WASHINGTON ― The House Jan. 6 Committee closed out its series of public hearings Thursday investigating Donald Trump’s coup attempt by subpoenaing the former president himself, describing him the “key player” of that day.
“We must seek the testimony, under oath, of Jan. 6’s key player,” Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, said shortly before the committee voted unanimously to demand that Trump sit for a deposition and turn over relevant documents.
“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion. And every American is entitled to those answers, so we act now to protect our Republic,” Cheney said.
With Republicans likely to take over the House in January, it is unclear how the committee could enforce a subpoena, though, given GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s loyalty to Trump.
About an hour after the hearing adjourned, Trump responded on his social media platform: “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago? Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly - A laughing stock all over the World?”
He also blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not anticipating the violence he would incite ― asking, “Why didn’t Crazy Nancy Pelosi call out the “troops” before January 6th, which I strongly recommended that she do” ― and repeated his now-familiar lies about “fraud” in the election.
In the two-and-a-half-hour hearing, the seven Democrats and two Republicans on the committee mainly offered a recap of the material they first presented in the eight hearings in June and July but also revealed some new material.
Committee members showed, for example, that the former president planned before a single vote had been counted to simply declare victory in 2020, regardless of the outcome.
“This plan to declare victory was in place before any of the votes had been counted.”
- Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
“This plan to declare victory was in place before any of the votes had been counted,” California Democrat Zoe Lofgren said, pointing to evidence collected from video of Trump adviser Roger Stone, testimony from former campaign manager Brad Parscale and a memo from Trump supporter Tom Fitton.
She also played audio from Trump adviser Steve Bannon from days before the election in which he boasted that Trump was simply going to declare that he won. “If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit,” Bannon said.
“It was intentional, it was premeditated, it was not based on any election results,” Lofgren said. “It was concocted in advance to convince his supporters that he won.”
California Democrat Adam Schiff, meanwhile, detailed a string of emails the committee recently obtained from the Secret Service showing that the agency was aware of a flood of threats against members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence on social media that had resulted from Trump’s lies about the election.
Schiff said that by the time of his Jan. 6 rally, Trump was fully aware of how angry his supporters were and that many of them had brought weapons to the capital that day. “He knew they were armed and dangerous. All the better to stop the peaceful transfer of power.”
Fellow California Democrat Peter Aguilar also cited Secret Service documents that showed that Trump’s insistence on leading his supporters to the Capitol had agents planning to don protective gear to accompany him there until shortly before 2 p.m., when they were finally told they could stand down.
Aguilar said that even though Secret Service talked Trump out of going to the Capitol himself, the president sending his armed mob there was by itself beyond the pale. “There is no scenario where that action is benign,” Aguilar said.
New video showed congressional leaders frantically calling military leaders, governors and others for help retaking control of the Capitol and, most strikingly, the leaders finally getting an assurance from Pence, who was also hunkered down at the Capitol with them, that the building would be secure by 7 p.m. and they could continue their work in certifying the election for Democrat Joe Biden.
At the start of the hearing, again set in the ornate, high-ceilinged Cannon Caucus Room, committee leaders reminded Americans of the key points from the previous hearings from this summer: the source of the evidence they have presented, and the centrality of Trump himself.
“The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man: Donald Trump,” said Cheney, who lost her House seat in a primary because of her participation on the committee.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, pointed out that critics who call the committee’s work a “partisan” attack on Trump are missing a key point: The committee has relied on Trump’s own former aides, campaign officials, party officials and even his family for their information.
“All this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans,” Thompson said.
Committee members also hit two other major themes that were originally explored in great detail in this summer’s hearings: That he played a key role organizing slates of “fake electors” that he could use to pressure his own vice president into awarding a second term, and that Trump knew full well that he had in reality lost the election.
“His intent was plain: Ignore the rule of law and stay in power.”
- Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.)
Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger showed video of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. In the video, she recalls seeing Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, at a Christmas party, and says Trump was still angry about losing his appeal of the election to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“And the president said, said something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know that we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost,’” Hutchinson says in the video.
“He heard what all his experts and senior staff were telling him. He knew he lost the election, but he made the deliberate choice to ignore the courts, to ignore the Justice Department, to ignore his campaign leadership, to ignore senior advisers and to pursue a completely unlawful effort to overturn the election,” Kinzinger said. “His intent was plain: Ignore the rule of law and stay in power.”
Cheney also warned that while members of Trump’s mob were being systematically prosecuted, Trump himself needed to face consequences, too.
“Our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol. Those who planned to overturn our election and brought us to the point of violence must also be accountable,” she said. “With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former president, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic. Indefensible conduct is defended, inexcusable conduct is excused. Without accountability, it all becomes normal, and it will recur.”
Thursday’s hearing had been planned for Sept. 28, but was postponed for two weeks because of Hurricane Ian’s landfall in Florida.
The committee is planning to issue a written report of its findings after the November midterm elections and will almost certainly cease to exist if Republicans take control of the House in January. House GOP leader McCarthy has denounced the committee as an attack on Trump ― even though he had personally begged Trump to call off his mob during the Jan. 6 attack.
In its previous hearings that began on June 9, the committee has presented evidence that Trump was repeatedly told by his own staff that he had lost the 2020 election but continued with his lies about “voter fraud” anyway; that he applied pressure to his vice president to simply declare him the winner during the Jan. 6 certification ceremony; that he attempted to coerce officials in states narrowly won by Biden, especially Georgia, to reverse the election results in favor of Trump; and that he attempted to subvert the Justice Department into falsely backing his claims of a “stolen” election.
The originally unplanned sixth hearing, on June 28, came about after top Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson disclosed attempts to intimidate her from sharing explosive revelations about Trump’s actions on and leading up to Jan. 6. And on July 12, the committee’s seventh hearing showed how both Trump and key outside advisers knew all along that he planned to lead his mob’s march to the Capitol to pressure Pence and lawmakers into overturning the election and letting him remain in power.
And in what was to have been the final hearing on July 21, Cheney announced that the committee would continue holding hearings because of all the new information that it was receiving from witnesses. “The dam is beginning to break,” she said.
Trump, despite losing the election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College, became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol ― his last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― killed five, including one police officer, injured another 140 officers and led to four police suicides.
Nevertheless, Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party and is openly speaking about running for the presidency again in 2024.
In statements on his personal social media platform, Trump has continued to lie about the election and the Jan. 6 committee’s work, calling it a “hoax” similar to previous investigations into his 2016 campaign’s acceptance of Russian assistance and his attempted extortion of Ukraine into helping his 2020 campaign.
HuffPost reporter Sara Boboltz contributed to this story.