WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Home committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol rebel and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election opened Thursday’s prime-time listening to declaring the assault an “tried coup” that put “two and half centuries of constitutional democracy in danger.”

Watch reside protection of the primary listening to within the media participant above.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., mentioned “the world is watching” the U.S. response to the panel’s yearlong investigation into the Capitol riot and the defeated president’s extraordinary effort to cease Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. He known as it a “brazen try” to overturn the election.

“Democracy stays in peril,” Thompson mentioned. “We should confront the reality with candor, resolve and dedication.”

The committee was presenting never-before-seen video and a mass of different proof, aiming to indicate the “harrowing story” of the lethal violence that day and likewise a chilling backstory as Trump, the defeated president, tried to overturn Biden’s election victory.

In a single clip, the panel performed a quip from former Lawyer Common Invoice Barr who testified that he advised Trump the claims of a rigged election have been “bull–.”

Thursday night time’s listening to was offering eyewitness testimony from the primary police officer pummeled within the mob riot and from a documentary filmmaker who tracked the extremist Proud Boys as they ready to struggle for Trump instantly after the election after which led the storming of the Capitol.

The listening to additionally featured accounts from Trump aides and members of the family, interviewed behind closed doorways, together with Trump’s former Lawyer Common who mentioned he advised the president his claims.

“Whenever you hear and perceive the wide-reaching conspiracy and the trouble to attempt to corrupt each lever and company of presidency concerned on this, , the hair on the again of your neck ought to rise up,” Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., a member of the 1/6 committee, mentioned in a pre-hearing interview.

The 1/6 panel’s findings purpose to indicate that America’s custom of a peaceable switch of presidential energy got here near slipping away. They reconstruct how Trump refused to concede the 2020 election, unfold false claims of voter fraud and orchestrated an unprecedented private and non-private marketing campaign to overturn Biden’s victory.

Biden, in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, mentioned many viewers have been “going to be seeing for the primary time a variety of the element that occurred.”

“I feel it was a transparent, flagrant violation of the Structure,” he mentioned.

Trump, unapologetic, dismissed the investigation anew – and even declared on social media that Jan. 6 “represented the best motion within the historical past of our nation.”

The results of the approaching weeks of public hearings could not change hearts or minds in politically polarized America. However the committee’s investigation with 1,000 interviews is meant to face as a public report for historical past. A remaining report goals to offer an accounting of essentially the most violent assault on the Capitol because the British set hearth to it in 1814, and to make sure such an assault by no means occurs once more.

The riot left greater than 100 cops injured, many overwhelmed and bloodied, as the gang of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol. Not less than 9 individuals who have been there died throughout and after the rioting, together with a girl who was shot and killed by police.

Feelings are nonetheless uncooked on the Capitol, and safety might be tight for the hearings. Legislation enforcement officers are reporting a spike in violent threats in opposition to members of Congress.

In opposition to this backdrop, the committee is talking to a divided America, forward of the autumn midterm elections when voters resolve which social gathering controls Congress. Most TV networks have been carrying the listening to reside, however Fox Information Channel was not.

Amongst these within the viewers are a number of present and former cops who fought the mob in a determined battle to guard the Capitol and lawmakers who have been trapped collectively within the Home gallery in the course of the siege have stayed shut.

“We wish to remind folks, we have been there, we noticed what occurred,” mentioned Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. “We all know how shut we got here to the primary non-peaceful transition of energy on this nation.”

The committee chairman, civil rights chief Thompson opened the listening to with sweep of American historical past. saying he heard in these denying the stark actuality of Jan. 6 his personal expertise rising up in a time and place “the place folks justified the motion of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and lynching.”

He and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, outlined what the committee has realized concerning the occasions main as much as that brisk January day when Trump despatched his supporters to Congress to “struggle like hell” for his presidency as lawmakers undertook the sometimes routine job of certifying the earlier November’s outcomes.

One witness scheduled Thursday was documentary maker Nick Quested, who filmed the Proud Boys storming the Capitol – together with a pivotal assembly between the group’s then-chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and one other extremist group, the Oath Keepers, the night time earlier than in close by parking storage.

Court docket paperwork present that members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been discussing as early as November a must struggle to maintain Trump in workplace. Leaders each teams and a few members have since been indicted on uncommon sedition prices over the military-style assault.

Info from Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who urged her father to name off the rioters, was prone to be shared from her personal look earlier than the committee.

Within the weeks forward, the panel is anticipated to element Trump’s public marketing campaign to “Cease the Steal” and the personal stress he placed on the Justice Division to reverse his election loss – regardless of dozens of failed courtroom instances and his personal lawyer common testifying there was no fraud on a scale that might have tipped the leads to his favor.

The panel confronted obstacles from its begin. Republicans blocked the formation of an unbiased physique that might have investigated the Jan. 6 assault the way in which the 9/11 Fee probed the 2001 terror assault.

As an alternative, Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi ushered the creation of the 1/6 panel by Congress over the objections of Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell. She rejected Republican-appointed lawmakers who had voted on Jan. 6 in opposition to certifying the election outcomes, finally naming seven Democrats and two Republicans.

Home GOP Chief Kevin McCarthy, who has been caught up within the probe and has defied the committee’s subpoena for an interview, echoed Trump on Thursday. He known as the panel a “rip-off” and labeled the investigation a political “smokescreen” for Democrats’ priorities.

The hearings are anticipated to introduce People to a forged of characters, some well-known, others elusive, and to what they mentioned and did as Trump and his allies tried to reverse the election end result.

The general public will study concerning the actions of Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of employees, whose 2,000-plus textual content messages offered the committee with a snapshot of the real-time scramble to maintain Trump in workplace. Of John Eastman, the conservative legislation professor who was the architect of the unsuccessful scheme to influence Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification on Jan. 6. Of the Justice Division officers who threatened to resign quite than associate with Trump’s proposals.

The Justice Division has arrested and charged greater than 800 folks for the violence that day, the most important dragnet in its historical past.
What to know concerning the Home’s investigation forward of the hearings:

How we acquired right here

The Home panel was fashioned final summer time after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of an unbiased Jan. 6 fee that might have had an excellent variety of Republicans and Democrats and operated exterior of Congress. When that proposal failed, Speaker Nancy Pelosi created a Democratic-led panel to analyze the assault. The Home permitted the formation of the committee in June 2021, and the panel began its work inside weeks.

The Jan. 6 panel’s two Republicans – Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, each frequent critics of Trump – joined the committee at Pelosi’s invitation. Home GOP chief Kevin McCarthy pulled all of his members from the panel after Pelosi rejected some the members he chosen.

SEE ALSO: Election lies spawn lethal assault on US Capitol

Cheney, the panel’s vice chairwoman, and Kinzinger have firmly aligned themselves with the Democrats on the probe, saying their obligation to analyze rises above partisanship. Different Republicans decry the investigation as one other partisan effort to go after Trump.

For historical past

The hearings might be politically dangerous for Democrats, who face important headwinds from the GOP on this November’s midterm elections. Whereas many citizens are most involved about inflation, schooling or different family points, the Democrats on the committee – together with some who face robust reelection bids this fall – say they hope folks do not lose sight of what occurred on Jan. 6.

MORE: The Jan. 6 Capitol assault, by the numbers

The try to subvert democracy is not over, they argue, as many People nonetheless incorrectly imagine that Trump gained the election and a few states across the nation have moved to interchange election officers and politicians who licensed Biden’s win.

And Trump, who advised his supporters to “struggle like hell” on the rally the morning of the rebel, is contemplating one other White Home bid.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a member of the panel, mentioned Tuesday the measure of success can be “whether or not we’re capable of protect American democracy and our establishments – it is a long-term take a look at.”

Who might be there — and who will not

The committee hasn’t but introduced the main focus of every listening to, or who all the witnesses might be. However they’re anticipated to hunt public testimony from witnesses who have been revelatory when interviewed behind closed doorways. They’re anticipated to incorporate former Trump White Home aides who’ve been cooperative and others who’ve detailed Trump’s stress on state and federal authorities to overturn the election.

The committee has reached out to a bunch of Trump-era Justice Division officers, together with Jeffrey Rosen, the performing lawyer common on the time of the riot, about having them as witnesses, in keeping with an individual accustomed to the matter who insisted on anonymity to debate personal conversations.

WATCH: How a Black photographer felt capturing Jan. 6 chaos

Whereas the panel has talked to dozens of Trump aides and allies, they haven’t heard from a number of the most outstanding figures who have been closest to Trump that day – notably former chief of employees Mark Meadows, who declined to speak to the panel after negotiations broke down, and McCarthy, who additionally declined to cooperate.

The committee subpoenaed McCarthy and 4 different Home Republicans who interacted with Trump and the White Home earlier than and in the course of the assault, however they’ve thus far refused to conform.

A number of topic areas

The committee divided the investigation into completely different topic groups which can be anticipated to offer construction to the hearings.
One staff has seemed into the federal government’s response, together with the sluggish deployment of the Nationwide Guard and the struggles of Capitol Police, who have been overwhelmed because the rioters descended. One other staff has been trying into donors who helped finance the occasions of the day. Different topics of the investigation embody those that organized the rally on Jan. 6, the actions of the Justice Division, the function of home extremism and the unfold of misinformation on social media.

One of many investigative groups has targeted on Trump and those that tried to assist him overturn the election.

The 9 members of the committee have divided themselves up, as effectively, and every will lead completely different elements of the hearings. “The general public will hear from every of us,” mentioned Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., a member of the panel.

GOP response

Republicans are pushing again on the hearings earlier than they even start, calling the committee partisan and arguing that Democrats are targeted on the unsuitable priorities.

“They’re scrambling to vary the headlines, praying that the nation will deal with their partisan witch hunt as an alternative of our pocketbooks,” Home GOP Convention Chair Elise Stefanik of New York advised reporters Wednesday.

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio mentioned Democrats’ aim is “to finish the Electoral School and their aim is to cease President Trump from operating in 2024, plain and easy.”

It is not felony

Congress does not have the facility to press prices, so the hearings aren’t supposed to be a prosecution. However members of the panel have inspired the Justice Division to aggressively examine the assault, as effectively.

Lawmakers have additionally talked about the potential of sending a felony referral to the Justice Division recommending that sure people – even perhaps Trump – ought to be prosecuted. Such a referral would put Lawyer Common Merrick Garland and his prosecutors on the spot.

Although the scope of the division’s investigation stays unclear, it just lately issued a subpoena to former Trump adviser Peter Navarro that might sign Justice is widening its probe to look at the actions and data of people that labored instantly for the Republican president. The division beforehand issued subpoenas to folks linked to the Jan. 6 assault and the rallies in Washington that preceded the violence.

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Related Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.