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CNN Live Event/Special
Jan. 6 CMTE Presents New Evidence New Testimony, Never-Before- Seen Footage. Aired 3-3:30p ET
Aired October 13, 2022 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MOLLY MICHAEL, FORMER EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT: It's my understanding he was watching television.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you were in the dining room in these discussions, was the violence at the Capitol visible on the screen? On the television?
PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): As the president watched the bloody attack unfold on Fox News from his dining room, members of Congress and other government officials stepped into the gigantic leadership void created by the president's chilling and studied passivity that day. What you're about to see is previously unseen footage of Congressional leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, as they were taken to a secure location during the riot.
You'll see how everyone involved was working actively to stop the violence, to get federal law enforcement deployed to the scene, to put down the violence and secure the Capitol complex. Not just Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, but Republicans like Vice President Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Majority Whip John Thune and countless other appointees across the administration.
All of them did what President Trump was not doing, what he simply refused to do. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're starting to get surrounded. They're taking the North Front scaffolding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unless we're getting more munitions, we are not going to be able to hold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The door has been breached and people are gaining access into the Capitol.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Yes, but you know what? We have got to get - finish the proceedings or else they will have a complete victory.
CROWD: U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sen. Schumer is at a secure location and they're locked down in the Senate.
PELOSI: There has to be some way we can maintain the sense that people have that there is some security or some confidence that government can function and that we can elect the president of United States. Did we go back into session?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We did go back into session, but now apparently everybody on the floor is putting on tear gas masks to prepare for a breach. I'm trying to get more information.
PELOSI: They're putting on their--
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tear gas masks.
PELOSI: Do you believe this? Do you believe this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need an area for the House members. They're all walking over now through the tunnel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bring her out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bring her out here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're coming in if you don't bring her out.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I'm going to call up the effing secretary of DOD. We have some Senators who are still in their hideaways. They need massive personnel now. Can you get the Maryland National Guard to come too?
PELOSI: I have something to say, Mr. Secretary. Well, I'm going to call the mayor of Washington, D.C. right now and see what other outreach she has, other police departments as Steny - Leader Hoyer has mentioned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him up. Get him in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold up.
PELOSI: Hi, Governor. This is Nancy. Governor, I don't know if you have been approached about the Virginia National Guard. Mr. Hoyer was connect - speaking to Gov. Hogan, but I still think you probably need the okay of the federal government in order to come in to another jurisdiction.
Thank you.
SCHUMER: I called the secretary of the Army. He's authorized it.
PELOSI: Oh, my gosh. They're just breaking windows. They're doing all kinds of - it's really - that somebody - they said somebody was shot. It's just horrendous. And all at the instigation of the president of the United States. Okay, thank you, Governor. I appreciate what you're doing. And if you don't mind, I'd like to stay in touch. Thank you. Thank you, bye-bye.
SCHUMER: Virginia Guard has been called in.
PELOSI: I was just talking to Governor Northam. And what he said is they sent 200 state police and a unit of the National Guard.
They're breaking windows and going in, obviously ransacking our offices and all the rest of that. That's nothing. The concern we have about personal harm.
SCHUMER: Safety.
PELOSI: Personal safety is - it just transcends everything. But the fact is on any given day, they're breaking the law in many different ways. And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States. And now if he could - at least somebody ...
[15:05:03]
SCHUMER: Yes. Why don't you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility. A public statement they should all leave.
CROWD: U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.
SCHUMER: This cannot be just we're waiting for so-and-so. We need them there now, whoever you got, okay?
REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD): You have - you also have troops - this is Steny Hoyer, troops ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay. We - so we have a little bit of time to make that decision ...
HOYER: ... Fort McNair, Andrews Air Force Base ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.
HOYER: ... other military bases.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Bye.
HOYER: We need active duty National Guard.
SCHUMER: How soon in the future can you have the place evacuated and the whole thing cleaned out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to speak for the leadership that's going to be - that's responsible for executing the operation. So I'm not going to say that because they are meeting on the ground and they're the experts (inaudible) ...
PELOSI: Well, just pretend for a moment it was the Pentagon or the White House or some other entity that was under siege. Let me say you can logistically get people there as you make the plan.
CROWD: (Inaudible) ...
PELOSI: We're trying to figure out how we can get this job done today. We talked to Mitch about it earlier. He's not in the room right now, but he was with us earlier and said, "Yes, we want to expedite this." And hopefully they could confine it to just one complaint, Arizona, and then we could vote and that would be - then just move forward with the rest of the state.
The overriding wish is to do it at the Capitol. What we are being told very directly is it's going to take days for the Capitol to be okay again. We've gotten a very bad report about the condition of the House floor, defecation and all that kind of thing as well. I don't think that that's hard to clean up, but I do think it is more from a security standpoint of making sure that everybody is out of the building and how long will that take.
I just got off with the Vice President.
SCHUMER: And I got off with the Vice-President Elect. So I'll tell you what she said.
PELOSI: Okay. But what we left the conversation with, because he said he had the impression from Mitch that Mitch wanted to get everybody back to do it there.
SCHUMER: Yes.
PELOSI: I said, we'll, we're getting a counter point that is - that could take time to clean up the poo poo that they're making all over the - literally and figuratively in the Capitol, and that it may take days to get back.
MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And so I'm at the Capitol building. I'm literally standing with the Chief of Police of the U.S. Capitol Police. He just informed me what you will hear through official channels, Paul Irving, your Sergeant-at-Arms, will inform you that their best information is that they believe that the House and the Senate will be able to reconvene in roughly an hour.
SCHUMER: Good news.
PENCE: Your Sergeant at Arms will be in touch about the process for getting members back into the building.
PELOSI: Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President.
PENCE: (Inaudible) ...
PELOSI: Good news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: In this video, you just saw Sen. Chuck Schumer urging Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen to get President Trump to call off the rioters. Of course, acting AG Rosen did take action to defend the government, as did many other officials. But Congressional leadership recognized on a bipartisan basis that President Trump was the only person who could get the mob to end its violent siege of the Congress, leave the Capitol and go home.
Here is Sen. McConnell speaking after January 6th about how President Trump abandoned his duties and failed to do his job.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. He was the only one who could. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the administration. But the President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn't take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored.
No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: In the midst of this violent chaos, Kevin McCarthy implored Donald Trump to tell his supporters in the mob to leave the Capitol.
[15:10:03]
And when that didn't work, McCarthy called Trump's adult children to try to get them to intercede with Trump to call off the insurrectionary violence. In our prior hearings, we showed you a description of what McCarthy told Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler about his conversation with Trump during the violence.
Another witness, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump's former chief of staff, has also come forward and corroborated her shocking account.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER (R-WA): I asked Kevin McCarthy who's the Republican leader about this 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. 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 theft than you are." And that's - you've seen widespread reports of Kevin McCarthy and the President having a - basically a swearing conversation. That's when the swearing commenced, because the President was basically saying, "No, I'm okay with this."
MICK MULVANEY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I had a conversation at some point in the day or week after the riot with Kevin McCarthy.
Yes. It was very similar to what Jaime had, the conversation she had retold about how he called and asked the president to get them to stop. And the president told him something along the lines of, Kevin, maybe these people are just more angry about this than you are, maybe more upset.
I had the conversation similar to that with Kevin in the days and weeks after the riot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: And we know how Kevin McCarthy described President Trump's conduct, both in public and in private.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): 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. Accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President-elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term.
But let me be very clear to all of you and I've been very clear to the president; he bears responsibilities 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 need to acknowledge that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: 2:24 pm, knowing the deadly riot was now bearing down on his own vice president, President Trump composed and sent a tweet attacking Vice President Pence, accusing him of cowardice for not unilaterally rejecting Electoral College votes for Joe Biden and simply handing Trump the presidency. The impact of that tweet was foreseeable and predictable.
It further inflamed the mob which was chanting, hang Mike Pence, and provoked them to even greater violence. This deliberate decision to further enrage the mob against Vice President Pence cannot be justified by anything that President Trump might have thought about the election. The tweet came precisely at the time Pence's Secret Service detail was most seriously concerned for the vice president's physical safety.
We've obtained new documents from the Secret Service, real time chats that underscore the threat they knew the Vice President would be facing because of the President's escalating incitement of the mob. After Trump's tweet, one agent in the Secret Services Intelligence Division immediately warned, "POTUS just tweeted about Pence; probably not going to be good for Pence."
Another agent reported the dramatic impact of Trump's anti-Pence tweet on his followers: "POTUS said he lacked courage. Over 24,000 likes in under 2 minutes." Employees at Twitter were nervously monitoring the situation. They knew that certain Twitter users were rioting at the Capitol and tweeting about it at the same time.
As the afternoon progressed, the company detected a surge in violent hashtags on the platform, including lines of lethal incitement like, execute Mike Pence. Listen to this former Twitter employee, Anika Navaroli, who first came to the Committee anonymously, but has now bravely agreed to be named because she wants to speak out about the magnitude of the threats facing our people.
[15:15:06]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you're also seeing content on the platform at the time that was driving towards the Vice President hashtag that came to pass.
ANIKA COLLIER NAVAROLI, FORMER TWITTER EMPLOYEE: Yes. They were literally calling for his execution.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As this tweet was going on?
NAVAROLI: Yes, and after in response to this tweet, too. Because I think as many of Donald Trump's tweets did, it again fanned the flames. And it was individuals who were already constructing gallows, who were already willing, and able and wanting to execute someone and looking for someone to be killed. Now, the individual was called upon then to begin this coup is now pointing the finger at another individual while they're ready to do this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: Here's a small sample of the reactions that President Trump's fanned the flames tweet provoked among Capitol rioters in real time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What percentage of the crowd has gone to the
Capitol?
JESSICA WATKINS: One hundred percent. It has spread like wildfire that Pence has betrayed us and everybody is marching on the Capitol, all million of us. It's insane.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike Pence will not stick up for Donald Trump. Mike Pence, traitor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Traitor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might know that Mike Pence has screwed us. In case you haven't heard yet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened? What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I keep hearing that Mike Pence has screwed us. That's the word. I keep hearing reports that Mike Pence has screwed us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: Between 2:30 and 2:35, within 10 minutes of President Trump's tweet, thousands of rioters overran the line that the Metropolitan Police Force's Civil Disturbance Unit was holding on the west side of the Capitol. This was the first time in the history of the Metropolitan Police Department that a security line like that had ever been broken.
President Trump's conduct that day was so shameful and so outrageous that it prompted numerous members of the White House staff and other Trump appointees to resign. In prior hearings, you've heard Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger and Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews explain why they felt compelled to resign on that day.
Since then, we've spoken to more high ranking officials like President Trump's envoy to Northern Ireland and former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who resigned after the 6th in protest of Trump's misconduct and to dissociate themselves from his role in the violence.
Take a listen to what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MULVANEY: I was stunned by violence, and I was stunned by the President's apparent indifference to the violence. Now is the time for the president to be presidential. I thought he failed at doing it. I thought he failed at a critical time to be the sort of leader that the nation needed.
ELAINE CHAO, FORMER UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: I think the events at the Capitol, however they occurred, were shocking. And it was something that, as I mentioned in my statement, that I could not put aside. And at a particular point, the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy. I came as an immigrant to this country.
I believe in this country. I believe in a peaceful transfer of power. I believe in democracy. And so I was a - it was a decision that I made on my own.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: When security assistance began to arrive at the Capitol and the tide turned against the insurrection, President Trump finally gave his painfully belated instruction at 4:17 pm. So after multiple hours of rioting and more than 100 serious injuries suffered by our law enforcement officers, the crowd finally began to disperse.
Listen carefully to what they said as they decided to leave the Capitol.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are delivering the president's message. Donald Trump has asked everybody to go home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) home now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's our order.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He says, go home. He says, go home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He said to go home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: Finally, at 6:01, President Trump tweeted again not to condemn the mass violence in any way, but rather to excuse and glorify it. Significantly, he made it clear that he considered the violence perfectly foreseeable and predictable, check it out.
"These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously, viciously, stripped away from great patriots who have been badly unfairly treated for so long."
[15:20:07]
These are the things that happen, he said, giving the whole game away. Trump was telling us that the Vice President, the Congress, and all the injured and wounded cops, some of whom are with us today, got what was coming to us. According to Trump, January 6 should not be a day that lives in shame in infamy in our history, but rather in glory. Remember this day forever, he wrote proudly, as if he were talking
about D-Day or the Battle of Yorktown. Trump did nothing to stop the deadly violence for obvious reasons. He thought it was all justified. He incited it and he supported it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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 2:00 and 4:17 when - the video statement came out? Would that have been possible?
CIPOLLONE: Would have been possible?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CIPOLLONE: Well, yes, it would have been possible.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY SECRETARY: If the president had wanted to make a statement and address the American people. He could have been on camera almost instantly. And conversely, the White House press corps has offices that are located directly behind the briefing room. And 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: Mr. Chairman, nothing in law or fact could justify the president's failure to act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): And I assume you also would agree the president has a particular obligation to take care that the law has been faithfully executed?
CIPOLLONE: That is one of the president's obligations, correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RASKIN: Mr. Chairman, in numerous places, our Constitution strongly opposes insurrection and rebellion. Article I gives Congress the power to call forth the militia to suppress insurrections. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualified from holding federal and state office anyone who has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, but betrays it by engaging in insurrection or rebellion.
It was President Lincoln, at the start of the Civil War in 1861, who best explained why democracy rejects insurrection. Insurrection, he said, is a war upon the first principle of popular government, the rights of the people. American democracy belongs to all the American people, not to a single man. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): The gentleman yields back. During this committee's first hearing in July of last year, our witnesses were four police officers who helped repel the riots of January 6th. We asked them what they hoped to see the Committee accomplish over the course of our investigation. Officer Gonell wanted to know why the rioters were made to believe that the election process was rigged.
Officer Fanone asked us to look into the actions and activities that resulted in the day's events.
Officer Hodges was concerned about whether anyone in power had a role.
Officer Dunn put it simply, get to the bottom of what happened.
We've worked for more than a year to get those answers. We've conducted more than a thousand interviews and depositions. We received and reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Thanks to the tireless work of our members and investigators, we've left - we have left no doubt, none, that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6th. He tried to take away the voice of the American people in choosing their president and replace the will of the voters with his will to remain in power.
He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6th. So we want to hear from him. The Committee needs to do everything in our power to tell the most complete story possible and provide recommendations to help ensure nothing like January 6th ever happens again. We need to be fair and thorough and gain a full context for the evidence we've obtained.
But the need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people. He must be accountable.
[15:25:03]
He is required to answer for his actions. He's required to answer to those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy.
He's required to answer to those millions of Americans who votes he wanted to throw out as part of his scheme to remain in power. And whatever is underway to ensure this accountability under law, this committee will demand a full accounting to every American person of the events of January 6th. So, it is our obligation to seek Donald Trump's testimony.
There's precedent in American history for Congress to compel the testimony of a president. There's also precedent for presidents to provide testimony and documentary evidence to Congressional investigators. We also recognize that a subpoena to a former president is a serious and extraordinary action.
That's why we want to take this step in full view of the American people, especially because the subject matter at issue is so important to the American people and the stakes are so high for our future and our democracy. And so, I recognize the Vice Chair, Ms. Cheney of Wyoming, to offer a motion.
CHENEY: Mr. Chairman, pursuant to today's notice, I send to the desk a committee resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.
THOMPSON: The clerk will report the resolution.
CLERK: Committee Resolution 1, resolved, that the chairman be and is hereby directed to subpoena Donald J. Trump for documents and testimony in connection with the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, pursuant to Section 5(c)(4) of House Resolution 503 and clause 2(m) of Rule XI of the rules of the House of Representatives.
THOMPSON: The gentlewoman from Wyoming is recognized on her resolution.
CHENEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our committee now has sufficient information to answer many of the critical questions posed by Congress at the outset. We have sufficient information to consider criminal referrals for multiple individuals and to recommend a range of legislative proposals to guard against another January 6th, but a key task remains.
We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th's central player. More than 30 witnesses in our investigation have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and several of those did so specifically in response to questions about their dealings with Donald Trump directly. Here are a few examples.
This is Roger Stone with Oath Keepers at the Willard Hotel on the morning of January 6th. And here is Mr. Stone testifying before our committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you speak to President Trump on his private cell phone on either January 5th or January 6th?
ROGER STONE: Once again, on the advice of counsel, I will assert my Fifth Amendment right to respectfully decline to answer your question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: This is Gen. Michael Flynn walking with Oath Keepers on December 12th 2020 and here is Gen. Flynn's testimony before our committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you, Gen. Flynn, talk to President Trump at any point on January 6, 2021?
MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: The Fifth. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Here is John Eastman fraudulently instructing 10s of thousands of angry protesters that the Vice President could change the election outcome on January 6th. Later on this same day, Dr. Eastman acknowledged in writing that Donald Trump knew what he was attempting was illegal. Here is John Eastman testifying before our committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did President Trump authorize you to discuss publicly your January 4th 2021 conversation with him?
JOHN EASTMAN, FORMER TRUMP ADVISOR: Fifth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So is it your position that you can discuss in the media direct conversations you had with the president of the United States, but you will not discuss those same conversations with this committee?
EASTMAN: Fifth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Here is Jeff Clark who conspired with Donald Trump to corrupt the Department of Justice. President Trump wanted to appoint Jeff Clark as acting attorney general. And as you can see in this call log we obtained from the National Archives, he did so. And here is Mr. Clark testifying before our committee.
[15:30:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Clark, when did you first talk directly with President Trump?
