(The Hill) – Thursday’s hearing by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol focused on the day of the riot itself, zeroing in on former President Trump’s inaction as a mob of his supporters descended on the Capitol and put lawmakers and law enforcement in danger.
The hearing, which is expected to be the committee’s last until September, featured new footage and audio clips that shed further light on Trump’s reaction to the violence and on what was happening inside the Capitol as the riots escalated.
Here are seven of the most notable moments from Thursday’s hearing.
Trump speaks off the cuff to rioters
Raw footage presented Thursday showed former President Trump ignored a script that called for him to tell protesters to “leave the Capitol Hill region now and go home in a peaceful way.”
Instead, he spoke off the cuff, delivering a meandering message to his supporters from the Rose Garden. The footage showed Trump starting a message before stopping and trying again.
Trump expressed empathy with the rioters, saying he believed the 2020 election was “stolen from us” and “fraudulent.”
“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,” Trump said in the video, recorded at 4:03 p.m. on Jan. 6.
“There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened. 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, and you’re very special.”
Hawley flees the mob
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was captured in a now infamous photo on the morning of Jan. 6 raising a fist toward a group of protesters outside the Capitol. But the committee showed new footage on Thursday depicting how the tables had turned on Hawley hours later.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) quoted a Capitol Police officer who told the committee Hawley’s gesture “riled up the crowd” gathered near the complex the morning of the 6th.
“Later that day, Sen. Hawley fled after those protesters he helped to rile up stormed the Capitol,” Luria said.
The committee then played footage of Hawley visibly running through the halls of the Capitol and then jogging down the stairs as lawmakers and staff sought safety from the mob.
The video was widely shared on social media. Video from the hearing showed those in the room audibly laughing as it played.
Secret Service feared for their lives
One of the most dramatic moments came when the committee played previously unheard audio of Secret Service weighing whether they had time to move former Vice President Pence to a secure location in the Capitol without encountering the mob.
“If we lose any more time, we may … lose the ability to leave. So, if we’re going to leave, we need to do it now,” one Secret Service agent said in a radio transmission.
The committee interviewed an anonymous White House security official, who told the panel that the National Security Council was listening to the audio in real time and could hear some officers audibly fearing for their lives.
“There was a lot of yelling. 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, so forth,” the anonymous official said in audio played Thursday.
At the same time the security council was remarking on the panic among the Secret Service, Trump sent a tweet complaining that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”
Kushner says McCarthy sounded ‘scared’
Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner recalled to the committee in testimony played Thursday that he was in the shower on Jan. 6 when he heard his phone ringing.
“Saw it was Leader [Kevin] McCarthy, who I had a good relationship with,” Kushner said. “He told me it was getting really ugly over at the Capitol and said, ‘Please anything you could do to help, I would appreciate it.’”
“I got the sense that they were scared… He was scared, yes,” Kushner added.
Multiple other former White House officials told the committee about McCarthy’s many attempts to reach Trump as the violence was unfolding.
In an audio clip, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) described McCarthy talking about calling the White House and getting through to Trump.
“He said, ‘You have got to get on TV. You’ve got to get on Twitter. You’ve got to call these people off,’” Herrera Beutler said. “You know what the president said to him? This is as it’s happening. He said, ‘Well, Kevin, these aren’t my people. These are, these are antifa.’”
The committee later showed footage of McCarthy condemning the violence and saying Trump bore some responsibility for the events of Jan. 6. But weeks later, McCarthy traveled to Florida to make amends with the former president.
Video shows lawmakers talking with Pentagon officials mid-riot
The committee shared new video footage of senators inside the Capitol directly calling Pentagon officials for assistance as they hid from rioters who had stormed the building.
“We’re not gonna let these people keep us from finishing our business. So, we need you to get the building cleared, give us the OK, so we can go back in session and finish up the people’s business as soon as possible,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller over the phone.
“Amen, sir,” Miller responded.
The video also shows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asking Miller how long he expected it would take for authorities to clear the building so Congress could “safely resume” certifying the election results. Miller indicated he believed it would take at least four or five hours.
The video footage juxtaposed how lawmakers who were under siege at the Capitol were directly contacting Defense officials about how to clear the facility, while Trump isolated himself in the White House and refused to condemn the violence until hours after it had started.
DC officer corroborates Hutchinson testimony
Testimony presented by the committee on Thursday corroborated former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s claim that Trump got into an interaction with Secret Service personnel in his presidential limo on Jan. 6 after they informed him that he would not be joining his supporters at the Capitol following his speech at the Ellipse.
During a hearing last month, Hutchinson said she was told that Trump was “irate” in the presidential vehicle, telling the Secret Service something along the lines of “I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now.”
Sgt. Mark Robinson (Ret.) of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department — who was in the lead vehicle with the Secret Service agent overseeing the presidential motorcade, known as the TS agent — informed the committee that he was told Trump got in a “heated discussion” about going to the Capitol with his supporters on Jan. 6.
“The only description I received was that the president was upset and that he was adamant about going to the Capitol and that there was a heated discussion about that,” Robinson testified in a clip presented Thursday.
“Meaning that the president was upset and he was saying there was a heated argument or discussion about going to the Capitol,” he later added, noting that the TS agent described the situation as “heated.”
The committee also showed testimony from a former Trump White House employee who spoke with then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato and Robert Engel, the head of Trump’s security detail who was in the vehicle, after the incident.
The employee said Ornato “expressed to me that the president was irate” when he was informed that he could not go to the Capitol with his supporters.
Trump outtakes from Jan. 7 video
The committee showed never-before-seen outtakes of Trump recording a video message on Jan. 7, one day after the riot.
The video gave a window into Trump’s ongoing refusal to accept the election results, as well as the behind the scenes tinkering that took place to produce a three-minute video.
In one outtake, Trump cuts himself off to say that he does not want to say “the election’s over” while reading a script from a teleprompter.
“’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, OK?” Trump said.
In another outtake, which is likely to draw the ire of the former president, Trump is seen saying he can’t say the word “yesterday” in the context of the script.
Additionally, the committee showed two outtakes of Trump becoming frustrated after reading the line, “My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote.”
In one clip, he pointed his index finger down before starting over, and in the second, he slammed the podium.
