Jan. 6 hearing focuses on extremist groups, Trump’s role: Day 7 recap

WASHINGTON – The Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack focused its seventh hearing Tuesday on how former President Donald Trump summoned protesters to Washington and directed a mob he allegedly knew was armed to the U.S. Capitol.

Here’s what happened at Tuesday’s hearing:

• GOP lawmakers met with Trump about overturning election: Several Republican members of Congress met Dec. 21 with Trump and top advisers to discuss what role Vice President Mike Pence could play in overturning election results. They included: Brian Babin, R-Tx.; Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.; Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.; Andy Harris, R-Md.; Jody Hice, R-Ga.; Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Scott Perry, R-Pa. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who at the time had been elected to Congress but not sworn in, also attended. 
• Linking Flynn, Stone to Oath Keepers, Proud Boys: Committee member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Tuesday that former Trump advisers Michael Flynn and Roger Stone both had connections to the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, showing photos of Flynn with members and pointing to communications between Stone and group leaders.
• Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet triggered supporters: The committee tried to show how Trump’s tweet on Dec 19 inviting protestors to Washington helped lead to the attack on Jan. 6. protests in Washington. One group, Women for America First, changed their permit request for a rally from late January to Jan. 6 after his tweet.
• Trump’s National Intelligence director feared Trump election challenges could prove ‘dangerous’: In earlier testimony to the committee but first aired Tuesday, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Trump’s director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, told her he thought that the former president’s election challenges could “spiral out of control” and become potentially “dangerous.”
• Cheney: Trump no ‘child’: Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., dismissed as “nonsense” Trump’s claims that he did not know that he lost the 2020 election given how his advisers repeatedly told him Biden won. Trump “is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.”
• Cheney: Cipollone testimony lived up to expectations: Rep. Liz Cheney said that former White House lawyer Pat Cipollone’s testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee had “met our expectations.” Cipollone was questioned Friday behind closed doors on what he knew regarding Trump’s actions during the Capitol attack.
• What was covered? Committee members connected the dots from a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting in the Oval Office to events on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021. Live and recorded testimony showed how the December meeting among Trump, attorney Sidney Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and other members of the former president’s inner circle who helped him promote unsubstantiated election conspiracies, resulted in plans to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. 
• Who testified? Witnesses were Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man criminally charged for his actions during the Capitol riot. 
• What is already known? Trump invited protesters to Washington for a rally near the White House against election fraud. Trump was notified the morning of Jan. 6 that members of the crowd were carrying rifles and pistols, and he directed the crowd to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. The Justice Department charged nearly 800 people after the siege at the Capitol, including seditious conspiracy charges against at least 11 members of the Oath Keepers and five members of the Proud Boys.

Thompson, Raskin put Jan. 6 in historical perspective

Members of the House Jan. 6 committee closed their seventh hearing on Tuesday by framing President Donald Trump’s actions as unprecedented in American history.

“The Watergate break in was like a Cub Scout meeting compared to this assault on our people and our institutions,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, R-Md.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said government has held strong through centuries of turmoil.

“I am from a part of the country where had it not been for the federal government and the constitution, my parents and many more Americans like them would have continued to be treated as second-class citizens,” said Thompson, D-Miss.” The freedom to be able to vote without harassment, travel in relative safety and dine and sleep where you choose is because we have a government that looks over the wellbeing of its citizens.”

Thompson said the Jan. 6 attack was another test of the strength of the federal government, and he blamed Trump for sending the mob rather than stopping it.

“It was an attack on our democracy, on our constitution,” Thompson said. “A sitting president with a violent mob trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another – It still makes my blood boil to think about that.”

Still to come: Committee to walk through Jan. 6 ‘minute by minute’

At the next hearing of the Jan. 6 committee, members plan to walk through the events of Jan 6, 2021, “minute by minute,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Tuesday.

Cheney emphasized that former President Donald Trump ignored “many pleas for help from Congress,” and staff who insisted he call off the attack. She also said Trump could have personally called the secretary of defense or his attorney general to help stop the attack but did not.

There were 187 minutes between Trump’s speech on the Ellipse and his tweet urging supporters to leave the Capitol that have not been fully explained. 

– Erin Mansfield

Trump tried to contact a witness, Cheney says

In closing statements, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., committee vice chair, said the panel learned that Trump tried to contact a witness after the last hearing held in June.

The witness, though part of the committee’s investigation, has not yet been seen in the hearings, Cheney said.

Cheney said the witness declined to answer or respond to Trump’s call, instead alerting their lawyer who then told the committee.

“This committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice,” Cheney said. “Let me say one more time, we will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously.

– Chelsey Cox

Rioter who lost job upset that Trump is still promoting election lie 

Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man criminally charged for his actions during the Capitol insurrection, said he lost his job and that Jan. 6 “changed my life, and not for the good.”

When asked how it makes him feel that Trump is still promoting falsehoods about the 2020 election results, Ayres told the committee it “makes me mad, I was hanging on to every word he said.” 

Ayres said he’s concerned for the next election because “thousands and millions” like himself held onto Trump’s claims, many of whom he believed still are today.

– Katherine Swartz

Rioter who lost job upset that Trump is still promoting election lie

Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man criminally charged for his actions during the Capitol insurrection, said he lost his job and that Jan. 6 “changed my life, and not for the good.”

When asked how it makes him feel that Trump is still promoting falsehoods about the 2020 election results, Ayres told the committee it “makes me mad, I was hanging onto every word he said.”

Ayres said he’s concerned for the next election because “thousands and millions” like himself held onto Trump’s claims, many of whom he believed still are today. 

– Katherine Swartz

Ex-Oath Keeper said he’s scared of next election cycle

Former national media director for the Oath Keepers, Jason Van Tatenhove, said he is scared of the next election cycle after seeing Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and the attack on the Capitol.

“I do fear for this next election cycle because who knows what that might bring,” said Van Tatenhove. “If a president that is willing to try to instill and encourage, to whip up a civil war amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil, regardless of the human impact.” 

Van Tatenhove said if Trump is elected into office again, “all bets are off at that point.”

“I have three daughters, I have a granddaughter. And I fear for the world they will inherit if we don’t start holding these people to account,” said Van Tatenhove.

– Kenneth Tran

Rioter says on Jan. 6, he thought election would still be overturned

Stephen Ayres, who was arrested for illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, testified during Tuesday’s hearing that he would have had reservations about going to the Capitol had he been aware former President Donald Trump had no evidence of election fraud. He also said he would not have stayed at the Capitol as long as he did had the former president told his supporters to leave earlier.

Ayres said he thought the election was going to be overturned on Jan 6. He said “everybody,” thought Trump was going to be coming to Capitol, too.

“You know, he said in his speech, you know, kind of like he’s gonna be there with us.”

– Merdie Nzanga

Jan. 6 rioter blames Trump

Ayres testified how believed Trump’s false assertions about the 2020 election and being “pretty hardcore” into consuming social media posts about the contest being stolen.

When quizzed by Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., about whether it would have made a difference if he knew the president had no evidence of election fraud, Ayres said it would have.

“Who knows, I may not have even come down here then,” Ayres said.

– Phillip M. Bailey

Oath Keepers are ‘dangerous militia,’ group’s former spokesperson says

In testimony before the Jan. 6 committee Tuesday, former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove described the group as a “dangerous” and “violent” militia. 

“I think the best illustration for what the Oath Keepers…