Then-President Donald Trump knew the Capitol building had been breached by supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, at the time he posted a tweet slamming Vice President Mike Pence for not having “the courage” to overturn the election results.
The Capitol building was breached at 2:13 p.m., just 11 minutes before Trump sent the tweet criticizing his No. 2, who was inside the Capitol as protesters stormed the building, according to evidence examined by the Jan. 6 committee. That tweet, lawmakers argue, fueled anger toward Pence and painted him as guilty.
REPORTER REVEALS PHOTOS SHOWING PENCE HIDING DURING CAPITOL RIOT
“We have the vice president, who was one window pane away from the mob,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told NBC News. “We notice right away, you know, within 90 seconds, the vice president is being evacuated right after that Trump tweet. [Trump] knew that there was violence, and he still tweeted the vice president didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary.”
Minutes before the building was breached, Pence was presiding over the Senate as members met to certify the results of the 2020 election. Once it was clear the building was breached, the vice president was evacuated from the building.
Recently released photos from that day show Pence in his ceremonial office with his wife and daughter after the Secret Service escorted him from the Senate floor. Shortly after, he was moved to an underground loading dock area and refused to get in a vehicle to leave the Capitol.
In one of the photos, an aide is seen showing Pence the tweet from Trump in which he criticized the vice president for not trying to overturn the results of the election, which Trump had publicly asserted several times Pence could do. Pence repeatedly refused the request.
Meanwhile, protesters inside the Capitol building were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” However, Pence has downplayed the events of the riot as “one day in January” and critiqued the media’s focus on it as being a way to distract from the Biden administration’s “failed agenda.”
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The new details surrounding Pence’s experience inside the Capitol during the attack came one day before the select committee is set to hold its third hearing, focusing on what lawmakers describe as a “pressure campaign” on the vice president to ”unilaterally change the results of the election in the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6,” a committee aide told reporters this week.
The select committee will reconvene at 1 p.m. Thursday and will hear from two witnesses: Greg Jacob, the former counsel to the vice president, and Michael Luttig, a retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals and an informal adviser to Pence.
