It was carnage: Jan. 6th committee hearings kick off with harrowing testimony
(The most harrowing testimony came from U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who, after being knocked unconscious by a crowd of rioters that resulted in a traumatic brain injury, returned to hold the line only to be sprayed with a chemical irritant. Photo credit: Bloomberg)
The first in a series of hearings revealing the former president’s team’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election aired in primetime last night, with every major network preempting regular programming for the hearing, except for Fox News.
The decision by Fox News to forgo live coverage of the hearings isn’t a complete surprise, considering hosts like Brian Kilmeade and Laura Ingraham were in communication with senior White House officials on the day of the insurrection.
Instead, the network aired Carlson’s show completely commercial-free, losing out on advertising dollars in a desperate bid to keep viewers from changing the channel. In his opening monologue, he referred to the insurrection as "a forgettably minor" outbreak of violence.
But the hearings, which come after the committee interviewed more than 1,000 people and reviewed over 125,000 documents pertaining to the events of the insurrection, painted a horrific picture of a violent and deadly series of events that resulted in the breach of the Capitol in an effort to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
The hearings, produced by a television consultant for a broadcast television primetime audience, were led by Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat, and Vice Chair Liz Chaney, a Republican.
"I'm from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and lynching," Thompson said in his opening statement. "I'm reminded of that dark history as I hear voices try to justify the actions of the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021."
He went on to call Jan. 6 "the culmination of an attempted coup," adding that the violence was no accident, representing the "most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power."
The committee’s decision to give Cheney, a Republican, the bulk of the time during opening statements was as deliberate as it was effective. Over the course of roughly 35 minutes, Cheney shared some of what’s to come over the next several weeks of hearings. Among the most damning is the testimony that Trump didn’t want to call off the insurrection or ask supporters to leave, he was angry at advisors who told him he needed to do more to mitigate the violence; and perhaps worst of all, he said that "maybe our supporters have the right idea" about the calls from rioters to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence.
"President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain President of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power," she said.
Cheney pointed out that Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases challenging the results of the 2020 election, with arguments so unfounded and demonstrably false that the former president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had his law license suspended. In a clip from his closed-door testimony with the committee, former Attorney General Bill Barr testified that he told Trump as early as Dec. 1, 2020 that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud and that any further actions to challenge the election results would be "complete nonsense."
In an interview with Brandi Buchman ahead of his testimony, documentary filmmaker and subpoenaed witness, Nick Quested, noted that while there were a variety of plans to descend on the Capitol, he observed a clear absence of a cohesive plan.
“There’s no management,” he said. “Trump doesn’t manage anything, he’s a chaos merchant. He’d rather have people compete for his affections than actually f—-- organize it.”
Quested, whose video footage was used in several committee exhibits, found himself in the middle of the carnage while filming the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, for a documentary about political division in America.
But the most harrowing testimony came from U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who, after being knocked unconscious by a crowd of rioters that resulted in a traumatic brain injury, returned to hold the line only to be sprayed with a chemical irritant.
"There were officers on the ground, they were bleeding, they were throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood," she testified, calling the Capitol a war zone like something from the movies. "It was carnage."
As POLITICO reported ahead of the hearings, Trump “held out hope until the last minute” that he could join the insurrectionists at the Capitol himself, a decision the then-president raised with the head of the Secret Service.
In a powerful end to the evening’s hearing, the committee played footage of insurrectionists sharing their motives for breaching the Capitol. Here’s what some of those individuals who have been charged with felonies told the committee:
“Trump asked us to come.”
“He personally asked us to come to D.C. that day.”
“He said he was going to go with us.”
“He called me there.”
Hearings are set to continue on Monday and Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET.