January 6 committee hearing summary
That’s it from us today. Here’s how the seventh public hearing held by the January 6 committee unfolded:
- Liz Cheney said Donald Trump attempted to contact one of the witnesses in the investigation after the committee’s last hearing. According to Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, the unnamed witness did not pick up Trump’s call. Instead, they contacted their lawyer, who in turn informed the committee about the call. The committee passed the information along to the justice department. “Let me say one more time: we will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said.
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The committee shared clips from Pat Cipollone’s closed-door testimony with investigators. Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, met with the committee for more than eight hours on Friday. He told the committee that he believed Trump should have conceded the election after the electoral college certified Joe Biden’s victory on 14 December. “If your question is, did I believe he should concede the election at a point in time? Yes, I did,” Cipollone said. The committee plans to show more of Cipollone’s testimony at its hearing next week.
- The committee argued Trump made a “deliberate” plan to call for a march to the Capitol on 6 January. Committee member Stephanie Murphy showed a draft tweet from Trump’s account reading, “I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!” The unsent and undated tweet, obtained from the National Archives, is stamped with the words “president has seen”.
- The committee detailed an “unhinged” meeting at the White House on 18 December. According to multiple witnesses, the meeting devolved into insults and shouting after some of Trump’s White House advisers attacked suggestions from Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn to seize voting machines in battleground states. The next day, Trump sent his tweet encouraging supporters to come to Washington on 6 January for a “wild” event.
- The committee showed how Trump’s 19 December tweet led far-right groups to zero in on 6 January to protest the election. Committee member Jamie Raskin displayed a Facebook post written by Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs on 19 December, saying he he had organized an “alliance” between the Oath Keepers and two other far-right militia groups, the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys. “We have decided to work together and shut this shit down,” Meggs said in the post.
- One of Trump’s former campaign advisers said his rhetoric was directly responsible for the deaths on 6 January. Brad Parscale told fellow campaign adviser Katrina Pierson he felt “guilty” about helping Trump win election in the days after the Capitol insurrection. “If I was Trump and I knew my rhetoric killed someone,” Parscale told Pierson in a text message. Pierson replied, “It wasn’t the rhetoric.” “Katrina,” Parscale said. “Yes it was.”
The blog will be back tomorrow with more analysis of the hearing and updates from Washington. See you then.
Updated
Analysis: January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a thread
Viewers learned of an “unhinged” White House meeting and rioters ready for war – but will it close the case against Trump?
“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”
Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday.
Trump allies “screamed” at aides who resisted seizing voting machines, January 6 panel hearsRead more
But what followed was a three-hour story about how American democracy, like a rickety old house, creaked and bent and struggled to hold itself together during a thunderstorm of political violence.
There was the tale of an Oval Office meeting that almost ended in fisticuffs. There was testimony from a former true believer in the “big lie” who joined the rampage at the Capitol. There were predictions that if Trump runs again, no one will be safe.
It was a chilling reminder that in a nation that has the genocide of Indigenous Americans, slavery, civil war and relentless gun violence in its cultural DNA, bloodshed is never far from the surface. Since white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been ascendent.
Jamie Raskin, another member of the panel, observed: “The problem of politicians whipping up mob violence to destroy fair elections is the oldest domestic enemy of constitutional democracy in America.”
He quoted Abraham Lincoln: “Mobs and demagogues will put us on a path to political tyranny.”
Read more:
Updated
The New York Times is reporting that Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com, will speak with the January 6 committee this week.
Byrne was referenced today in testimony from Pat Cipollone, Trump’s second White House counsel.
“First of all, I saw the Overstock person,” Cipollone said. “The first thing I did, I walked in, I looked at him, I said, ‘Who are you?’ And he told me.”
“I don’t think any of these people were providing the president with good advice. So I didn’t understand how they had gotten in.”
Byrne was at a meeting in December with Rudy Giuliani, former security adviser Michael Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell, during which the president was asked to name Powell a special counsel so she could work to overturn the election and have the federal government seize voting machines.
The committee confirmed Guardian exclusive reporting that Trump actually agreed to make Powell special counsel with oversight for seizing voting machines.
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – taking over the blog for the next few hours.
John Bolton, the former national security advisor, had an interesting reaction to today’s revelations. In response to CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s reflection that “one doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup”, Bolton responded that he disagrees, “as somebody who has helped plan” coups.
Jake Tapper: "One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup."
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 12, 2022
John Bolton: "I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coup d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work." pic.twitter.com/REyqh3KtHi
Updated
After the hearing concluded, Capitol insurrectionist Stephen Ayres approached some of the law enforcement officers who defended the building on January 6 and were present for today’s proceedings.
Ayres was seen shaking hands with Aquilino Gonell, a US Capitol Police sergeant who was beaten during the insurrection and can no longer work in law enforcement because of his injuries.
But one of the law enforcement officers who spoke to Ayres, former Metropolitan police department officer Michael Fanone, said he was unmoved by the man’s remorse.
“That apology doesn’t do shit for me. I hope it does shit for him,” Fanone told the AP.
I asked MPD office Fanone if he accepts Ayers apology and he said: “That apology doesn’t do shit for me, I hope it does shit for him.” https://t.co/iEvjkYotDa
— Farnoush Amiri (@FarnoushAmiri) July 12, 2022
Updated
In a bizarre, angry and “unhinged” White House meeting on 18 December 2020, outside advisers to Donald Trump screamed insults at presidential aides who were resisting their plan to seize voting machines and name a special counsel in pursuit of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.
The meeting – which the House January 6 committee in its public hearing on Tuesday described as a “heated and profane clash” – was held between those who believed the president should admit he lost the election to Joe Biden, and a group of outsiders referred to by some Trump advisers as “Team Crazy”.
They included Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; the retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser; and a lawyer for his campaign team, Sidney Powell.
In testimony to the House January 6 committee played at the hearing, Giuliani said that at the meeting he had called the White House lawyers and aides who disagreed with that plan “a bunch of pussies”.
Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer, said that Flynn “screamed at me that I was a quitter and kept standing up and turning around and screaming at me. I’d sort of had it with him so I yelled back, ‘Either come over or sit your effing ass back down.’”
Committee member Jamie Raskin, who co-led today’s hearing with Stephanie Murphy, condemned Donald Trump’s actions on January 6 in his closing statement.
“American carnage: that’s Donald Trump’s true legacy. His desire to overthrow the people’s election and seize the presidency, interrupting the counting of electoral college votes for the first time in American history, nearly toppled the constitutional order and brutalized hundreds and hundreds of people,” Raskin said.
“The Watergate break-in was like a cub scout meeting compared to this assault on our people and our institutions.”
Raskin argued that the most important element of the January 6 hearings is determining what actions can be taken now to prevent similar violence in the future.
“The crucial thing is the next step -- what this committee, what all of us will do to fortify our democracy against coups, political violence and campaigns to steal elections away from the people,” Raskin said.
“We need to defend both our democracy and our freedom with everything we have to declare that this American carnage ends here and now.”
In her closing statement, Liz Cheney also shared additional footage from Pat Cipollone’s interview with the committee behind closed doors on Friday.
In the clip, Cipollone said that he and a number of other senior White House officials were urging Donald Trump to call off the insurrection on January 6.
“I felt it was my obligation to continue to push for that. And others felt it was their obligation as well,” Cipollone said.
Asked whether it would have been possible for Trump to make some kind of public statement shortly after the insurrection started to call off the violence, Cipollone said yes, it would have been possible. Trump refused to do so for hours.
Cheney noted that Cipollone’s testimony will feature prominently in the committee’s hearing next week, which is expected to focus on Trump’s actions and words as the insurrection unfolded.
Trump tried to call January 6 witness, Cheney says
Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, said that Donald Trump himself tried to contact one of the witnesses in the investigation.
According to Cheney, the witness, who has not yet been publicly revealed as a participant in the committee’s investigation, declined the call.
Instead, the witness informed their lawyer about Trump’s attempted call. The lawyer then informed the January 6 committee, who passed the information along to the justice department.
“Let me say one more time: we will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said.
Cheney warned at the last hearing that at least two witnesses had been contacted by Trump allies urging them to stay loyal to the former president in their testimony to the committee.
Those efforts raise questions about potential witness tampering, which could open Trump and his allies up to criminal charges.
Former Oath Keepers spokesperson says January 6 could have 'started a new civil war'
Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers, said the Capitol insurrectionists had planned “an armed revolution” on January 6.
He noted that the insurrectionists set up a gallows for Mike Pence, as the vice-president oversaw the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
“I mean, people died that day,” Van Tatenhove said. “This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there.”
Capitol insurrectionist Stephen Ayres said his life has changed significantly since January 6. He lost his job and had to sell his house, in addition to pleading guilty to a federal charge.
“It changed my life -- not for the good. Definitely not for the better,” Ayres said.
Asked how he feels when he sees Donald Trump continuing to peddle lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Ayres said, “It makes me mad because I was hanging on every word.”
Stephen Ayres, who participated in the Capitol insurrection and has pleaded guilty to one federal charge of disorderly conduct inside a restricted building, said he closely followed Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election over social media.
Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, asked Ayres whether it would have made a difference to him if he knew that Trump had no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.
“Oh, definitely,” Ayres said. “Who knows? I may not have come down here then.”
Ayres said Trump had gotten “everybody riled up” by telling his supporters to come to Washington on January 6, as Congress certified Joe Biden’s victory in the election.
“We basically just followed what he said,” Ayres said.
Asked when he decided to leave the Capitol on January 6, Ayres said he departed after seeing Trump’s tweet asking his supporters to leave the building.
“Basically, when President Trump put his tweet out, we literally left right after that come out,” Ayres said. He added that he might have left before then if Trump had sent his tweet earlier.
Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers, said he decided to leave the organization after he heard members suggest that the Holocaust wasn’t real. (That is, of course, a baseless lie.)
“I can tell you that they may not like to call themselves a militia, but they are. They’re a violent militia,” Van Tatenhove told the January 6 committee.
The Oath Keepers were one of several violent militia groups that helped orchestrate the violence on January 6, alongside the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters.
Trump ally blames president's rhetoric for January 6 death
Brad Parscale, a former senior campaign adviser to Donald Trump, said he felt “guilty” about helping him win election in the days after the Capitol insurrection.
Parscale described Trump as “a sitting president asking for civil war,” in reference to his efforts to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Responding to Parscale’s text message, fellow Trump adviser Katrina Pierson said, “You did what you felt right at the time and therefore it was right.”
Parscale responded, “Yeah, but a woman is dead.” He later added, “If I was Trump and I knew my rhetoric killed someone.”
Pierson replied, “It wasn’t the rhetoric.”
“Katrina,” Parscale said. “Yes it was.”
Updated
The committee identified 10 Republican House members who attended a White House meeting on December 21 to discuss options for overturning the results of the 2020 election.
According to the committee, those members were:
- Brian Babin
- Andy Biggs
- Matt Gaetz
- Louie Gohmert
- Paul Gosar
- Andy Harris
- Jody Hice
- Jim Jordan
- Scott Perry
- Marjorie Taylor Greene (then a congresswoman-elect)
In his closed-door testimony before the January 6 committee, Pat Cipollone, Donald Trump’s former White House counsel, applauded the actions of Vice-President Mike Pence on that violent day.
Despite intense pressure from Trump and some of his allies, Pence refused to go along with the then-president’s plans to interfere with the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
After the Capitol attack, Pence returned to the Senate chamber on January 6 to finish the certification process, clearing the way for Biden to take the oath of office.
“I think the vice-president did the right thing. I think he did the courageous thing,” Cipollone told investigators on Friday.
“I think he did a great service to this country. And I think I suggested to somebody that he should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his actions.”
Trump made 'deliberate' plan to call for march to the Capitol, Murphy says
Committee member Stephanie Murphy shared a draft tweet written by Donald Trump encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol on January 6.
“I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House),” the draft tweet says. “Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!”
The draft tweet, obtained by the committee from the National Archives, was undated, but it was stamped with the words “president has seen”.
"PRESIDENT HAS SEEN"@January6thCmte obtained drafted, unsent tweet. pic.twitter.com/yYg3sKFv96
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 12, 2022
Murphy said, “The evidence confirms that this was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather a deliberate strategy decided upon in advance by the president.”
The committee also showed messages from some of the January 6 rally organizers indicating that they knew of the plans to march to the Capitol but kept them quiet.
Rally organizer Kylie Kremer said in one message that Trump was just going to call for the march to the Capitol “unexpectedly”.
Updated
The January 6 hearing resumed after a short break, and committee member Jamie Raskin shared additional information about collaboration between far-right extremist groups in the weeks leading up to the Capitol attack.
Raskin displayed a Facebook post written by Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs on 19 December, the same day that Donald Trump sent a tweet encouraging his supporters to come to Washington on January 6 for a “wild” event.
In the post, Meggs said he had organized an “alliance” between the Oath Keepers and two other far-right militia groups, the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys.
“We have decided to work together and shut this shit down,” Meggs said in the post.
Raskin said the committee had obtained phone records showing that Meggs spoke with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio for several minutes later that afternoon.
“The very next day, the Proud Boys got to work,” Raskin said.
The two witnesses for today’s hearing, Stephen Ayres and Jason Van Tatenhove, have now taken their seats in the hearing room.
Ayres participated in the Capitol insurrection and recently pleaded guilty to one federal charge of disorderly conduct inside a restricted building.
Court documents show that Ayres admitted to traveling to Washington on January 5 to protest against the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Two days before leaving, Ayres posted on Facebook saying, “Mainstream media, social media, Democrat party, FISA courts, Chief Justice John Roberts, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, etc....all have committed TREASON against a sitting U.S. president!!! All are now put on notice by ‘We The People!’”
Van Tatenhove previously served as a spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, one of the far-right groups that helped carry out the violence on January 6, although he left that role before the insurrection took place.
The select committee shared evidence indicating that Donald Trump’s 19 December tweet urging his supporters to come to Washington on January 6 led to increased attention on that particular day.
Committee member Jamie Raskin showed a request from the pro-Trump group Women for America First to change its Washington rally permit to January 6 after the then-president sent his tweet about the event.
An anonymous Twitter employee told the committee that Trump’s tweet coincided with an increase in violent rhetoric among his supporters online.
One Trump supporter promised there would be “a red wedding going down January 6”. That is a Game of Thrones reference to a wedding where many of the attendees are murdered.
The January 6 hearing included detailed descriptions of an alarming, tense meeting at the White House on 18 December, as Donald Trump continued to peddle lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
During the meeting, Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and former national security adviser Michael Flynn urged the then-president to seize voting machines in battleground states.
That idea was sharply criticized by senior administration officials, including Trump adviser Eric Herschmann, who said he considered the suggestions to be “nuts”.
The meeting then devolved into insults and shouting, as Powell’s group implied that critics like Herschmann did not have the courage to overturn the election.
Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, described the atmosphere in the West Wing on 18 December as “unhinged”.
Later that evening, Hutchinson took a photo of Meadows escorting Giuliani off White House grounds to ensure he did not “wander back to the mansion,” as she said.
The day after this explosive meeting, Trump sent a tweet encouraging his supporters to come to Washington on January 6. “Be there.. will be wild,” Trump said.
Cipollone denounced 'terrible idea' to seize voting machines
Pat Cipollone denounced an idea from Sidney Powell, one of Donald Trump’s campaign lawyers, to seize voting machines in battleground states after the 2020 election.
Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, said he believed the suggestion was a “terrible idea” that could sow distrust in American elections.
“To have the federal government seize voting machines, it’s a terrible idea,” Cipollone told the January 6 committee. “That is not how we do things in the United States. There’s no legal authority.”
Cipollone says he believed Trump should have conceded election
Pat Cipollone said he believed that Donald Trump should have conceded the election after members of the electoral college met to certify Joe Biden’s victory on December 14.
Cipollone, who previously served as Trump’s White House counsel, noted that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell expressed that belief as well after the electoral college meeting.
Cipollone told investigators, “If your question is, did I believe he should concede the election at a point in time? Yes, I did.”
The committee played a clip from its interview with Eugene Scalia, Donald Trump’s former labor secretary and son of the late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia.
Scalia told investigators that he called Trump in mid-December and advised him to concede the election, but the then-president refused to do so.
Several of Trump’s senior White House advisers told the committee that they concluded the election was over on December 14, when members of the electoral college gathered to certify Joe Biden’s victory.
Ivanka Trump, Trump’s eldest daughter and senior adviser, said she considered the election to be over by that point.
“I think it was my sentiment. Probably prior as well,” Trump said.
Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s former press secretary, told investigators, “In my view, on the conclusion of litigation was when I began to plan for life after the administration.”
Former White House spokesperson Judd Deere said he also tried to convince Trump that the election was settled after the electoral college met.
“He disagreed,” Deere said of Trump’s response.
Updated
Cipollone makes first (virtual) appearance at hearing
The committee showed the first clip from Pat Cipollone’s interview with investigators, which took place behind closed doors on Friday.
In the clip, Cipollone, who served as Donald Trump’s White House counsel, confirmed that he had seen no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
According to Cipollone, Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, assured him and William Barr, the former attorney general, that the then president would concede the election after the electoral college met to finalize Joe Biden’s victory.
Instead, Trump continued to peddle lies about election fraud, and those lies culminated in the deadly attack on the Capitol on January 6.
Updated
Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, who is co-leading today’s hearing alongside Jamie Raskin, outlined how Donald Trump rejected his advisers’ conclusion that he had fairly lost the 2020 election.
Instead, Trump sent a tweet on 19 December urging his supporters to come to Washington on 6 January for a “wild” event, which would be held as Congress convened to certify Joe Biden’s victory.
That tweet “served as a call to action and in some cases as a call to arms for many of President Trump’s most loyal supporters,” Murphy said.
“The president’s goal was to stay in power for a second term despite losing the election,” Murphy said. “The assembled crowd was one of the tools to achieve that goal.”
Cheney: 'Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind'
Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, said the panel’s first six hearings have shown how Donald Trump’s campaign advisers and senior administration officials repeatedly told him there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
So, Cheney said, the strategy for defending Trump’s actions has now shifted to arguing that the former president was manipulated by his campaign lawyers into embracing lies about the election.
“President 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 said.
Cheney reiterated that Trump was told “over and over again” in the weeks leading up to January 6 that he had fairly lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.
“No rational or sane man in his position could disregard that information and reach the opposite conclusion,” Cheney said. “And Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind.”
Updated
Cheney confirms committee will share clips of Cipollone's testimony
Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, confirmed that the panel will share clips from Pat Cipollone’s interview with investigators during today’s hearing.
Cipollone, who previously served as Donald Trump’s White House counsel, spoke to the committee behind closed doors for more than eight hours on Friday.
“If you’ve watched these hearings, you’ve heard us call for Mr Cipollone to come forward to testify,” Cheney said. “He did. And Mr Cipollone’s testimony met our expectations.”
Jamie Raskin, who will co-lead today’s hearing alongside Stephanie Murphy, told NBC News today that Cipollone corroborated key elements of the testimony that the committee has already heard about the attack on the Capitol.
January 6 hearing gets underway
The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has now kicked off its seventh public hearing.
The hearing is expected to focus on Donald Trump’s potential ties to far-right extremist groups who helped carry out the violence at the Capitol on January 6.
The blog will have more updates and analysis as the hearing unfolds, so stay tuned.
Khiara M Bridges, professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, sharply criticized the supreme court’s legal reasoning for overturning Roe v Wade.
Testifying before the Senate judiciary committee, Bridges explained how the conservative justices who overturned Roe in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health argued that the 14th amendment only protects rights that were deeply rooted in history in 1868, when the amendment was ratified.
Bridges said, “The majority concludes that abortion rights are not part of the nation’s history and tradition.”
That reasoning, Bridges said, could imperil other rights that were not established in 1868 – including the right to access contraception, the right for same-sex couples to marry and the right to participate in consensual intimate relationships without fear of prosecution.
“The method of constitutional interpretation that the majority uses in the Dobbs decision should frighten everyone who holds dear these rights that are necessary for people to live fully human lives with dignity in this country,” she told the committee.
Joe Biden’s falling poll ratings among Democrats will likely not be helped by a report that he may be planning to go ahead with a controversial nomination of an anti-abortion attorney to a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky.
According to an unnamed source with knowledge of the White House’s plans, Biden is minded to forge ahead with the appointment despite strong opposition from his party and from reproductive rights groups who are still reeling from last month’s supreme court ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion.
The White House is still refusing to comment on the potential appointment of Chad Meredith, a member of the conservative anti-choice Federalist Society, despite a tranche of leaked emails published by the Louisville Courier-Journal last month that he is the president’s pick for the soon-to-be vacant district court seat in eastern Kentucky.
Speculation is mounting that appointing Meredith could be part of a deal with the senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (of Kentucky) to get Biden’s last slate of judicial nominees approved ahead of the November midterms, when Democrats fear they could lose control of both chambers.
Eight national abortion rights groups issued a rare joint statement calling Meredith “unacceptable at any time, but especially on the heels of six Supreme Court justices taking away a fundamental right from millions of people”.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton asked the witnesses at the Senate judiciary committee whether they condemn recent violence against anti-abortion groups.
The lieutenant governor of Illinois, Juliana Stratton, replied that she condemns all violence, including that committed against abortion providers and clinics.
Stratton noted that incidents of arson, bombings and assaults carried out against abortion clinics and providers have increased exponentially in the past two years.
Responding to Cotton’s question, Denise Harle, the director of the Center For Life at the Alliance Defending Freedom, said, “I do condemn all violence, and I would just note that abortion is an act of violence against the most innocent and vulnerable human beings.”
Khiara M Bridges, professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, then said, “I condemn violence, and I would like to note that forced birth is an act of violence.”
Senate judiciary committee holds hearing on end of Roe
The Senate judiciary committee is holding a hearing on the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protections for abortion access.
Dr Colleen P McNicholas, the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, was one of the five witnesses testifying before the committee.
McNicholas told the committee that the reversal of Roe had created “two nations,” one where Americans still have reproductive rights and another where politicians “have effectively appointed themselves as decisionmakers over our bodies, our lives and our futures”.
She noted that Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Illinois had seen appointments triple overnight in the wake of the Roe reversal. That is in addition to the clinic’s already double-booked schedule, caused by the abortion bans in Oklahoma and Texas.
“Today, I’m here to speak for patients -- the patients I serve every day, people from across the Midwest and South who navigate a ridiculous obstacle course just to access basic care,” McNicholas said.
Updated
The January 6 committee was originally expected to hold another hearing on Thursday detailing Donald Trump’s response to the insurrection as it unfolded.
But a committee aide said yesterday that the panel would hold only one hearing this week, and members are instead expected to reconvene next week.
The aide said the delay was meant to give committee members an opportunity to review “new and important information” that has been received “on a daily basis” as the hearings unfold.
But the committee has not provided any further details about the next hearing, which could be the panel’s last hearing for the time being.
Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, suffered heavy setbacks in his contempt of Congress case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed his motion to delay his trial, scheduled for next week, and ruled he could not make two of his principal defences to a jury.
The flurry of adverse rulings from District of Columbia district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – marked a significant knock back for Bannon, who was charged with criminal contempt after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House January 6 select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters in 2021.
Nichols refused in federal court in Washington DC, to delay Bannon’s trial date set for next Monday, saying that he saw no reason to push back proceedings after he severely limited the defences that the former Trump aide’s lawyers could present to a jury.
The defeats for Bannon stunned his lead lawyer, David Schoen, who asked, aghast: “What’s the point of going to trial if we don’t have any defences?”
Read the Guardian’s full report:
Raskin says Cipollone corroborated Hutchinson's testimony
Today’s January 6 hearing is expected to feature clips from the select committee’s interview last week with Pat Cipollone, who served as Donald Trump’s White House counsel.
Cipollone met with investigators behind closed doors for more than eight hours on Friday, after he was subpoenaed by the committee last month.
Jamie Raskin, who will co-lead today’s hearing with Stephanie Murphy, said Cipollone corroborated key elements of the testimony already heard by the committee. That includes the testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
“Cipollone has corroborated almost everything that we’ve learned from the prior hearings,” Raskin told NBC News today. “I certainly did not hear him contradict Cassidy Hutchinson. … He had the opportunity to say whatever he wanted to say, so I didn’t see any contradiction there.”
Hutchinson’s explosive testimony at a committee hearing last month included detailed descriptions of Trump’s outrage on January 6 and in the weeks leading up to the Capitol attack, as he peddled lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
According to Hutchinson, Trump was informed that some of his supporters were carrying weapons on January 6 and still told them to march to the Capitol, as lawmakers met to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the election.
Hutchinson said that Trump planned to go to the Capitol with his supporters and tried to grab for the steering wheel of his car when his team told him that he would instead return to the White House after his speech on January 6.
An aide to the January 6 committee said the members would focus on a meeting held on 18 December 2020, with Donald Trump and members of his legal team, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
At that point, there was a growing schism within Trump’s inner circle between those who believed it was time for the president to accept his electoral defeat and those who pushed even more radical actions such as seizing voting machines or appointing a special counsel to investigate the election.
Hours after the meeting, Trump sent a tweet that Murphy perceived as a “siren call” to militia groups that 6 January 2021 would be the “last stand” in a sprawling effort to overturn the results of an election he lost.
“Big protest in DC on January 6th,” Trump wrote in that December tweet. “Be there, will be wild!”
The tweet was a “pivotal moment that spurred a change of events including a pre-planning by the Proud Boys”, the aide said.
January 6 hearing to examine Trump's potential ties to extremist groups
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol will hold its next public hearing this afternoon.
The panel will examine Donald Trump’s potential links to far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, whose members participated in the January 6 insurrection.
Committee members have said the hearing will particularly focus on Trump’s 19 December tweet urging his supporters to come to Washington for a “wild” event on 6 January, the day that Congress was scheduled to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Committee member Stephanie Murphy, who will lead today’s hearing alongside Jamie Raskin, said Sunday that Trump’s tweet served as a “siren call” to far-right extremists.
“People will hear the story of that tweet and then the explosive effects it had in Trump world and specifically among the domestic violence extremist groups, the most dangerous political extremists in the country at that point,” Raskin said on Sunday.
The hearing will get under way at 1pm ET, so stay tuned.
Here’s what else is happening today:
- The Senate judiciary committee is holding a hearing on the end of Roe. The lieutenant governor of Illinois, Juliana Stratton, will testify alongside four other witnesses.
- Biden is meeting with the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The two leaders will discuss “their visions for North America and their efforts to address global challenges such as food security, continued cooperation on migration, and joint development efforts”, per the White House.
- The White House will host the Congressional Picnic this afternoon. After the picnic, Biden will fly from Washington to Jerusalem.
The blog will have more updates and analysis coming up.
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