Watch stay: Jan. 6 committee kicks off first listening to with guarantees to show Trump was at heart of Capitol riot

Former senior White House advisor Jared Kushner stated he thought of White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s repeated threats to resign within the weeks earlier than the Capitol riot to “just be whining.”

The remarks from Kushner, the son-in-law of ex-President Donald Trump, had been made throughout a taped interview with the choose committee, a portion of which was performed throughout the opening assertion of Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

“The White House Counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity, he threatened to resign, multiple times. That is exceedingly rare and exceedingly serious. It requires immediate attention, especially when the entire team threatens to resign,” Cheney stated.

“However, in the Trump White House, it was not exceedingly rare and it was not treated seriously,” she stated.

In the clip, Kushner is requested: “Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cippilone threatened to resign?”

Kushner responded, “I kind of, like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done, and I know that he was always, him and the team, were always saying, ‘Oh, we are going to resign. We are not going to be here if this happens, if that happens.'”

“So, I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you,” Kushner stated.

— Kevin Breuninger

Select committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., stated former President Donald Trump “knew that he had, in fact, lost the election” — however nonetheless pushed false info to persuade the general public that the race had been stolen from him.

Cheney stated that the committee would delve deeper into this aspect of the investigation throughout the second listening to, scheduled for Monday.

Her opening assertion was peppered with clips of testimony from folks near Trump recalling how they informed the previous president he misplaced the election they usually could not discover proof of voter fraud.

Those folks included ex-Trump Attorney General William Barr, marketing campaign spokesman Jason Miller and Trump marketing campaign lawyer Alex Cannon.

Her speech additionally included a clip of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, saying that she “accepted” Barr’s evaluation that the Department of Justice discovered no proof of electoral fraud enough to overturn the election.

— Kevin Breuninger

Former President Donald Trump was “at the center” of a conspiracy to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden within the 2020 election, choose committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., stated.

Trump misplaced the election, after which misplaced dozens of courtroom battles to problem the election leads to key states, Thompson stated.

“But for Donald Trump, that was only the beginning of what became a sprawling, multi-step conspiracy aimed at overturning the Presidential election aimed at throwing out the votes of millions of Americans — your votes, your voice in our democracy — and replacing the will of the American people with his will to remain in power after his term ended,” Thompson stated.

“Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy,” Thompson stated.

“And ultimately, Donald Trump — the President of the United States — spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy,” he added.

The Capitol riot was the end result of an tried coup, Thompson stated.

“A brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6th, ‘to overthrow the Government,'” he stated. “The violence was no accident. It represented Trump’s last, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., stated former President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election was the primary time in 220 years since a U.S. president tried to thwart the peaceable switch of energy.

That precedent “had stood for 220 years, even as our democracy has faced its most difficult tests,” Thompson stated.

The chairman touched on Civil War historical past and contrasted Trump with former President Abraham Lincoln. He stated Lincoln believed in 1864 that he would lose his reelection bid. Lincoln thought his common, George McClellan, who was working in opposition to him within the election, would give up if he received.

“But even with that grim fate hanging in the balance, President Lincoln was ready to accept the will of the voters, come what may,” Thompson stated.

Lincoln made a pledge “to uphold the rule of law” and do “what every other president who came before him did, and what every president who followed him would do. Until Donald Trump,” Thompson stated.

— Kevin Breuninger

Select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in his opening assertion warned that the scheme to “undermine the will of the people” didn’t finish on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger,” Thompson stated in kicking off the primary public listening to.

“The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over,” he stated.

“We can’t sweep what happened under the rug. The American people deserve answers. So I come before you this evening not as a Democrat, but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution,” he stated. “The constitution doesn’t protect just Democrats or just Republicans. It protects all of us: ‘We the People.’ And this scheme was an attempt to undermine the will of the people.”

He stated there are folks “who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great: devotion to the Constitution, allegiance to the rule of law, our shared journey to build a more perfect Union.”

The Capitol riot “and the lies that led to insurrection” have put 250 years of democracy in danger,” he said.

“The world is watching what we do right here. America has lengthy been anticipated to be a shining metropolis on a hill. A beacon of hope and freedom,” he said.

“We should confront the reality with candor, resolve, and dedication. We want to indicate that we’re worthy of the presents which are the birthright of each American,” Thompson said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Select Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that “loads” of the video and some of the witness testimony to be presented at the first hearing will be new.

“We’ll present some by no means earlier than seen video that we now have uncovered, and we’ll simply inform the story,” Thompson told reporters by the House floor Thursday morning.

“We’ll have important video of some individuals who’ve been charged, some individuals who have been convicted, some individuals who pled responsible,” Thompson said.

“Numerous the video will probably be [the] first ever video seen by the general public,” he said. “Some of the testimony will probably be testimony to our data that is by no means been seen by the general public.”

Asked whether Thursday’s hearing will include video testimony from Trump’s family members, Thompson replied, “It’s into consideration.”

He added that the hearing may be emotional — especially for one witness, Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, “as a result of it could be recalling what she truly encountered throughout January 6, and the way the highway to restoration has been troublesome.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Hours before the hearing, Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley was arrested by the FBI on misdemeanor charges related to his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot.

Kelley, 40, was arrested Thursday morning in his home town of Allendale, Mich., the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia confirmed.

Kelley faces charges of knowingly entering a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, disorderly conduct, engaging in physical violence against a person or property on restricted grounds and willfully injuring U.S. property, according to the DOJ’s criminal complaint.

In a statement of facts, an FBI special agent said Kelley was part of a crowd of people outside the U.S. Capitol who were assaulting and pushing past law enforcement officers defending the building on Jan. 6, 2021.

Kelley has previously said he was in Washington on the day of the riot, but never entered the Capitol, multiple outlets have reported.

A message to Kelley’s campaign requesting comment was not immediately answered.

— Kevin Breuninger

The select committee promises that its first public hearing will include new material illustrating a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results and showing that former President Donald Trump “was on the heart of that effort.”

That new information may come from witness testimony, as well as from video, audio or other documentary evidence. At least two witnesses are set to speak in person at Thursday’s hearing. The panel will also share testimony from prior witness interviews.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is hoping to illustrate the significance of the riot in U.S. history, according to aides who briefed reporters ahead of the hearing. The committee will also preview what to expect over the next few weeks of hearings.

The aides stressed that all of the upcoming hearings represent only the initial findings of the committee, and that “the investigation is ongoing.”

They noted that the panel is required to issue a final report, which Thompson has indicated may arrive by the fall.

— Kevin Breuninger

The select committee’s first public hearing is slated to begin at 8 p.m. ET. It will take place in a meeting room in Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

A committee aide told reporters to expect opening statements from the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and its vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

After that, the panel will show “substantive” multimedia presentations, as well as a portion of the hearing dedicated to live witness testimony, the aide said.

The panel tapped former ABC News executive James Goldston to help produce the proceedings, indicating to some that the goal of the hearings is to craft a clear, compelling narrative about the Capitol riot that draws in the public and lands with maximum impact.

— Kevin Breuninger

The select committee has announced two witnesses who will speak in person at the hearing about their experiences on the day of the Capitol riot.

One of them is U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who was injured in the riot and suffered a traumatic brain injury. “She was the primary legislation enforcement officer injured by the rioters as they had been storming the Capitol grounds,” a committee aide told reporters in a preview of the first hearing.

The other live witness is Nick Quested, a British documentary filmmaker who took footage of the first moments of violence against police officers at the Capitol, the aide said. Quested had been following the far-right group the Proud Boys on the day of the riot.

The live witnesses will recount what they saw and heard from the rioters during the invasion itself, according to the aide.

The committee will also present previously unseen records and tape from prior witness interviews, including senior Trump administration officials, campaign aides and family members of the former Republican president.

“The witnesses will inform the story largely,” the aide said. “I believe you will discover that the info will converse for themselves as we lay them out.”

— Kevin Breuninger

The House select committee was formed last summer, after Senate Republicans blocked a vote that would have empowered a team of independent investigators to study the Capitol riot similar to the 9/11 Commission.

Since its work began, the select committee has conducted interviews with more than 1,000 people, an aide for the panel told reporters Wednesday.

The investigators have also obtained more than 140,000 documents, and they are still following up on nearly 500 substantive tips, the aide said.

The aide noted that “the investigation is ongoing,” and “all the pieces stays on the desk for what we might even see down the highway.” The committee is required to provide a last report and challenge suggestions primarily based on its findings.

— Kevin Breuninger