we are joined by Mr. Matthew Pottinger. Mr. 
Pottinger is a decorated former Marine intelligence officer who 
served this Nation on tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. He 
served in the Trump White House from the first day of the 
administration through the early morning hours of January 7, 
2021. The last role in which he served in the White House was 
as Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of United 
States.
    We are also joined by Sarah Matthews. Ms. Matthews started 
her career in communications working on Capitol Hill serving on 
the Republican staffs of several House committees. She then 
worked as Deputy Press Secretary for President Trump's 
reelection campaign before joining the Trump White House in 
June 2020. She served there as Deputy Press Secretary and 
Special Assistant to the President until the evening of January 
6, 2021.
    I will now swear in our witnesses. The witnesses will 
please stand and raise their right hands.
    [Witnesses sworn.]
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the 
record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
    Thank you, both, again for being here tonight.
    Mr. Pottinger, thank you for your service to the Nation as 
well as for joining us this evening.
    Can you please briefly explain what your responsibilities 
were as Deputy National Security Advisor to the President?
    Mr. Pottinger. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
    When I started at the White House, I was a senior director 
for Asia on the National Security Council staff. So that was a 
job that involved helping coordinate the President's Asia 
policy. I supported the President when he met or interacted 
with Asian leaders. Later, in 2019, I was promoted to the job 
of Deputy National Security Advisor. In that role, I was the 
chairman of the Deputies Committee. That is an NSC meeting of 
all of the Deputy Cabinet Secretaries. We would settle 
important matters of National policy related to our National 
security, and we would also tee up options for the President 
and for his Cabinet Members.
    It was--I felt then as I do now it was a privilege to serve 
in the White House. I am also very proud of President Trump's 
foreign policy accomplishments. We were able to finally compete 
with China. We were also able to broker peace agreements 
between Israel and three Arab states. I mean, those are some 
examples of the types of policies that I think made our country 
safer.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you, Mr. Pottinger.
    Were you in the White House during the attack on the 
Capitol on January 6th?
    Mr. Pottinger. For most of the day, I was in the White 
House. Although, when the President was speaking at the rally, 
I was actually offsite at a scheduled meeting with India's 
Ambassador to the United States. The National Security Council 
staff was not involved in organizing the security for what was 
a domestic event, the rally, but I did return to the White 
House at roughly 2:30 p.m.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you. I know my colleagues will 
have additional questions for you about that afternoon.
    Let me turn now to you, Ms. Matthews.
    How did you come to join President Trump's White House 
staff?
    Ms. Matthews. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
    As you outlined, I have been a lifelong Republican. I 
joined the Trump reelection campaign in June 2019. I was one of 
the first communication staffers actually on board for his 
reelection campaign. During that time, I traveled all around 
the country and met Kayleigh McEnany, who was also working on 
his reelection campaign.
    I worked there for a year, and I formed a close 
relationship with Ms. McEnany, and she moved over to the White 
House in April 2020 to start as White House Press Secretary, 
and she brought over a group of campaign staff with her. So I 
joined her over at the White House in June 2020 to start as her 
deputy.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Were you, Ms. Matthews, at work in the 
White House on January 6th?
    Ms. Matthews. Yes. I was working out of the West Wing that 
day.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you.
    Now I would like to recognize the gentlewoman from Virginia 
and the gentleman from Illinois.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
    As you have seen in our prior hearings, President Trump 
summoned the mob to D.C. on January 6th. Before he went on 
stage, he knew some of them were armed and prepared for combat. 
During his speech, he implored them to march to the Capitol, as 
he had always planned to do. By the time he walked off the 
stage, his supporters had already breached the outer perimeter 
of the Capitol at the foot of Capitol Hill.
    Since our last hearings, we have received new testimony 
from a security professional working in the White House complex 
on January 6th with access to relevant information and 
responsibility to report to National security officials. This 
security official told us that the White House was aware of 
multiple reports of weapons in the crowd that morning. We as a 
Committee are cognizant of the fear of retribution expressed by 
certain National security witnesses who have come forward to 
tell the truth. We have therefore taken steps to protect this 
National security individual's identity.
    Listen to that clip from their testimony.

    Ms. Dayananda. What was the consistent message from the people 
about this idea of the President to walk to the Capitol?
    Anonymous White House Security Official. To be completely honest, 
we were all in a state of shock.
    Ms. Dayananda. Because why?
    Anonymous White House Security Official. Because--because it just--
one, I think the actual physical feasibility of doing it, and then also 
we all knew what that implicated and what that meant; that this was no 
longer a rally; that this was going to move to something else if he 
physically walked to the Capitol. I--I don't know if you want to use 
the word ``insurrection,'' ``coup,'' whatever. We all knew that this 
would move from a normal, democratic, you know, public event into 
something else.
    Ms. Dayananda. What was--what was driving that sentiment 
considering this--this--this part of it, the actual breach of the 
Capitol, hadn't happened yet?
    Anonymous White House Security Official. Why were we alarmed?
    Ms. Dayananda. Right.
    Anonymous White House Security Official. The President wanted to 
lead tens of thousands of people to the Capitol. I think that was 
enough grounds for us to be alarmed.

    Mrs. Luria. Even though he understood many of his 
supporters were armed, the President was still adamant to go to 
the Capitol when he got off the stage at the Ellipse, but his 
Secret Service detail was equally determined to not let him go. 
That led to a heated argument with the detail that delayed the 
departure of the motorcade to the White House.
    We have evidence from multiple sources regarding an angry 
exchange in the Presidential SUV, including testimony we will 
disclose today from two witnesses who confirmed that a 
confrontation occurred. The first witness is a former White 
House employee with National security responsibilities. After 
seeing the initial violence at the Capitol on TV, the 
individual went to see Tony Ornato, the deputy chief of staff, 
in his office. Mr. Ornato was there with Bobby Engel, the 
President's lead Secret Service agent.
    This employee told us that Mr. Ornato said that the 
President was ``irate when Mr. Engel refused to drive him to 
the Capitol.'' Mr. Engel did not refute what Mr. Ornato said.
    The second witness is retired Sergeant Mark Robinson of the 
D.C. Police Department, who was assigned to the President's 
motorcade that day. He sat in the lead vehicle with the Secret 
Service agent responsible for the motorcade, also called the TS 
agent. Here is how Sergeant Robinson remembered the exchange.

    Ms. Dayananda. Was there any description of what--of what was 
occurring in the car?
    Sergeant Robinson. No. Only that on--the only description I 
received was that the President was upset and was adamant about going 
to the Capitol, and there was a heated discussion about that.
    Ms. Dayananda. And when you say ``heated,'' is that your word or is 
that the word that was described by the TS agent?
    Sergeant Robinson. No. The word described by the TS agent, meaning 
that the President was upset, and he was saying there was a heated 
argument or discussion about going to the Capitol.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Schiff. About how many times would you say you've been part of 
that motorcade with the President?
    Sergeant Robinson. Probably over a hundred times.
    Mr. Schiff. And in that hundred times, have you ever witnessed 
another discussion of--an argument or heated discussion with the 
President where the President was contradicting where he was supposed 
to go or what the Secret Service believed was safe?
    Sergeant Robinson. No.

    Mrs. Luria. Like other witnesses, Sergeant Robinson also 
testified that he was aware that individuals in the crowd were 
armed.

    Sergeant Robinson. Yes, I believe we was on special events channel, 
and I was monitoring the traffic. And so I could hear some of the units 
pointing out to individuals that there were individuals along 
Constitution Avenue that were armed, that were up in the trees, and I 
can hear the units responding to those individuals. So there's always a 
concern when there's a POTUS in the area.

    Mrs. Luria. Like other witnesses, Sergeant Robinson told us 
that the President still wanted to travel to the Capitol even 
after returning to the White House.

    Ms. Dayananda. So, at the end of the speech, what was the plan 
supposed to be?
    Sergeant Robinson. So, at the end of the speech, we do know that 
while inside the limo, the President was still adamant about going to 
the Capitol. That's been relayed to me by the TS agent. And so we did 
depart the Ellipse, and we responded back to the White House. However, 
we--the motorcade--POTUS motorcade was placed on standby. And so we 
were told to stand by on the West Exec until they confirmed whether or 
not the President was going to go to the Capitol. And so I may have 
waited, I would just estimate, maybe 45 to--45 minutes to an hour 
waiting for Secret Service to make that decision.

    Mrs. Luria. The motorcade waited at the White House for 
more than 45 minutes before being released. The Committee is 
also aware that accounts of the angry confrontation in the 
Presidential SUV have circulated widely among the Secret 
Service since January 6th. Recent disclosures have also caused 
the Committee to subpoena yet further information from the 
Secret Service, which we have begun to receive and will 
continue to assess. The Committee is also aware that certain 
Secret Service witnesses have now retained new private counsel. 
We anticipate further testimony under oath and other new 
information in the coming weeks.
    After the Secret Service refused to take President Trump to 
the Capitol, he returned to the White House.
    What you see on the screen is a photo of him inside the 
Oval Office immediately after he returned from the rally, still 
wearing his overcoat. A White House employee informed the 
President as soon as he returned to the Oval about the riot at 
the Capitol. Let me repeat that: Within 15 minutes of leaving 
the stage, President Trump knew that the Capitol was besieged 
and under attack.
    At 1:25, President Trump went to the private dining room 
off the Oval Office. From 1:25 until 4 o'clock, the President 
stayed in his dining room. Just to give you a sense where the 
dining room is situated in the West Wing, let's take look at 
this floor plan.
    The dining room is connected to the Oval Office by a short 
hallway. Witnesses told us that, on January 6th, President 
Trump sat in his usual spot, at the head of the table facing a 
television hanging on the wall. We know from the employee that 
the TV was tuned to Fox News all afternoon. Here you can see 
Fox News on the TV showing coverage of the joint session that 
was airing that day at 1:25.
    Other witnesses confirmed that President Trump was in the 
dining room with the TV on for more than 2\1/2\ hours. There 
was no official record of what President Trump did while in the 
dining room. On the screen is the Presidential call log from 
January 6th.
    As you can see, there is no official record of President 
Trump receiving or placing a call between 11:06 and 6:54 p.m.
    As to what the President was doing that afternoon, the 
Presidential daily diary is also silent. It contains no 
information from the period between 1:21 p.m. and 4:03 p.m.
    There are also no photos of President Trump during this 
critical period between 1:21 in the Oval Office and when he 
went outside to the Rose Garden after 4 o'clock. The chief 
White House photographer wanted to take pictures because it 
was, in her words, very important for his archives and for 
history, but she was told ``no photographs.''
    Despite the lack of photos or an official record, we have 
learned what President Trump was doing while he was watching TV 
in the dining room, but before we get into that, it is 
important to understand what he never did that day. Let's 
watch.

    Vice Chair Cheney. So are you aware of any phone call by the 
President of the United States to the Secretary of Defense that day?
    Mr. Cipollone. Not that I'm aware of, no.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Are you aware of any phone call by the President 
of the United States to the Attorney General of the United States that 
day?
    Mr. Cipollone. No.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Are you aware of any phone call by the President 
of the United States to the Secretary of Homeland Security that day?
    Mr. Cipollone. I--I'm not aware of that, no.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. George. Did you ever hear the Vice President--excuse me, the 
President ask for the National Guard?
    General Kellogg. No.
    Mr. George. Did you ever hear the President ask for a law 
enforcement response?
    General Kellogg. No.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. George. So, as somebody who works in the national security 
space and with the National Security Council, if there were going to be 
troops present or called up for a rally in Washington, DC, for example, 
is that something that you would have been aware of?
    General Kellogg. Yeah, I would have.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. George. Do you know if he asked anybody to reach out to any of 
those that we just listed off--National Guard, DOD, FBI, Homeland 
Security, Secret Service, Mayor Bowser, or the Capitol Police--about 
the situation at the Capitol?
    Mr. Luna. I am not aware of any of those requests. No, sir.

    Mrs. Luria. We have confirmed in numerous interviews with 
senior law enforcement and military leaders, Vice President 
Pence's staff and D.C. government officials, none of them--not 
one--heard from President Trump that day. He did not call to 
issue orders. He did not call to offer assistance. This week, 
we received additional testimony from yet another witness about 
why the President didn't make any efforts to quell the attack.
    The former White House employee with National security 
responsibilities told us about a conversation with senior 
advisor Eric Herschmann and Pat Cipollone, the top White House 
lawyer. This conversation was about a pending call from the 
Pentagon seeking to coordinate on the response to the attack.
    Mr. Herschmann turned to Mr. Cipollone and said the 
President didn't want to do anything.
    So, Mr. Cipollone had to take the call himself.
    So, if President Trump wasn't calling law enforcement or 
military leaders, what did President Trump spend his time doing 
that afternoon while he first settled into the dining room? He 
was calling Senators to encourage them to delay or object to 
the certification. Here is Kayleigh McEnany, his Press 
Secretary, to explain.

    Mr. Wood. All right. That says ``back there'' and ``he wants list 
of Senators,'' and then ``he's calling them one by one.'' Do you know 
which ones he called?
    Ms. McEnany. To the best of my recollection, no. As I say in my 
notes, he wanted a list of the Senators, and, you know, I left him at--
at that point.

    Mrs. Luria. Because the Presidential call log is empty, we 
do not yet know precisely which Senators President Trump was 
calling. But we do know from Rudy Giuliani's phone records that 
President Trump also called him at 1:39, after he had been told 
that the riot was under way at the Capitol.
    Mr. Giuliani was President Trump's lead election attorney. 
According to the phone records, the President's call with him 
lasted approximately 4 minutes. Recall that Fox News was on in 
the dining room. Let's take a look at what was airing as this 
call was ending.

    Fox News Reporter. The President, as we all saw, fired this crowd 
up. They've all--tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 or more, have gone 
down to the Capitol or elsewhere in the city, and they're very upset.
    Now, I jumped down as soon as we heard the news that Bret gave you 
about Mike Pence. I started talking to these people. I said, ``What do 
you think?'' One woman, an Air Force veteran from Missouri, said she 
was, quote, ``disgusted to hear that news and that it was his duty to 
do something.'' And I told her--I said, ``There's nothing in the 
Constitution unilaterally that Vice President Pence could do.'' She 
said, ``That doesn't matter. He should have fought for Trump.''

    Mrs. Luria. At 1:49, here is what was happening at the 
Capitol with President Trump's fired-up supporters.

    Metropolitan Police Department Transmission. We're going to give--
fire a warning. We're going to try to get compliance, but this is now 
effectively a riot.
    Metropolitan Police Department Transmission. 1349 hours declaring 
it a riot.

    Mrs. Luria. What did President Trump do at 1:49, as the 
D.C. Police at the same time were declaring a riot at the 
Capitol?
    As you can see on the screen, he tweeted out a link to the 
recording of his Ellipse speech. This was the same speech in 
which he knowingly sent an armed mob to the Capitol, but 
President Trump made no comment about the lawlessness and the 
violence.
    I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
    Mr. Kinzinger. The next action President Trump took was to 
tweet at 2:24 p.m. What happened during the 35 minutes between 
his last tweet at 1:49 and 2:24? His staff repeatedly came into 
the room to see him and plead that he make a strong public 
statement condemning the violence and instructing the mob to 
leave the Capitol. He did not relent until after 4 o'clock when 
he went out to go to the Rose Garden to film his now infamous 
``go home'' message.
    Pat Cipollone was a top White House lawyer. Here is what he 
told us about his reaction to seeing the violence and his 
advice throughout the afternoon.

    Mr. Heaphy. When did you first realize that there was actual 
violence or rioting?
    Mr. Cipollone. I--I first realized it may have been on television 
or it may have been Tony or it may have been Philbin. But I found out 
that people were--you know, they weren't in the Capitol yet, but they 
were, you know--and then I started watching it, and, you know, then I 
was aware.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. What specifically did you think needed to be done?
    Mr. Cipollone. I think I was pretty clear there needed to be an 
immediate and forceful response statement--public statement that people 
need to leave the Capitol now.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. My question is exactly that, 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.
                                 ______
                                 
    Vice Chair Cheney. Pat, you--you said that you expressed your 
opinion forcefully. Could you tell us exactly how you did that?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yeah, I can't--I don't have--you know, I have to--on 
the privilege issue, I can't talk about conversations with the 
President, but I can generically say that I said, you know, people need 
to be told--there needs to be a public announcement fast that they need 
to leave the Capitol.
    Vice Chair Cheney. And, Pat, could you let us know approximately 
when you said that?
    Mr. Cipollone. Approximately when? Almost immediately after I found 
out people were getting into the Capitol or approaching the Capitol in 
a way that was--was violent.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. Do you remember any discussion with Mark Meadows with 
respect to his view that the President didn't want to do--was somehow 
resistant to wanting to say something along the lines that you 
suggested?
    Mr. Cipollone. Tony [inaudible]--just to be clear, many people 
suggested it, not just me. Many people felt the same way. I'm sure I 
had conversations with Mark about this during the course of the day and 
expressed my--my opinion very forcefully that this needs to be done.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. So your advice was to tell people to leave the Capitol, 
and it took over 2 hours when there were subsequent statements made, 
tweets put forth, that in your view were insufficient. Did you 
continue, Mr. Cipollone, throughout the period of time up until 4:17--
continue, you and others, to push for a stronger statement?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes.
    Mr. Heaphy. Were you joined in that effort by Ivanka Trump?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes.
    Mr. Heaphy. Eric Herschmann?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes.
    Mr. Heaphy. And Mark Meadows?
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Hutchinson. White House Counsel's Office wanted there to be a 
strong statement out to condemn the rioters. I'm confident in that. I'm 
confident that Ivanka Trump wanted there to be a strong statement to 
condemn the rioters. I don't know the private conversation she had with 
Mr. Trump, but I remember when she came to the office one time with 
White House counsel's office--when she came to the Chief of Staff's 
office with White House counsel's office, she was talking about the 
speech later that day and trying to get her dad on board with saying 
something that was more direct than he had wanted to at the time and 
throughout the afternoon.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. I think Mark also wanted--got--I remember him 
getting Ivanka involved, because--said, ``Get Ivanka down here,'' 
because he thought that would be important. I don't think Jared was 
there in the morning, but I think he came later. I remember thinking it 
was important to get him in there, too.
    And--and of course, Pat Philbin, you know, was expressing the same 
things. I mean, Pat Philbin, you know, was very--as I said, I don't 
think there was one of these meetings where--there might have been, but 
for the most part, I remember the both of us going down together, going 
back, getting on phone calls. He was also very clearly expressing this 
view.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Pat Cipollone and Cassidy Hutchinson, an 
aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also told us about the 
``hang Mike Pence'' chants. As you will see, Mr. Cipollone 
recalled conversations about those chants in the West Wing, but 
he relied on executive privilege to maintain confidentiality 
over his and others' direct communications with the President. 
Although Mr. Cipollone was unwilling to provide more detail, 
Ms. Hutchinson provided more explicit information filling in 
those blanks. See that for yourself.

    Ms. Hutchinson. It wasn't until Mark hung up the phone, handed it 
back to me, I went back to my desk. A couple of minutes later, him and 
Pat came back, possibly Eric Herschmann, too. I'm pretty sure Eric 
Herschmann was there, but I'm--I'm confident it was Pat that was there. 
I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, ``Mark, we need to do 
something more. They're literally calling for the Vice President to be 
F'ing hung.'' And Mark had responded something to the effect of, ``You 
heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're 
doing anything wrong.'' To which Pat said something, ``This is F'ing 
crazy. We need to be doing something more,'' and briefly stepped into 
Mark's office.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. Do you remember any discussion at any point during the 
day about rioters at the Capitol chanting ``hang Mike Pence?''
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes, I remember--I remember hearing that--about 
that, yes. I don't know if I observed that myself on TV.
    Mr. Heaphy. I'm just curious. I understand the--the privilege line 
you've drawn, but do you remember what you can share with us about the 
discussion about those chants, the ``hang Mike Pence'' chants?
    Mr. Cipollone. I can tell you my view of that.
    Mr. Heaphy. Yes, please.
    Mr. Cipollone. My view of that is that is outrageous. And for 
anyone to suggest such a thing of the Vice President of the United 
States, for people in that crowd to be chanting that I thought was 
terrible. I thought it was outrageous and wrong, and I expressed that 
very clearly.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Schiff. With respect to your conversations with Mr. Meadows, 
though, did you specifically raise your concern over the Vice President 
with him, and--and how did he respond?
    Mr. Cipollone. I believe I raised the concern about the Vice 
President, and I--and I--again, the nature of his response, without 
recalling exactly, was he--you know, people were doing all that they 
could.
    Mr. Schiff. And what about the President, did he indicate whether 
he thought the President was doing what needed to be done to protect 
the Vice President?
    Mr. Purpura. Privilege.
    Mr. Heaphy. You have to assert it. That question would----
    [Crosstalk.]
    Mr. Cipollone [continuing]. I'm being instructed on privilege.
    Mr. Heaphy. I see.

    Mr. Kinzinger. In addition, Mr. Cipollone testified that it 
would have been feasible, as commentators on television were 
suggesting, for President Trump to immediately appear at the 
podium in the press room to address the Nation.

    Mr. Heaphy. Would it have been possible at any moment for the 
President to walk down to the podium in the Briefing Room and tell--
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? Would that 
have been possible?
    Mr. Cipollone. Would it have been possible?
    Mr. Heaphy. Yes.
    Mr. Cipollone. Yes, it would have been possible.

    Mr. Kinzinger. We just heard Mr. Cipollone say that 
President Trump could have gone to the Press Briefing Room to 
issue a statement at any moment. To give you a sense of just 
how easy that would have been, let's take a look at a map of 
the West Wing.
    As we saw earlier, the President's private dining room is 
at the bottom of the map. The Press Briefing Room is at the top 
highlighted in blue, and the Rose Garden, where the President 
ultimately his ``go home'' video is on the right, next to the 
Oval Office, and that is highlighted in green.
    Ms. Matthews, how quickly could the President have gotten 
on camera in the Press Briefing Room to deliver a statement to 
the Nation?
    Ms. Matthews. So, as you outlined, it would take probably 
less than 60 seconds from the Oval Office dining room over to 
the Press Briefing Room. For folks that might not know, the 
Briefing Room is the room that you see the White House Press 
Secretary do briefings from with the podium and the blue 
backdrop. There is a camera that is on in there at all times. 
So, if the President had wanted to make a statement and address 
the American people, he could have been on camera almost 
instantly.
    Conversely, the White House Press Corps has offices that 
are located directly behind the Briefing Room. So, if he had 
wanted to make an address from the Oval Office, we could have 
assembled the White House Press Corps probably in a matter of 
minutes to get them into the Oval for him to do an on-camera 
address.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you. Other witnesses have given us 
their views on that question. For example, General Keith 
Kellogg told us that some staff were concerned that a live 
appearance by the President at the microphones at that moment 
could actually make matters worse. He told us he recommended 
against doing a press conference because, during his 4 years in 
the Trump administration: ``There wasn't a single clean press 
conference we had had.''
    President Trump's advisers knew his state of mind at that 
moment, and they were worried about what he would say in 
unscripted comments.
    I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
    As you've heard, by 2 o'clock, multiple staff members in 
the White House recognized that a serious situation was under 
way at the Capitol. Personally, I recall being evacuated from 
the House office building where we were sitting by--before this 
time, and it was due to the discovery of two pipe bombs in 
nearby buildings.
    Ms. Matthews, around the same time, you were watching the 
violence unfold on television and social media with colleagues, 
including with Ben Williamson, a senior aide to Mark Meadows 
and the acting director of communications.
    You told us before President Trump sent his next tweet at 
2:24, Mr. Williamson got up to go see Mr. Meadows, and you got 
up to go see Kayleigh McEnany.
    Why did you both do that?
    Ms. Matthews. So, Ben and I were watching the coverage 
unfold from one of the offices in the West Wing, and we both 
recognized that the situation was escalating, and it was 
escalating quickly, and that the President needed to be out 
there immediately to tell these people to go home and condemn 
the violence that we were seeing. So, I told him that I was 
going to make that recommendation to Kayleigh, and he said he 
was going to make the same recommendation to the Chief of Staff 
Mark Meadows.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you. One of your colleagues in the press 
office, Judd Deere, told us he also went to see Ms. McEnany at 
that time. Let's hear what he said about this critical period 
of time right as the rioters were getting into the Capitol.

    Mr. Wood. And why did you think it was necessary to say something?
    Mr. Deere. Well, I mean, it appears that individuals are storming 
the U.S. Capitol Building. They also appear to be supporters of Donald 
Trump who may have been in attendance at the rally. We're going to need 
to say something.
    Mr. Wood. Did you have a view as to what should be said by the 
White House?
    Mr. Deere. If I recall, I told Kayleigh that I thought that we 
needed to encourage individuals to stop, to respect law enforcement, 
and to go home.

    Mrs. Luria. Although President Trump was aware of the on-
going riot, he did not take any immediate action to address the 
lawlessness. Instead, at 2:03, he called Rudy Giuliani again, 
and that call lasted for over 8 minutes.
    Moments later, at 2:13, rioters broke into the Capitol 
itself. One of the Proud Boys charged with seditious 
conspiracy, Dominic Pezzola, used an officer's shield to smash 
a window and rioters flooded into the building.

    Crowd. Go, go, go, go. Go in the Capitol. Go, go, go.

    Mrs. Luria. As rioters were entering the building, the 
Secret Service held Vice President Pence in his office right 
off the Senate Chamber for 13 minutes as they worked to clear a 
safe path to a secure location.
    Now listen to some of that radio traffic and see what they 
were seeing as the protesters got just feet away from where the 
Vice President was holding.

    Secret Service Radio Transmission. They're taking the building. 
Hold.
    Harden that door up.
    If you are moving, we need to move now.
    Copy.
    If we lose any more time, we may have--we may lose the ability to--
to leave. So, if we're going to leave, we need to do it now.
    They've gained access to the second floor, and I've got public 
about 5 feet from me down here below.
    Okay. Copy.
    They are on the second floor moving in now. We may want to consider 
getting out and leaving now. Copy.
    Will we encounter the people once we make our way?
    Repeat.
    Encounter any individuals if we made our way to the--to the----
    There's six officers between us and the people that are 5 to 10 
feet away from me.
    Stand by. I'm going down to evaluate.
    Go ahead.
    We have a clear shot if we move quickly. We've got smoke 
downstairs. Stand by. Unknown smoke from downstairs. By the protesters?
    Is that route compromised?
    We have the--is secure. However, we will bypass some protesters 
that are being contained. There is smoke, unknown what kind of smoke it 
is. Copy.
    Clear. We're coming out now. All right? Make a way.

    Mrs. Luria. The President's National Security Council staff 
was listening to these developments and tracking them in real 
time.
    On the screen, you can see excerpts from the chat logs 
among the President's National Security Council staff. At 2:13, 
the staff learned that the rioters were kicking in the windows 
at the Capitol. Three minutes later, the staff said the Vice 
President was being pulled, which meant agents evacuated him 
from the Senate floor. At 2:24, the staff noted that the Secret 
Service agents at the Capitol did not ``sound good right now.''
    Earlier, you heard from a security professional who had 
been working in the White House complex on January 6th with 
access to relevant information and a responsibility to report 
to National security officials. We asked this person, what was 
meant by the comment that the Secret Service agents did not 
``sound good right now''?
    In the following clip of that testimony, which has been 
modified to protect the individual's identity, the professional 
discusses what they heard from listening to the incoming radio 
traffic that day.

    Ms. Dayananda. Okay. That last entry in the page is ``Service at 
the Capitol does not sound good right now.''
    Anonymous White House Security Official. Correct.
    Ms. Dayananda. What does that mean?
    Anonymous White House Security Official. Well, members of the VP 
detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives. There 
were a lot of--there was a lot of yelling, a lot of--a lot of very 
personal calls over the radio. So it was disturbing. I don't like 
talking about it, but there were calls to say goodbye to family 
members, so on and so forth. It was getting--for whatever the reason 
was on the ground, the VP detail thought that this was about to get 
very ugly.
    Ms. Dayananda. And do--did you hear that over the radio?
    Anonymous White House Security Official. Correct.
    Ms. Dayananda. Okay. What was the response by the agents who were--
Secret Service agents who were there?
    Anonymous White House Security Official. Everybody kept saying--you 
know, at that point it was just reassurances or--I think there were 
discussions of reinforcements coming, but--but, again, it was just 
chaos, and they were just----
    Ms. Dayananda. Obviously, you've conveyed that's disturbing, but 
what--what prompted you to put it into an entry as it states there, 
``Service at the Capitol----
    Anonymous White House Security Official. They were running out of 
options, and they were getting nervous. It--it sounds like we're--that 
we came very close to either Service having to use lethal options or--
or worse. Like, at--at that point I don't know. Is the VP compromised? 
Is the detail--like, I--I don't know. Like, we didn't have visibility, 
but it doesn't--if they're screaming and--and saying things like say 
goodbye to the family, like, the floor needs to know this is going to 
on a whole `nother level soon.

    Mrs. Luria. As the next video shows, the rioters' anger was 
focused primarily on Vice President Mike Pence.

    Ms. Buhler. This woman came up to the side of us and she says, 
``Pence folded.'' So it was kind-of, like, okay, well--in my mind, I 
was thinking, well, that's it, you know. Well, my son-in-law looks at 
me and he says, ``I want to go in.''
                                 ______
                                 
    Stop the Steal Transmission. What percentage of the crowd is going 
to the Capitol?
    Ms. Watkins. 100 percent. It is--it has spread like wildfire that 
Pence has betrayed us, and everybody is marching on the Capitol, all 
million of us. It's insane.
                                 ______
                                 
    Voice. Mike Pence will not stick up for Donald Trump. Mike Pence, 
traitor.
    Voice. Mike Pence has screwed us in case you haven't heard yet.
    Voice. What happened? What happened?
    Voice. I keep hearing that Mike Pence has screwed us. That's the 
word. I keep hearing reports that Mike Pence has screwed us.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Childress. Did people appear angry as you were walking to the 
Capitol?
    Mr. Ayres. Yeah, a lot of people--a lot of people seemed like they 
were very upset.
    Mr. Childress. Tell us some of the things they were saying, if you 
recall.
    Mr. Ayres. Oh, there was--they were saying all type--you know, 
people were screaming all types of stuff. They were mad that Vice 
President Pence was going to accept the electorals. I mean, it was--I 
mean, it was a load of--if you can--if you can think it up, that's--you 
are hearing it.
                                 ______
                                 
    Voice. I believe that Vice President Pence was going to certify the 
electoral votes and--or not certify them. But I guess that's just 
changed. Correct? And it's a very big disappointment. I think there's 
several hundred thousand people here that are very disappointed.

    Mrs. Luria. President Trump did not try to calm his 
thousands of disappointed supporters. Instead, at almost the 
same moment violence was getting completely out of hand, Donald 
Trump sent his 2:24 tweet.
    The President said, ``Mike Pence didn't have the courage to 
do what should have been done to protect our Country and our 
Constitution.''
    Despite knowing the Capitol had been breached and the mob 
was in the building, President Trump called Mike Pence a coward 
and placed all the blame on him for not stopping the 
certification. He put a target on his own Vice President's 
back.
    Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Matthews, when we asked you about 
your reaction to seeing the 2:24 tweet in real time, you both 
used the same imagery to describe it: President Trump was 
adding fuel to the fire.
    Mr. Pottinger, you made the decision to resign after seeing 
this tweet. Can you please tell us why?
    Mr. Pottinger. Yes. So that was pretty soon after I--or 
shortly before I had gotten back to the White House. I had come 
from off-site. I began to see for the first time those images 
on TV of the chaos that was unfolding at the Capitol.
    One of my aides handed me a sheet of paper that contained a 
tweet that you just read. I read it and was quite disturbed by 
it. I was disturbed and worried to see that the President was 
attacking Vice President Pence for doing his constitutional 
duty.
    So, the tweet looked to me like the opposite of what we 
really needed at that moment, which was a de-escalation. That 
is why I had said earlier that it looked like fuel being poured 
on the fire.
    So, that was the moment that I decided that I was going to 
resign, that that would be my last day at the White House. I 
simply didn't want to be associated with the events that were 
unfolding on the Capitol.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
    Ms. Matthews, what was your reaction to the President's 
tweet about Vice President Pence?
    Ms. Matthews. So, it was obvious that the situation at the 
Capitol was violent and escalating quickly. So, I thought that 
the tweet about the Vice President was the last thing that was 
needed in that moment.
    I remember thinking that this was going to be bad for him 
to tweet this, because it was essentially him giving the green 
light to these people, telling them that what they were doing 
at the steps of the Capitol and entering the Capitol was okay, 
that they were justified in their anger.
    He shouldn't have been doing that. He should have been 
telling these people to go home and to leave and to condemn the 
violence that we were seeing.
    I am someone who has worked with him, you know, I worked on 
the campaign, traveled all around the country, going to 
countless rallies with him, and I have seen the impact that his 
words have on his supporters. They truly latch onto every word 
and every tweet that he says.
    So, I think that in that moment for him to tweet out the 
message about Mike Pence, it was him pouring gasoline on the 
fire and making it much worse.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you both.
    Let's watch what others also told us about their reactions 
to this tweet.

    Mr. Cipollone. I don't remember when exactly I heard about that 
tweet, but my reaction to it is that's a--a terrible tweet, and I 
disagreed with the sentiment, and I thought it was wrong.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Wood. What was your reaction when you saw that tweet?
    Mr. Deere. Extremely unhelpful.
    Mr. Wood. Why?
    Mr. Deere. It--it--it wasn't the message that we needed at--at that 
time. It wasn't going to--the--the scenes at the U.S. Capitol were only 
getting worse at that point. This was not going to help that.
    Mr. Wood. Were you concerned it could make it worse?
    Mr. Deere. Certainly.
                                 ______
                                 
    Vice Chair Cheney. Ms. Hutchinson, what was your reaction when you 
saw this tweet?
    Ms. Hutchinson. As a staffer that works to always represent the 
administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good 
things that he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, 
disappointed, and really, it--it felt personal. I--I was really sad. As 
an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. 
We were watching the Capitol Building get defaced over a lie.

    Mrs. Luria. As you will see, at 2:26 the Vice President had 
to be evacuated to safety a second time and came within 40 feet 
of the rioters. The attack escalated quickly right after the 
tweet.

    Voices. [Unintelligible.]

    Mrs. Luria. During this chaos, what did President Trump do 
at that point? He went back to calling Senators to try to 
further delay the electoral count.
    While the Vice President was being evacuated from the 
Senate, President Trump called Senator Tommy Tuberville, one of 
his strongest supporters in the Senate. As Senator Tuberville 
later recalled, he had to end the call so that he could 
evacuate the Senate Chamber himself.
    Let's listen.

    Senator Tuberville. He called--didn't call my phone. Called 
somebody else and they handed it to me. And I--I basically told him--I 
said, ``Mr. President, we're--we're not doing much work here right now 
because they just took our Vice President out, and matter of fact, I'm 
gonna have to hang up on you. I've got to leave.''

    Mrs. Luria. Senator Josh Hawley also had to flee. Earlier 
that afternoon, before the joint session started, he walked 
across the East Front of the Capitol.
    As you can see in this photo, he raised his fist in 
solidarity with the protesters already amassing at the security 
gates.
    We spoke with the Capitol Police Officer who was out there 
at the time. She told us that Senator Hawley's gesture riled up 
the crowd. It bothered her greatly, because he was doing it in 
a safe space, protected by the officers and the barriers.
    Later that day, Senator Hawley fled after those protesters 
he helped to rile up stormed the Capitol.
    See for yourself.
    Think about had what we've seen: undeniable violence at the 
Capitol. The Vice President being evacuated to safety by the 
Secret Service. Senators running through the hallways of the 
Senate to get away from the mob.
    As the Commander-in-Chief, President Trump was oath- and 
duty-bound to protect the Capitol. His senior staff understood 
that.

    Vice Chair Cheney. Do--do you believe, Jared, that the President 
has an obligation to ensure a peaceful transfer of power?
    Mr. Kushner. Yes.
    Vice Chair Cheney. And do you think the President has an obligation 
to defend all three branches of our government?
    Mr. Kushner. I believe so.
                                 ______
                                 
    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.
                                 ______
                                 
    Vice Chair Cheney. No, I mean, I asked what his duty is.
    General Kellogg. Well, I mean, there's a--there's a constitutional 
duty--I--what he has--he's the Commander in Chief, and that was the--
the--that was my biggest issue with him as National Security Advisor.

    Mrs. Luria. Rather than uphold his duty to the 
Constitution, President Trump allowed the mob to achieve the 
delay that he hoped would keep him in power.
    I reserve.
    Vice Chair Cheney. The gentlewoman reserves.
    I request that those in the hearing room remain seated 
until the Capitol Police have escorted Members and witnesses 
from the room.
    I now declare the Committee in recess for a period of 
approximately 10 minutes.
    [Accordingly, at 9:11 p.m., the Committee recessed until 
9:24 p.m., when it was called to order by the Vice Chair.]
    Vice Chair Cheney. I now recognize the gentleman from 
Illinois.
    Mr. Kinzinger. We left at the recess just after President 
Trump's 2:24 tweet attacking the Vice President. By this time, 
the President had been in his dining room for an hour.
    I want you to just think of what you would have done if you 
were in his shoes and had the power to end the violence. You 
would have immediately and forcefully told the rioters to stop 
and leave, like, stop and leave, done.
    As you heard, that's exactly what his senior staff had been 
urging him do. But he resisted and he kept resisting for 
another almost 2 hours.
    In the mean time, all the President did was post two 
tweets, one at 2:38 and the other at 3:13. One said ``stay 
peaceful.'' The other said ``remain peaceful.''
    But the President already knew that the mob was attacking 
the police and had invaded the Capitol. Neither tweet condemned 
the violence or told the mob to leave the Capitol and disperse.
    To appreciate how obvious it was that President Trump was 
not meeting this moment, it is helpful to look at the real-time 
reactions of his own son, Don Jr., to the first tweet captured 
in a series of text messages with Mark Meadows. I warn the 
audience that these messages contain some strong language.
    As you can see, Don Jr. first texted Mr. Meadows at 2:53. 
He wrote, ``He's got to condemn this shit. ASAP. The Capitol 
police tweet is not enough.''
    Mr. Meadows replied, ``I am pushing it hard. I agree.''
    Don Jr. responded, ``This [is] one you go to the mattresses 
on. They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets 
worse.''
    Here's what Don Jr. told us he meant by ``go to the 
mattresses.''

    Mr. Tonolli. At 2:58 when you say that he need--that Mr. Meadows 
needs to go to the mattresses on this issue, when you say ``go to the 
mattresses,'' what does that mean?
    Mr. Trump, Jr. It's just a reference for going all in. I think it's 
a ``Godfather'' reference.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Sean Hannity agreed, and he also turned to 
Mark Meadows for help after the President's second tweet.
    As you can see, Mr. Hannity texted at 3:31 to say Trump 
needed to deliver a statement to the Nation telling the rioters 
to leave the Capitol. Mr. Meadows respond that he was ``on 
it.''
    Don Jr. and Sean Hannity were not the only ones who 
implored Mr. Meadows to get the President to speak to the 
Nation and tell the mob to leave, to go home, go home. 
Throughout the attack, Mr. Meadows received texts from 
Republican Members of Congress, from current and former Trump 
administration officials, from media personalities, and from 
friends. Like President Trump's staff, they knew President 
Trump had to speak publicly to get the mob to stop.
    Let's look at just a few of these text messages.
    Fox News personality Laura Ingraham said, ``The President 
needs to tell the people in the Capitol to go home.'' Former 
Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney urged, ``Mark, he needs to stop 
this now.'' Fox News personality Brian Kilmeade said, ``Please 
get him on TV. Destroying everything that you guys have 
accomplished.''
    When we interviewed White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, he 
told us that he knew that the President's two tweets were not 
enough.
    Let's listen to what he said.

    Mr. Heaphy. I think the question is, did you believe that the 
tweets were not anything about your advice to the President?
    Mr. Cipollone. No, I believe more needed to be done. I believed 
that a public statement needed to be made.
                                 ______
                                 
    Vice Chair Cheney. When you talk about others on the staff thinking 
more should be done or thinking that the President needed to tell 
people to go home, who--who would you put in that category?
    Mr. Cipollone. Well, I--I would put Pat Philbin, Eric Herschmann, 
overall Mark Meadows, Ivanka; once Jared got there, Jared; General 
Kellogg. I'm probably missing some, but those are--Kayleigh, I think, 
was--was there, but I don't--Dan Scavino.
    Vice Chair Cheney. And who on the staff did not want people to 
leave the Capitol?
    Mr. Cipollone. On the staff?
    Vice Chair Cheney. In the White House, how about?
    Mr. Cipollone. I don't--I--I can't think of anybody, you know, on 
that day who didn't want people to get out of the--the Capitol once 
the--you know, particularly once the violence started, no. I mean----
    Mr. Schiff. What about the President?
    Vice Chair Cheney. Yeah.
    Mr. Cipollone. She said the staff, so I answered.
    Vice Chair Cheney. No, I said in the White House.
    Mr. Cipollone. Oh, I'm sorry. I--I apologize. I thought you said 
who--who else on the staff. I--I--I can't reveal communications, but 
obviously, I think, you know--yeah.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Let's pause on that last statement. Although 
Pat Cipollone is being careful about executive privilege, there 
really is no ambiguity about what he said. Almost everybody 
wanted President Trump to instruct the mob to disperse. 
President Trump refused.
    To understand how inadequate the President's tweets were, 
let's examine his 2:38 tweet in more detail. For context, here 
is what was happening at that time.

    Voice. They broke the glass.
    Voice. Everybody, stay down. Get down.
                                 ______
                                 
    United States Capitol Police Transmission. Doors barricaded. 
There's people flooding the hallways outside. We have no way out.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Welch. We were just told that there has been tear gas in the 
rotunda, and we're being instructed to each of us get a gas mask.
                                 ______
                                 
    Fox News Host. We went from a peaceful protest, and this is a very 
dangerous situation right now. That there are--I'm being told these 
protesters on the inside are around both Chambers, and there is now 
tear gas inside the Capitol Rotunda. In fact, Members locked in the 
House are being instructed to put on masks.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Ms. Matthews, after President Trump's tweet 
about Vice President Pence, you told us you spoke to--
immediately you spoke to Kayleigh McEnany. What did you tell 
her and where did she go afterwards?
    Ms. Matthews. After the tweet about the Vice President, I 
found Kayleigh and told her that I thought the President needed 
to immediately send out a tweet that condemned the violence 
that we were seeing and that there needed to be a call to 
action to tell these people to leave the Capitol. She agreed 
and walked over to the Oval dining room to find the President.
    Mr. Kinzinger. We interviewed Ms. McEnany and others who 
were in the dining room with the President urging him to put 
out a statement.
    Ms. Matthews, Ms. McEnany told us she came right back to 
the press office after meeting with the President about this 
particular tweet. What did she tell you about what happened in 
that dining room?
    Ms. Matthews. When she got back, she told me that a tweet 
had been sent out. I told her that I thought the tweet did not 
go far enough, that I thought there needed to be a call to 
action and he needed to condemn the violence.
    We were in a room full of people, but people weren't paying 
attention. So, she looked directly at me and in a hushed tone 
shared with me that the President did not want to include any 
sort of mention of peace in that tweet and that it took some 
convincing on their part, those who were in the room.
    She said that there was a back-and-forth going over 
different phrases to find something that he was comfortable 
with. It wasn't until Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase ``stay 
peaceful'' that he finally agreed to include it.
    Mr. Kinzinger. The President resisted writing ``stay 
peaceful'' in a tweet. He told Mark Meadows that the rioters 
were doing what they should be doing. The rioters understood 
they were doing what President Trump wanted them to do.
    President Trump's message was heard clearly by Stop the 
Steal organizer Ali Alexander.
    At 2:38 he told another organizer, ``POTUS is not ignorant 
of what his words would do.''
    Rioters storming the Capitol also heard President Trump's 
message. In this video, you will see surveillance footage from 
the Rotunda that shows a group of Oath Keepers, including 
Jessica Watkins, who was been charged with seditious 
conspiracy.
    You will hear her walkie-talkie communications with others 
as they share intelligence and communicate about President 
Trump's 2:38 tweet in real time. Again, we warn the audience 
that this clip also contains strong language.

    Voice. CNN just said that they evacuated all Members of Congress 
into a safety room.
    Voice. There is no safe place in the United States for any of these 
motherfuckers right now, let me tell you.
    Voice. I hope they understand that we are not joking around.
    Voice. Military principle 105, military principle 105, cave means 
grave.
    Voice. Trump just tweeted, ``Please support our Capitol Police. 
They are on our side. Do not harm them.''
    Voice. That's saying a lot by what he didn't say. He didn't say not 
to do anything to the Congressmen.
    Voice. Well, he did not ask them to stand down. He just said stand 
by the Capitol Police. They are on our side and they are good people. 
So it's getting real down there. I got it on TV, and it's--it's looking 
pretty friggin' radical to me.
    Voice. CNN said that Trump has egged this on, that he is egging it 
on, and that he is watching the country burn 2 weeks before he leaves 
office. He is not leaving office. I don't give a shit what they say.
    Ms. Watkins. And we are in the mezzanine. We are in the main dome 
right now. We are rocking it. They're throwing grenades. They're 
frickin' shooting people with paintballs, but we're in here.
    Voice. Be safe, be safe. God bless and Godspeed and keep going.
    Voice. Get it, Jess. Do your shit. This is what we fucking lived up 
for, everything we fucking trained for.
    Voice. Took over the Capitol, overran the Capitol.
    Voice. We're in the fucking Capitol Complex.

    Mr. Kinzinger. We have now seen how President Trump's 
supporters reacted to his tweets.
    Mr. Pottinger, you told us that you consider the tweets 
sent to this point to be ``wholly inadequate . . . given the 
urgency of the crisis.''
    What, in your view, would have been needed?
    Mr. Pottinger. Yes. It was insufficient. I think what--you 
could count me among those who was hoping to see an unequivocal 
strong statement clearing out the Capitol, telling people to 
stand down, leave, go home. I think that's what we were hoping 
for.
    Mr. Kinzinger. So, something a lot more kind-of definitive 
and not ambiguous.
    Mr. Pottinger. Yes.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Because he has that power over his folks.
    Ms. Matthews, you told us about a colleague who said during 
the attack that the President should not condemn the violence. 
Can you please tell us about that moment and your reaction?
    Ms. Matthews. Yes. So a conversation started in the press 
office after the President sent out those two tweets that I 
deemed were insufficient. A colleague suggested that the 
President shouldn't condemn the violence because they thought 
it would be ``handing a win to the media,'' if he were to 
condemn his supporters.
    I disagreed. I thought that we should condemn the violence 
and condemn it unequivocally. I thought that he needed to 
include a call to action and to tell these people to go home. A 
debate ensued over it.
    I became visibly frustrated and my colleagues were well 
aware of that. I couldn't believe that we were arguing over 
this in the middle of the West Wing, talking about the politics 
of a tweet, being concerned with handing the media a win, when 
we had just watched all of that violence unfold at the Capitol.
    So, I motioned up at the TV. I said, ``Do you think it 
looks like we're F'ing winning? Because I don't think it 
does.''
    I again reiterated that I thought that the President needed 
to condemn the violence, because it didn't matter if it was 
coming from the left or the right, that you should condemn 
violence 100 percent of the time.
    Mr. Kinzinger. We have heard this evening how everyone in 
the President's orbit was pushing him to do more, to tell the 
mob to leave the Capitol.
    One of these people--one of those people was Republican 
Leader Kevin McCarthy. He managed to get the President on the 
phone and told him to call off his supporters.
    As you will hear, the President refused. So, Leader 
McCarthy reached out for help to Ivanka Trump, who was at the 
White House, and Jared Kushner, who that afternoon had just 
arrived back on a flight from the Middle East.

    Ms. Lucier. So, at some point in the afternoon, Mr. McCarthy placed 
a phone call to Mr. Scavino's desk line, and it was transferred to the 
President. Is that correct?
    Ms. Michael. That's generally what I recall.
    Ms. Lucier. Okay. Were you involved in making that--transferring 
that call?
    Ms. Michael. I--I--yes.
    Ms. Lucier. Okay. Where was the President at the time that he took 
that call?
    Ms. Michael. He was in the dining room.
                                 ______
                                 
    Fox News Host. Would you personally reach out to the President for 
more support?
    Mr. McCarthy. I've already talked to the President. I called him. I 
think we need to make a statement, make sure that we can calm 
individuals down.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. Did Mr. McCarthy indicate that he had been in touch 
with President Trump?
    Mr. Short. He indicated that he had had some conversation. I don't 
recall whether it was with the--with the President or with somebody at 
the White House. But I think he--he expressed frustration that--not 
taking the circumstance as seriously as they should in that moment.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Herrera Beutler. You know, I asked Kevin McCarthy, who's the 
Republican Leader, about this, and--and he said he called Donald--he 
finally got through to Donald Trump, and he said, ``You have got to get 
on TV. You've got to get on Twitter. You've got to call these people 
off.'' You know what the President said to him? This is as it's 
happening. He said, ``Well, Kevin, these aren't my people. You know, 
these are--these are Antifa.''
    And Kevin responded and said, ``No, they're your people. They 
literally just came through my office windows, and my staff are running 
for cover. I mean, they're running for their lives. You need to call 
them off.'' And the President's response to Kevin, to me, was chilling. 
He said, ``Well, Kevin, I guess they're just more upset about the 
election, you know, theft than you are.''
    And that's--you know, you've seen widespread reports of--of Kevin 
McCarthy and the President having a--basically a swearing conversation. 
That's when the swearing commenced, because the President was basically 
saying, nah, I--I'm okay with this.
                                 ______
                                 
    CBS News Host. Leader McCarthy, the President of the United States 
has a Briefing Room steps from the Oval Office. It is--the cameras are 
hot 24/7, as you know. Why hasn't he walked down and said that now?
    Mr. McCarthy. I conveyed to the President what I think is best to 
do, and I'm hopeful the President will do it.
    CBS News Host. And have you spoken with his chief of staff?
    Mr. McCarthy. I've spoken to the President. I've spoken to other 
people in there and to the White House as well.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Tonolli. Who else reached out to Mr. Trump that you know of 
that afternoon about the attack on the Capitol?
    Ms. Radford. I believe at one point McCarthy did.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Kushner. So, my--I heard my phone ringing, turn the shower off, 
saw it was Leader McCarthy, who I had a good relationship with. He told 
me it was getting really ugly over at the Capitol and said, ``Please, 
you know, anything you could do to help, I would appreciate it.''
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Kushner. I don't recall a specific ask, just anything you could 
do. Again, I got the sense that, you know, they were--they were--you 
know, they were scared.
    Mr. Heaphy. ``They'' meaning Mr.--Leader McCarthy and people on the 
Hill because of the violence?
    Mr. Kushner. That he--he was scared, yes.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Think about that. Leader McCarthy, who was 
one of the President's strongest supporters, was scared and 
begging for help. President Trump turned him down. So, he tried 
to call the President's children.
    Republican House Member Mike Gallagher also implored the 
President to call off the attack.

    Mr. Gallagher. Mr. President, you have got to stop this. You are 
the only person who can call this off. Call it off. The election is 
over. Call it off.

    Mr. Kinzinger. President-elect Joe Biden also went live on 
TV to demand that President Trump tell the mob to leave.

    President-elect Biden. I call on President Trump to go on national 
television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution, and 
demand an end to this siege.

    Mr. Kinzinger. There was a desperate scramble for everyone 
to get President Trump to do anything. All this occurred and 
the President still did not act.
    I yield to my friend from Virginia.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you, Mr. Kinzinger.
    President Trump finally relented to the pleas from his 
staff, his family, and from Capitol Hill for him to do 
something more at 4:17, 187 minutes, more than 3 hours after he 
stopped speaking at the Ellipse, after he stopped speaking to a 
mob that he had sent armed to the Capitol.
    That is when he tweeted a video telling the rioters to go 
home, while also telling them that they were special and that 
he loved them.
    By that time, although the violence was far from over, law 
enforcement had started to turn the tide, reinforcements were 
on the way, and elected officials were in secure locations. The 
writing was already on the wall: The rioters would not succeed.
    Here is what was showing on Fox News, the channel the 
President was watching all afternoon.

    Fox News Host. Back to Bret Baier with more information now. Bret, 
what do you have?
    Mr. Baier. You know, our Pentagon team--Jen Griffin, Lucas 
Tomlinson--confirming the Defense Department has now mobilized the 
entire D.C. National Guard, 1,800 troops. Takes several hours, as I was 
mentioning before, to get them up and running. The Army Secretary, Ryan 
McCarthy, is setting up a headquarters at the FBI. You just heard from 
David Spunt that the FBI is also sending troops to the Capitol.

    Mrs. Luria. It is no coincidence then that President Trump 
finally gave in and went out to the Rose Garden at 4:03. His 
staff had prepared a script for him to read, but he refused to 
use it.
    As you can see on the screen, you can see the script is 
stamped ``President Has Seen.'' The script said, ``I am asking 
you to leave the Capitol Hill region NOW and go home in a 
peaceful way.''
    The President was urged to stick to this script, but he 
spoke off the cuff.
    Eric Herschmann and Nick Luna went with the President to 
film the message in the Rose Garden. Let's hear what they had 
to say and see the never-before-seen raw footage of the 
President recording this video message.

    Mr. George. Ultimately, these remarks that we're looking at here in 
Exhibit 25 were not the remarks that the President delivered in the 
Rose Garden. Do you know why the President decided not to use these?
    Mr. Luna. I--I don't know, sir. No, I do not know why.
    Mr. George. Did the President use any written remarks, to your 
knowledge, or did he just go off the cuff?
    Mr. Luna. To my knowledge, it was off the cuff, sir.
                                 ______
                                 
    White House Staff [off-mic]. When you're ready, sir.
    President Trump. You tell me when.
    White House Staff. When you're ready, sir.
    President Trump. Who's behind me?
    White House Staff. He's gone. He's gone. We're all clear now.
    President Trump. I know your pain. I know you're hurt. We had a 
election--let me say. I know your pain. I know you're hurt. We had an 
election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and 
everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home 
now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to 
respect our great people in law and order.
    We don't want anybody hurt. It's a very tough period of time. 
There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened where 
they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our 
country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the 
hands of these people.
    We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You're very 
special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated 
that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel but go home and go 
home in peace.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Kushner. When I got there, basically the President just had 
finished filming the video, and I think he was basically retiring for 
the day.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Wood. Was there any discussion about the President releasing a 
second video that day?
    Mr. Herschmann. Not that I recall. When--when he finished his 
video, I think everyone was, like, day's over. People were pretty 
drained.
    Mr. Wood. Were pretty what?
    Mr. Herschmann. Drained.
    Mr. Wood. When we say day--day over are we--there were still people 
in the Capitol at that point, weren't there?
    Mr. Herschmann. There were people in the Capitol, but I believe by 
this stage law enforcement--I'd have to go back and look, but I believe 
law enforcement was either there or moving in or going to take charge. 
And I just think people were emotionally drained by the time that 
videotape was done.

    Mrs. Luria. Emotionally drained? At the White House?
    Here is what was happening at the same time at the Capitol. 
We warn the audience that this clip also contains strong 
language and violence.

    Voice. Keep pushing. Don't lose the momentum. [Indistinguishable.]
    Metropolitan Police Department Transmission. We've got another 
officer unconscious at the terrace. West Terrace.
    Voice. Everybody, we need gas masks. We need weapons. We need 
strong, angry patriots to help our boys. They don't want to leave.

    Mrs. Luria. While President Trump refused to even lift 
another finger to help, other leaders honored their oaths and 
acted to clear the Capitol and resume the joint session.
    For instance, here are never-before-seen photos and video 
of congressional leaders in action during the attack. The video 
is a portion of a call they had at approximately 4:45 with 
Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller.

    Senator McConnell. We're not going to let these people keep us from 
finishing our business. So we need you to get the building cleared. 
Give us the okay so we can go back in session and finish up the 
people's business as soon as possible.
    Acting Secretary Miller. Amen, sir.
    Senator Schumer. Mr. Secretary, it's Senator Schumer. Some people 
here in the Capitol Police believe it would take us several days to 
secure the building. Do you agree with that analysis?
    Acting Secretary Miller. I'm not on the ground, but I do not agree 
with that analysis.
    Senator Schumer. So what is the earliest that we could safely 
resume our proceedings in the Senate and House Chambers--the earliest 
we could safely resume?
    Acting Secretary Miller. I--here's my assessment, but I prefer to 
be on the ground, which I personally would prefer to be right now, but 
I need to be here. I would say, best case, we're looking at 4 to 5 
hours.

    Mrs. Luria. The Vice President also worked the phones from 
his own secure evacuation location, including conversations 
with Acting Secretary of Defense Miller and other military 
leaders--well past President Trump's 4:17 video.
    Let's look at some never-before-seen photographs of the 
Vice President during this critical time and hear about the 
Vice President's conversation with military leaders to secure 
the Capitol and ensure everyone was safe.

    General Milley. Vice President Pence? There were two or three calls 
with Vice President Pence. He was very animated, and he issued very 
explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders. There was no question about 
that. And he was--and I can get you the exact quotes, I guess, from 
some of our records somewhere, but he was very animated, very direct, 
very firm and--to Secretary Miller: ``Get the military down here, get 
the Guard down here, put down this situation,'' et cetera.

    Mrs. Luria. As you heard earlier in the hearing, the 
President did not call the Vice President or anyone in the 
military, Federal law enforcement, or D.C. government, not a 
single person.
    But General Milley did hear from Mark Meadows. The contrast 
between that call and his calls with Vice President Pence tells 
you everything you need to know about President Trump's 
dereliction of duty.
    Let's listen.

    General Milley. He said--this is from memory. He said, ``We have--
we have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the 
decisions. We need to establish the narrative that, you know, that the 
President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable.'' Or 
words to that effect. I immediately interpret that as politics, 
politics, politics. Red flags for me personally, no action, but I 
remember it distinctly and--and I don't do political narratives.

    Mrs. Luria. So, while President Trump and his advisers were 
``drained,'' other leaders upheld their oaths to do the right 
thing. Maybe it was exhausting to get the President to put out 
that video, but think about the law enforcement officers who 
were attacked by the mob that day that President Trump had 
summoned them himself to Washington.
    What about President Trump? He watched TV, tweeted, called 
Senators to try to delay the count of electoral votes, called 
Rudy Giuliani, and argued with his staff who were insisting 
that he should call off the attack.
    Ms. Matthews, what was your reaction to President Trump's 
message to the mob at 4:17?
    Ms. Matthews. I was struck by the fact that he chose to 
begin the video by pushing the lie that there was a stolen 
election. As the video went on, I felt a small sense of relief 
because he finally told these people to go home.
    But that was immediately followed up by him saying, ``We 
love you. You're very special.'' That was disserving to me, 
because he didn't distinguish between those that peacefully 
attended his speech earlier that day and those that we watched 
cause violence at the Capitol.
    Instead, he told the people who we had just watched storm 
our Nation's Capitol with the intent on overthrowing our 
democracy, violently attack police officers, and chant heinous 
things like, ``Hang Mike Pence,'' ``We love you. You're very 
special.''
    As a spokesperson for him, I knew that I would be asked to 
defend that. To me, his refusal to act and call off the mob 
that day and his refusal to condemn the violence was 
indefensible.
    So, I knew that I would be resigning that evening. So, I 
finished out the workday, went home and called my loved ones to 
tell them of my decision, and resigned that evening.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
    Indefensible.
    Let's hear what some of your colleagues in the press office 
told us about their reaction to the same 4:17 message.

    Mr. Deere. I felt like it was the absolute bare minimum of 
what could have been said at that point for something on 
camera.
    Mr. Wood. What else do you think should have been said?
    Mr. Deere. So a more forceful--a more forceful dismissal of 
the violence, a more forceful command to go home, a more 
forceful respect for law enforcement, even a comparison to the 
respect that we had given law enforcement as it relates to what 
was done to them in the prior summer. And I thought it was 
important that an acknowledgment be given to the U.S. Capitol 
Building itself, what it's a symbol of, what it means, not only 
to the people that work there, but to the American people 
generally and the work of Congress that, by law, needed to be 
conducted that day.
                                ------                                

    Mr. Wood. Do you wish in hindsight that the President had 
asked the protesters to leave the Capitol earlier than he ended 
up asking them to do that?
    Ms. McEnany. Of course, I would have loved if the go home 
message would have happened earlier in the day.

    Mrs. Luria. The President's words matter. We know that many 
of the rioters were listening to President Trump.
    We heard from one last week, Stephen Ayres. Let's listen to 
what he had to say about the 4:17 message from the President 
and see how rioters reacted to the President's message in real 
time.

    Mr. Ayres. Well, when we were there, as soon as that come out, 
everybody started talking about it, and that's--it seemed like it 
started to disperse, you know, some of the crowd----
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Angeli. I'm here delivering the President's message. Donald 
Trump has asked everybody to go home.
    Voice. That's our order.
                                 ______
                                 
    Voice. He says, go home. He says, go home.
    Voice. Yeah, he said to go home.

    Mrs. Luria. But just as Mr. Ayres said, police were still 
fending off the last throes of the brutal assault.
    I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
    Mr. Kinzinger. While everyone else was working to get 
Congress back in session, what did President Trump do? At 6:01, 
just 1 minute after the city-wide curfew went into effect, he 
posted his last tweet of the day.
    After officers engaged in multiple hours of hand-to-hand 
combat, with over 100 of them sustaining injuries, President 
Trump tweeted at 6:01 and justified the violence as a natural 
response to the election.
    He said, ``These are the things and events that happen when 
a sacred landslide victory is so unceremoniously & viciously 
stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & 
unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. 
Remember this day forever!''
    He called the mob ``great patriots.'' He told people to 
remember the day forever. He showed absolutely no remorse.
    A few minutes later, at 6:27, the President left the dining 
room and he went up to the White House residence for the night.
    On the screen is the last photograph of the President that 
night as he went into the residence. As he was gathering his 
things in the dining room to leave, President Trump reflected 
on the day's events with a White House employee. This was the 
same employee who had met President Trump in the Oval Office 
after he returned from the Ellipse. President Trump said 
nothing to the employee about the attack. He said only, ``Mike 
Pence let me down.''
    Ms. Matthews, what was your reaction to President Trump's 
6:01 tweet?
    Ms. Matthews. At that point I had already made the decision 
to resign and this tweet just further cemented my decision. I 
thought that January 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in 
our Nation's history and President Trump was treating it as a 
celebratory occasion with that tweet. So, it just further 
cemented my decision to resign.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Others agreed with your assessment of that 
tweet. Let's look at what they had to say.

    Mr. George. Who asked you about this tweet before it was sent?
    Mr. Luna. The President.
    Mr. George. Tell us about that conversation and everything that you 
said and he said to the best of your recollection.
    Mr. Luna. Sure. So he said, ``What do you think of this?'' And I 
believe I saw the text message or the--on his phone. And I--I remember 
saying to him the wording on the first sentence--I guess it's one long 
sentence. But the wording on the first sentence would lead some to 
believe that potentially he had something to do with the events that 
happened at the Capitol.
    Mr. George. And what did he say?
    Mr. Luna. I don't recall him saying anything in response to that, 
and I believe that was the end of the conversation.
    Mr. George. Did he change anything in light of your comments?
    Mr. Luna. No, sir, he did not.
    Mr. George. And what about this made you think that someone might 
perceive the President having a role in the violence at the Capitol?
    Mr. Luna. It--it was my interpretation of the words. I mean, I'm--
I'm not a--you know, I don't write speeches or anything, but the 
phrase, ``these are the things that happen,'' to me, sounded as if--as 
if culpability was associated with it. To me.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Murtaugh. I don't think it's a patriotic act to attack the 
Capitol, but I have no idea how to characterize the people other than 
they trespassed, destroyed property, and assaulted the U.S. Capitol. I 
think calling them ``patriots'' is, let's say, a stretch to say the 
least.
    Mr. Aganga-Williams. Is that all it is, a stretch? Or just flatly 
wrong?
    Mr. Murtaugh. I don't think it's a patriotic act to attack the U.S. 
Capitol.
    Mr. Aganga-Williams. Would you call it unpatriotic?
    Mr. Murtaugh. Criminal. Unpatriotic, sure.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. What happened at the Capitol cannot be justified in 
any form or fashion. It was wrong and it was tragic and a lot--and it--
and it was a terrible day. It was a terrible day for this country.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Jacob. I thought it was inappropriate.
    Mr. Wood. Why?
    Mr. Jacob. To my mind, it was a day that should be remembered in 
infamy. That wasn't the tenor of this tweet.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Despite the violence of the day, the effort 
to delay the certification continued. That evening, Rudy 
Giuliani called several of President Trump's closest political 
allies in the hour before the joint session resumed--
Representative Jim Jordan and Senators Marsha Blackburn, Tommy 
Tuberville, Bill Haggerty, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and Ted 
Cruz.
    We know why Mr. Giuliani was calling them, because at 7:02 
he left a voicemail for Senator Tuberville, which later became 
public.
    Let's listen to just the start of it.

    Mr. Giuliani. Hello. Senator Tuberville? Or I should say Coach 
Tuberville. This is Rudy Giuliani, President's lawyer. I'm calling you 
because I want to discuss with you how they're trying to rush this 
hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just 
slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information 
to you.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Mr. Giuliani did not even mention the attack 
on the Capitol. Instead, he was pushing on behalf of President 
Trump to get Members of Congress to further delay the 
certification.
    Even though some Members did proceed with objections, Vice 
President Pence and Congress stood firm and successfully 
concluded the joint session in the early morning hours of 
January 7th.
    Here is some of what members of the President's party said 
in the days and weeks after the attack.

    Senator McConnell. There's no question, none, that President Trump 
is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the 
day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building 
believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their 
President, and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the 
growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and 
reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the 
largest megaphone on planet Earth.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. McCarthy. The violence, destruction, and chaos we saw earlier 
was unacceptable, undemocratic, and un-American. It was the saddest day 
I've ever had as serving as a Member of this institution.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Roy. Madam Speaker, today the people's House was attacked which 
is an attack on the Republic itself. There is no excuse for it. A woman 
died, and people need to go to jail. And the President should never 
have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot 
be.

    Mr. Kinzinger. Well after 3 in the morning, Congress 
certified the 2020 election results. Soon after, this statement 
by President Trump was posted on Dan Scavino's Twitter account 
because the President's account by now had been suspended.
    As you can see, President Trump stuck with his Big Lie that 
the election was stolen. But he did say there would be an 
orderly transition. We learned, though, that the statement was 
not necessarily his idea.
    Jason Miller, a campaign adviser, told us that after the 
joint session started, he heard nothing from President Trump or 
the White House about assuring the Nation that the transfer of 
power would take place. So, Mr. Miller took it upon himself to 
draft a statement and called the President at 9:23 that night 
to convince him to put it out.
    Let's listen to what he had to say about the call.

    Mr. Heaphy. Did he disagree with something that you had put in the 
statement, some particular word or phrase that--that he did not want 
included?
    Mr. Jason Miller. I'd say just that he wanted to say ``peaceful'' 
transition, and I said that ship's kind-of already sailed so we're 
going to say ``orderly'' transition. That was--that was about the 
extent of disagreement or--or pushback from the conversation.

    Mr. Kinzinger. The last person President Trump spoke to by 
phone that night was Johnny McEntee, his head of personnel. Mr. 
McEntee told us that they talked about the events of the day 
and the multiple resignations by administration officials.
    The decision whether to resign was one that weighed heavily 
on people in the administration. On the one hand, people like 
Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Matthews here, as proud as they were to 
have served, refused to be associated with President Trump's 
dereliction of duty. But others were sincerely worried that 
leaving President Trump to his own devices would put the 
country at continued risk.
    Listen to what we heard about that tension from Pat 
Cipollone, from General Mark Milley, and Eugene Scalia, who was 
the Secretary of Labor.

    Mr. Cipollone. And then after that some people were resigning, 
obviously, over January 6th. We know who they--they were. Did I 
consider it? Yes. Did I do it? No.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. Concerned about is if people in the counsel's office 
left, who would--who would replace me? And I had some concerns that it 
might be somebody who, you know, had been giving bad advice.
                                 ______
                                 
    Secretary Scalia. On the morning of the 7th, the decision I arrived 
at was that the most constructive thing I could think of was to seek a 
meeting of the Cabinet. You know, I thought that trying to work within 
the administration to steady the ship was likely to have, you know, 
greater value than simply resigning, after which point I would have 
been powerless to really affect things with the administration.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Cipollone. Eugene thought that there should be a Cabinet 
meeting.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Heaphy. Do you know why Mark thought it would not be 
productive?
    Mr. Cipollone. I--I--I don't remember why. I--I think it probably 
had something to do with Mark's view of how the President might react 
and that he--you know, but things like that.
                                 ______
                                 
    General Milley. There was a couple of the calls where, you know, 
Meadows and/or Pompeo, but more Meadows, you know, how--how is the 
President doing? Like, Pompeo might say, ``How's the President doing?'' 
And Meadows would say, ``Well, he's in a really dark place.'' Like 
here's one, for example, on the 7th of January. So this is a day after, 
right? ``POTUS is very emotional and in a bad place,'' Meadows.

    Mr. Kinzinger. As you heard Secretary Scalia wanted 
President Trump to convene a Cabinet meeting. He put his 
request in a memo to the President, and here is what it said.
    You can see that Secretary Scalia recommended that the 
President ``No longer publicly question the election results. 
After Wednesday, no one can deny this is harmful.''
    Secretary Scalia also highlighted the importance of the 
public knowing the President would invoke his Cabinet in 
decision making and not ``certain private individuals.''
    Though Secretary Scalia did not say it, he was referring to 
Rudy Giuliani and the rest of the so-called clown car working 
with President Trump to try to overturn the election. Secretary 
Scalia understood that the President needed to do more to 
reassure the public about the last few weeks of the Trump 
administration.
    Mr. Pottinger, when you made the decision to resign, did 
you walk out of the White House immediately?
    Mr. Pottinger. No. I wanted to first talk to my immediate 
boss that was the National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien. 
Robert O'Brien was traveling on the 6th. I reached him at about 
4:30 p.m. and told him that I was submitting my resignation. He 
accepted the resignation. But he also asked whether I could 
stay until he could get back to the White House, and I agreed 
to that. We both wanted to make sure that I was leaving in a 
responsible way.
    We still have foreign adversaries to worry about, you know, 
hackers, terrorists, nation-states, and I did not want to leave 
my chair empty given that I was the top National security 
staffer in the White House. So, I ended up staying at my desk 
through the night. When Robert O'Brien arrived back at the 
White House the next morning, the morning of the 7th, I 
debriefed with him and left for the last time.
    Mr. Kinzinger. So, you and I both share a passion for 
National security of our country. Can you share with me, what 
is your view on how January 6th impacted our National security?
    Mr. Pottinger. Well, when you have a Presidential 
transition, even under the best circumstances, it's a time of 
vulnerability. It's a time of vulnerability. For--when you have 
a contested election, I was certainly concerned that some of 
our adversaries would be tempted to probe or test U.S. resolve. 
As an example, in late December, the Iranian Government 
attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They did that using some 
of their terrorist proxies.
    President Trump did handle that. He sent a very clear 
warning to the ayatollah and his regime, which I think had a 
useful effect. I think that we would have handled other threats 
of that nature, and luckily no other threats materialized 
before the inauguration on the 20th.
    But our National security was harmed in a different way by 
the 6th of January, and that is that it--I think it emboldened 
our enemies by helping give them ammunition to feed a narrative 
that our system of government doesn't work, that the United 
States is in decline. China, the Putin regime in Russia, 
Tehran, they're fond of pushing those kinds of narratives.
    By the way, they're wrong. You know, we've been hearing for 
the entirety of U.S. history from kings and despots that the 
United States is in decline, and those kings and despots have 
been proven wrong every single time. But, nonetheless, January 
6th helped feed a perception that I think emboldens our 
adversaries.
    You know, the other part I think is simply our allies. I 
heard from a lot of friends in Europe, in Asia, allies, close 
friends and supporters of the United States, that they were 
concerned about the health of our democracy. So, I think it's 
incumbent upon us to put their minds at ease, to put our own 
hearts at ease by investigating what happened on the 6th and 
making sure that it never happens again.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Look, I've always said democracies are not 
defined by bad days; they're defined by how they recover from 
those bad days. That's what we're doing here, is to bring 
accountability to that so we can actually come back even 
stronger than when we went into January 6th.
    Ms. Matthews, as you left the White House for the last time 
that night on January 6th, what did you think Americans needed 
to hear from President Trump?
    Ms. Matthews. I think that the American people needed to 
hear and see him publicly commit to a peaceful or at least 
orderly transition of power. In the aftermath of the Capitol 
attack, it wasn't just enough for us to ask him to condemn the 
violence. He needed to agree that he would peacefully transfer 
power over to the incoming administration because that's one of 
our fundamentals in what it means to live in a democracy.
    So, that evening when I resigned, the resignation statement 
that I drafted, I referenced this, and I said our Nation needs 
a peaceful transfer of power in hopes that it would put some 
sort of public pressure on the White House and President Trump 
to publicly agree to an orderly transition.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you.
    I yield to my friend from Virginia.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you, Mr. Kinzinger.
    The staff who remained at the White House on the morning of 
January 7th knew the President needed to address the Nation 
again and they had a speech prepared for him that morning, but 
he refused for hours to give it.
    As you heard Cassidy Hutchinson testify previously, 
President Trump finally agreed to record an address to the 
Nation later that evening, the evening of January 7th, because 
of concerns he might be removed from power under the 25th 
Amendment or by impeachment. We know these threats were real. 
Sean Hannity said so himself in a text message that day to 
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
    He wrote: ``No more stolen election talk. Yes, impeachment 
and 25th Amendment are real.''
    We obtained the never-before-seen raw footage of the 
President recording his address to the Nation that day on 
January 7th, more than 24 hours after the last time he had 
addressed the Nation from the Rose Garden. Let's talk a look.

    White House Staff. Whenever you're ready, sir.
    President Trump. I would like to begin by addressing the heinous 
attack yesterday----
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump [continuing]. And to those who broke the law, you 
will pay. You do not represent our movement. You do not represent our 
country. And if you broke the law--I can't say that. I'm not gonna--I 
already said you will pay.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have 
defied the seat of--it's defiled, right? See, I can't see it very well. 
I'll do this. I'm going to do this. Let's go.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. But this election is now over. Congress has 
certified the results. I don't want to say the election's over. I just 
want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the 
election's over, okay?
    Ms. Trump. But Congress has--now Congress has----
    President Trump. Yeah, right.
    Ms. Trump. Now Congress----
    President Trump. I didn't say over. So, let--let me see. Go to the 
paragraph before.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. Okay? I would like to begin by addressing the 
heinous attack yesterday. Yesterday is a hard word for me.
    Ms. Trump. Just take it out. Say ``heinous attack.''
    White House Staff. Say ``heinous attack on our Nation.''
    President Trump. Ah, good. Take the word ``yesterday'' out because 
it doesn't work. The heinous attack on our country. Say ``on our 
country.'' Want to say that?
    Ms. Trump. No, keep it.
                                 ______
                                 
    President Trump. My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the 
vote--my only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote.

    Mrs. Luria. On January 7th, 1 day after he incited an 
insurrection based on a lie, President Trump still could not 
say that the election was over.
    Mr. Pottinger, you've taken the oath multiple times in the 
Marines and as an official in the Executive branch.
    Can you please share with us your view about the oath of 
office and how that translates into accepting election results 
and a transfer of power?
    Mr. Pottinger. Sure. You know, this isn't the first time 
that we've had a close election in this country. President 
Trump certainly had every right to challenge in court the 
results of these various elections. But, once you've had due 
process under the law, you have to conform with the law, no 
matter how bitter the result. Once you've presented your 
evidence in court, judges have heard that evidence. Judges have 
ruled. If you continue to contest an election, you're not just 
contesting an election anymore; you're actually challenging the 
Constitution itself. You are challenging the societal norms 
that allow us to remain unified.
    I think that one example, for example, you've got Vice 
President Richard Nixon back in 1960 had lost the hard-fought 
election against Senator John F. Kennedy. There were 
irregularities in that vote according to a lot of the 
histories, and a lot of Vice President Nixon's supporters asked 
him to fight. Contest it. Don't concede. But, in one of his 
finest moments, Vice President Nixon said no. He said it would 
tear the country to pieces, and he conceded to Jack Kennedy and 
announced that he was going to support him as the next 
President.
    We have an example of a Democratic candidate for President, 
Vice President Al Gore, who faced a very similar dilemma. He 
strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision that lost 
his election bid and allowed President George W. Bush to take 
office, but he gave a speech of concession in late December--
mid- or late December 2000, where he said: This is for the sake 
of the unity of us as a people and for the strength of our 
democracy, I also am going to concede. I'm going to support the 
new President.
    His speech is actually a pretty good model, I think, for 
any candidate for any office up to and including the President 
and from any party to read, particularly right now. You know, 
the oath that our Presidents take, it's very similar to the 
oath of office I took as a U.S. Marine officer and the oath I 
took as a White House official. It is to support and defend the 
Constitution. It's to protect the Constitution, to bear truth, 
faith, and allegiance to the Constitution. It is a sacred oath. 
It's an oath that we take before our families. We take that 
oath before God.
    I think that we have an obligation to live by that oath. I 
do still believe that we have the most ingenious system of 
government on Earth, despite its imperfections. I don't envy 
countries that don't have this system that actually allows for 
a predictable, peaceful transfer of government every 4 to 8 
years, and it's not something that we should take for granted.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
    As we heard at the start of the hearing, in the immediate 
aftermath of January 6th, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy 
understood that President Trump bore responsibility for that 
day and should have taken immediate action to stop the 
violence. He was even more candid in calls with Republican 
colleagues. As you'll hear in a moment, recordings of some of 
these calls that were made were later published by The New York 
Times, the context for these calls was that a resolution had 
been introduced in the House calling for Vice President Pence 
and the Cabinet to remove President Trump from power under the 
25th Amendment.
    Let's listen.

    Mr. McCarthy. I've had it with this guy. What he did is 
unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. McCarthy. The only discussions I would have with him is that I 
think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation he should 
resign. I mean, that would be my take, but I don't think he would take 
it, but I don't know.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. McCarthy. But let me be very clear to all of you, and I've been 
very clear to the President. He bears responsibility for his words and 
actions, no ifs, ands, or buts. I asked him personally today does he 
hold responsibility for what happened, does he feel bad about what 
happened. He told me he does have some responsibility for what 
happened, and he'd need to acknowledge that.

    Mrs. Luria. President Trump has never publicly acknowledged 
his responsibility for the attack. The only time he apparently 
did so was in that private call with Kevin McCarthy. There's 
something else President Trump has never acknowledged: The 
names and the memories of the officers who died following the 
attack on the Capitol.
    We're honored to be joined tonight by police and first 
responders who bravely protected us on January 6th. Your 
character and courage give us hope that democracy can and 
should prevail, even in the face of a violent insurrection. We 
on this dais can never thank you enough for what you did to 
protect our democracy.
    On January 9th, two of President Trump's top campaign 
officials texted each other about the President's glaring 
silence on the tragic death of Capitol Police Officer Brian 
Sicknick, who succumbed to his injuries the night of January 
7th.
    His campaign officials were Tim Murtaugh, Trump's director 
of communication, and one of his deputies, Matthew Wolking. 
Their job was to convince people to vote for President Trump, 
so they knew his heart, his mind, and his voice as well as 
anyone, and they knew how he connects with his supporters.
    Here's what they had to say about their boss:
    Murtaugh said: ``Also shitty not to have acknowledged the 
death of the Capitol Police Officer.''
    Wolking responded: ``That's enraging to me. Everything he 
said about supporting law enforcement was a lie.''
    To which Murtaugh replied: ``You know what this is, of 
course, if he acknowledged the dead cop, he'd be implicitly 
faulting the mob. And he won't do that because they're his 
people, and he would also be close to acknowledging that what 
he'd lit at the rally got out of control. No way he 
acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his 
fault. No way.''
    President Trump did not then and does not now have the 
character or courage to say to the American people what his own 
people know to be true. He is responsible for the attack on the 
Capitol on January 6th.
    Thank you, and I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mrs. Luria.
    Tonight's testimony and evidence is as sobering as it is 
straightforward. Within minutes of stepping off the Ellipse 
stage, Donald Trump knew about the violent attack on the 
Capitol. From the comfort of his dining room, he watched on TV 
as the attack escalated.
    He sent tweets that inflamed and expressed support for the 
desire of some to literally kill Vice President Mike Pence.
    For 3 hours, he refused to call off the attack. Donald 
Trump refused to take the urgent advice he received that day, 
not from his political opponents or from the liberal media, but 
from his own family, his own friends, his own staff, and his 
own advisers.
    In the midst of an attack, when there was no time for 
politics, the people closest to Trump told him the truth: It 
was his supporters attacking the Capitol, and he alone could 
get through to them. So, they pled for him to act, to place his 
country above himself. Still he refused to lead and to meet the 
moment to honor his oath.
    It was only once the Vice President and Members of Congress 
were in secure locations and the officers defending the Capitol 
began to turn the tide, that then-President Trump engaged in 
the political theater of telling the mob to go home. Even then, 
he told them all they were special and that he loved them.
    Whatever your politics, whatever you think about the 
outcome of the election, we as Americans must all agree on 
this: Donald Trump's conduct on January 6th was a supreme 
violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of 
his duty to our Nation. It is a stain on our history. It is a 
dishonor to all those who have sacrificed and died in service 
of our democracy.
    When we present our full findings, we will recommend 
changes to laws and policies to guard against another January 
6th. The reason that's imperative is that the forces Donald 
Trump ignited that day have not gone away. The militant, 
intolerant ideologies, the militias, the alienation and the 
disaffection, the weird fantasies and disinformation, they're 
all still out there ready to go. That's the elephant in the 
room.
    But, if January 6th has reminded us of anything, I pray it 
has reminded us of this: Laws are just words on paper. They 
mean nothing without public servants dedicated to the rule of 
law and who are held accountable by a public that believes 
oaths matter more than party tribalism or the cheap thrill of 
scoring political points.
    We the people must demand more of our politicians and 
ourselves. Oaths matter. Character matters. Truth matters. If 
we do not renew our faith and commitment to these principles, 
this great experiment of ours, our shining beacon on the hill, 
will not endure.
    I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you, Mr. Kinzinger.
    Throughout our hearings, we've provided many facts and 
painted a vivid picture of the events of January 6th: The 
violence; the human toll, both emotional and physical, 
including the tragic loss of life; the threats to our 
Constitution, the rule of law, and the danger to this Nation, a 
Nation we all love as Americans.
    In tonight's hearing, we've gone into great detail about 
the events inside the White House on January 6th. We've 
described how the President of the United States, who was bound 
by oath to the Constitution and by duty to ensure the laws are 
faithfully executed, took no action when the cornerstone of our 
democracy, a peaceful transition of power, was under attack.
    But it's more than that. Donald Trump summoned a violent 
mob and promised to lead that mob to the Capitol to compel 
those he thought would cave to that kind of pressure. When he 
was thwarted in his effort to lead the armed uprising, he 
instigated the attackers to target the Vice President with 
violence, a man who just wanted to do his constitutional duty. 
So, in the end, this is not as it may appear, a story of 
inaction in a time of crisis. But, instead, it was the final 
action of Donald Trump's own plan to usurp the will of the 
American people and remain in power.
    Not until it was clear that his effort to violently disrupt 
or delay the counting of the election results had failed did he 
send his message--a message to his supporters in which he 
commiserated with their pain and he told them affectionately to 
go home. That was not the message of condemnation and just 
punishment for those who broke the law that we expect from a 
President, whose oath and duty is to ensure the laws are 
faithfully executed. But, instead, it was his newest version of 
``stand back and stand by.''
    To me, this is personal. I first swore an oath to support 
and defend the Constitution against enemies, foreign and 
domestic, when I entered the U.S. Naval Academy at age 17. I 
spent two decades on ships at sea defending our Nation from 
known and identifiable foreign enemies who sought to do us 
harm. I never imagined that enemy would come from within. I was 
not as prescient as Abraham Lincoln, who 23 years before the 
Civil War said: ``If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves 
be its author and its finisher.''
    Donald Trump was the author, and we the people, for 
ourselves and our posterity, should not let Donald Trump be a 
finisher.
    Thank you. I yield to the Vice Chair.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mrs. Luria.
    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, Members will be permitted 10 business 
days to submit statements for the record, including opening 
remarks and additional questions from our witnesses.
    I'd now like to turn things to Chairman Thompson for a few 
closing words.
    Chairman Thompson. The Members of the Committee and I 
appreciate and thank all persons who have come forward 
voluntarily to provide information to help protect our 
democracy. Our work continues. As we made clear throughout 
these hearings, our investigation is going forward. We continue 
to receive new information every day. We are pursuing many 
additional witnesses for testimony. We will reconvene in 
September to continue laying out our findings to the American 
people and pushing for accountability.
    In the first hearing of this series, I asked the American 
people to consider the facts and judge for themselves. The 
facts are clear and unambiguous. I thank the American people 
for their attention over the past several weeks. I wish you all 
a pleasant evening.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Let me, again, thank our witnesses 
today. We've seen bravery and honor in these hearings.
    Ms. Matthews and Mr. Pottinger, both of you will be 
remembered for that, as will Cassidy Hutchinson. She sat here 
alone, took the oath and testified before millions of 
Americans. She knew all along that she would be attacked by 
President Trump and by the 50-, 
60-, and 70-year-old men who hide themselves behind executive 
privilege. But, like our witnesses today, she has courage, and 
she did it anyway.
    Cassidy, Sarah, and our other witnesses including, Officer 
Caroline Edwards, Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, are 
an inspiration to American women and to American girls. We owe 
a debt to all of those who have and will appear here.
    That brings me to another point. This Committee has shown 
you the testimony of dozens of Republican witnesses, those who 
served President Trump loyally for years. The case against 
Donald Trump in these hearings is not made by witnesses who 
were his political enemies. It is instead a series of 
confessions by Donald Trump's own appointees, his own friends, 
his own campaign officials, people who worked for him for 
years, and his own family. They have come forward, and they 
have told the American people the truth.
    For those of you who seem to think the evidence would be 
different if Republican Leader McCarthy had not withdrawn his 
nominees from this Committee, let me ask you this: Do you 
really think Bill Barr is such a delicate flower that he would 
wilt under cross-examination? Pat Cipollone? Eric Herschmann? 
Jeff Rosen? Richard Donoghue? Of course they aren't. None of 
our witnesses are.
    At one point in 2016, when he was first running for office, 
Donald Trump said this: ``I could stand in the middle of Fifth 
Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters.''
    That quote came to mind last week when audio from Trump 
adviser Steve Bannon surfaced from October 31, 2020, just a few 
days before the Presidential election. Let's listen.

    Mr. Bannon. And what Trump's going to do is declare victory, right? 
He's going to declare victory, but that doesn't mean he's a winner. 
He's just gonna say he's a winner.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Bannon. The Democrats--more of our people vote early that 
count. Theirs vote in mail. And so they're going to have a natural 
disadvantage and Trump's going to take advantage--that's our strategy. 
He's gonna declare himself a winner. So, when you wake up Wednesday 
morning, it's going to be a firestorm.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Bannon. Also--also, if Trump is--if Trump is losing by 10 or 11 
o'clock at night, it's going to be even crazier because he's gonna sit 
right there and say they stole it. If Biden's winning, Trump is going 
to do some crazy shit.

    Vice Chair Cheney. Of course, 4 days later, President Trump 
declared victory when his own campaign advisers told him he had 
absolutely no basis to do so. What the new Steve Bannon audio 
demonstrates is that Donald Trump's plan to falsely claim 
victory in 2020, no matter what the facts actually were, was 
premeditated. Perhaps worse, Donald Trump believed he could 
convince his voters to buy it, whether he had any actual 
evidence of fraud or not. The same thing continued to occur 
from election day onward until January 6th. Donald Trump was 
confident that he could convince his supporters the election 
was stolen, no matter how many lawsuits he lost, and he lost 
scores of them.
    He was told over and over again in immense detail that the 
election was not stolen. There was no evidence of widespread 
fraud. It didn't matter. Donald Trump was confident he could 
persuade his supporters to believe whatever he said, no matter 
how outlandish, and ultimately that they could be summoned to 
Washington to help him remain President for another term.
    As we showed you last week, even President Trump's legal 
team led by Rudy Giuliani, knew they had no actual evidence to 
demonstrate the election was stolen. Again, it didn't matter. 
Here's the worst part: Donald Trump knows that millions of 
Americans who supported him would stand up and defend our 
Nation were it threatened. They would put their lives and their 
freedom at stake to protect her. He is preying on their 
patriotism. He is preying on their sense of justice. On January 
6th, Donald Trump turned their love of country into a weapon 
against our Capitol and our Constitution.
    He has purposely created the false impression that America 
is threatened by a foreign force controlling voting machines or 
that a wave of tens of millions of false ballots were secretly 
ejected into our election system or that ballot workers have 
secret thumb drives and are stealing elections with them. All 
complete nonsense.
    We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and 
remain a free Nation. In late November 2020, while President 
Trump was still pursuing lawsuits, many of us were urging him 
to put any genuine evidence of fraud forward in the courts and 
to accept the outcome those cases. As January 6th approached, I 
circulated a memo to my Republican colleagues explaining why 
our congressional proceedings to count electoral votes could 
not be used to change the outcome of the election.
    But what I did not know at the time was that President 
Trump's own advisers, also Republicans, also conservatives, 
including his White House counsel, his Justice Department, his 
campaign officials, they were all telling him almost exactly 
the same thing I was telling my colleagues: There was no 
evidence of fraud or irregularities sufficient to change the 
election outcome. Our courts had ruled. It was over.
    Now we know that it didn't matter what any of us said 
because Donald Trump wasn't looking for the right answer 
legally or the right answer factually. He was looking for a way 
to remain in office.
    Let's put that aside for a moment and focus just on what we 
saw today. In our hearing tonight you saw an American President 
faced with a stark and unmistakable choice between right and 
wrong. There was no ambiguity. No nuance. Donald Trump made a 
purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the 
on-going violence against law enforcement to threaten our 
constitutional order. There is no way to excuse that behavior. 
It was indefensible.
    Every American must consider this: Can a President who is 
willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the 
violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of 
authority in our great Nation again?
    In this room, in 1918, the Committee on Women's Suffrage 
convened to discuss and debate whether women should be granted 
the right to vote. This room is full of history. We on this 
Committee know we have a solemn obligation not to idly squander 
what so many Americans have fought and died for.
    Ronald Reagan's great ally Margaret Thatcher said this: Let 
it never be said that the dedication of those who love freedom 
is less than the determination of those who would destroy it.
    Let me assure every one of you this: Our Committee 
understands the gravity of this moment, the consequences for 
our Nation. We have much work yet to do, and we will see you 
all in September.
    I request 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 10:45 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]