The MeidasTouch Podcast - The January 6th Hearings Day 1: GOP dishonor, Republicans caught asking for PARDONS and Ivanka sells out daddy

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Today, we are bringing you a special edition of the MeidasTouch Podcast — the entire replay of our live broadcast of Day 1 of the January 6th Insurrection Hearings. Hosted by Tony Michaels and Gabe Sanchez, this podcast features commentary from your favorite Meidas Media Network superstars, including Michael Cohen, Leigh McGowan (PoliticsGirl), Texas Paul, Michael Popok, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, as well as David Bender, Adam Parkhomenko and Ally Sammarco. Tony and Gabe also bring in Ben, Brett and Jordy after the hearings to discuss the most pivotal moments. You can watch this broadcast on our YouTube channel, here. Subscribe to the Tony Michaels Podcast on YouTube, here. Follow the Tony Michaels Podcast on audio, here. Regular programming of the MeidasTouch Podcast will be back Monday, June 13. We will also be airing Day 2 of the January 6 Hearings live on our YouTube channel. Subscribe here! **RUN OF SHOW** 00:00:00 Show Begins 00:03:13 Michael Cohen 00:18:21 Texas Paul 00:24:48 PoliticsGirl 00:34:46 Karen Friedman Agnifilo 00:42:41 Adam Parkhomenko and Ally Sammarco 00:46:30 David Bender 01:01:16 Hearings Begin 02:01:21 Hearing Recess / Panel 02:54:06 Hearings End 02:59:54 MeidasTouch Brothers 03:10:20 Panel Continues TODAY ONLY: Get 10% off Meidas Merch with promo code 'JUSTICE' at store.meidastouch.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Media Network special coverage of the January 6th select hearing. We have a great show for you tonight. We are going to start an hour early with some commentary from legal analysts, political commentators, and we have a few others that we want to show you tonight. On the list, we have Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney. We have Karen Anipolo from Legal AF. We have Lee McGowan from the Politics Girl podcast

and Texas Paul. The Midas Mighty will know Texas Paul. We also have David Bender and a few others that will be joining us on the broadcast for the first hour. This is a very, very, very important hearing. It is the first hearing of six that we will see for the January 6th elect committee on the insurrection that happened on January 6th, 2021 after the election. As everyone knows, Donald Trump spread the big lie in this country. And why these hearings are so important to our democracy is to understand of why the constitution is such an important foundation of our democracy without it you would not have some of the way of life that you know today your community your school your state your local government your county governments if you really think about it if donald trump was successful in

overturning the election the free and fair election that the people decided with their vote if he really would have been able with him and the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, with the lackeys at the Department of Justice and some of the others that all are key players in the attempted coup. We would have not had the confidence in the Constitution if he would have been successful if he would have been successful what would have stopped him from changing anything else in our democracy what would have stopped him from taking away medicare what would have stopped him from taking away medicaid payments what would have stopped him to say well this state constitution the hell with that what would have stopped him if we did not stop him from taking away our vote because that's what he wanted to do on that day and i believe that's what we're going to find out

with these hearings that not just donald trump but a team several teams of people from several different legs of his apparatus that he was trying to overthrow our government speaking of donald trump i want to bring in someone who knows donald trump very very well he was his former personal attorney this person actually served prison time for crimes that don Trump had committed. I would say that's probably what he's going to say. Everyone knows Michael Cohen from the hearing where Michael Cohen spoke about the payment that was given to Stormy Daniels. And I want to bring him in now. Michael, I know you know Donald better than some because you have been so close to him. Why do you think these hearings are so important?

What gives you that sense of why America needs to really watch these hearings? Look, how many times does the same person, meaning myself or you or Midas Touch or anybody else, how many more times do we have to sit there and talk about just how dangerous Donald Trump is as an individual? Now, interestingly enough, Tony, you talked about for a second, what if Donald takes away your Medicare? What if Donald Trump takes away your Medicaid? I don't think you're thinking like Donald Trump. And yes, you're right. I do know him better, which is why I was successful two and a half years ago when I warned the world and I warned specifically this country that if Donald Trump lost the election, that there would never be a peaceful transfer of power. It's not that, you know, I have some foresight and I can, you know, and I can predict the future. No, it's just that I know the animal that was sitting in the White House. And I know the way he thinks.

It's much bigger than Medicare. It's much bigger than Medicaid. He's looking to take away your freedoms. And yes, you are right. I will turn around and say that I went to prison simply because Donald Trump ensured that I went to prison. And that's, again, I have a second book that's going to be coming out relatively soon called The Department of Injustice. And I give you all the facts and I lay the whole thing out and I will let each individual reader decide for themselves. But one thing for certain, every single aspect of that book is backed up by documentation. He's talking about your First Amendment rights. He's talking about your reproductive rights. And rest assured, if you are a minority, if you are a member of the LGBTQ plus

community, if you are an immigrant and so on, you can rest assured Donald doesn't want you here and he will make your life miserable. The man wants to be an autocrat, plain and simple. He wants to be your Fuhrer. He wants to be, you know, your Supreme Leader. And that's all that Donald Trump wants. At first, at first, the whole thing, meaning the campaign, was supposed to be a joke. And it was supposed to be the greatest infomercial in the history of United States politics. But that's not where it ended up. Somehow, this ass clown ends up winning. And lo and behold, he brings in with him the dregs of society. And the goal at the time,

which was Donald's statement, is he wants to rid Washington of the swamp. In fact, the swamp was better than the shit that he ended up bringing in. I mean, he brought in a dumpster, right? A dumpster fire of garbage individuals who are all looking to grift off the country. And some of them did it by dealing with foreign countries. Others did it simply by just taking advantage of things, even like PPP. So you have to think like Donald Trump. Now, let me just answer your question on that then. How important are these hearings? These hearings, in my opinion, are not going to sway a single individual, not one, on whether or not Donald Trump is or is not guilty. We who are probably here on this Midas Touch network, we know that Donald is. And we watched to see the 2,300 plus text

messages with Mark Meadows, the emails, the 900 and some individuals that all testified before the committee. We all know exactly what was going on and we're able to call it for what it is. But then there's still that group, those Donald Trump sycophantic followers, that no matter what he does, they will never hold him accountable. And it's no different than the statement that Donald Trump made, not to me, to everybody, when he turned around and he said, I can actually shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. That's how the man thinks. So what I believe these hearings will end up doing is very much like what the Mueller report did. It will be a historical document that people will talk about

for a year, two, 10. They'll have school classes, college classes taught about it. But do I think it'll change one person's mind? No. And that's why what we're doing right now is so important. What we're doing is we're trying to activate, activate the people that know he's guilty and hold him accountable for his improper actions and those that were around him for their improper actions. That's what my hope that this hearing will ultimately show. Do I think it'll change people's minds? No, but do I think that it could hold somebody responsible more than Trump? I shouldn't say more than Trump. I meant somebody other than Trump.

There will be other people held accountable, but I believe it'll be very difficult for Department of Justice to end up indicting Trump. As much as I would like to see that happen, as much as I'm sure the people that are watching us right now would like to see that happen, my biggest concern is that Donald Trump, who does not have his fingerprints on anything, he learned very, very well from the attorney Roy Cohn years ago, have your fingerprints on nothing. So I think that this is going to be one

of those hearings that there'll be a lot of information. A lot of people are going to say the things that you already know, but you're going to hear other people saying it as opposed to reading it. You know, I think it's interesting that you bring up the separation between Donald and the crime, right? Because you've experienced this in federal court yourself, but we see so many different levels of this crime of him trying to take away our vote, trying to subvert democracy, to not have that peaceful transfer of power, not only in the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, but we see it in the DOJ where he tried to subvert that in the DOJ in Georgia. He tried to call Brad Rathisberger and tried to get them to find 11,000 votes, whatever the exact number was. 11,780. There you go. The same repetition that Fox News

and everybody wants to talk about, or let's build the wall and who's going to pay for it. That's just that's just the way Donald Trump behaves. You know, he's a master of media manipulation. Right. So let's talk about those different levels. Do you think this hearing is going to give us a sense of leading to Donald Trump with these different levels? Do you think it's going to show us a roadmap of the evidence where he was trying to distance himself from the actual crime? Do you think it's, do you think these hearings are going to show us that? This one in particular, but the other ones, do you think it's going to show us

that? Yeah, I do. I think what they're doing right now is they're setting this up as a roadmap. They're going to start out with people who were in the room. They're going to talk about Donald's impressions when he was there, what he said, who he said it to, you know, where he disappeared to. I mean, there's like, what, 187 minutes where he was completely off the grid. I want people to think about that for a second. So you're the president of the United States of America, and your obligation is to ensure, right, that the country is safe and protected. That's really probably the primary obligation a president has to the rest of us, to, you know, to the people to whom elected him or those of us that didn't, you know, vote for him, but nevertheless ended up, he became,

you know, president of the United States of America. All right. Instead, not only is he not doing that, he's actually enjoying watching a coup against our country. I mean, that's going to be a big part of what you're going to hear tonight. Now, what do you think you're going to hear from counter-programming on the other side, whether it's going to be Trump's folks? I mean, I heard Lara Trump today came out and made some stupid ass comment that no one's going to watch it because we all already know that Donald has no, you know, no, he has no fingerprints on this and that he had nothing to do with it. I mean, this, this, this girl really needs some serious therapy. I mean, especially considering the fact that Donald didn't even like her and didn't want Eric to marry her. But now all of a sudden, because she says these crazy things,

now all of a sudden she's a fan favorite to him. Donald is seriously off his rocker. And I can tell you that these hearings will ultimately set in motion at least some sort of a chronology of what took place, who was involved, you know, who had some action towards it. But then again, you know, at the end of the day, what do we really need? We need the members of this committee to refer it to the Justice Department, to refer the matter to Merrick Garland for prosecution. And my biggest fear is that Merrick Garland is not going to do that. He does not want to be seen as political in any way, despite, I believe, what all of this information is going to shed light on. And that's really a shame, because we are all going to watch this. And we're going to be

scratching our heads and saying, holy shit, did this guy really do that? Did this guy really turn around and speak to Mark Meadows, who's on the phone, for example, with somebody else on these burner phones? Did somebody really provide a roadmap of the inside of the Capitol so that people can find Mike Pence, that people can find Nancy Pelosi's office or get to the senatorial chamber so that they can stop the transfer of democracy and to prevent Joe Biden from being sworn in. I mean, I truly don't understand how people can stop and say Donald had nothing to do with it.

And that's what you're going to hear tonight. It's the continuation of a witch hunt. Nothing is really new here. It's the same BS that they've been trying to put on Donald since the day he was elected. You're going to hear, again, those words like witch hunt. It's a lie. They fear the Republicans, that Democrats know that Republicans are going to take the House and probably the Senate. And in 2024, they're going to take the

White House as well. They're going to have all three parts. And Democrats, of course, are afraid of it. And so we're attacking their leader, their kingmaker, right? Donald himself. And watch, just watch. And this is what you're going to see because this is their playbook. And that's what Trump has shown the Republicans to do. I want people to remember when I was testifying before the House Oversight Committee, did one Republican ask a single question? No, not one. And I made mention of that. I said, isn't anybody going to ask me a single question about Donald? Isn't that why I was asked to come here? Instead, what did they do? They lie, they denigrate you, they turn around and they all use the same buzzwords that are provided to them

by whether it's a Steve Bannon, whether it's by a Steve Miller, whether it's by Don Jr. or by Ivanko or Jared. It's by any one of those that were in close proximate distance to Donald, where he would say to him, I want this word used. And then they just send it out as a massive email. And you will hear the same words over and over and over again. Because look, it's one thing that Trump has picked up from history. Not that he ever read a history book, but he picked up that Stalin used to do this. If you want to change people's mindset, you got to say the same lie over and over and over again until the lie becomes the truth. Michael, I appreciate your insight into not just Trump, but the Trump orbit, because I think that is most important. What we're going to see here with some of these hearings is the Trump orbit really was engaged, not just not just in the attempt to subvert democracy, but to try to protect whatever it is that they try to protect around. Donald Donald is Donald.

It's crazy that they would give their entire being to this one person. Thanks for giving your insight. Michael, stick around because if we have a break in the hearing, I want to bring you back on your thoughts about the hearing. And then after the hearing, if you can, stick around because I'd love to hear what your take is on the entirety of this particular presentation that they're going to give tonight. You know, Tony, before we split, I want people to understand a lot of people turn around and they will send me text messages or they'll go to Instagram or Facebook or my Twitter account. They'll say, why are you yelling? Why are you why do you always sound like you're,

you know, you just had five cups of coffee. I'm angry. And I want that anger to come through to each and every one of you. And that's why in one of the last YouTube videos that I just put out, I turned around and I said, call. Call Republican members of Congress. If we don't do something now, then when? What are we going to do? You're going to turn around after you take your head out of the sand and you realize that Trump just destroyed democracy? That what are we going to do? You're going to turn around after you take your head out of the sand and you realize that Trump just destroyed democracy? That what are we going to do now? How are we going to get it back once we lose it? And I want people to understand, and I say this all the time, democracy is not a God-given right. It's something that we have to fight and protect every single day. And once we lose democracy here in this country, especially to somebody like Donald Trump

or a Donald Trump 2.0, we're never getting it back. So if we're not going to get angry now, if we're not going to mobilize, if we're not, if we are not going to be a movement, then all of this is for naught. And what a shame. Could you imagine? What a shame. Thank you, Michael, for joining us. I really do appreciate it. Please stick around if you can during the if we have a break and then after, because I'd really like to get your take on stuff. Thank thank you, Michael, for joining us. We'll talk to you. We'll talk to you, my friend. Absolutely. Insight into Donald Trump and also the family, because I think that's important with this hearing because we're supposed to hear some testimony from Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner that they gave to the January 6th Select Committee.

I don't know if it's video or audio. I'm not really sure exactly what we're going to get, but I hope it's video because I want to see some viral video come from this. Speaking of viral video the Midas Mighty out there will know Texas Paul everyone loves Texas Paul and the mighty Midas Mighty now he's a tick tocker and again uh Midas Touch YouTube extraordinaire um Paul how are you i am wonderful i am wonderful i'm glad i'm glad you i'm glad you joined us i'm glad you joined us uh

what's what's your first thoughts here um before we get into the hearings well i have to tell you i have to start with a little psa i apologize i have my inbox has been blown up uh we've had health departments all the way from marina del rey to martha's vineyard, just asking me to please do a public service announcement that people not include the words Donald Trump, traitor or treason in their January 6th hearing drinking games. You know, we all know the tragedies we had with it, with the fraternities that put, I do not recall in their drinking game during the Martha Taylor Green hearings. And, you know, how that ended up in the emergency rooms. We've got to be very careful.

No, no, I'm just kidding. Well, I definitely think people could play drinking games with these hearings. The word insurrection, possibly the word coup, the word traitor might come up. Sedition is definitely going to come up in these hearings. So if anyone out there is popping popcorn and playing drinking games, you might pick out a few words that you would go with. Um, but, uh, I, I guess, I guess some of the trolls didn't want us to say the word traitor, uh, next to the word Donald Trump, but you know, I, I, I'm everybody knows out there.

Uh, I, I'm not scared to say something so what i what i really want to get though is because you you have had these videos where you express your anger in a certain way um so tell us tell us about the lead up to january 6th and how you felt about it at the time and then watching it on tv and now here we are all this time later, we're finally getting to find out what the lead up was. Tell us in a few words how you how you felt about that. Tell us. Tell us. Well, I have to tell you, leading up to January 6th, I really want you to think back to that. And I have to disagree with Michael Cohen on one point. I think this is going to be very eye opening to people because most people don't know just how close we came to the ultimate disaster of losing our democracy.

What he said about the danger of Donald Trump was right on the money. And that's what was getting me leading up to January 6th. You know, because I did a deep dive on everything that had gone on. And, you know, Donald Trump, he talked about the 187 minutes where Donald Trump was out of touch. Donald Trump was waiting for something. If you remember the lead up to January 6th,

everything on social media was baiting by the Proud Boys and the, you know, nutty right wing trying to make as much noise about this rally as possible. They wanted us to respond. And I don't know if you remember hearing all over social media calls from people like me and everyone else, stay out of D.C. Stay out of D.C. Don't show up on January 6th.

Don't give them an excuse. And if you look at what happened on January 6th, you know, they had Molotov cocktails and trucks waiting. They had bombs that were functional, fully functional bombs planted and ready to go. Had we shown up, had Antifa shown up, had any substantial presence at all shown up from the left, we would have been blamed for January 6th. Fox News already had the talking points. Forgive me. They were already saying it's Antifa, it's BLM, it's everything else.

And when it turned out to just be hours and hours and hours of seeing Trump supporters, you know, desecrate our Capitol, attacking our police officers, you know, and on and on, smearing feces in our Capitol. It didn't happen. It did not happen. What they had planned was for their quick reaction force that they had just across the river, armed to the teeth, were going to show up and they were going to declare a state of emergency in the Insurrection Act. And Donald Trump was going to delay the certification of the results. And you know, the sunset clause, that would have sent it back to Congress. And you remember the math on that, don't you? I

mean, in the House, they go state to state, one vote, one state, and the Republicans owned more states at the time. I absolutely believe that we are going to see in these hearings, it laid out that they had a 100% plan to hand the election back to Donald Trump through the use of the insurrection act. I absolutely agree with you. I think there's a lot with the seditious conspiracy that we've seen and the superseding indictment for the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Also, the decision from Judge Carter out of California with John Eastman and that plan for Michael Pence, the vice president at the time who would not get into.

And I hope that's one thing we get to in these hearings, whether it's today or in these hearings in the next few weeks about why Mike Pence wouldn't get into the, the van with the secret service, Paul, I really appreciate you coming stick around because I'll bring you back in and hopefully either at the break or at the end, if you've got a chance, and we'll get some more commentary, make sure you make notes because uh i know i know you'll have tons of stuff to rant on thank you very much sir we'll talk to you very soon yep uh i i think i think there's a lot of stuff that uh we could actually say about this hearing and these hearings but i

think the one question that we want to ask is why should we care about these hearings? Because that is something that I think everyone's probably wondering, like, why the hell should we care? What does it matter? What does it matter if we watch in this country. But here we are. Here we are. Why should we care? And I have someone that I want to ask this question to. You know her as politics girl, Lee McGowan, politics girl podcast. Lee, how are you? I'm good. I mean, I'm good. I was it's interesting to listen to Paul and Michael talk because, you know, Michael said it's going to be a lot like the Mueller report and God, I hope not. You know, that was a real disappointment. And I don't think so. I think the people in charge of this, I think we're in a totally different situation here, but I will say, I agree with him when he talks about when people say, why are you yelling? You know, why are you angry? Because I often say the same thing. I say like, why aren't you angry? You know? And when we're talking about this situation that's

happening today, I'm listening to a lot of people and I'm reading a lot of people and they're basically saying, who cares? This was a long time ago. Let's not take our eyes off the ball for midterms or I'm more interested in inflation or gas prices or whatever. That people don't really care about one six anymore. And that makes me crazy because it reminds me of when you get sick, you know, when you get sick and your whole life stops and you can't do anything, all of a sudden you're like, I can't believe I took breathing for granted or getting out of bread for granted, you know, and that could be anything from a cold to COVID. But if you get really sick, if you're someone that's diagnosed with something terrible, of course we worry about our job and our kids and our bank

account. But when you get really sick, that becomes your sole focus. And I believe the country is really sick. And what happened on January 6th was just a physical manifestation of how sick the body politic is. Like we have this giant tumor and it's metastasizing. It's growing bigger every day. And we can't ignore it because we're worried about gas prices or inflation. If we don't address this tumor that is attacking our country, we'll die. You know, America will die. It's very fragile right now. And we have to look at the one six committee as basically the diagnostic tools that you have when you get ill, you know, um, the pet scan machine, the MRI machine, the blood tests that you do. They have done all the research and the interviews and the investigation, right?

They're going to lay out the picture of exactly what is wrong with us, how we got here and what they think we should do. And it's up to us to listen to them. And then from there, when we know truly what's wrong with us and how far it goes and how deep it's gone into our body, then we need to proactively deal with this illness. And that is going to be through the action of Congress based on the recommendations of this committee. That's going to be what the DOJ does to hold people accountable. And that's going to be what the voters do, right, at the midterms, in the 24 election and the elections following that, because we need to cut this tumor out of our country. We need to proactively deal with this disease of misinformation and lies and corruption that is killing the country. And to do that, we need all the facts.

And ignoring the facts and not watching these hearings is not going to make it go away. It's just going to make us sicker. And if anyone who's ever been sick knows without our health, we have nothing. I completely agree with you. And I have another question for you because you bring up the Republicans and what their view of it is, because they've been saying all day, you know, Fox News isn't airing this. They're like, oh, this is all bull. This is all bullshit. You know, don't listen to what the facts are. You know, facts don't matter because I think that's part of the sickness.

Right. Is what you're talking about is this this absolute obsession with I call it the intersection of WrestleMania and real life. That's where I put it. Right. We're in a situation where people they it feels good to believe some of these and real life. That's where I put it, right? We're in a situation where people, they, it feels good to believe some of these things, right? So tell me about the belief that this is a kangaroo court and, you know, how, what do you think about that, about the idea that somehow this is all fake and tell us about that sickness? Uh, well, you know, that

your theory of it being like WrestleMania is true. You know, I think it goes back to what Michael was saying earlier, that Donald Trump is a master of manipulation. Right. He's he's a showman. He's a ringleader. He's he's the leader of what's really happening here, which is this constant disinformation. Same words over and over, something that the Democrats are just not that good at, right? The Republicans are very good at doing this. And they're out here right now saying it's all partisan. It's all for show. It's a kangaroo court. And the only reason it would be even similar to a kangaroo court is that the committee itself has no real power for

accountability, right? They're going to, as I said, lay out the story, but they can't do anything aside from make recommendations. So that would be the only way it would be like a fake court, which is what a kangaroo court is really considered. But in this case, the idea that the Republicans saying it's partisan and this shouldn't be happening, they don't really have a leg to stand on there because we all watched the insurrection happen. We all watched 1-6 live on television. And it was shocking. People can remember it wasn't really that long ago. It was shocking.

It was the biggest attack in our capital since 1812. And people died. It was an appalling degradation of our government and our country um and then afterwards the house was understandably shocked and they wanted to set up a 9-11 style bipartisan commission to investigate it but the republicans voted against it right they first made a whole bunch of ridiculous demands they wanted to have um an even number of republican and democratic members they wanted to have an even number of Republican and Democratic members. They wanted to have subpoena power. They wanted to have veto over subpoenas. They wanted to have an end date of December 2021 so they could keep it out of this election year. And you would think the

Democrats would say, well, no, that's too many. And this is we're going to make some concessions. But they gave the Republicans every single thing they asked for. They said, sure, you can have an equal number. Sure, you can veto our subpoenas. Sure, we can be done by December 2021. And then the Republicans went forward and voted against it anyway. So no 9-11 style bipartisan commission. But the country still wanted to know what happened. So Nancy Pelosi, she used her power and she set up a Benghazi style commission. And that's what we have today, this committee. And she said to Kevin McCarthy, like, look, I have seven members, you will get six members. And Kevin McCarthy said, I'm not playing ball, I won't do it. None of my members are allowed to be part of your committee,

not a single one. And if they try and be part of your committee, I'm going to strip them of their position of power. And unfortunately, he had already gone head to head with Liz Cheney, right? So Liz Cheney said, you know what, I'll be on your committee. And so Nancy Pelosi said to Kevin McCarthy, you know what, I've got one of yours. Why don't you give me five more? And so he named five more people. And two of them happened to be pro-insurrectionists, very pro-Donald Trump, pro-stop the steal Republicans, including Jim Jordan. And Nancy Pelosi said, you know what, we'll take these three, but these two cannot be part of the committee. They're basically co-conspirators. Pick two more. And Kevin made a huge big show. Oh, I can't have my

people. And he pulled all five of his people. So Nancy Pelosi said, OK, well, I've got one, which makes it bipartisan. And I've got my people, which are the majority. So we have a quorum. We're going to move forward. And then Adam Kinzinger joined. So this idea that the Republicans are saying is such a shock, and we can't believe that they're doing this. You had every opportunity to have an equal amount of people, you had every opportunity to veto subpoenas and have subpoenas and ask their questions, you voted against it, then you were offered to have people on this committee, you didn't do it. So now we're in this position where we're going to lay out some facts and they're not

there to get in the way. They're not there to obstruct and they're very upset about it. But honestly, it's their own fault, right? I always think about Republicans when they were there the day of the event and they were so surprised that it was happening. And a lot of them, even people like Mitch McConnell, they were saying, Donald Trump did this. He needs to call it off. They all were speaking truth in that moment on the day when they were shocked.

And then they started rolling it back and changing the narrative and pulling it all together because they play like a team. They're very, very smart, right? And I always think about those parents that defend their children who have murdered someone or defend their children who have raped someone or buried someone's body in the Everglades. And you think, why are they covering for them? Like, their child is clearly so guilty. They know it. But they just can't stop themselves. They are, the Republicans are basically the parents of criminals, right? They're covering up for the people responsible because it serves them. And that's what we have to keep in mind. These are just facts that they're going to lay out. What happens after those facts is dependent on the DOJ. It's dependent on Congress and it's dependent on the voter. I appreciate your commentary and you always have a great way of putting things. So Lee, stick around, please. If we have a break or after, I would love to get your take on the information that we actually receive. I'm going to go get some legal analysis. You have a great way of setting up the political part of it. And so now I'm going to go to Karen Agnipolo and get some legal analysis. So thank

you, Lee. If you can, stay with us throughout the night and we'll come to you for some more political commentary. Thank you, Lee. We really appreciate it. Wonderful. I look forward to hearing from Karen. Yes, everyone go download the politics girl podcast. Thank you.

Thank you, Lee. Thank you. So I want to bring up Karen Agnivelo because I think that one thing that we need to have is the legal analysis of this whole thing because that is part of this there is a legal aspect to this because on the other side of the january 6th committee this evidence that we're going to see there's possible criminal indictments and there is currently there's people sitting in prison with their bare feet on the floor. And I got that phrase from KFA, Karen Agnivelo from Legal AF Podcast.

Karen, how are you? Great. I am so excited to have you. I had Popak, your co-host on Wednesdays on my show today. And I thought maybe he was going to join you here. I think he didn't want to predict things. So he's going to join us somewhere near the end. But I'm glad to

have you, the legal AF-er here with us. So tell me about the legal part of this, because we've heard some political commentary. We heard from Michael Cohen about kind of the mindset of Trump and people around Trump. But tell me about the legal part of this, because there is legal parts of this, maybe not in the select committee necessarily, maybe with some of the contempt charges, but really what does this evidence mean with the DOJ? Because that's always the question. Oh, you know, this select, it's all, it's all a show. The DOJ is not actually going to do anything. So tell us about the prosecution. It's prosecutable. So, so just my background is as a prosecutor, I was a three decade prosecutor at the Manhattan DA's office in New York. So I look at this from the lens of a prosecutor and as and from the lens of a trial attorney. And what's happening in parallel to this is the Department of Justice does have a criminal investigation into the events of January 6th. As we all know, it's been widely reported and over 800 people have been arrested. And it's

mostly the insurrectionists who have been arrested. And a lot of people are wondering, what about Donald Trump and what about his close circle of advisors? And when is the investigation going to rope them in? Many people have said that this House Select Committee should make a criminal referral. I heard Michael Cohen say that. I would argue that I would hope that they would not make a criminal referral because DOJ doesn't need it. DOJ is investigating the case. They will be watching these hearings. They will see what evidence they have. If they want the evidence, they will either ask for it or subpoena it. They don't need a criminal referral. And the reason I hope they don't make one is because then

you're injecting politics into criminal justice. And that is the death knell of criminal justice. People have to trust the legal system and the justice system, and it can't be political. And it has to just be, you look at the evidence and you follow the evidence without fear or favor. You don't go with the people you agree with or disagree with. You follow the evidence wherever it may lead, and you don't have a political bent. And, you know, this particular select committee, I think, has two problems. Number one, it's obviously political. These are politicians who are part of the legislative branch, and their job is to make laws, and they can advise and they can do these investigations, but it's not a criminal investigation. This is an advisory. This is sort of an advisory body that can inform the public and inform sort of what happened. And they have spoken to, what is it, over a thousand people have come and given testimony, and hopefully we'll see some of that. They've gathered lots and lots of videos and audios and emails and text messages.

And like a criminal trial, you know, when you get all of this information and it kind of gets dumped in and at summation, at the end, your closing argument is when you can sort of weave it all together and tell the story of what it means. So I'm hoping that these hearings are like a summation, that of all the evidence that they've gathered, of all the people they've spoken to, that they will weave it all together and tell everyone what it means, like the best summations you've seen, and hopefully give a roadmap to not just the public, but also to the people who are investigating this from a criminal perspective, so they too can can bring the case. My other concern, and I have a few concerns about this this committee, is what's really unprecedented is they were the victims of the crime. The people in the house were there that day on January 6th in fear of their life. They are witnesses themselves. And so it seems

very strange to me and could potentially lose their credibility, but that they're the ones doing the investigation. I mean, imagine I was a sexual assault prosecutor for a very long time. Imagine a rape victim being the jury, the judge and the prosecutor, you know, and the witness. You're not going to get, you know, even if it's the best information, even if it's the best evidence, one could call into question, you know, the sort of objectivity. So I'm just really hoping that they're careful and that they don't make this, you know, that, you know, as Michael Cohen said, and, you know, that Donald Trump is a as Michael Cohen said, and you know, that Donald Trump is a master media manipulator was the words he used. And I'm, I fear and I worry that the

House committee is going to try to compete with him on that level. And they hired a, you know, the former, I don't know what he was of ABC News and documentarian to produce this hearing. And an overly produced, overly glossy hearing could have the air of inauthenticity. And I don't want to lose the hearts and minds of people because of these concerns I'm raising. And so I'm just concerned because I do think in the end, you're going to have a Justice Department who's going to have to look at evidence

and decide, did Donald Trump commit a crime? And does the evidence support that? And these 187 minutes where he was off the grid, you know, that is not evidence, that doesn't show he did anything. We all know there's an insurrection. We all know that people breached the Capitol. We all, I mean, that's why there's over 800 prosecutions already happening. And so those people are responsible. But this committee is going to have to lay out in detail what did Donald Trump do that has admissible evidence in court that will lead a jury to be able to convict him of crimes. And so that is, I think, one of the most important tasks that can, that they can do here. So it has to be

authentic. It can't be, you know, a spectacle. It has to be substantive and they have to really capture the hearts and minds of people who are out there, even people who are like-minded and agree with this position. I think you have to get them to care. And, you know, I worry a little bit, Jamie Raskin said, you know, we're going to blow the roof off the house. You know, hopefully that wasn't an over promise. Hopefully they blow the roof off. And I'm, right. I'm really excited. I'm really, really excited to see this and watch it, but it cannot lack authenticity. And they have to be careful because like I said, they are also the victims of the crime as much as they are the people gathering information and gathering the evidence.

So so those are sort of my thoughts and concerns, because, you know, in the end, really what we want is we want a prosecution of Donald Trump. And so, you know, don't F it up for for the for the you know, hear that select committee. Don't you know, because I'll'll say it don't fuck it up for for karen here don't because you know prosecutors know what they're doing that's right and the department of justice has some of the best prosecutors in the country and you know they have to trust them don't you think we have to trust them and they're doing their job and don't f it up right well i appreciate, I appreciate it. And Karen, I know you're going to be making notes this entire this entire process. So so so when you

have your notes, please join us again, as the others hopefully will after the hearing to give me your take on some of the notes that you have. So thank you for coming. And we'll talk to you soon, my friend. Thanks for having me. So we're going to go, we're going to go to, she was speaking of the politics of it and convincing people. So I want to go to some political strategists here. And I think we got the sound test done. Is Allie and Adam, are they ready?

Can you give me a thumbs up if you're ready? Looks, yeah, they're ready. Okay, we're going to pull them in here. Hey, how are you guys? How's it going? Oh, going, going great, going great going going great going great we're just uh we're just trailing through this podcast it looks like um it looks like we have i'm gonna show you guys something here we've got the um the stream going here you see the capital here in the

background i want to show everybody we're about um just about 15 minutes away from hearing this hearing but i want you guys to really give us a sense of the political strategy because everyone's saying, oh, the Democrats are trying to politicize this. And I've been making the case for, you know, many, many, many, many weeks that yes, they should politicize this. They should. So tell us about the political strategy of this after these hearings are over because history is about to be made. I to go first i'll go ahead go ahead yeah i mean i think for for months it's been almost a year and a half since the attack um last january of 2021 and people have been wondering what is going on you know they haven't seen anything they haven't really seen these

hearings being played uh publicly and for the public consume. So I think that this is really, really like a great step forward for just publicizing what's actually been going on behind closed doors. And yeah, I just, I think that this is the chance to show exactly what the January 6th committee has been up to and has been working on this whole time. They said it's been kind of like building up from the bottom up. And so I think that we're all ready to see what they've been preparing. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that, you know, I totally agree with you.

We should be partisan, but at the same time, the facts are on our side. I love that Democrats are doing this at prime time, you know, and using the tactics that Republicans constantly use against us. The facts being on our side, we should make sure that the tactics that Republicans constantly use against us, the facts being on our side, we should make sure that the entire country can hear this. Someone said earlier today that there's a poll out saying that, you know, independents aren't sure if Donald Trump contributed, you know, contributed to this insurrection. And then you've got Kevin McCarthy coming out saying every single person in this country is responsible for the insurrection. Well, Kevin McCarthy's talking directly to those independents saying that, that you know they are very much responsible for this insurrection just as much as he is um i think it's going to be an interesting night um i agree with what was said

earlier in terms of you know setting expectations but at the same time it's nice to hear about you know here's someone saying they're going to blow the roof off the house and they're using an analogy as opposed to uh physical violence and and you know, I think that Democrats have everything, including history, on their side and they need to just go up there and shine a big light on this and do it at a point where everyone's paying attention to it. Well, we see now in the room, they've got the screen going and it looks like the hearing is going to start soon. I appreciate it. And you guys, please stick around. I'd like to get more commentary either in between. If we have a break or after, we're going to have all kinds of time after the hearing. Once we hear what is being said as history is made tonight.

Again, this hearing is going to start in less than 15 minutes. So I want to bring in another political strategist. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Allie, for joining us. I want to bring in another political strategist. And I want his take because he really, he really pulls in the history of all this. He was around when Watergate, we're talking years ago, and I think almost our country owes an apology to Richard Nixon at this point, seeing how much evidence we have of how much crime was actually committed by Donald Trump and the people who were trying to overturn our vote and trying to overturn our democracy. I want to introduce you to David Bender. He's a political strategist. He's going to, I talked to him earlier. He said he's going to tell us just exactly how old he is. David,

how are you? Can you hear me there, David? I can hear you fine. Hey, great. I can hear you fine. Hey, great. I'm not going to tell you how old I am. Oh, okay. I will tell you that during the fall of Rome, it was very clear to Caesar, do not turn your back on Brutus. He would take, and he would listen. They never listened. So you remember coups all the way back to then. Is that what you're saying?

And the truth is, in remembering coups, and this is a serious point, Tony, every successful coup is preceded by a failed one. We had a failed coup on January 6th, but failed only for the short term. It's still going on right now. And that's the thing that this committee is addressing. What we're going to see over the next six sessions starting tonight is they're going to deal with the reality that this did not end on January 6th. It didn't end today. Those people are planning this for this fall, for November, and for beyond into 2024. This is a very organized effort to not make the mistakes they made by leaving it to Mike Pence to do the right thing. Right, right. Well, we see this hearing getting set up. I want to pull in my co-host because I think Gabe might have a question for you. Gabe, welcome to the broad broadcast uh you you got your your mic yeah there we go

so so i i want to see if you've got a question for david because i know i know you've been in the green room trying to do some sound tests and you've been listening but do you have a question for david about the direction of the i think i think what most of us are pretty curious about is like you know if you could kind of anticipate what this presentation or at least the layout or the format in which they're going to make the case for, you know, against Donald Trump and against the cohorts that he, you know, trying to overthrow the government, you know, what would what would it look like? I can try and tell you, and obviously we're waiting for Chairman Thompson to gavel this in. So we've got about nine minutes. So let me do this in two. What we're going to see tonight is an overview. Chairman Thompson's going to open this. He is going to talk about why they're there,

what this matter, why it matters, and specifically about the events of January 6th. Then we're going to see some footage. It's a little bit of a spoiler alert, but we're going to see footage coming up. I think we may be seeing it right now that in fact we all have seen, but we're going to see footage we've never seen before because there are body cams and things that the committee has. This will be brand new to the audience. This isn't a greatest hits clip. This is new stuff.

Out of that footage, we're going to come into Liz Cheney. And Vice Chair Liz Cheney, who as was observed earlier by a politics girl, went on, you know, because she did the right thing in spite of her party saying, you'll never have a future in this party if you do it. I've never agreed with Liz Cheney on a single political issue, but I have enormous respect for her integrity. And what she's going to say tonight, she is going to say, this is what we're going to see over the next five hearings, as well as tonight. We're going to lay out this case, the arc of the story. And the arc that began before January 6th, let's be very, very clear.

This started in November. This started even before Trump lost. They had a plan in place, if he did. Then they began to implement it. We're going to hear all about these fake electors and all about all of these efforts to overturn the results. So Liz Cheney will lay that out tonight. Then we're going to hear from two, we're going to take a break. Then there'll be two fact witnesses. One is the Capitol Hill policewoman who was on the front lines and a proud boy, and his mother must be really proud of him because he knocked her to the ground. She had a concussion.

She will testify. Caroline Edwards will testify tonight. And the geniuses that are the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers allowed a British documentary filmmaker, Nick Queston, to embed with them. And he covered the Proud Boys while they were planning the insurrection. And that footage, speaking of Watergate, it's footage in a garage where these two groups met. We're going to see that tonight. So in answer, Gabe, to your question, that's what's going to play out tonight. We may, we may, and just sit on the edge of your seat to see, there is a videotape of the depositions of Jared and Ivanka about what went on in those three hours that the Capitol was under assault,

and specifically Ivanka, who we know tried to get her father to take an action. So the question tonight and the question over the course of the next five hearings after tonight is what did the president not do and when did he not do it? I think that's a great question because I think that's kind of the unanswered, right? Like that time period that maybe the testimony of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will give. But I want to go back to that video that you're going to see of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers planning the insurrection. I think that's very significant. I talked to Michael Popock from Legal AF today, and he really focused on the DOJ part of it.

But what we see now inside the DOJ prosecuting some of these insurrectionists, we see the people actually charged with seditious conspiracy are Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Do you think, I mean, I'm surmising here, but I would imagine DOJ has that footage just as well as the Select Committee has that footage. But how much of it are we really going to see? I mean, David, are you telling me that we're going to see the stuff that spells out the crimes right out in the open here yes i think we are because there are existing indictments i don't think well one of the things that they have to be careful about and i i thought that the legal analysis of the fact that these people the members of the house were in fact victims of this crime, is if there are jury

trials for some of the people involved and they're not cooperating, but they stand trial, then you don't want to use all of the evidence here. So there's a dance that's going on between DOJ and the committee, but it's a friendly dance. They're working cooperatively and trying to stay in step with each other so that what doesn't happen is that evidence that's put out here biases a jury in the stage. We may not see all of it. We don't need to. We just need to know that it happened. They were talking. You know, Terry wasn't even supposed to be there legally. There's a lot of things that will be revealed tonight that I think will get people's interest. They just don't know some of these characters.

Well, you know, Gabe actually found some of the clips of the video, and he talked about today on the broadcast that Channel 4 actually had some of that video taken down because we see Tarrio, like you're saying, who has just recently given the charges of seditious conspiracy in a superseding indictment, the same charges that we've seen some of the Oath Keepers actually plead guilty to in court. Brian Ulrich, in particular, said, yes, judge, I was in a plot to plan to make sure with Stuart Rhodes that there was no peaceful transfer of power, which is a very significant wording. But Gabe found this video and he's really, Gabe's kind of seen some of this Proud boy Oathkeeper stuff So Gabe do you have really any other questions About because I think this is so significant That the

The documentary film Is going to tie the Oathkeepers And the Proud Boys to Trump Because we're going to go live and the minute that gavel comes We're all going to watch Gabe you've seen the footage. Yeah. I've seen still photographs of it.

Yeah, yeah. So I've seen multiple parts before they pulled it down. Basically, them meeting on January 5th in the parking garage between Latinos for Trump, Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers. There's also footage of Tarrio getting released from court, which, again, like you said, he was not supposed to be in DC on January 5th. He was supposed to be outside of the city by that point. Explain to the audience why that was, because that's significant too. Right, so Enrique Tarrio-

Three insurrection rallies almost. Right, yeah, he got busted for burning the BLM flag outside of the church. And that's what ultimately got him in trouble where the court said, you have to now remove yourself from DC. But of course, you know, being a person who wants to throw an insurrection, uh, doesn't listen,

goes to a parking garage in a shady area and has a planning session with other people who also want to, uh, form this conspiracy for sedition. So I think if anything, we'll probably, yes, we'll see video footage. We'll probably hear actual, the testimony from the documentarian, but that's the thing that there have been clips from this that are somewhere on the internet. I have a couple of them myself, but the actual whole footage itself from the documentary has been pulled by channel four. And I,

I imagine that's due to the committee subpoenaing the actual video and saying, you need to remove it. You know, I feel like we should have a ball here that's going to drop like it's New Year's. Right. We're waiting on the countdown, aren't we? We're at three minutes. And I'm sure every other network actually has a little clock. I'm glad we don't because it's been overdone now. But let me make one point as we go into this. And you mentioned Watergate, which for me at a time I was in high school was incredibly significant to the point where the entire country was watching

John Dean, then 34 years old, testify and bring down a presidency, a presidency that had won 49 states, Nixon's reelection won 49 states. He was at a high level, very high popularity when the Watergate hearing started. And he resigned in August of 74 at 20 20-something percent approval, his numbers continue to plummet. Tonight, tonight, if we all watch, and then we keep watching, and that's the most important thing I can say to people who are listening to this, keep watching, keep watching on Monday. The next four hearings are all going to be at 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 o'clock Pacific. Watch those hearings as they unfold. And then on the 23rd, I think two weeks from now, it will again be in prime time to wrap it up. But if we watch the way we did in Watergate, if we watch as a country and keep talking about it,

it's going to move the dial. People will understand that this was a crime against the nation. And Donald Trump, the sitting president, tried to undo the constitutional transfer of power. It's never happened before. It must never happen again. You know, Benny Thompson actually had a statement the other day publicly that they were going to lay out in these hearings the what they were going to do to make sure this did not happen again um but i said earlier that we almost owe um richard nixon an apology now some some some some actually some actually remember watergate um through history but some of us remember in that moment and you were in that moment. So does this have a different feeling? Do you really feel that? What's different about it? What's different? That was one administration that was corrupt. And there have been many,

the Harding administration at Teapot Dome. You know, I can go all Michael Beschloss on you and tell you all of these things. But the important thing to know is none of those threaten the existence of the republic. This does. This is left unaccounted for. Everything that we are built on, which started with the peaceful transfer of power when John Adams, who hated Thomas Jefferson, hated him, handed over the presidency, conceded that he lost. They then later became great friends. But the point is, no matter the personal animus, history has shown that we must unite around a winner. And the problem is what is established now. And that's what the Republican playbook is. You saw with Dr. Oz, Trump said, just declare victory. No recounts, declare it. That's going to be their operating

principle. That's why this has to change. That's why we have to look back in order to move forward. And that's what's going to happen tonight. People who say this doesn't matter don't understand that the only way, the way Germany has become a democracy is there were Nuremberg trials. Right. They were held to account for their crimes. Donald Trump and the criminal conspirators who were part of this must be held to account or I guarantee you it will happen again. Chairman Thompson is approaching. I see that. I see that. David, I yield back the balance of my time to the chairman. Yes, yes, yes. Well, thank you very much. And we will go to Benny Thompson here really quick. Thank you, David, for joining us. Stick around for more commentary. We're going to go to the hearing here

just in a minute. Gabe, stick around. We will presume after this. Yeah. Hi there. I'm Ryan Reynolds, and I have a list of things I'd like to have on set.

It's just little things like two freshly cracked eggs scrambled with crispy hash brown, sausage crumble, and creamy chipotle sauce from Tim Hortons. From my rider to Tim's menu, try my new scrambled eggs loaded breakfast box. Thank you. committed to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol will be in order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. Pursuant to House Deposition Authority Regulation 10, the chair announces the committee's approval to release the deposition material presented during tonight's hearing.

Thanks to everyone watching tonight for sharing part of your evening to learn the facts and causes of the events leading up to and including the violent attack on January 6, 2021. Our democracy, electoral system, and country. I'm Benny Thompson, chairman of the January 6, 2021 committee. I was born, raised, and still live in Bolton, Mississippi, a town with a population of 521, which is midway between Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the Mississippi River. I'm from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and lynching. I'm reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists on January 6, 2021. Over the next few weeks, hopefully you will get to know

the other members, my colleagues up here, and me. We represent a diversity of communities from all over the United States, rural areas and cities, East Coast, West Coast, and the heartland. All of us have one thing in common. We swore the same oath, that same oath that all members of Congress take upon taking office and afterwards every two years if they are reelected. We swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The words of the current oath taken by all of us that nearly every United States government employee takes have their roots in the Civil War. Throughout our history, the United States has fought against foreign enemies to preserve our democracy, electoral system, and country. When the United

States Capitol was stormed and burned in 1814, foreign enemies were responsible. After war in 1862, when American citizens had taken up arms against this country, Congress adopted a new oath to help make sure no person who had supported the rebellion could hold a position of public trust. Therefore, congresspersons and United States federal government employees were required for the first time to swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath was put to test on January 6, 2021. The police officers who held the line that day honored their oath. Many came out of that day blooded and broken. They still bear those wounds, visible and invisible. They did their duty. They repelled the mob and ended the occupation of the Capitol. They defended the Constitution against domestic

enemies so that Congress could return, uphold our own oath, and count your votes to ensure the transfer of power, just as we've done for hundreds of years. But unlike in 1814, it was domestic enemies of the Constitution who stormed the Capitol and occupied the Capitol, who sought to thwart the will of the people to stop the transfer of power. And so they did. So at the encouragement of the President of the United States, the President of the United States trying to stop the transfer of power, a precedent that had stood for 220 years, even as our democracy had faced its most difficult tests. Thinking back again to the Civil War in the summer of 1864, the President of the United States

believed we would be doomed to bid his bid for re-election. He believed his opponent, General George McClellan, would waive the white flag when it came to preserving the Union. But even with that grim fate hanging in the balance, President Lincoln was ready to accept the will of the voters, come what may. He made a quiet pledge. He wrote down the words, this morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be reelected.

Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the president-elect. It will be my duty to so cooperate with the president-elect. It will be my duty. Lincoln sealed that memo and asked his cabinet secretaries to sign it sight unseen. He asked them to make the same commitment he did, to accept defeat if indeed defeat was the will of the people, to uphold the rule of law, to do what every president who came before him did and what every president who followed him would do,

until Donald Trump. Donald Trump lost the presidential election in 2020. The American people voted him out of office. It was not because of a rigged system. It was not because of voter fraud. Don't believe me? Hear what his former attorney general had to say about it. I warn those watching that this contains strong language. December 1st and one was on December 14th. And I've been through sort of the give and take of

those discussions. And in that context, I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit. And, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it. And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did. I observed, I think it was on December 1st, that, you know, how can we, you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that the election, that there was fraud in the election. Bill Barr on election day 2020, he was the Attorney General of the United States, the top law enforcement official in the country, telling the president exactly what he thought about claims of a stolen election. Donald Trump

had his days in court to challenge the results. He was within his rights to seek those judgments. In the United States, law-abiding citizens have those tools for pursuing justice. He lost in the courts, just as he did at the ballot box. And in this country, that's the end of the line. 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. Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, 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. Any legal jargon you hear about seditious conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States boils down to this. January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power. Now you may hear those words and think this is just another political attack on Donald Trump by people who don't like him. That's not the case. My colleagues and I all wanted an outside independent commission to investigate January 6th, similar to what we had after 9-11. But after first agreeing to the idea,

Donald Trump's allies in Congress put a stop to it. Apparently, they don't want January 6th investigated at all. And in the last 17 months, many of those same people have tried to whitewash what happened on January 6th. To rewrite history, call it a tourist visit, label it legitimate political discourse. Donald Trump and his followers have adopted the words of the songwriter, Do you believe me or your lying eyes? 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. 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. So tonight and over the next few weeks, we're going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day. But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because of our democracy remains in danger, the conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. There are those in this audience 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. January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional

democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here. America has long been expected to be a shining city on the hill, a beacon of hope and freedom, a model for others when we are at our best. How can we play that role when our house is in such disorder? We must confront the truth with candor, resolve, and determination. We need to show that we are worthy of the gifts that are the birthright of every American. That begins here, and it begins now, with a true accounting of what happened and what led to the attack on our Constitution and our democracy. In this moment, when the dangers of our Constitution and our democracy loom large, nothing could be more

important. Working alongside the public servants on this desk has been one of the greatest honors of my time in Congress. It's been a particular privilege to count as a partner in this effort and to count as a friend the gentlewoman from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney. She is a patriot, a public servant of profound courage, of devotion to her oath and the Constitution. It's my pleasure to recognize Ms. Cheney for her opening statement. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me echo those words about the importance of bipartisanship and what a tremendous honor it is to work on this committee.

Mr. Chairman, at 6.01 p.m. on January 6th, after he spent hours watching a violent mob besiege, attack, and invade our Capitol, Donald Trump tweeted, but he did not condemn the attack. Instead, he justified it. These are the things and events that happen, he said, when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who've been badly and unfairly treated for so long.

As you will see in the hearings to come, President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol, and I quote, were doing what they should be doing. This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave. Over a series of hearings in the coming weeks, you will hear testimony, live and on video, from more than half a dozen former White House staff in the Trump administration, all of whom were in the West Wing of the White House

on January 6th. You will hear testimony that, quote, the president did not really want to put anything out, calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave. You will hear that President Trump was yelling and, quote, really angry at advisors who told him he needed to be doing something more. And aware of the rioters' chance to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment, quote, maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence, quote, deserves it. You will hear evidence that President Trump refused for hours to do what his staff, his family,

and many of his other advisors begged him to do, immediately instruct his supporters to stand down and evacuate the Capitol. Tonight, you will see never-before-seen footage of the brutal attack on our Capitol, an attack that unfolded while a few blocks away, President Trump sat watching television in the dining room next to the Oval Office. You will hear audio from the brave police officers battling for their lives and ours, fighting to defend our democracy against a violent mob Donald Trump refused to call off. Tonight and in the weeks to come, you will see evidence of what motivated this violence,

including directly from those who participated in this attack. You will see video of them explaining what caused them to do it. You will see their posts on social media. We will show you what they have said in federal court. On this point, there is no room for debate. Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them, that the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. You will also hear about plots to commit seditious conspiracy on January 6th, a crime defined

in our laws as conspiring to overthrow, put down, or destroy by force the government of the United States, or to oppose by force the authority thereof. Multiple members of two groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, have been charged with this crime for their involvement in the events leading up to and on January 6th. Some have pled guilty. The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot. Intelligence available before January 6th identified plans to, quote, invade the Capitol, occupy the Capitol, and take other steps to halt Congress's count of electoral votes that day. In our hearings to come, we will identify elements of those plans, and we will show specifically how a group of Proud Boys led a mob into the

Capitol building on January 6th. Tonight, I am going to describe for you some of what our committee has learned and highlight initial findings you will see this month in our hearings. As you hear this, all Americans should keep in mind this fact. On the morning of January 6th, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain President of the United States, despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power. Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.

In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisors knew that he had in fact lost the election. But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him. This was not true. Jason Miller was a senior Trump campaign spokesman. In this clip, Miller describes a call between the Trump campaign's internal data expert and President Trump a few days after the 2020 election. I was in the Oval Office, and at some point in the conversation, Matt Ozkowski, who is the lead data person, was brought on.

And I remember he delivered to the president pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose. And that was based, Mr. Miller, on Matt and the data team's assessment of the sort of county by county, state by state results as reported? Correct. Alex Cannon was one of President Trump's campaign lawyers. He previously worked for the Trump Organization. One of his responsibilities was to assess allegations of election fraud in November 2020. Here is one

sample of his testimony discussing what he told White House Chief of Mr. Meadows where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything. And I remember sharing with him that we weren't finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states. When was that conversation? Probably in November, mid to late November. I think it was before my child was born. And what was Mr. Meadows' reaction to that information? I believe the words he used were, so there's no there there. There's no there there. The Trump campaign's general counsel, Matt Morgan, gave similar testimony. He explained that all of the fraud allegations and the campaign's other election arguments taken together and viewed in the best possible light for President Trump

could still not change the outcome of the election. President Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr also told Donald Trump his election claims were wrong. Repeatedly told the president in no uncertain terms that I did not see evidence of fraud that would have affected the outcome of the election. And frankly, a year and a half later, I haven't seen anything to change my mind on that. Attorney General Barr also told President Trump that his allegations about Dominion voting machines were groundless. I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way

that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public, that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn't count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. And it was being laid out there. And I told them that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that and it was doing a great grave disservice to the country. But President Trump persisted, repeating the false Dominion allegations in public at least a dozen more times,

even after his attorney general told him they were, quote, complete nonsense. And after Barr's resignation on December 23rd, the acting attorney general who replaced him, Jeff Rosen, and the acting deputy, Richard Donahue, told President Trump over and over again that the evidence did not support allegations he was making in public. Many of President Trump's White House staff also recognized that the evidence did not support the claims President Trump was making. This is the president's daughter commenting on Bill Barr's statement that the department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election. How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement? It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying. As you will hear on Monday, the president

had every right to litigate his campaign claims, but he ultimately lost more than 60 cases in state and federal courts. The president's claims in the election cases were so frivolous and unsupported that the president's lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, not only lost the lawsuits, his license to practice law was suspended. Here's what the court said of Mr. Giuliani. Giuliani communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump's failed effort at reelection in 2020. As you will see in great detail in our hearings, President Trump ignored the rulings of our nation's courts.

He ignored his own campaign leadership, his White House staff, many Republican state officials. He ignored the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information, running ads he knew were false, and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and that he was the true president. As you will see, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th. In our third hearing, you will see that President Trump corruptly planned to replace the Attorney General of the United States so the U.S. Justice Department would spread his false stolen election claims. In the days before January 6th, President Trump told his top

Justice Department officials, quote, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman. Senior Justice Department officials, men he had appointed, told him they could not do that because it was not true. So President Trump decided to replace them. He offered Jeff Clark, an environmental lawyer at the Justice Department, the job of acting Attorney General. President Trump wanted Mr. Clark to take a number of steps, including sending this letter to Georgia and five other states, saying the U.S. Department of Justice had, quote, identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election. This letter is a lie. The Department of Justice had, in fact, repeatedly told President Trump

exactly the opposite, that they had investigated his stolen election allegations and found no credible fraud that could impact the outcome of the election. This letter and others like it would have urged multiple states to withdraw their official and lawful electoral votes for Biden. Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue described Jeff Clark's letter this way, quote, this would be a grave step for the department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political, and social ramifications for this country. The committee agrees with Mr. Donahue's assessment. Had Clark assumed the role of Attorney General in the days before January 6th and issued these letters, the ramifications could indeed have been grave. Mr. Donahue also said this about Clark's plan.

And I recall toward the end saying, what you're proposing is nothing less than the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election. In our hearings, you will hear firsthand how the senior leadership of the Department of Justice threatened to resign, how the White House counsel threatened to resign, and how they confronted Donald Trump and Jeff Clark in the Oval Office. The men involved, including Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue, were appointed by President Trump. These men honored their oaths of office, they did their duty, and you will hear from them in our hearings. By contrast, Jeff Clark has invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify.

Representative Scott Perry, who was also involved in trying to get Clark appointed as Attorney General, has refused to testify here. As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. In our fourth hearing, we will focus on President Trump's efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th. Vice President Pence has spoken publicly about this. President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.

What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn't just wrong. It was illegal and it was unconstitutional. You will hear this in great detail from the vice president's former general counsel. Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former vice president and his staff informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal. As you will hear, President Trump engaged in a relentless effort to pressure Pence, both in private and in public. You will see the evidence of that pressure from multiple witnesses, live and on video. Vice President Pence demonstrated his loyalty to Donald Trump consistently over four years, but he knew that he had a higher duty to the United States Constitution.

This is testimony from the vice president's chief of staff. So I think the vice president was proud of his four years of service, and he felt like much had been accomplished in those four years. And I think he was proud to have stood beside the president for all that had been done. But I think he ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath. And that's what he articulated publicly. And I think that that's what he felt. His fidelity to the Constitution was more important than his fidelity to President Trump and his desire.

The oath he took. Yes. You'll also hear about a lawyer named John Eastman. Mr. Eastman was deeply involved in President Trump's plans. You'll hear from former Fourth Circuit federal judge Michael Ludig, a highly respected leading conservative judge. John Eastman clerked for Judge Ludig. Judge Ludig provided counsel to the

Vice President's team in the days before January 6th. The judge will explain how Eastman quote was wrong at every turn and you will see the email exchanges between Eastman and the Vice President's counsel as the violent attack on Congress was underway. Mr. Jacob said this to Mr. Eastman, thanks to your bullshit, we are under siege. You will also see evidence that John Eastman did not actually believe the legal position he was taking. In fact, a month before the 2020 election, Eastman took exactly the opposite view on the same legal issues. In the course of the Select Committee's work to obtain information from Mr. Eastman, we have had occasion to present evidence to a federal

judge. The judge evaluated the facts and he reached the conclusion that President Trump's efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act illegally by refusing to count electoral votes, likely violated two federal criminal statutes. And the judge also said this, if Dr. Eastman and President Trump's plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the court fears January 6th will repeat itself. Every American should read what this federal judge has written. The same judge, Judge Carter, issued another

decision on Tuesday night, just this week, indicating that John Eastman and other Trump lawyers knew that their legal arguments had no real chance of success in court, but they relied on those arguments anyway to try to, quote, overturn a Democratic election. And you will hear that while Congress was under attack on January 6th and the hours following the violence, the Trump legal team in the Willard Hotel war room continued to work to halt the count of electoral votes. In our fifth hearing, you will see evidence that President Trump corruptly pressured state legislators and election officials to change election results. You will hear additional details about President Trump's call to Georgia officials, urging them to, quote, find 11,780 votes,

votes that did not exist, and his efforts to get states to rescind certified electoral slates without factual basis and contrary to law. You will hear new details about the Trump campaign and other Trump associates' efforts to instruct Republican officials in multiple states to create intentionally false electoral slates and transmit those slates to Congress, to the Vice President and the National Archives, falsely certifying that Trump won states he actually lost. In our final two June

hearings you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them illegally to march on the United States Capitol. While the violence was underway, President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol. As we present these initial findings, keep two points in mind. First, our investigation is still ongoing, so what we make public here will not be the complete set of information we will ultimately disclose. And second, the Department of Justice is currently working with cooperating witnesses and has disclosed to date only some of the information it has identified from encrypted

communications and other sources. On December 18, 2020, a group including General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections. You will also hear that President Trump met with that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there and rushed to intervene. A little more than an hour after Ms. Powell, Mr. Giuliani, General Flynn, and the others finally left the White House, President Trump sent the tweet on the screen now telling people to come to Washington on January 6th. Be there, he instructed

them. We'll be wild. As you will see, this was a pivotal moment. This tweet initiated a chain of events. The tweet led to the planning for what occurred on January 6th, including by the Proud Boys, who ultimately led the invasion of the Capitol and the violence on that day. The indictment of a group of Proud Boys alleges that they planned, quote, to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States. And according to the Department of Justice, on January 6, 2021, the defendants directed, mobilized, and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol, leading to the dismantling of metal barricades, the destruction of property, the breaching of the Capitol building, and the assaults on law

enforcement. Although certain former Trump officials have argued that they did not anticipate violence on January 6th. The evidence suggests otherwise. As you will see in our hearings, the White House was receiving specific reports in the days leading up to January 6th, including during President Trump's Ellipse rally, indicating that elements in the crowd were preparing for violence at the Capitol. And on the evening of January 5th, the president's close advisor, Steve Bannon, said this on his podcast. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. As part of our investigation, we will present

information about what the White House and other intelligence agencies knew and why the Capitol was not better prepared. But we will not lose sight of the fact that the Capitol police did not cause the crowd to attack. And we will not blame the violence that day, violence provoked by Donald Trump, on the officers who bravely defended all of us. In our final hearing, you will hear a moment-by-moment account of the hours-long attack from more than half a dozen White House staff, both live in the hearing room and via videotaped testimony. There's no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed. White House staff urged President Trump to intervene and call off the mob. Here is a document written while the attack was underway by a member of the White House staff advising what the president needed to say. Quote, anyone who entered the

Capitol without proper authority should leave immediately. This is exactly what his supporters on Capitol Hill and nationwide were urging the president to do. He would not. You will hear that leaders on Capitol Hill begged the president for help, including Republican leader McCarthy, who was, quote, scared

and called multiple members of President Trump's family after he could not persuade the president himself. Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his secretary of defense on January 6 defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets.

But Vice President Pence did each of those things. For example, here is what General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to this committee. 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 I can get you the exact quotes, I guess, from some of our records somewhere. But he was very animated, very direct, very firm to Secretary Miller. Get the military down here. get the guard down here, put down this situation, etc. By contrast, here is General Milley's description of his conversation with President Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on January 6th. He said, we have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions.

We need to establish the narrative that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable or what's that like? I immediately interpret that as politics, politics, politics. Red flag for me personally, no action.

But I remember it distinctly. And you will hear from witnesses how the day played out inside the White House, how multiple White House staff resigned in disgust, and how President Trump would not ask his supporters to leave the Capitol. It was only after multiple hours of violence that President Trump finally released a video instructing the riotous mob to leave. And as he did so, he said to them, quote, we love you and you're very special. You will also hear that in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, members of the president's family, White House staff, and others

tried to step in to stabilize the situation, quote, to land the plane before the presidential transition on January 20th. You will hear about members of the Trump cabinet discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment and replacing the President of the United States. Multiple members of President Trump's own cabinet resigned immediately after January 6th. One member of the cabinet suggested that the remaining cabinet officers needed to take a more active role in running the White House and the administration. But most emblematic of those days is this exchange of texts between Sean Hannity and former President Trump's press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Sean Hannity wrote, in part,

Key now, no more crazy people, no more stolen election talk. Yes, impeachment and 25th Amendment are real. Many people will quit. Ms. McEnany responded in part, love that. That's the playbook. The White House staff knew that President Trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. They knew the president needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone, at least until he left office on January 20th. These are important facts for Congress and the American people to understand fully. When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union, or worse, causes a constitutional crisis,

we're at a moment of maximum danger for our republic. Some in the White House took responsible steps to try to prevent January 6th. Others egged the president on. Others, who could have acted, refused to do so. In this case, the White House counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity that 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. However, in the Trump White House, it was not exceedingly rare, and it was not treated seriously. This is a clip of Jared Kushner addressing multiple threats by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his team of lawyers to resign in the weeks before January 6th. Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign? I kind of, like I said, my interest at that time

was on trying to get as many pardons done. And I know that, you know, he was always, him and the team were always saying, oh, we're going to resign. We're 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. Whining.

There's a reason why people serving in our government take an oath to the Constitution. As our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. People in positions of public trust are duty-bound to defend it, to step forward when action is required. In our country, we don't swear an oath to an individual or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution, and that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone,

but your dishonor will remain. Finally, I ask all of our fellow Americans, as you watch our hearings over the coming weeks, please remember what's at stake. Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the rule of law, not the rule of men. I ask you to think of the scene in our Capitol Rotunda on the night of January 6th. There in a sacred space

in our constitutional republic, the place where our presidents lie in state, watched over by statues of Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant, Eisenhower, Ford, and Reagan. Against every wall that night encircling the room, there were SWAT teams, men and women in tactical gear with long guns, deployed inside our Capitol building. There in the rotunda, these brave men and women rested beneath paintings depicting the earliest scenes of our republic, including one painted in 1824 depicting George Washington resigning his commission, voluntarily relinquishing power, handing control of the Continental Army back to Congress. With this noble act, Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power, what President Reagan called nothing less

than a miracle. The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president except one. As Americans, we all have a duty to ensure that what happened on January 6th never happens again, to set aside partisan battles, to stand together to perpetuate and preserve our great republic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we provide answers to American people about January 6th, it's important that we remember exactly what took place, that this was no tourist visit to the Capitol. Most of the footage we are about to play has never been seen. The Select Committee obtained it as a part of our investigation. This isn't easy to watch. I

want to warn everyone that this video includes violence and strong language. Without objection, I include in the record a video presentation of the violence of January 6th. Proud of your boy! Proud of your boy! Proud of your boys! Yeah, just for awareness, there's probably about 300 Proud Boys. They're marching eastbound in this 400 block of kind of independent factory on the mall towards the United States Capitol. I am not allowed to say what's going to happen today because everyone's just gonna have to watch for themselves but it's gonna happen something's gonna happen I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify. And we become president and you are the happiest people.

Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness we're going to have an ad hoc march stepping off here. There's a crowd surging east. We love Trump! We love Trump! We love Trump! We love Trump! Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. We need a 21 priority. We just had protests.

Peace Circle, preach the line. We need backup. Madam Speaker, the Vice President, and the United States Senate. We're going to get riot warning. The soon-to-get-out route is here. We're going to get riot warning. We're going to try to get compliance, but this is now it a riot 5 to 50 be advised uh cal police one advisor trying to breach and get to the capital 42. We're about five minutes out.

We're trying to make our way through all this. oh We have a breach of the Capitol. Breach of the Capitol from the upper level. We advise they're requesting additional resources on the east side as they have broken into that window and they're trying to kick it in. Without objection, the chair declares the house in recess pursuant to clause 12B of rule one. My kids didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the false ones or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. The U.S. demands the truth.

Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence! Bring out Pence! Bring it out, friends. Bring it out, friends. Bring it out, friends. Bring it out, friends. Bring it out, friends. Bring it out, friends. Bring it out, friends.

Bring it out, friends. You peppers, bring it out. The Americans have no fight for you. They have to vote. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Put your hands up. for you We can't hold this. We're going to get too many fucking people. Look at this fucking band.

We're fucked. We need an area for the housing members. They're all walking over now through the tunnels. We're trying to hold the upper deck. We're trying to hold the upper deck now. We need to hold the doors of the campers. I need police support. We lost the line. We lost the line. All of you need to get back.

All of you need to get back up to the upper deck. All of you need to get back to the upper deck. Tack! Yeah. Yeah. Jack Cruz of 50B advised that Capitol Police is going to start moving their resources inside. We're going to start the M4 officers first. H208 with four members, the Thor's barricade, there's people plundered the hallways outside, we have no way out. In fact, officers still remaining on the house floor, on the third floor, to use the subway themselves, it's time to evacuate so we can secure the members on the other side. Copy. It's up to us people now, the American people.

One more time. I tell you, Randy, to do whatever it takes. I'll lay my life down if it takes. Absolutely. That's why we showed up today. Bring her out here! Hey! Stop coming in if you don't bring her out? Back up! Back up!

You back up! You back up! I have my cell phone back. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out.

Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out.

Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him out. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up.

Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up.

Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up.

Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get turn so I can back up. uh They were peaceful people. These were great people. The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love, the love, the love in the committee of tonight, the chair declares the committee in recess for a period of approximately 10 minutes. So it appears that we're going to be going to a break. Gabe, that video is something else, don't you think? Jesus. Wow.

Absolutely crazy, especially at the end there when you compare it to the violence, the non-tour that is the insurrection of January 6th, and Donald Trump's description of it, which was fucking absolutely ridiculous. I can't wait to find out exactly what he was being described and how it was being described to him in the room. Of course, we know some of this because you've even read some of these text messages. Right. That we've seen that were from Sean Hannity, that were from Laura Ingraham.

Yeah. I mean, we see text messages from Donald Trump Jr. even. Yep. Jr. even saying we have to stop this because they understood the ramification. They understand what was happening. They knew what was going on. They knew this was a violent attack. They knew that the president of the United States was sitting back and letting these people try to take the Congress, try to take the building. I have never been on a tour of the Capitol, but I can't imagine having a ticket to a tour.

And this is the way that you would actually behave during a tour. I'm going to bring in KFA. I'm bringing Karen Agnipolo here to see what her reaction is to some of this. I know she probably has a lot of notes. Yeah. Karen, how are you? Are you set up there? I know you were trying to get back to your spot there. What do you take from some of the evidence? But the video at the end is groundbreaking.

No one has ever seen that video, apparently, the way it was put together, but the evidence they laid out before that video was deafening, but the video is absolutely detrimental to the case that somehow this was just a tour and it was not a coup. It was just a normal tourist visit. I don't know anyone who could have watched that video

and still said, yeah, Representative Clyde was totally right. It was just a tourist visit. That is complete, 100 percent utter bullshit. Well, and you have experience in looking at video evidence as as a criminal prosecutor. So what was your take, not just on some of the notes you have from the from the evidence that the chairman and Liz Cheney laid out, but this video that they had. So I think the compilation video was very effective. The fact that they had the times, you know, it was timestamped and they were sort of going in and out with, then this happened and then that happened and putting it in context because, you know,

otherwise it doesn't tell a story. You know, you just see violent attacks, but to really sort of see it telling a story, I thought the putting together the video like that was extremely effective and I think could be very effective to a jury, to a court. And I really liked that as sort of a way to tell a story. Where I think we're still a little bit where they need to kind of shore things up a little bit is, again, what was Donald Trump's connection to all of this? Like, of course, it was terrible, right? Of course, it was bad. What happened on on January 6, and the breach of the Capitol and

the insurrection. But I think they have to lean in more towards what led up to that and how that was and how that was seditious conspiracy right and how what he was doing with you know i mean of course they said you haven't you're entitled to file lawsuits that he is allowed to do but it also shows his intent it also shows kind of his mindset and where he was but what was he doing that was seditious conspiracy? You know, and I was sort of Googling, you know, and looking up sort of what is seditious conspiracy and, you know, what is, what are the elements that they would have to prove? And it's an agreement by two or more persons to act with the intention to excite hatred or contempt against persons or institutions of state. OK, so there's no doubt that that certain people like the Oath Keepers and all those people, there's no doubt they are guilty of seditious conspiracy. But what was Donald Trump doing in that, you know, to do that?

Like and going silent, it's going to be interesting how they're going to prove that his silence was actually action. Because, you know, normally when you prove a case like this, you prove what someone's action is. You know, you prove sort of what they do. And, you know, they told people to do things. They said, go, you know, hang Mike Pence. Go stop the counting and the certification of the electoral votes. Instead, what he did is he went silent and people were begging him to stop it. And he didn't. And they're going to have to

show that he had knowledge of what was happening, which is clear that he did. Right. Because he was watching it on TV right next to the Oval Office. But he had the intent to do it, which I think they're going to be able to show with all the events leading up to the insurrection, right? And the fact that he, all the statements he's made and the tweeting and justification, et cetera, I think they'll be able to prove that. But then they have to show that he acted, right? And I also think they might have to show, if they rely on the fact that he had to call them off and he didn't, that he had a duty. And I think they'll be okay with that because he is a commander in chief, right? So he was in charge of the military, the National Guard, the people that could stop this, and he didn't call them in. But I think that there's a chance that they might have to prove that he had a duty

to stop this in addition to everything else. Well, so that's a good point. But I think it could be not just that he didn't do anything, but his intent to not do it specifically. Right. Not what he did, but what he intentionally didn't do that set these things in the motion and what his what his intent was behind those things that he was intentionally not doing. Is that is that fair to say? Because I see these text messages coming to him. So to me, the clear cut case is in Georgia, right? The Secretary of State calls the Secretary of State and he says, find the votes, whatever. Look under your mattress. Look under your mattress. I mean, those 11,780 votes, I think it was. Exactly. To me, that's an easy, open and shut case. To me, that is the case that needs to be

made. And you need to do period, full stop. This other case, I think you can do it and I think they're going to do it. But, you know, I was hoping for something a little more, a little more. You have to you have to do a lot of sort of gymnastics to get from point A to point B because he, you know, he sort of does this this thing, you know, that he deflects. Well, I think you will. I was going to say, I think Karen brought up a good point earlier about, you know, having knowledge of this happening. Right. You had people outside chanting, hang Mike Pence. And we just find out, I think, believe this this past week, we find out from Pence's chief of staff,

but also the fact that Trump was okay with the idea that hanging Pence was a possibility. Like the fact that we live in that reality now. Right. But for a criminal prosecution, right? You might be okay with something that doesn't make you guilty of it. You have to also be a part of it. And so that's why I keep going back to the legal elements of what they'll have to prove to because, look, there's many there's multiple goals here. One is to convince the hearts and minds of the public so he doesn't get reelected. But another is to prosecute him. And so right now I am just looking at the prosecution. I love this guy, by the way.

I'm going to I'm going to bring in Texas Paul real quick to get his reaction. Texas Paul, how are you? I want to see what your reaction was to some of the video at the end because I know it's kind of bone chilling. How did you feel about that video that they showed? I'm mad as hell.

Every time I watch it, I just... Chairman Thompson talked about the will of the people. Republicans know, Chairman Thompson talked about the will of the people. Republicans don't give a shit about the will of the people. They care about what they want, and that's it. These selfish, could you live with yourself if you had been at the Capitol and done that? Could you live with yourself?

I couldn't. And that's the thing is they've always framed it up as a tourist visit, and I appreciate you being mad as hell because we need to continue that way. And it looks like it's going to continue. So I'll give you the last 30 seconds here, Paul. I can't share. I just want to throw this at you. They had a documentary filmmaker there to film this.

They expected resistance. They thought that they were going to have the case to make that we lefties showed up and they had to put us down. You know, they really thought that I think that was because Pence had already communicated to Trump that he was not going to overturn this election. If you remember the conversation he had with Dan Quayle, he had made this decision. He was not going to overturn this for Trump trump trump knew this when he gave that speech and you know the proud boys that this was their last roll of the dice and we did not show up so all they got was hours and hours of footage i've said this before but i really believe that you talk about the meeting prior to on january 5th that's how they get to

trump because this i believe 100 percent that the people that they're indicting are flipping like Cirque de Frickin Soleil. I really believe that. I really believe that. Karen being a former prosecutor, I'm sure she would agree with that. We're going to go back to the hearing here. Thank you for joining us for that commentary, everyone. I really appreciate you hanging with us here.

Bring me back. I'm glad to be here. We'll see you at the end of the hearing. Karen, are you going to stick around for the end of the hearing as well? Yeah, I'm here. Absolutely. We're going to shuffle back in here. Thank you, guys. We'll talk to you very soon. Gabe, as we wait for Thompson here, he's going to dabble back in. Here we go. Right on cue. Let's go right back to it.

Be in order. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us this evening to share their firsthand accounts of that terrible day. I know that some of the witnesses from our first hearing are in the room with us, along with some of the family members, friends and widows of the officers who lost their lives as a result of the attack. Thank you all for being here for us and the American people. Officer Carolyn Edwards has been with the United States Capitol Police since 2017. On January 6th, Officer Edwards was assigned to the Disturbance Unit, a special subset of the uniformed division trained to respond to mass demonstration events. Officer Edwards is a graduate of the University of Georgia and currently is working on a master's degree in intelligence analysis from John Hopkins University. Nick Quistad is an acclaimed

filmmaker. Credits include documenting stories from war zones in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. On January 6th, Mr. Quistad was working on a documentary about, quote, why Americans are so divided when Americans have so much in common, end quote. During that day, Mr. Quested interviewed and documented movements of the people around the Capitol, including the first moments of the violence against the Capitol Police and the chaos that ensued. I will now swear in our witnesses. The witnesses will please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear and affirm on the penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God.

I think, Gabe, this is going to be very significant in the approach here when they have the witnesses. So we'll wait to see the question. I can directly reflect the witnesses' answer in the affirmative. But I think we're going to see. Without objection, the witnesses' statement will be included in the record. I think we're going to see some serious stuff here. Assuming to Section 5C8 of House Resolution 503, I recognize myself for questioning. As you saw just a few minutes ago, the Proud Boys instigated the first breach of the Capitol just before 1 o'clock p.m., where rioters pushed over barricades near the Peace Circle

at the foot of the Capitol. Our two witnesses tonight were both there at the time of that first breach. Officer Edwards was standing with other officers behind a line of bike racks that marked the perimeter of the Capitol grounds. She bravely tried to prevent an angry crowd from advancing on the Capitol. Unfortunately, she was overrun and knocked unconscious as the crowd advanced on the Capitol. Mr. Quickstead was a few yards away from Officer Edwards, taking footage of the Proud Boys as part of his work on a documentary film. Most of his footage has never been shown publicly before we shared it this evening. Officer Edwards, I'd like to start by asking if you could tell us why you believe it's important for you to share your story this evening with the committee and

the American public. Please, your microphone. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate it. And thank you to the committee for having me here to testify. I was called a lot of things on January 6, 2021 and the days thereafter. I was called Nancy Pelosi's dog, called incompetent, called a hero and a villain. I was called a traitor to my country, my oath, and my constitution. In actuality, I was none of those things. I was an American, standing face to face with other Americans, asking myself how many times, many, many times, how we had gotten here. I had been called names before, but never had my patriotism or duty been called into question.

I, who got up every day, no matter how early the hour or how late I got in the night before, to put on my uniform and to protect America's symbol of democracy. I, who spent countless hours in the baking sun and freezing snow to make sure that America's elected officials were able to do their job. I, whose literal blood, sweat, and tears were shed that day defending the building that I spent countless holidays and weekends working in. I am the proud granddaughter of a Marine that fought in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in

the Korean War. I think of my Papa often in these days, how he was so young and thrown into a battle he never saw coming, and answered the call at a great personal cost. How he lived the rest of his days with bullets and shrapnel in his legs, but never once complained about his sacrifice. I would like to think that he would be proud of me, proud of his granddaughter that stood her ground that day and continued fighting, even though she was wounded, like he did many years ago. I am my grandfather's granddaughter, proud to put on a uniform and serve my country. They dared to question my honor.

They dared to question my loyalty. And they dared to question my duty. I'm a proud American, and I will gladly sacrifice everything to make sure that the America my grandfather defended is here for many years to come. Thank you. Officer Edwards, your story and your service is important and I thank you for being here tonight. Ms. Quickstead, I also like to ask you to introduce yourself. Can you tell us how you found yourself in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021? Good evening, Chair and Madam Vice Chair. Thank you for the introduction.

As stated, in the winter of 2020, I was working on a documentary. As part of that documentary, I filmed several rallies in Washington, DC on December 11 and December 12. And I learned there would be a rally on the Mall on January 6. So my three colleagues and I came down to document the rally. According to the permit of the event, there was going to be a rally at the Ellipse. We arrived at the Mall and observed a large contingent of Proud Boys marching towards the Capitol.

We filmed them and almost immediately I was separated from my colleagues. I documented the crowd turned from protesters to rioters to insurrectionists. I was surprised at the size of the group, the anger and the profanity. And for anyone who didn't understand how violent that event was, I saw it, I documented it, and I experienced it.

I heard incredibly aggressive chanting, and I subsequently shared that footage with the authorities. I'm here today pursuant to a House subpoena. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Quested. The Select Committee has conducted extensive investigative work to understand what led the Proud Boys and other rioters to the president's December 19th tweet calling his followers to Washington, D.C. on January 6th energized individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups. I'd like to play a brief video highlighting some of this evidence. My name is Marcus Childress, and I'm an investigative counsel for the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.

What do you want to call him? Give me a name. Give me a name. White supremacist and white supremacist. White supremacist and white supremacist. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. After he made this comment, Enrique Terrio, then chairman of the Proud Boys, sat on parlor standing by, sir. During our investigation, we learned that this comment during the presidential debate

actually led to an increase in membership from the Proud Boys. Would you say that Proud Boys members increased after the stand back, stand by comment? Exponentially. I'd say tripled probably. With the potential for a lot more eventually. And did you ever sell any stand back and stand by merchandise?

One of the vendors on my page actually beat me to it. But I wish I would have. I wish I would have made a stand back, stand by shirt. On December 19th, President Trump tweeted about the January 6th rally and told attendees, be there, we'll be wild. Many of the witnesses that we interviewed were inspired by the president's call and came to D.C. for January 6th. But the extremists, they took it a step further.

They viewed this tweet as a call to arms. A day later, the Department of Justice describes how the Proud Boys created a chat called the Ministry of Self-Defense Leadership Chat. In this chat, the Proud Boys established a command structure in anticipation of coming back to D.C. on January 6th. The Department of Justice describes Mr. Tarrio coming into possession of a document called the 1776 Returns, which describes individuals occupying key buildings around the United States Capitol. The Oath Keepers are another group that the committee investigated. You better get your ass to D.C., folks, this Saturday. Yeah, if you don't, there'll be no more republic.

But we're not going to let that happen. It's not even an if. It's either President Trump is encouraged and bolstered and strengthened to do what he must do, or we wind up in a bloody fight. We all know that. The fight's coming. The Oath Keepers began planning to block the peaceful transfer of power shortly after the November 3rd election. And according to the Department of Justice, Stuart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers leader, said to his followers that we were not going to get through this without a civil war. In response to the December 19th, 2020 tweet by President Trump, the Oath Keepers focused on January 6th in Washington,

D.C. In response to the tweet, one member, the president of the Florida chapter, put on social media, the president called us to the Capitol. He wants us to make it wild. The goal was for the Oath Keepers to be called to duty so that they could keep the president in power, although President Trump had just lost the election. The committee learned that the Oath Keepers set up quick reaction forces outside of the city in Virginia where they stored arms. The goal of these quick reaction forces was to be on standby just in case President Trump invoked the Insurrection Act. Did the Oath Keepers ever provide weapons to members? I'm going to decline to answer that. I put them in grounds for a due process grounds. In footage obtained by the committee, we learned

that on the night of January 5th, Enrique Tarrio and Stuart Rhodes met in a parking garage in Washington, D.C. There's mutual respect there. I think we're fighting the same fight, and I think that's what's important. The committee learned that the Oath Keepers went into the Capitol through the east doors and two stack formations. The DOJ alleges that one of the stacks went into the Capitol looking for Speaker Pelosi, although they never found her. As the attack was unfolding, Mr. Tarrio took credit. In documents obtained by the Department of Justice, Mr. Tarrio said in an encrypted chat,

make no mistake, and we did this. Later on that evening, Mr. Tarrio even posted a video which seemed to resemble him in front of the Capitol with a black cape, and the title of the video was Premonition. The evidence developed by the Select Committee and the Department of Justice highlights how each group participated on the attack on the Capitol on January 6. In fact, the investigation revealed that it was individuals associated with the Proud Boys who instigated the initial breach at the Peace Circle at 12 53 pm. Within 10 minutes, rioters had already filled the lower West Plaza. By 2 o'clock, rioters had reached the doors on the West and the East Plazas. And by 2.13, rioters had actually broken through the Senate wing door and gotten to the Capitol building.

A series of breaches followed. At 2.25 p.m., rioters breached the east side doors to the Rotunda. And then right after 2.40 p.m., rioters breached the east side doors near the Ways and Means Room. Once the rioters infiltrated the Capitol, they moved through the crypt, the rotunda, the hallways

leading to the House chambers, and even inside the Senate chambers. Individuals associated with two violent extremist groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6th attack. One is the Oath Keepers. They are a group of armed anti-government extremists. The other group is the Proud Boys. They promote white supremacist beliefs and have engaged in violence with people they view as their political enemies. Members of both groups have already pled guilty to crimes associated with the January 6th attack. Mr. Quested, as part of the documentary you've been filming, you gain access to the Proud Boys and their leader, Enrique Tarrio. Your crew filmed them in Washington, D.C. on the evening of January 5th and then on January 6th. On

January 5th, the night before the attack, you were with the head of the Proud Boys, Mr. Tarrio, in Washington, D.C. What happened? We picked up Mr. Tarrio from jail. He'd been arrested for carrying some magazines, some long, some extra capacity magazines, and he took responsibility for the burning of the black lives matter flag that was stolen from the church um on december the 12th um we um we were attempting to get an interview with mr tarrio we had no idea of any of the events that were going to subsequently happen. We drove him to pick up his bags from the property department of the police,

which is just south of the mall. We picked up his bags and went to get some other bags from the Phoenix Hotel where we encountered Mr. Stuart Rhodes from the Oath Keepers. By the time I'd gone to park the car, my colleague was saying, who'd got into the car with Mr. Tarrio, that they had moved to a location around the corner, the parking garage of the Hall of Legends, I believe. And so we quickly drove over there. We drove down into the parking garage and filmed the scene of Mr. Tarrio and Mr. Rhodes and certain other individuals in that garage.

We then continued to follow Mr. Tarrio. There was some discussion about where he was going to go. He ended up going towards a hotel in Baltimore, and we conducted an interview with him in the hotel room. And then we returned to D.C. for that night. And what was interesting that night actually was that was the first indication that DC was much more busy than it had been any other time we've been here because we couldn't get into the hotels we wanted to and we ended up at a hotel that you know was not as satisfactory as we would have hoped. Thank you. So what you're saying is you filmed the meeting between Mr. Tarrio and Oath Keeper's leader,

Stuart Rose, right? Indeed. You couldn't hear what was said, but according to the Justice Department indictment of Mr. Tarrio, a participant referenced the Capitol. Now, on the morning of January 6th, you learned the Proud Boys would gather near the rally scheduled to take place near the White House. What time did you meet up with the Proud Boys and what was happening when they met? We met up with the Proud Boys somewhere around 10.30 a.m. and they were starting to walk down the mall,

easterly direction towards the Capitol. There was a large contingent, more than I had expected. And I was confused to a certain extent why we were walking away from the president's speech, because that's what I felt we were there to cover. So at 10.30 a.m., that's early in the day. That's even before President Trump had started speaking. Am I correct? Yes, sir. So how many Proud Boys would you estimate were marching together to the Capitol?

A couple of hundred, potentially. Yeah, I'd say a couple of hundred Proud Boys were marching towards the Capitol at that point. At the time, was the area heavily guarded? No, that was, I remember we walked past the, we walked down the mile, we walked to the right of the reflecting pool and then north along the road that leads to the peace circle and as we were walking past the peace circle, I framed the Proud Boys to the right of my shot

with the Capitol behind, and we see one sole police officer at the barriers, which are subsequently breached. We then walk up and past a tactical unit preparing, and you see that in the film where the man questions their duty and their honor and you see maybe a dozen um uh capital police um putting on their riot gear so how would you describe the atmosphere at that that time the atmosphere was it seemed to be much darker. I make efforts to create familiarity between myself and my subjects to make them feel comfortable. And the atmosphere was much darker at this day than had been in these other days. And there was also a contingent of Proud Boys that I hadn't met before from Arizona who appeared to wear these orange hats and had orange armbands.

So when the Proud Boys went back down the hill to the Peace Circle, did a larger crowd start together? Well, no. First of all, we went round to the back and down the steps and we took some photographs on the east side of the Capitol and then we went for lunch. We went for tacos. So, Mr. Quest, you're a journalist, so you are careful to stick to things that you have observed. But what you've told us is highly relevant. Let me highlight a few key facts that you and others have provided the committee. First, there was a large group of Proud Boys present at the Capitol. We know that from multiple sources. You now estimate that there were around 250 to 300 individuals that you've testified. They weren't there for President Trump's speech. We know this because they left that area to march toward the Capitol before the speech began. They walked around the Capitol that morning. I'm concerned this allowed them to see what defenses were in place and where weaknesses might be.

And they decided to launch their attack at the Peace Circle, which is the front door of the Capitol complex. It's the first security perimeter that those marching from the Ellipse would have to come to as they moved toward the Capitol. The Peace Circle walkway was always where the thousands of angry Trump supporters would arrive after President Trump sent them from the lips. The Proud Boys timed their attack to the moments before the start of the joint session in the Capitol, which is also where President Trump directed the angry mob, quote, we fight like hell, end quote. He told them before sending them down Pennsylvania Avenue, right to where the Proud Boys gathered and where you were filming.

Now, a central question is whether the attack on the Capitol was coordinated and planned. What you witnessed is what a coordinated and planned effort would look like. It was the culmination of a months-long effort spearheaded by President Trump. Mr. Queston, thank you for your eyewitness account of the lead-up to the breach of the Peace Circle. This brings us to a point in time where you and Officer Edwards were in close proximity. At this point, I reserve the balance of my time pursuant to 5C Section 8 of House Resolution 503. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Wyoming, Ms. Chaney, for questioning. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Officer Edwards, I want to start by thanking you

for your service and thank you for your courage. Thank you for being here this evening. I know that it's not easy to relive what happened for you and for the officers behind you and for the family members of officers in the audience this evening. But it's really important for the country to have a full accounting and understand what happened. I want to start, Officer Edwards, with a short clip that shows a horrible moment when you were injured as the peace circle was breached.

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! Officer Edwards, can you describe the crowd that had assembled at the Peace Circle as you and your fellow officers stood behind and guarded the bike racks at the Peace Circle? Yes, so there were about, I want to say about five of us on that line.

And there were, so there was our bike rack, and then at the bottom of the Pennsylvania Avenue walkway, right by Peace Circle, there was another bike rack. And so the crowd had kind of gathered there. It was the crowd led by Joseph Biggs. And they were mostly in civilian clothes. There were some who had military fatigues on. We could see people with bulletproof vests on, you know, things like that. They didn't seem, you know, extremely cohesive, but they had gathered there in their outfits, but they had gathered there together. And Joseph Biggs started, he had a microphone or a megaphone,

and he started talking about, you know, first it was things kind of relating to Congress. And then the table started turning once the what is now that the Arizona group is what you said, the crowd with orange hats, they came up chanting F-U-C-K Antifa, and they joined that group. And once they joined that group, Joseph Biggs' rhetoric turned to the Capitol Police. He started asking us questions like, you didn't miss a paycheck during the pandemic, mentioning stuff about our pay scale was mentioned, and started turning the tables on us. And I've worked, I can conservatively say, probably hundreds of civil disturbance events. I know when I'm being turned into a villain, and that's when I turned to my sergeant and I stated the understatement of the century.

I said, Sarge, I think we're going to need a few more people down here. And so after that, you know, I think they started conferring. They went a little silent. They started conferring among each other. I saw the person now identified as Ryan Samsel. He put his arm around Joseph Beggs, and they were talking, and then they started approaching the first barricade. They ripped the first barricade down, and they approached our bike racks. You know, at that time, we started holding on, grabbing the bike racks.

You know, there weren't many of us, so I grabbed the middle between two different bike racks. And, you know, I wasn't under any pretense that I could hold it for very long, but I just wanted to, you know, make sure that we could get more people down and get our CDU units time to answer the call. So we started grappling over the bike racks. I felt the bike rack come on top of my head and I was pushed backwards and my foot caught the stair behind me and my chin hit the handrail

and then I at that point I had blacked, but the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me. And you were knocked unconscious. Is that right, Officer Edwards? Yes, ma'am. But then when you regained consciousness, even with the injuries, you returned to duty. Is that right? Yes, ma'am. You know, at that time, adrenaline kicked in. I ran towards the West Front, and I tried to hold the line at the Senate steps at the Lower West Terrace. More people kept coming at us. It just seemed like, you know, more and more people started, you know, coming on to

the West Front. They started overpowering us. And that was right about when MPD's officers showed up. Their bike officers pushed the crowd back and allowed our CDU units as well as theirs to form that line that you see, that very thin line between us and the protesters or the rioters, you know, at that time. I fell behind that line, and for a while, I started decontaminating people who had gotten sprayed and treating people medically who who needed it. And then you were injured again there on the West Terrace. Is that right, Officer Edwards? Yes, ma'am.

So after a while, I got back on the line. I got, it was on the house side of the Lower West Terrace. And I was holding that line for a while. There weren't many of us over there. And Officer Sicknick was behind me for most of the time for about 30 to 45 minutes that I was down there. We were just as the best we could. We were just, you know, grappling over bike racks and trying to hold them as quick as possible. All of the sudden, I see movement to the left of me. And I turned, and it was Officer Sicknick with his head in his hands.

And he was ghostly pale, which I figured at that point that he had been sprayed, and I was concerned. My cop alarm bells went off, because if you get sprayed with pepper spray, you're going to turn red. He turned just about as pale as this sheet of paper. And so I looked back to see what had hit him, what had happened, and that's when I got sprayed in the eyes as well. I was taken to be decontaminated by another officer, but we didn't get the chance

because we were then tear gassed. And we are going to play just a brief clip of that moment that you've just described, Officer Edwards. Officer Edwards, I just want to thank you for being here. And I know, again, how difficult it is. I know the family of Officer Sicknick as well, who's here tonight. And one of the things one of the Capitol Police officers said to me recently was to ask me whether or not as members of Congress, all of us understood that on that day on January 6th, when we were evacuated from the chamber, were led to a safe undisclosed location, whether we knew that so many of you had rushed out of the building and into the fight. And I can assure you that we do know that and that we understand

how important your service is. Thank you for your continued work with our committee and the interviews. And thank you very much for both of you for being here this evening. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you very much. Ms. Edwards, can you give us one memory of that awful day that stands out most vividly in your mind? I can. That time when I talked about falling behind MPD's line, I remember because I had been kind of shielded away because I was holding those stairs, so I wasn't able to really see what was going on over here.

When I fell behind that line and I saw, I can just remember my breath catching in my throat because what I saw was just a war scene. It was something like I had seen out of the movies. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. You know, they were bleeding, they were throwing up, they were, you know, they had, I mean, I saw friends with blood all over their faces, I was slipping in people's blood. You know, I was catching people as they fell, I, you know, I was, it was carnage. It was chaos.

I can't, I can't even describe what I saw. I never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle. You know, I'm trained to detain, you know, a couple of subjects and handle, you know, handle a crowd. But I'm not combat trained. And that day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat, hours of dealing with things that were way beyond any law enforcement officer has ever trained for. And I just remember it. I just remember that moment of stepping behind the line and just seeing the absolute war zone that the West Front had become. Let me thank you for your service

and obviously your bravery that you have told the world about tonight. It's unfortunate that you had to defend the Capitol from fellow Americans. None of us would ever think that that would have to happen, but it did. So let me thank our witnesses for joining us tonight and sharing their experiences with America. Throughout my chairmanship of this committee, I've continuously vowed that this committee

will ensure a comprehensive account of the heroic acts on January 6th and that we will follow the facts wherever they lead. Your testimony is an essential part of that record and helps us do our job. Mr. Quested, thank you for sharing your footage and your account of the day's events with us. The images you recorded and have shared with the committee do a better job than any of our words in reinforcing the violence of January 6th. We hope that the power of your footage helped encourage all Americans to consider how citizens with such so much in common could viciously brawl at the seat of their democratic government. Officer Edwards, thank you for your brave service as I indicated on January 6th and all you did to protect us and most importantly

our democracy. If you and your fellow officers hadn't held the line against those violent insurrectionists, we can only imagine the disaster that would have ensued. Your heroism as the face of danger is admirable, and your will to continue to protect and serve despite your serious injuries should be an inspiration to all of us. We wish you a continued recovery and look forward to seeing you back in uniform sometime soon. The members of the select committee may have additional questions for tonight's witnesses and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Without objections, members, we permitted 10 business days to submit statements for the record, including opening remarks and additional questions for the witnesses.

The witnesses have just told us what they heard the rioters saying, why they stormed the Capitol on that day. Now we're going to hear it from the rioters themselves. Without objection, I include in the record a video presentation. What really made me want to come was the fact that, you know, I had supported Trump all that time. I did believe, you know, that the election was being stolen. And Trump asked us to come. He personally asked for us to come to D.C. that day. And I thought, for everything he's done for us, if this is the only thing he's going to ask of me, I'll do it. We're going to walk down to the Capitol.

Did you call President Trump mentioning going to the Capitol during the speech? Oh, yeah. So that's one of my disappointments. He said he was going to go and go with us, that he was going to be there. I know why I was there, and that's because he called me there, and he laid out what is happening in our government. He laid it out. But I remember Donald Trump telling people to be there, right? I mean, to support.

You mentioned that the president asked you. Do you remember a specific message? Basically, yes, for us to come to D.C. I think things are going to happen. What got me interested, he said, I have something very important to say on January 6th or something like that. It's what got me interested to be there. You know, Trump has only asked me for two things.

He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on January 6th. When the committee reconvenes next week, we're going to examine the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol, to try to stop the transfer of power. We're going to take a close look at the first part of Trump's attack on the rule of law, when he hit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of January 6th. Without objection, and with that, the committee stands adjoined. join so there we have the very first meeting and hearing uh we have gabe sanchez and karen ignipolo with us from legal af sorry sorry to bring you up on camera so quick there. I'm just trying to get to see who we have here afterwards. Karen, what was some of your take from the witness testimony, in particular about the Proud Boys?

I felt like it almost felt like the filmmaker was a little standoffish about some of the evidence that he had. I don't know. That's what it felt like to me at some point. He said something about, I'm here by subpoena. Yeah, it's funny you should mention that. So I wrote that down. I wanted to explain to people why he said that. So that's something a witness can either voluntarily come and testify or they can come via subpoena.

And sometimes witnesses will say that out loud or want that to be known out loud. Sometimes people come by subpoena and you don't know. They just they don't mention it. But he clearly, the documentary filmmaker, wanted it to be known that he was here via subpoena, meaning he wasn't there voluntarily. And the reason he said that, I think, you know, there's a couple of reasons why he probably said that. Number one, he's a journalist and journalists don't typically, you know, they typically have sort of this privilege where they don't reveal their sources, they don't reveal confidential information. And so I'm sure just partly to

protect the fact that that sort of relationship and credibility. The other is, I think he might, frankly, and this is just me guessing, but I think he might be a little afraid of these guys. You know, I don't know what he was saying to them to get himself embedded in them. You know, he was doing a documentary. And now that he's kind of testifying against them, at least if it were me, I'd be afraid of them. And I'd want to say out loud, guess what? I'm here by force. I'm not here because I want to. And I think a third reason also is to protect his objectivity if he's later called at a criminal trial. Again, he doesn't have an agenda. Being here by subpoena is different than coming forward

voluntarily, because if you're coming forward voluntarily, you want to. You want to be helpful to one side or the other. And this way, his objectivity and his lack of bias, I'm just a journalist, I'm just a documentarian, is protected by saying'm here because, you know, I was given a subpoena. I don't have an agenda one way or another. So so I think that's what you picked up on. And those were the reasons I think he wanted it to be known that that he was subpoenaed to be there. I'm going to I'm going to pull Texas Paul in again, too, and see what his take was on some of the witness testimony Texas Paul um give give the mightiest mighty the Texas Paul take on on some of the witness testimony I believe you were kind of upset about the video um near the near the end of the first part where we seen the violence

and it wasn't a tourist uh they weren't taking a tour of the capital these are domestic terrorists uh it was violence they were intending to overthrow the tour of the Capitol. These are domestic terrorists. It was violence. They were intending to overthrow the government of the United States, usurp the will of the people, and our vote that we voted for a president of the United States, and the state certified that vote. What did you make of the testimony of the police officer that was there on the front line?

It was incredibly compelling i mean she you could just you could feel what she was feeling when she was saying it i mean there was no question and you know so many people just saw it as a little bit of pushing and shoving because you know you get i don't mean to knock the media but the media is not very good at really showing what's really going on down there. And when you see those clips and you see just how violent it was, even before they had crossed through all the barricades, you know, and you could just see in her face when they asked her, hey, when Chairman Thompson asked her, what stands out in your mind? What do you remember? And you could just see when she looked up, you could see her eyes go to that recall portion of her brain.

And she was seeing it again. You know, that's really got me. But, you know, when they were talking to everybody that had pled guilty, the one statement that got me after everything trump has done for us what the hell did he do for anybody i i i can't i can't even give you one thing it it um it really it really is um crazy that they're still defending. No, I think one, two, three, four of us are all sitting here holding our tongue, thinking the exact same thing.

Yeah. What's that? He let them be assholes. That's what he did. I mean, he did unleash. He did unleash. Chips off assholes. That's what he did.

And he unleashed them on our country and on our democracy. And I think, you know, everyone has the right to be pissed like Texas, Paul. And if you can, if you'll stay with us here. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Go ahead, Paul. I don't want her to leave before I get to say anything, Karen. This has been amazing.

I hope I get to hear. No, no. Stay with us. Stay with us. I'm going to bring you back in. Don't leave. I'm going to bring in a couple of fellas you might know. Hang around with us, KFA and Paul. I'm going to bring you right back.

Me and Gabe are going to bring up two guys that you might know. How are you? How are you, fellas? Doing well. First, I got to are you, fellas? Doing well. Hey. First, I got to say, you guys. Ben can't work.

Ben doesn't know how to work. Ben's the lawyer. Ben never knows technology. Ben doesn't know how to work a mic. Ben is doing. Ben is on mute. Ben is actually on mute right now. Yeah, well, I mean, you know.

He's there. He's just silently collecting his thoughts. It happens. You got to unmute the mic before you speak, Ben. Talk about the hearing. Talk about the hearing, fellas. Brett, you were going to say that Tony and Gabe. First, I want to commend the production here. Tony and Gabe, incredible job.

This is the first of its kind Midas Media Network live stream of an event of this scale. We, of course, did the Marjorie Taylor Greene hearings, which were a huge success and got us into live streaming these events. And now we are so proud and honored to bring everybody in the Midas Mighty and beyond. And hopefully we got a few new Midas Mighty converts this week into the Midas Touch family to watch these live events. So, Tony, don't brag too much on Gabe. You're going to give him a huge head. Texas Paul, KFA, David Bender, Michael Cohen, politics girl. I mean, how do you get bigger than this night here?

I just want to say the testimony was really, really riveting. I thought it brings to mind everything that we all witnessed that day. I mean, I don't think anything was too shocking or surprising because we all lived through it. And it's a reminder of all the things we lived through. And I think all that footage, though, the new footage, especially when you see people in depositions, when you see people in this testimony where they're under oath, like Ivanka Trump throwing her father under the bus, taking Bill Barr's side. It was a big ass bus. Ivanka's out of the will. Ivanka, out of the will. Out of the will. Oh, bus too is out of the will avanka out of the will of the

will oh she's definitely out well they've got they've got jared's anyway yeah they've got jared's two billion so they're good to go you know well yeah it happens you know i i want to give ben time to talk but jordy never gets the talk ever he's over there with the bullet so just like i said jordy what was what was the part that stood out to you the most? What was the part that stood out? Ivanka. Ivanka very strongly disavowing her father. That moment will stand out.

I mean, she's cut from the trust, hands down. I don't think she cleared her name by doing so. She obviously still played a tremendous role in all of this. But going directly against the family like that, they'll be ripples. They'll definitely be ripples. I like how you said the family. Like the mob. Like it's a mob.

They are. They are a mob. Right. I just want to say there's one quote that I think is going to stand the test of time here. I think there's going to be one quote from this opening night of hearings, and that's going to last beyond all the hearings. And that's Liz Cheney directing a message at her Republican colleagues and saying, there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain. I think that is everything that needed to be said to them. Will they change? Not one bit, because they are dishonorable, disgusting,

despicable people that would rather see this country fall to fascism and go in the hands of Donald Trump against the will of the voters than do what is right and abide by our constitution. I think you're right. And Ben, what do you think? Do you think Brett is going to be able to take that clip that he just said, that quote, and cut it and make a video after video after video here. Do you think that's the case? I know you've been incredibly busy, Tony and Gabe, but we've already cut that clip.

Okay. Well, we, we were, we were making production pieces on the fly. Well, we, we like the me,

me and not the mouse in my pocket, Gabe and the mouse in his pocket. We're making a production pieces as we were going, but it was working out well. But do you think that you think that's the clip or is there something else that stands out to you? I thought that entire Liz Cheney opening remark was very, very special,

right? I think Benny Thompson did a really good job as well, but really Liz Cheney's opening was a methodical takedown surgical it had the clips interspersed throughout it and i thought the clips were probably the most effective part going back to what we said earlier you know when each of the personalities kind of showed i mean just even watching jared kushner up there and this was a a subtle part about Kushner's testimony, where he was basically, one, he looked like a total tool when he was testifying. He is Kushner. Ben was talking about-

Ben used much stronger language in the text to me when we were talking about Kushner. But here's what he said. He claims he was busy doing at the time, too busy to care about it. He was too busy focusing on probably other criminal activity, which was the pardon scheme, where they were basically using the White House to get bought off to then give people pardons in exchange for significant amounts of money. And know what he said, too. He called, you know, the top White House officials complaining that Trump was violating the law. He called them whining and said it sounded like they were just whiny people, like whiny people. These were people speaking up against some of the most major violations of the law. And as you

unpeel the layers here, and this is what we were talking about in our text message chain, you know, this MAGA group is such a cult. And to see that cult behavior, but then to see some little ripples of hope there at the end where some of those members of the cult on the video started talking about how they felt betrayed, how they said that they thought that Donald Trump was going to be storming the Capitol with them, and they felt that they were thrown under the bus. So I think we're going to be hearing more about that. But for today's purposes, the goal was to set this thing up about what was going to happen, what the events that are going to unfold, and they did a really good job at that. One final thing I want to mention to all the people listening, which they may not know about the production, but we have our own cameras in there. So what tries to differentiate this stream, the high production value that Tony and Gabe bring, but that this is licensed proprietary footage that is Midas logo on there because the footage that you saw was taken by a Midas

licensed camera there. And we're going to bring you all that proprietary information as we continue to build this network out and build a network out that's focused on really one thing, pro-democracy. Speaking of that, I think part of this is going to go on directories or all of it or something like that. So be looking for that in in your directories are you guys posting as minus touch podcast since it's kind of got on yours i know we plan on but we plan on cutting some of it and posting some of it on ours as like the best of the week we normally do a best of the week on saturday so we plan on doing some of that but you guys plan on putting it on directories is that right for people this will live as the Midas Touch podcast on the, what day is it today on the Friday morning edition,

we'll post it as soon as we get the audio from you, Tony, after this, we'll post it on the podcast feed so that people could listen to all the commentary and the entire unedited January 6th hearings, the opening night. Um, I want everybody to be able to look at that. Of course, you will be able to replay this video right here on YouTube at any time on demand. I want to make sure everybody who is watching right now also subscribes to our channel because this is not going to be the only hearing that we broadcast. We'll be broadcasting every single hearing of the January 6th committee, as well as other content reaction videos from incredible content creators, just like Texas Paul, just like KFA, David Bender, Lee McGowan, Politics Girl, Michael Popock, everybody, you name it. You can find them all on the Midas Touch Media Network right here on our

YouTube channel. Well, speaking of that, why don't you go over and subscribe to the Tony Michaels podcast? Because it's crying out loud. You got to go over there and check that out. Just type in the Tony Michaels podcast when you go over to YouTube. So download, download the episode. Do not forget to download this episode. It's super important. Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your, your podcast, go check that out. You know, you brought up a few names there, but I have a few people waiting. Did you fellows want to stick around? Do you see what kind of round table this, this production tool will do here? Do you want to see? As much as I want to see that, I want to highlight some of the other great creators. Okay. Well, they didn't want you in here anyways, man. Go back in your text chain and

talk somewhere else. No, we appreciate having you. And thanks, guys. If you guys want to stick around and talk, let's talk. I just want to say one more thing before we get out of here. I want to let everybody know the current tentative schedule of the January 6th hearing. So you know where to tune in, when to tune in. The next hearing is going to be June 13th. That's Monday at 10 AM. So be back here Monday at 10 AM, probably a little bit before 10 AM. That's on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. The next one will be June 15th at 10 a.m., June 16th at 10 a.m., June 21st at 10 a.m., finishing up with a prime time hearing on June 23rd. So that is the schedule. Get ready, mark it in your calendars, and you'll be able to watch

it right here on the Midas Media Network. Jordy, you got a couple of words? Yeah, I see a couple of comments on the shirt that I'm wearing right now, and I just wanted to let everyone know that they could pick this one up in particular at store.midastouch.com. What you got here, it says thoughts and prayers X'd out and instead policy and change. And the cool thing about this is a certain amount of profits from this shirt are actually going to go to Moms Demand Action. So check out store.midastouch.com tonight. Check this out. Good call.

And I'll let you in on a little secret. If you use the code justice tonight on store.midastouch.com, you will get 10% off all merch. That's 10% off all merch, promo code justice. We have the best production team on the planet. I mean, give me a break here. On that note, let's get some of our creators in here. Once again, thank you to everybody who's participating in this panel.

Thank you for giving us. Thank you, Tony and panel. Thank you for giving us an opportunity. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. I can't leave any stream without saying shout out to the Midas Mighty. Thank you very much, fellas.

Thank you very much. Gabe, I think what we should do is we should bring in, we've got Michael Popak waiting. We've got Lee McGowan, the politics girl waiting. We got a few others. I've got David Bender here as well.

David, I want to give you a chance to say a few things, then we'll bring in politics girl here. What was your overall take? Your mic's muted there. If you could unmute your mic, that would be. You got it there? Got it. There we go. There we go. All right. Well, it happened to a witness, so I'm doing it in honor of what we saw tonight, which was truly astounding. This was the narrative, and I think we talked about it coming into the hearing just before it began. They were going to tell a story. We've begun down that path, and you cannot come into it without just getting gripped. They got into the footage when they saw it and there was a clock. Again, what we talked about, TikTok.

Right, TikTok-ing it down. You go right through it and each time they put the time on it. And there's an important thing to note. The Proud Boys were there way before Trump spoke. They were there at 10 in the morning, 10.30 in the morning. They were taking photos. Exactly. Long before this. This was planned out. They knew what they were doing. But let me give you one immediate takeaway, because I think we're going to see this. This is the questioning that's coming,

particularly from Liz Cheney, but from Chairman Thompson as well. This is all about what did the president not know and not do, and when did he not do it? He knew, actually, all of it, but what did he not do? And there's so many moments. Think about what they said when the officer was holding the line, when she fell back and became unconscious for a time, and then she got up and she saw everyone bleeding and people throwing up, what was Donald Trump doing? What was he doing? He was watching television and egging it on. He was thrilled

by it. He couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't thrilled by it. What did he not do and when did he not do it? He didn't do anything when she was lying on the ground. And that's the dots that are going to be connected. The Proud Boys will connect it by saying, he let us down. We saw that at the end. He didn't come with us. Of course he wouldn't. He's a coward. He didn't go to war either. This is who this man is. So the thing, the last segment, which talked about a series of people who are either convicted or awaiting trial, all of them talking about how they felt called to serve their president. He only asked one thing of me to come to Washington. I gave him my vote. I had to do that for him. And,

and all I can think of is ask not what your president can do for you, but what you can do for your president. And that is who Donald Trump is. What can you do for me? Right. Right. That's selfish. Yeah.

Very, very selfish mentality. That's Trumpism. Don't you agree? That's Trumpism. Well, I mean, that's the Trump derangement syndrome is really what it is. Whereas I'll put down two mortgages for my house to make sure that I can keep making the recurring payments for your Trump fund. That's what it is. The grift is real.

I'm going to bring in more of our panel here. Let's see if we can get a roundtable going here. We got Politics Girl. We got Michael Popock. We got Karen Agnipolo. Texas. Look at this. Look at this roundtable that we got going on here. This is like the Avengers of the Pundits right here. The Midas Mighty Avengers. Is that right? Lee, what was your take?

Because I really want to get what you thought about some of the witness testimony. Because I believe Paul actually said said it the police officer some of her testimony was almost chilling at some points just because you really felt what she was really thinking there but also the the filmmaker you know and tell us what you thought about some of the witness testimony well i think you know usually in this kind of situation i don't like to talk right off the top of my head because i'm someone that likes to absorb things think about what they did and then come up with a conclusion that's kind of how my brain works but um i will say especially speaking to kfa's point that she was a little bit concerned that hiring a professional

producer to do this would make it too showy, too perfect, too clean, too much like a presentation. And I thought that the whole thing, they got the tone exactly right. It's not super showy. You can tell that they hired a producer when you look at those videos because they're so well done. They've got the timelines. They've got the video footage at the same time that Trump's tweeting something with the voiceover of things that were happening simultaneously. So they're telling a beautiful story, but they've clearly hired a story producer rather than a producer producer to make it showy and perfect. The tone was professional and stayed. And I saw someone when it first started and they said, pick up the energy. And I thought, no, don't pick up the energy. This is exactly the energy because this is a congressional hearing about something incredibly

serious. And I think that that's the thing that struck me the most. It was a reminder of what a horror that day was and the humanity of the people that were involved and this idea that here's this officer. And I think she said at one point, like she looked up and it was carnage. It was chaos. It was war. It was something you see in a movie. And she said, I'm horrified by how far our country has fallen and how long an entire group of people have allowed us to try and sweep this under the rug. And this is essential, what we're watching. It's essential. So I, I think, I think you're right in those aspects, but I'm going to go to our anchor down there at the bottom, the foundation here for Michael Popok, because I know he's very optimistic about our democracy. I've listened to Michael talk about the legal issues. He is, he's very, he's very optimistic about our democracy. Am I wrong? Am

I wrong? I think I'm correct here. Popok, give us us give us what your angle is and what you took away from not because we haven't we haven't spoke to you tonight but not just the witness testimony but in the very beginning about the you know just actually laying out what happened and i thought the videos that they produced um laying out when they laid siege on the Capitol was absolutely gut-wrenching. So what was your take? That's going to be the takeaway. I agree with Lee and I agree with Karen that the production values were less concerning to me, that they hired a former ABC News or whatever he was or producer the content that they had from a year of investigation

the thousand interviews the hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence most of which even the pundits sitting around here have not seen we just got a very very small percentage of it now the takeaway is going to be the visceral reaction of the testimony of the police officer battling for her life to protect democracy. But for me, and this goes to what you and I talked about earlier before this started, that's not the takeaway for me. The takeaway for me is this. We haven't even heard all seven legs of the stool. It's the things that Cheney said about seven-part conspiracy with Donald Trump at the center hub of all of those spokes. We talked about it earlier on your show of what some of those were. It's the it's it's the it's trying to corrupt the Department of Justice through using Clark to be his henchman in the in the waning moments of the Trump presidency and to take after Bill Barr walked out the door. Elvis left the building and left it behind for, you know, Rosen and Donahue to try to be the adults in the room. But the Department of Justice, if it was successfully corrupted by Trump, would have, in a devastating fashion,

led potentially to the overthrow of the government. And we heard Cheney lay out that evidence. You have Department of Justice being attacked and corrupted by Donald Trump. You have the, we haven't even gotten there yet. We have Eastman and the fake electors and the state legislators and the Mike Pence strategy that we've only heard a little bit about with Navarro. We have the lawsuits, the 60 lawsuits led by Rudy Giuliani and Powell and Jenna Ellis.

And these were not, even though we covered them like they were individual events, already the Jan 6th committee, I think, is presenting this as a coherent, cohesive conspiracy with Donald Trump as one of the lead co-conspirators. of prosecutors. There's multiple nested and nestled conspiracies within the conspiracy. There's Eastman and Trump related to the fake electors and to the Mike Pence strategy. There's the Clark and Trump and the attempted overthrow of the Department of Justice and knocking over the Department of Justice in order to execute his plan. When that didn't work, it's the lawsuits and the conspiracy with Giuliani and the rest. When that didn't work, let's throw Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and a bunch of other people who have been completely fomented by Trump, both at the time of the election, all leading up to Gen 6, and even before the election. I mean, we talked about this earlier. Trump has complained about fraud in the election, starting with the Iowa caucus and Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz stole the Iowa caucus. He came out

and said even in primaries that he won that if he lost it had to be because of fraud and that was with republicans against other republicans he was never going to go away quietly and peacefully transition power that's from the very beginning and then he blows the dog whistles of violence in the way he tweets at the moment that he tweets, because if anybody thinks he's not a master of media at the moment and using Twitter and social, he knows when he can flame discontent. He knows when he can quell it. And he made those decisions, as David Bender said earlier, he made those decisions to act or not act intentionally.

And all of those things, including things like evidence that has now been hidden, which shows criminal mind and criminal intent, where are the 300 minutes of telephone logs from Jan 6th? Why are they missing? That's the acts of a criminal. That's not the act of somebody that has nothing to hide. Somebody who has nothing to hide cooperates with the Jan 6th committee, cooperates with the empaneling of a blue ribbon panel. Michael Popak people listen, Donald Trump people. Donald Trump even said, if you plead the fifth, do you remember him saying this? If you plead the fifth, you're guilty, you're guilty. And I mean, he's done it time and time and time and time again, and he'll continue to do it. So I do want to go because I like your point about Karen knowing the prosecution side of this, because I want to hear because some of those testimony tapes, they seem pretty compelling in the video evidence as well.

Like we've seen Bill Barr. We've seen Ivanka Trump. We've seen Jared Kushner. We've seen Jason Miller even. Now, he had a mask. The thumb had a mask on, but he kind of looked like a thumb version of Bane. But Jason Miller gave testimony. So, Karen, tell us a little bit about how compelling those tapes were of the testimony, looking at it from a prosecutor's standpoint. I mean, is that is that something or is that nothing? So I think what's really interesting here is there are certain aspects of this case that are extremely kind of lock, solid, easy to prosecute. Like the crowd, like they have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are basically organized criminals of the hierarchy of structure and what they did that day. But this is really, this isn't just about January 6th. That's sort of the culmination of it all. But what everyone's saying, what Popak just said, is that this is really about so much that a conspiracy that spans for a very long period of time. And there's so much evidence that points to this, this dramatic moment where this is great video, and you've got this great testimony,

it was really chilling, but so much of this is going to be putting together little pieces, you know, building the brick wall, if you will, of guilt, you know, to show that all of these things are interconnected, and that Donald Trump is guilty of a crime. And I think what's really interesting about this case and what I think is unprecedented is prosecutors usually are the ones who build their cases for them. You know, and you sit there and you comb through millions of pieces of evidence and videos and text messages. I have never seen a case that is so well built by so many people. I mean, you've got the 104 page Brooks Brookings Institute report that is a roadmap to who committed what crime when and

how to prosecute it. You've got the judge Clark in California Eastman decision where that was a discovery dispute and whether they had to, he had to turn over documents. And the judge was like, well, let me explain to you why it was more likely than not that Donald Trump committed these crimes and laid it out in many, many, many pages of a crime. You've got this hearing, you've got Liz Cheney, who said there's seven reasons or seven legs to the stool, as I think you said, of how this is a criminal conspiracy. I mean, it's like people are spoon feeding the Department of Justice because this is complicated. It's not, you know, it is not kind of a super simple one incident event. You know, you shoot someone and there's murder. You know, that's a one incident event. You shoot someone and there's a murder,

that's a one incident event. This is a very complex series of facts that need to be woven together. And I think the evidence today was brilliant. I thought the videos put together with the timestamps really helped tell a narrative and tell a story. I thought, but you really need evidence, you need testimony. I thought Officer Edwards was just what a,

what an incredible witness she is. I mean, you know, we were slipping in people's blood while we were trying to, what an image, what an image, I mean, what an image. And, you know, and I think as David said, you, you, or I think it was, or Paul, I can't remember which one of you said it, how you could tell when she sort of went into the, you know, she was really going back to what happened. You know, you could just see this like that she was reliving it. And that's the kind of thing. And Ivanka, you know, was just, I thought, is going to be a very powerful witness. Bill Barr, you know, he was going to be a very powerful witness. So, you know, I think they're really sort of painting a picture. And I agree with Lee, I thought this was not, you know, my fear that this was going to be overproduced. And,

you know, I thought it struck the right balance. It was not overproduced. It was, you know, this is just sort of what it is. And people kind of and it had the ring of truth. So I really applaud them for what they have done. I thought their opening remarks were excellent. But I I really think prosecutors, you know, the roadmaps are there if they want to follow them. You know, I keep thinking in Georgia, just just do that one, because that is sort of a simple one. You know, that's an easy slam dunk. Right. Right. Right. It's there. It's just really it's just time to do it. Right. So so I want to go to Texas, Paul. You brought up something, Paul said. And Paul, I want you to express because you're so good at it to express, you know, we're talking about this

well-produced evidence, but this evidence is designed to get the information to Americans, right? Karen would love for prosecutors to take this information and prosecute on it, but the American people are really supposed to absolutely digest this information, and not just this hearing, but the continued hearings. So tell us what you think about the average American person. What do you think they should see, and what kind of anger do you think they should see and what kind of what kind of anger do you think they should have that these people were really trying to tear down our democracy? That was their goal. And not just the people who marched on the Capitol, but the people

who sent them there, the people who stoked that fire. I mean, give us give us that Texas, Paul, take on how we were supposed to view this information that we have? Well, I'll tell you, I'll start right here and right now with what's going on right now as we speak. If you look over at the chat comments, there are people that sat through this the entire time, watched that evidence, and they still are trolling for Donald Trump. Right. Still, still just trolls in the comments, trolling for Donald Trump right now. And I have to tell you, it's just amazing to me that anybody could sit through this. I mean, this is day one, but sit through this and, and, you know, how many people told Donald Trump, what was it? Miller, pardon me, it was, it was Barr, it was Rosen, it was Meadows. Everybody told Donald Trump well before he

stoked all this up, there's nothing there. The statement was there's no there there from Meadows. They knew they had nothing. This was a completely fabricated coup. And that's what I want every American to take away from this is there's no doubt Trump couldn't believe that he really had an election stolen from him. Everyone with any credibility had looked at this and said, and even people without credibility, like Bill Barr, you know, that this was his henchman went to him and told him, boss, we got to go, you know, and, and he still pushed it. He still pushed it, right, you know, and that's what makes this so unforgivable, you know, for people like that to still be in the comments and trolling. If you think that you don't have to get your ass out and vote, you are out

of your damn mind. Every single vote in this midterm counts because if people like that get power again, our democracy is gone. Mike, I applaud. I absolutely, Mike

Popock, I applaud your optimism. I really do. But I'm telling you, if they get their hands on the wheels of power again, there will not be, you know, they know Milley stopped them. When Trump said, hey, go shoot protesters, General Milley stopped them. They will not make that mistake again. They will not make these same mistakes again. We really have to be hot. The one thing I'm encouraged about, Paul, is that even people around him were talking about the 25th Amendment and taking Trump out in the waning days. And there were people that quit in protest. But in retrospect, many of those people looking back may have wanted to stay

and get the votes up to take that man out. I have, Hey, uh, Tony, I got a question for the panel. Um, I have my own thought about this. Why do you think Ivanka Trump was played day one, hour one of the presentation? Let's go to David first. Why? Because it's not the most critical piece of evidence that they could have presented, but why did they do it? That's an easy one

because we'll see that clip over and over again. They knew, and this was discussed, do you save Ivanka? Do you save Jared? Do you save Ivanka? Do you save Jared? Do you save anyone else? Pat Savoni, if he agrees. Do you save them for the end? Or do you sprinkle them throughout so that we can have,

and this is what's going to happen over this weekend. My inbox is already being flooded with the clips that have been cut. And you guys are doing it as well. We're all going to see. And they're going to be on. You couldn't watch this without knowing the parts that we're going to see again and again and again. There's one thing, sadly, I've got to go because I've got to start very early and do all of this, but I do want to note something that Lee said.

There's a word that you hit on, which came out of her testimony, came out of Officer Edwards' testimony about carnage. And I couldn't help but remember that this president was sworn in, having given a speech about ending American carnage. That was Donald Trump's inaugural. And what is his, what will he be remembered for? He's going to be remembered for creating carnage. That's what this next five set of hearings is going to show us, that he created that carnage. He might as well have been there. He was, as I said, going in, if you missed it, let me say it again, he's a coward. He would never have physically been there because he'd be afraid of it.

That's why he didn't go to Vietnam. But let's be clear, he created this carnage and he was happy it was happening. And all of that is going to be the narrative that we're going to see over these next five hearings. So I agree with Texas Paul. Everyone's got to vote, but they've got to vote with a remote. They've got to vote over these next five hearings. They've got to watch this. Everybody's got to watch.

Anyone you talk to, you've got to make them, what is the word, FOMO? That they are missing out if they don't see the rest of these hearings. And we've got to tell them that over this weekend, going into Monday, because this has got to build. And that's my message, is these hearings are going to tell us what happens to our democracy. And I honestly believe that we have a chance at resetting the narrative. What they did tonight was a great, great start. And I got to thank you guys. Pleasure to be here. Well, thank you for coming on the show. Yeah. Thanks for joining us, David. And always come back for these other hearings.

If you have time, we'd love to have you. Who else we can get in, by the way, Eric Swalwell is with the speaker right now. Oh, OK. We thought we might we thought we might be able to get Eric. We'll try and get him for next week. But he's with Speaker Pelosi protecting her, I think, from the crowd. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much, David. You have a good one. So everybody and Popak posed the question. So I guess maybe we should go around. Lee, do you want to take, um, uh, Popak's question there? Yeah, I wanted to hear from Lee on that one, actually. Yeah, I figured that's, I didn't know who, I didn't know exactly who he was pointing, your, your mic. I didn't know exactly who, who, um, who he was pointing it to, but it seemed like he might've been pointing it towards politics girl, Lee McGowan. Well, you know, like I said, I like to figure things out,

but my guess would be very much what David said, which is basically they did it on purpose to sprinkle it in, to keep us interested from day one, to make us tell our friends to watch it. This is all important stuff. This is just good advertising, but also, I mean, in my opinion, and I know nothing, I don't know the inner workings of Donald Trump's mind, but the one child he really, truly cares about and cares about the opinion of and cares about how he's perceived by and cares about how she perceives him is Ivanka. This is the person he cares about most in the world, aside from himself. And I think that he is a man who is a target narcissist.

Absolutely. It's all about what he can do, what he can do. If there is one other person in the world, it's her. And to see her take the narrative that he knew all along that he didn't win, that she believed Barr, which is what they cut. You know, she said, I believe Barr, I trust Barr. It says my father was lying, and we knew it. And that's sticking his craw.

And if you want to see someone melt down, that's the way to do it. And I thought, Lee, I thought that you're exactly right. I thought it was an F you to Donald Trump. It proved the point of knowledge so poignantly with his favorite child yeah i mean if you if you yeah if you look at trump right there's there's certain things that are his kryptonite right whether you talk about his hands his hair or his intelligence the number one on that list the lean the lean the lean right the lean that he's got the number one on that list is going to be Ivanka. So if there's any sort of reactionary response that he has that they want to get out to potentially comment on,

it's going to be Ivanka against him. Well, also, if you have a mob-like mentality, you're going to go after the person that's closest to your Don. And in this case, this is an actual Don and it's Ivanka. She's the one with his ear and you're breaking apart the family. They have to be a cohesive unit if they're going to tell this narrative. I mean, they told us in this, in the last two hours, they had General Milley saying that Mark Meadows called him and said, we have to kill this narrative that Pence is in charge. We have to spread the narrative that the president is still in charge. And he's, and that's how they look at

the whole world. It's a narrative, right? It's about, it's not about the truth. It's not about it's about the story they want to tell. And they've been very, very successful at it. And it's why people like me even exist. Cause we were like, where's the opposite side to all of this narrative and we filled a vacuum that our side left not filled the story um and i think like david said this could be an opportunity to uh reset the narrative and if you break apart the story they're telling and you start with the closest person to him, that's a pretty, pretty good place to start. Karen, what do you think about the Ivanka, the Ivanka clip there?

I like the Ivanka clip. I'm I'm a fan of the Ivanka clip. But what did you think? What what what do you do? Do you think they put it in the beginning for the reasons that they're saying? Or is there something different? You're the one who who handles these things. Any litigator knows you lead with your best evidence. You don't certainly don't bury it. So I think for the reasons for the reasons Lee and Popak are saying,

it's that, you know, for those reasons, it is the best. It's not just what she said, but it's really who said it and how it's going to be received. And so for those reasons, it really does make it their strongest evidence. And it's how you're going to capture kind of, you know, grip everyone's attention and make them want to come back. So, you know, you lead with your best and strongest evidence. And I think they really did that tonight. Right. And and she was she was very powerful. I want more of that. And I'm sure everybody else does. Right. Well, Paul, I got to ask you about because I have a question. Yeah, go ahead. You think this is the first time Donald Trump is learning that that's what she said?

Probably. I think I think it's the first time that he's learning what she said on a public stage. That's right. Because she might have said she might have said those things obviously in private or heard whispers you know many people are saying but now it really is many people are saying right that she talked behind your back well that was actually my question to paul is do you think there's just like wheelbarrows full of shitty diapers at mar-a-lago tonight because of some of the tests. What? What? I'm trying to speak in a language that people will understand here because I know Paul speaks in my language most of the time. Paul, do you think there's just wheelbarrows of shitty diapers

down there at Mar-a-Lago after he heard some of the stuff he heard, not only from Ivanka, but from the likes of Bill Barr and others? I mean, what do you think? There is no doubt that cut deep. There is no doubt that cut deep. There is no doubt that cut deep. And I will tell you, I've got a slightly different take on why they did it. OK, if my grocer's last name was Cheney, I wouldn't buy an apple from the son of a bitch. I'm telling you, I wouldn't. But I have no love for Liz Cheney.

But she has brought something to this committee that Republic that we Democrats have been sorely needing. Look at Lee. She knows exactly where I'm going with this. This, in the end, is a political exercise. The DOJ will do the prosecuting. Folks like Karen will do the actual fighting that makes the difference with the indictments and people going to jail. This in the end is a political exercise and politics is a knife fight. And believe me, they stuck it in Trump tonight and they broke it off with Ivanka.

They really did. Don't you talk about language. I'm telling you, I am telling you, Liz, that was pure Liz Cheney right there. Because I'm telling you, that was killer. That was killer instinct. And we need a lot more of that, I guarantee you. I have to rethink how much I hate Liz Cheney. I made this only hater this much instead of this much.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend right now. There you go. Well, I have always said that Liz Cheney isn't necessarily, you know, people get it mixed up that she she may not be necessarily the perfect person to hold up as someone who other motives other than just democracy but for her party to come back to what it used to be the gop not the gqp the the q anon crazies the marjorie taylor greens the lauren boberts the the mo brooks the gozars just just the absolute craziness that they have in their party right now the democracy has to survive it's to some extent to get that back. Right. And she probably wants to be the kingmaker there. She wants to hold the throne of the GOP. But you're right in that there's no better person than Darth Vader Jr., because that's what I call

her on my show, Darth Vader Jr., because her dad is Darthader um then to really go after the trump family and and try to bury trumpism with this narrative because i think you guys are right that this is politics because i always talk about this on on our show and gabe knows this is there's politics and there's policy and you don't get to set policy unless you do the politics part. And we are in a knife fight for our democracy. We are fighting against fascism. It is an enemy that will not quit. They're not going to stop until they get what they want. And we have to do the same. We have to fight for our democracy. It's super important. And I believe everybody on this panel believes that way. And maybe to some extent, you're right, Paul, there might be just a drip, just a drip there of Liz Cheney that believes that democracy is the

right way, even though she may not be for things like voting rights or women's bodily autonomy or anything like that. So we have to give it to her tonight. They all think they can see the future. And what she sees in the future is that after she's done with them on here, that there will not, it's going to be scorched earth on the Republican side, that the folks, the crazies will have no cover. She's going to burn them to the ground and she's going to be left standing. I guarantee you, she is her father's daughter. She is going to napalm the shit out of the Republicans. You watch. Yeah, and her father was pure evil.

So if she's got any of that in her, hopefully she'll unleash that for the good. She'll take the shotgun out hunting. Right. Maybe they'll go on a hunting trip. I don't know. She had one of the, well, she had many great lines tonight, but one of them was that Donald Trump will not be around in the future, but the stain that is on your reputation will live forever.

Right. And Brett Maizelas brought that up when we were talking to the Maizelas brothers. Lee, what was one of the lines that kind of stood out to you? One thing that stood out to me before I thought i 30 is that that when liz cheney said there were members of congress in line to get pardons like how did we just miss that like members of congress were like hey i want one well i want one over here like you don't normally ask for a pardon just you know because you didn't commit crimes i mean come on but what what moment stood out to you is there any specific moment that stood out to you a specific line that resonated with you that you're going to put on your show because i know you're going to have several of those moments on your show no i'm i'm doing that uh the fomo thing

that's the next thing i'm going to do i'm going to do a little rant on you can't miss can't miss this because i think it is really essential i think the gist that really stuck to me is they're making it very clear they were very clear clear. They said it was a coup attempt, that he knew he'd lost, that he deliberately lied, that everybody told him he'd lost, that there was no confusion about that. And then he made a massive effort to spread fraudulent information to the American people. And I think the thing is, is that we're still living in the result of that. That didn't end on the 6th of January, 2021. We still live in this existence where one third of the country is functioning with fraudulent information.

And if we're going to fix anything, we have to break the narrative that these people are telling the truth because- Right. Because the coup is still ongoing, right? The coup is still ongoing. That's kind of what you're saying. Yeah. And I am. Well, it is. And I think the thing is that I can't watch that and not think how incredibly lucky we got that there were just enough people that said no. Because it seemed like there was a fair amount of people that were willing to go along with it. And there was just enough people that were like, you can't do that. That's not allowed. And we won't get that opportunity the second time. If they get back in power, it will only be people that say yes. you can't do that. That's not allowed. And we won't get that opportunity the second time.

If they get back in power, it will only be people that say yes. So we can't allow that to happen. And that's the impetus people have to have to work, to talk to their friends, to discuss this stuff. Because when you talk about politics, I say this all the time. I mean, a lot of people's eyes glaze over. They don't like it. They're bored. They don't want to be interested in it. They don't want to talk about it. And unfortunately, they have to. So we have to be that annoying person at the dining room table. We have to be that person at dinner. We have to be that person that says, y'all, you watching this? Because our country's going one of two directions. Right. And we have to push it in the right one. I agree with you.

I got a question. Yep. By show of hands, if somebody had told you two years ago that Mike Pence would be the person that stood up and did the right thing and saved our democracy, who would have got this laugh in that person's face you some bitch um i would i would have voted for him i would have voted for him to get in the car and get away from the capitol right yeah right i that is that is surprising you know popak in mentioning that um i i think that is surprising that he didn't scurry away as fast as he could. And I don't know if it was Mark Short.

And maybe we'll find this out because I think that's a key piece of evidence here. Now, really, in the intent of Donald Trump, like what what was Mark Short and and Mike Pence saying in that parking garage that wasn't allowing him to go? I trust the Secret Service and I should run away. I mean, what's your thoughts on that? Do you think we'll see? Because you've read that 200 page. I mean, you read period to period on that thing. So does that thing saying anything about Mike Pence and what the fly on his head saw in that parking garage? Yeah, I think it. Well, OK, well, I think it's late. I got to I got to make some jokes.

I think I think it was he realized that his sole purpose in being the president pro tempore of the Senate and vice president at the time of the counting was to certify that election. And that if, if I think at that moment, it must've dawned on him that he was being whisked away as part of that conspiracy. And he had, he had to just listen, you either believe in the constitution and the oath of office that Benny Thompson talks so eloquently about to open the session or you don't. And regardless of your politics, you are either a defender and oath keeper of the truest sense of the Constitution or you are not. And say what you want about Mike Pence or say what we would have said about Liz Cheney before all this happened. But they believe in the Constitution and their role under it and the oath they took to support and defend it.

I think you're right. And I think that's the key here is because without the Constitution and really, if you think about if what they wanted to have happen, right, if if Trump and his allies, what they wanted to have happen, that they would have happened, the entire country would have fell apart. You don't I mean, if you start to think about the foundation, the absolute foundation that that document is, because it's not just a fucking piece of paper. I mean, and it's not just an idea. It is the absolute foundation and principle of of the rule of law and our country. I mean, if you take away the app, the ability of a president to have to follow the Constitution, he or she can do whatever the hell they want. I mean, who would if we wouldn't have been able to stop Donald Trump

from overturning the Constitution and taking away our vote from us that day? What is to stop him from from taking away statehoods? What's to stop him to say, you know, I don't like that state Constitution. I don't like that state Constitution. I don't like this court. I don't like that court. The hell with this. The hell with that. The hell with the writing a check to these folks in this part of the country. The hell with the highways in this part of the I mean, what's to stop him from doing that? And I will watch the Santas. You're watching it. Watch the Santas in the little lab blueprint in the blueprint without the U.S. Constitution as a guardrail and watch what he's doing. Right, right.

Well, and I mean, that may be the model that DeSantis is trying to show everybody. Hey, because I think that's really what DeSantis, you know, to your point is, is he's trying to say, hey, I want to make the United States Florida. You know, I want to, you know, do that to the whole of the United States. I want to go to my co-host here because he's worked hard on this production. And I want to get his thoughts on the entirety of the hearing from front to back, because we were kind of making some graphics and doing some things on the fly. But he was paying attention. So what was the thing that stood out to you, Gabe, that really drives home the message that the Constitution is the most important part of this? And that's what they wanted to, you know, excuse the language shit

on, because that's literally what they did in the Capitol. I mean, I think the first half with the with the depositions were good to set up, you know, even people within the inner circle of Trump thought that, you know, he was he was a loser, right? They all admitted the reality that he didn't win the election. And to show those things, I think were, was a good start, right? And I'm hoping that they will continue during the next morning hearings that we have in the upcoming couple of weeks. But I think the parts that were most effective, and I think we touched on it before is, is the testimonies that were given either think the parts that were most effective, and I think we touched on it before, is the testimonies that were given, either from the documentary filmmaker, but also especially

the Capitol Police officer, right? The group that the right exclaims in their patriotic roar that they love to back the blue are willing to shit on those that they want to protect us, right? Those that are there at the Capitol to protect democracy, they said, nah, screw it. We're going to push you down. We're going to do this. We're going to do very vile things against you.

And I think that testimony that she gave was so impactful. And I think we needed to hear that, right? Because it's not the first time we've heard testimony from Capitol Police officers. We've heard those before. But I think having a hearing that is a primetime hearing for everyone or at least the majority of Americans to be aware of, to hear, I think is a huge thing, especially when you're talking about, you know, Donald Trump and his party saying that they are the defenders of the constitution when really all they are doing as you said is shitting all over it they're they're smearing it and wiping it on the walls of the capital with the constitution i mean this is the group that says therefore the first amendment and the second amendment and they can't name any other amendment maybe the fifth now but well it gets hard after the first well i mean counting is very hard right of course right well they want to ban math so it

gets it gets right by the way gabe made a joke there no one caught it with the fifth amendment right i take the fifth so i picked up on that joke our local comedian here karen picked up on that joke. Our local comedian here, Karen, picked up on his. No, because it's true. They know that one because, you know. They do. I mean, after Eric Trump giving his deposition of over 500 times saying the Fifth Amendment, I think they figured out what the Fifth is. Maybe.

I don't know. But. Well, if I could say, I thought it was very interesting that in the introduction, which I thought was really well done by Benny Thompson, that he mentioned the 14th amendment. Right, right. I thought that was striking because he was basically saying they made this amendment because you can't be in the government if you are standing against the government. That's right. And they were calling out people who we have yet to name

that were involved. You know, there's a lot of that's the thing about this DOJ investigation. It's this is not just as Karen said, you know, I shot you and here's our crime. This goes in so many directions and it's so deep and it includes sitting members of Congress, you know, senators, major military people, major people in the media, you know, like this is so widespread that you start here by laying it out and then the DOJ has to go forward. So what they're laying out here is they're saying it's possible we should be looking at the 14th Amendment. Why are you a sitting member of Congress if you're against the government? He mentioned that in his introduction, and I thought that was quite striking. And Lee, on that point, to have Benny Thompson, a Black representative

from Mississippi, talking about the Civil War and the purpose of the amended oath of office to pledge allegiance to the Constitution, I mean, there was a certain amount of poignancy there. I thought Benny, I mean, I've always been impressed with him all along the way, and every time he's ever given a press conference or filed papers in the lawsuits, but tonight particularly, I couldn't think of a better chairperson to lead this and to kick off the presentation. Absolutely.

Can you give us one last word and I'll go to Paul for one last word? Yeah, I think that the trial or the prosecution, I should say, of Donald Trump is going to be both something that they have to build a case, which I think they're building, but I think they also need to get public opinion to support such a prosecution. And Joe Biden is somebody who prides himself on being conciliatory and bringing people together and like move forward and and reach across the aisle and i think he has to unleash the doj and allow them to do their job here because this is what i think this is what we're seeing and what this hearing is doing a great job of is not only laying out the evidence, but also showing why this is so important and why we can't just move past this one and reach, you know, reach across the

aisle. And can't we all just get along? It's just not, it's not going to happen here. And so I think Joe Biden is going to have to signal, I don't know that this is okay, or that somehow that this is, that this is, that this is a good thing to do. And I think that the fact that these hearings are happening, hopefully will, will kind of set the stage for, for such a prosecution. And that's what I hope to see. Great. Well, you're the first one that's brought up Joe Biden's name. So that's the first time,

that's the first time in the commentary tonight that it's been brought up. I guess, I guess that's significant when you have one president trying to overthrow the constitution, one president trying to follow it. Paul, give us your last take here on tonight's hearings and then going forward with the, what you look for in the future, the future hearings. Cause I want you to join. I want all of you to join me, but I want you to join me in the future hearings. So what do you look for?

Well, two things. One, this has been one of the most interesting hearings I've ever been a part of. You guys have been amazing, what y'all brought to this. This has been so different from what you see on coverage everywhere else. You're going to totally regret giving me the last word here because I'm going to say going in the future, you're going to see Liz Cheney

cover Kevin McCarthy with napalm, burn him down, and then piss on his smoldering ashes. I'm glad I gave you the last word. What the hell are you talking about? He doesn't know me that well, guys. I love the imagery there.

That is why you saw that. If you remember, this will stick out. Politically speaking, though. Politically speaking. The blue carpet in Kevin McCarthy's office and his whole staff running out the door. You remember that got put in there for a reason. There is a reason you saw Kevin McCarthy's staff running. She is going to torch him to the ground.

Well, after his little performance on the floor today, I hope she does. Everyone, thank you very much for joining us. Again, come back for all the other hearings. Stay tuned. I got a few announcements here that I want to make. But thank you so much for all your commentary and sticking with us and watching the hearings with us. I really do appreciate it. Thank you before we go again. Look for all those dates from Midas Touch. And thank you to the Mizellus Brothers and Midas Touch for giving us the opportunity to produce this show here for the first January 6th insurrection public hearing. Again, we will be live streaming every single one of these.

Now, rather it be during the day or the prim time, the final one that is in prime time. So be looking for those dates, be looking for those times. We will be producing just like we did here today. We have our own feed, our own cameras there that are licensed to Midas Touch will be branded. Go to the Midas Touch YouTube channel if you haven't. If you're not there already, subscribe to the channel. So that way you do not miss one of these hearings. And set your reminder,

we will be tweeting these out every time that we run into one. And also, while you're at it, while you're on YouTube, go over and follow our channel, The Tony Michaels Podcast. We broadcast every single weekday, Monday through Friday,

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