For 187 minutes, the then-President refused to condemn the violent mob he’d incited.
Thursday’s primetime Jan. 6 hearing zeroed in on the fateful 187 minutes during which then-President Trump refused to publicly condemn the Capitol insurrection — or call off the violent mob he’d incited. The hearing was jointly led by Rep. Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican. Here are some key takeaways from the explosive session:
Trump knowingly refused to act
Trump watched the attack unfold without making a single call to law enforcement or national security officials. Luria said that the panel had “confirmed in numerous interviews with senior law enforcement and military leaders, Vice President Mike Pence’s staff, and DC government officials: None of them — not one — heard from President Trump that day.”
Former White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews says she was told Trump wanted to avoid “any sort of mention of peace” in a tweet being crafted as the riot continued.
Matthews said she met with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany while the riot was unfolding, and McEnany “looked directly at me, and in a hushed tone, shared with me that the President did not want to include any sort of mention of peace.”
Further testimony from two new witnesses was able, at least in part, to corroborate Cassidy Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s heated interactions with the Secret Service that day.
Luria said one of them was “a former White House employee with national security responsibilities.” He reportedly testified that Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff and a current member of the Secret Service, Tony Ornato, gave him the same account that Hutchinson testified Ornato had relayed to her — that Trump was “irate” when Robert Engel, the Secret Service agent in charge on the day of the riot, would not take him to the Capitol.
The second witness, retired Washington, DC, police Sgt. Mark Robinson, said that the Secret Service agent in charge of the motorcade on Jan. 6, 2021 had confirmed that Trump had a “heated” exchange with his detail over returning to the Capitol.
Yesterday’s testimony came alongside the news that the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has launched a criminal investigation into the destruction of Secret Service text messages relating to the Capitol attack.
Courage amid the chaos
The president’s cowardice and inertia marked a stark contrast to the behavior of then-Vice President Mike Pence, who “worked the phones” even as his life was in danger, issuing “direct, unambiguous orders” to deescalate the situation.
In a clip from his closed-door deposition, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley was shown saying he’d been astonished not to hear from Trump as the attack unfolded. “You know, you’re the Commander in Chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America and there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” he said.
Pence meanwhile called Milley “two or three” times, assuming a distinctly more presidential command of events. “He was very animated, and he issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders. There was no question about that,” Milley said. “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.”
A White House security official who was able to hear what members of Pence’s security detail were saying to each other over their radios revealed that they’d feared for their lives.
“There was a lot of yelling,” the official, whose voice was masked, told the committee. “A lot of very personal calls over the radio, so it was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it, but there were calls to say goodbye to family members, so on and so forth. It was getting — for whatever the reason was on the ground the V.P. detail thought that this was about to get very ugly.”
It became clear that the team was running out of options to ensure Pence’s safety. The official said it sounded as though “we came very close to either Service having to use lethal options or worse.”
Revealing video footage
The hearing featured galling never-before-seen clips of Trump struggling to denounce the rioters, Pence’s security detail strategizing an escape that brought him dangerously close to insurrectionists baying for his blood, and Sen. Josh Hawley, who’d loudly supported overturning the election, fleeing in terror.
Hawley, who’d famously given a supportive fist pump to Trump supporters outside the Capitol just hours earlier could be seen running through a hallway, then down the stairs alongside colleagues.
Secret Service radio traffic was replayed, showing agents assessing the stairwell via which they were hoping to evacuate Pence, while rioters downstairs confronted the police. A spliced montage of surveillance tapes, Secret Service footage and security video brought into focus just how close Pence came to the rioters.
What’s next?
The committee will resume public hearings in September. “Our committee will spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple fronts, before convening further hearings this September,” Rep. Liz Cheney said.
The investigation is still ongoing, with intel on events on and around Jan. 6 continuing to surface. “We continue to receive new information every day,” Committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said during Thursday’s hearing.
