In historic move, House Jan. 6 committee votes to subpoena Trump
Americans deserve to hear from him, Rep. Liz Cheney said.
The House Jan. 6 committee on Thursday, after a months-long hiatus, held its ninth public hearing since June, and possibly its last in its investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack.
The panel focused on the role of former President Donald Trump, alleging he was front and center of a plot to overturn the 2020 election and in a historic development, voted unanimously to subpoena Trump to testify.
Here's how the story developed:
Secret Service message: 'POTUS is pissed'
A Secret Service message unveiled during the hearing said that Trump was "livid" after the Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging the election results.
"POTUS is pissed," the message read. "Supreme Court denied his lawsuit. He is livid now."
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, also recounted how frustrated Trump was following the news.
"The president was fired up about the Supreme Court decision," she told the committee. "The president just raging about the decision and how it's wrong and 'why didn't we make more calls' and his typical anger outburst at this decision."
"He said something to the effect of, 'I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,'" she said.
Committee repeats highlights of previous hearings
As it wraps up its investigation, with a final report on findings and recommendations expected by the end of this year, the House committee on Thursday spent significant time rehashing points from their previous hearings.
One such finding was Trump's knowledge ahead of Election Day that mail-in ballots would favor Joe Biden and his plan ahead of time to declare victory that night.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., focused partly on the failed efforts by Trump to litigate his loss in court -- a major focus of the June 13 hearing.
"In the past hearings we said the committee identified 62 election lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and allies between Nov. 4, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021," Kinzinger said on Thursday. "Those cases resulted in 61 losses and only a single victory, which did not affect the outcome for any candidate."
Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., in her remarks about Trump's direct efforts to overturn the election, replayed previously seen deposition from former Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr told the committee that Trump's false allegations about voting machines was "crazy stuff" -- footage first aired in a June hearing.
Stone on claiming victory: 'Possession is nine-tenths of the law'
Roger Stone, a political provocateur and longtime Trump adviser, voiced support for Trump declaring victory the night of the election regardless of whether he was in the lead.
"Let's just hope we're celebrating. I suspect it'll be, I really do suspect it will still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
'No, we won,' Stone said in footage from a Danish documentarian featured in Thursday's hearing.
"I said, 'f*** the voting, let's get right to the violence,'" Stone said in a separate clip. "We'll have to start smashing pumpkins, if you know what I mean."
During testimony for the committee, Stone invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked if he had any role in planning for the violence the day of the insurrection.
Steve Bannon video indicates intimate knowledge of Jan. 6
The Jan. 6 committee showed video of President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Steve Bannon, which indicates that he had advance knowledge of the former president's intention to falsely declare victory election night, but also that Bannon knew about the events of Jan. 6 ahead of their occurrence.
Here's what Bannon said on Jan. 5, the day before the insurrection:
"All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. All converging and now we're on as they say the point of attack, right the point of attack tomorrow. I'll tell you this," Bannon began.
"It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. Okay, it's going to be quite extraordinarily different … tomorrow it's game day. So strap in. Let's get ready."
Mr. Bannon refused to testify for the ongoing Jan. 6 investigation, for which he's been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress.
The committee also played audio that had previously leaked, of Bannon telling a group of associates on Oct. 31, 2020, of Trump's plan to declare his own victory on election night, regardless of the actual outcome.
"He's going to declare victory," Bannon said.