The January 6 Select Committee has released previously unseen footage of congressional leaders phoning officials for help during the assault.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer can be seen talking to governors in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Later the footage shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders as the group asks the acting attorney general for help.
"They're breaking the law in many different ways — quite frankly at the instigation of the president of the United States," Pelosi is heard saying at one point.
The committee is starting to sum up its findings that Republican Trump, after losing the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Biden's victory.
The result was the mob storming of the Capitol.This week's hearing is to be the final presentation from lawmakers before the midterm elections. But staff members say the investigation continues.
The Jan. 6 committee has been meeting for more than a year, set up by the House after Republican senators blocked the formation of an outside panel similar to the 9/11 commission set up after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Even after the launch of its high-profile public hearings last summer, the Jan. 6 committee continued to gather evidence and interviews.Under committee rules, the Jan. 6 panel is to produce a report of its findings, likely in December. The committee will dissolve 30 days after publication of that report, and with the new Congress in January.
