The first hearing lasted a tight two hours. Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivered strong opening statements. The audience watched a lot of clips of testimony, including former Attorney General William Barr, as well as footage from the day itself.

Perhaps the most compelling testimony, though, came from Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards.

The committee will reconvene Monday with a less prime time-friendly start of 10 a.m. EST. For the latest coverage, check out the Washington Examiner.

Former South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy was hoping the House Jan. 6 select committee would produce something new and exciting.

The former congressman pointed to three possible new developments the committee might have produced: the notion that former President Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, that he knew claims over rampant voter fraud weren’t “dispositive,” and that he was pleased with chants calling for the hanging of his vice president.

“If, in fact, the president knew he lost, if, in fact, he knew he lost the election — that’s new. I’ve never heard him say that. So if they have testimony on that, I think that’s important if he knew the fraud was not dispositive,” Gowdy said. “The thing I really highlighted, Brett, Martha, if he really thought that hanging Mike Pence was a good idea, then that is both provocative and new.”

Still, Gowdy cautioned that the panel still has yet to deliver proof of those findings and echoed fellow guest Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley’s point about whether the panel was being fair to allies of Trump.

“But to professor Turley’s point, it also has to be fair, and when you get to call all the witnesses and you get to select which excerpts to read or play or which videos — ours is an adversarial system. I mean, every major court decision is based on adversary, so there needs to be more of that for the jury to buy it,” he continued.

Gowdy also downplayed the clip of former Attorney General William Barr calling Trump’s claims of election fraud “bulls***. “

“Speaking of AG Barr, it’s compelling. It’s probative; it’s just not new. So what I was looking for, me, we all know that Bill Barr, he wrote a book about it. So … I’m looking for things that are both probative and new,” Gowdy stressed.

Caroline Edwards, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who was injured while defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, recalled graphic details of the violence that day during her testimony Thursday evening.

“What I saw, which was something like a scene out of movies — I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground,” she told the Jan. 6 committee, adding, “I was slipping in people’s blood.”

“I saw friends with blood all over their faces,” she said. “I was, you know, I was catching people, you know. It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle. You know, I’m trained to detain subjects and handle them, but I’m not combat trained.”

Rep. Liz Cheney said GOP Rep. Scott Perry was one of “multiple” lawmakers who asked former President Donald Trump for a pardon because of their involvement in efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.

“As you will see, Rep. Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election,” Cheney said.

A spokesman for Perry, who is now chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, vehemently denied the allegation.

“Laughable, ludicrous, and a thoroughly soulless lie,” he told the Hill.

Fox News’s coverage of tonight’s hearing is somewhat unorthodox, albeit understandable given their ratings in these slots.

The main channel has proceeded with normal programming, Tucker Carlson at 8 p.m. and Sean Hannity at 9 p.m., declining to provide live coverage. Carlson during his show said, “This is the only hour on an American news channel that won’t be covering their propaganda live. They are lying, and we are not going to help them do it.”

Meanwhile, their main “news” journalists, including Brett Baier, have been relegated to Fox Business to cover the proceedings.

Footage taken on the day of the riot showed some of the U.S. Capitol Police officers breaking down in tears as they tried to hold back the mob of rioters.

The shocking images were seen in body camera and documentary footage.

The Proud Boys, a militaristic right-wing group, were motivated by former President Donald Trump’s December tweet calling his supporters to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, according to Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson.

“We have obtained substantial evidence showing that the president’s Dec. 19th tweet, calling his followers to D.C. on Jan. 6, energized individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups,” Thompson said during the hearing.

Nick Quested, a filmmaker who was embedded with the Proud Boys, gave testimony.

Caroline Edwards, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who was injured during the Jan. 6 riot, recounted the abuse and accusations she faced in the aftermath.

Edwards said she believes her grandfather, who fought in the Korean War, would be proud of how she stood her ground even though she was disparaged in the months after for defending the Capitol and the lawmakers within.

“They dared to question my honor,” she said in her opening witness statement. “They dared to question my loyalty and questioned my duty. I’m a proud American who sacrificed everything to make sure that the America my grandfather fought for is here for many years.”

Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tweeted shortly after the distressing new footage was aired during the hearing.

He called it “stunning” and “powerful.”

To round out the first hour of the hearing, the Jan. 6 committee showed extensive never-before-seen footage of the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The footage, much of which came from police body cameras, was overlaid with police radio communication.

Video of the rioters was interspersed with footage from inside the House chamber, showing what lawmakers were doing while the rioters closed in.

Following the video, the hearing entered a 10-minute recess.

The House Judiciary GOP tweeted out a video of former President Donald Trump’s speech to a rally on the Ellipse near the White House that preceded the riot, in which he told them to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” captioned: “Why aren’t Democrats showing this clip?”

Shocking never-before-seen footage from the Capitol on Jan. 6 was played to the hearing.

The footage showed the riot breaking through the barriers outside the Capitol, as well as the chilling scenes inside the building.

Rep. Liz Cheney played clips of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recounting calls he had with then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, and then his recollection of a call with Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Milley said that Pence was “very direct” and “very firm” that something had to be done about the ongoing riot. In his call with Meadows, the chief of staff’s concern was that Trump looked to be in control.

“We need to establish a narrative that, you know, that the president is still in charge” Milley recounted Meadows saying.

A brief clip of Jared Kushner’s testimony to the committee was shown.

In it, the former president’s son-in-law dismissed threats from the White House counsel to resign before Jan. 6 as “whining.”

Testimony from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley was played by Cheney. In the clip, Milley was heard saying Pence had taken the lead on activating the National Guard in the wake of the riots.

He then quoted former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as having said to him: “We have to kill the narrative that the VP is making all the decisions. We need to establish that [Trump] is in charge.”

Rep. Liz Cheney said in her opening remarks that former President Donald Trump “engaged in a relentless effort to pressure Vice President Pence, both in private and in public.”

She said Trump asked Pence to do something that was “illegal and unconstitutional.”

A video was then played of Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff. He was heard saying, “He ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath, and that’s what he articulated publicly and I think that’s what he felt.”

On Jan. 6, Pence was at the Capitol to preside over the counting of electoral votes. Despite pressure from Trump, Pence did not try to send the results back to certain states Trump lost in November over claims of election fraud. In fact, he sent a letter to Congress saying he did not have the power to reject Electoral College votes, dealing a blow to Trump’s hopes to deny a presidential victory to Joe Biden.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) teased that the Jan. 6 committee hearings would present evidence that former President Donald Trump had a “seven-part plan” to overturn the election.

“All Americans should keep in fact in mind this fact: On the morning of Jan. 6, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power,” she said in her opening statement. “Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.”

Cheney is the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee.

The bombshell hearings are underway.

During an opening speech by Rep. Liz Cheney, a video of Ivanka Trump was shown saying she supported Attorney General Bill Barr in asserting that the Justice Department was unable to find evidence proving a stolen election due to fraud.

“I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying,” she said.

Chairman Bennie Thompson opened the prime-time hearing of the Jan. 6 Committee showing officials close to former President Donald Trump testifying that they warned him against trying to overturn the 2020 election, starting with then Attorney General Bill Barr.

Thompson displayed a clip of Barr calling the Trump’s claims of election fraud “bulls***.”

On the day the Jan. 6 committee hearings began, the American Conservative Union launched a website to publish information about the attack.

The site, J6Facts.org, was created to “debunk the lies told by the corrupt members of the January 6th Committee,” according to a Twitter account by the same name. This Twitter account also seemingly launched Thursday, issuing its first tweet that day. As of this report, the account has 239 followers.

“It’s a place to go and get the facts,” ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp explained. He also claimed it will be run by political operatives.

Schlapp, who is also in charge of organizing the Conservative Political Action Conference, shared a tweet from Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson, who railed against the site.

“It would be a shame [if] the CPAC pro-Trump propaganda account [J6 Facts] became filled with actual 1/6 facts,” Wilson said. “A damn shame.”

Click here to read more.

Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is expected to call for transparency about the riot at the Capitol in his opening statement at tonight’s hearing, citing continued threats to democracy.

The entire prereleased excerpt is below:

“We can’t sweep what happened under the rug. The American people deserve answers. So I come before you this evening not as a Democrat, but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The Constitution doesn’t protect just Democrats or just Republicans. It protects all of us: ‘We the People.’ And this scheme was an attempt to undermine the will of the people.

“So tonight, and over the next few weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day. But our work must do much more than just look backwards. Because our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. There are those in this country who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great: devotion to the Constitution, allegiance to the rule of law, our shared journey to build a more perfect Union.

“January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. The world is watching what we do here. America has long been expected to be a shining city on a hill. A beacon of hope and freedom.

“A model for others — when we’re at our best. How can we play that role when our own house is in such disorder?

“We must confront the truth with candor, resolve, and determination. We need to show that we are worthy of the gifts that are the birthright of every American.”

President Joe Biden said Thursday that the events surrounding the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, were a violation of the Constitution.

The comments were made in California ahead of a meeting Biden had with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and hours before the House Jan. 6 committee holds its first primetime hearing.

“I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Biden said.

“I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. And there’s a lot of questions — who’s responsible, who’s involved. I’m not going to make a judgment on that, but I just want to know that — want you to know that we’re going to probably be — a lot of Americans are going to be seeing for the first time some of the detail that occurred.”

Click here to read more.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday that Republicans will request the same information from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that they are seeking from Speaker Nancy Pelosi pertaining to security failures that led to the breach of the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

The comments by McCarthy (R-CA) come just ahead of the Jan. 6 select committee’s prime-time hearing in which the panel has asserted it would reveal new information on the events surrounding the deadly siege.

Top Trump allies, including McCarthy, have long blasted the panel, alleging it was a “partisan witch hunt,” with some GOP lawmakers arguing that the committee has failed to place a strong enough focus on security problems, with some alleging that Pelosi (D-CA) may have had the authority to authorize additional resources to aid and prevent the attack.

McCarthy has repeatedly alleged that Pelosi has failed to provide information related to her office’s decisions on Capitol security ahead of (and on the day of) the attack and may have had knowledge of “potential security threats to the Capitol” in the days leading up to the riot. He asserted that Republicans will release their own report on the GOP investigation led by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) that they argue will “answer the questions that this select committee is ignoring.”

Click here to read more.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) encouraged citizens to tune into Thursday night’s hearing, arguing that it was “too important of an event in our history to ignore.”

“My hope is that everyone will take time to watch these hearings. I think that this is just too important of an event in our history to ignore, and too important to ignore the consequences for would it could mean in the future if we don’t tackle some of the issues that led up to it,” Luria told NBC news.

Luria, a member on the Select Committee, said that the committee’s goal was to “get to the truth” of the events that occurred on Jan. 6 and provide recommendations for further actions to prevent any similar events in the future.

“The goal is to get to the truth, to get to the bottom of the facts for things that led up to the events of Jan. 6, the events of that day and since. We are a legislative committee, we are also able to ultimately provide recommendations to prevent something like this from happening in the future,” Luria told NBC news.

Luria is currently running for re-election for Virginia’s 2nd congressional district.

A least three of the Capitol Police officers that responded to the riots at the Capitol on Jan. 6 will attend Thursday’s hearing in-person.

Harry Dunn, Daniel Hodges and Aquilino Gonell plan to walk in with three widows, Erin Smith, Serena Liebengood and Sandra Garz, of officers who died in the days and months following the attack, according to NBC.

“Looking forward to hear about how many of our elected officials and respected leaders disregarded their oath to protect our country, the constitution and our democracy,” Gonell told the outlet in a text message. “How they misled and continue misleading the American people for political gain and favors.”

Former President Donald Trump took to social media ahead of Thursday’s prime-time hearing, calling Jan. 6 “not simply a protest” but rather the “greatest movement in the history” of the country.

“The Unselect Committee didn’t spend one minute studying the reason that people went to Washington, D.C. in massive numbers,” Trump wrote Wednesday morning on Truth Social. “January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.”

Trump wrote a series of critical posts on the social media site, which he launched after being kicked off Twitter, categorizing the Jan. 6 committee as a “political hoax.”

(Graeme Jennings / Washington Examiner)

Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the Trump administration, has parted ways with her lawyer for a new one ahead of the public January 6 hearings.

Hutchinson’s new lawyer, Jody Hunt, served as chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and has also served as the head of Department of Justice’s Civil Division. The change hints at an increased willingness from Hutchinson to cooperate fully with the Jan. 6 select committee’s hearings, a person familiar with her thinking told Politico.

The panel is expected to call her in for live testimony during a public hearing.

FBI

As the Democrat-led committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 begins its public hearings, the person who planted pipe bombs the night before outside both the Republican and Democratic national committee headquarters in Washington remains unknown and at large.

Now, almost a year and a half since the incident, the Washington Examiner learned that a top FBI official said last month that the bureau could not provide any information about the possible use of confidential human sources to solve the case. The FBI official said the bureau had carried out over 1,000 interviews, compiled just under 40,000 videos, and analyzed roughly 450 tips. The bureau also said solving the mystery continues to be a top priority for the FBI, as well as for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, and the Capitol Police.

The dual bomb threats were neutralized by authorities on Jan. 5, 2021, but the identity of the suspect remains one of the biggest mysteries stemming from the events surrounding the Capitol riot. One pipe bomb was placed in an alley behind the RNC headquarters, while the other was placed next to a park bench near the DNC headquarters. The bomb behind the RNC was discovered at 12:45 p.m. and the one outside the DNC some 22 minutes later on the day of the Capitol riot.

The Justice Department says that more than 800 defendants have been arrested in relation to the Capitol riot, including over 250 defendants charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers. But the FBI says it hasn’t figured out who the attempted pipe bomber was.

Click here to read more.

Two top Georgia election officials could make an appearance in televised hearings with the Jan. 6 committee later this month.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling are reportedly in talks to to speak with the committee publicly in an upcoming hearing, a source told Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Raffensperger has been a key testimony, as the committee has been keenly interested in information surrounding a phone call he had with then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 2, 2021 where Trump told him to “find” enough votes to ensure his victory in the state.

He has previously interviewed with the committee privately and turned over relevant documents related to the 2020 election.

Both Raffensperger and Sterling were issued “friendly” subpoenas to testify, meaning they were willing to testify but needed to be legally compelled, sources told POLITICO.

JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Republican candidate for Michigan governor Ryan Kelley was arrested by the FBI on Thursday and was taken into custody while at his home.

The FBI arrested Kelley on misdemeanor charges related to his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The Republican candidate was seen at the Capitol on the day of the attack, although he has maintained that he never entered the building.

“Mr. Kelley is to make his initial appearance this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan,” Bill Miller, a spokesman for the D.C. Attorney’s Office, told the Washington Examiner. “A complaint is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”

Kelley was arrested on charges of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and engaging in disorderly and disruptive conduct on restricted grounds during the Jan. 6 riot, according to the case filing. He was also charged with knowingly engaging in acts of violence against a person or property while in a restricted building or on restricted grounds.

Click here to read more.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) took aim at Fox News, saying that the outlet is on its way to becoming the “propaganda machine of the hard right” for not covering the Jan. 6 hearings live.

“Fox News is rapidly becoming a propaganda machine of the hard right, and it is as plain as day that they are scared of their viewers learning the truth about January 6,” Schumer said Wednesday, according to NBC News.

Fox News has said that it will “cover the hearings as news warrants,” opting to stick with its normal Thursday lineup of hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, a spokesperson told CNN’s Brian Stelter.

Fox Business Network, Fox News Digital, and other affiliates will carry the hearing with Fox News’s Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum co-anchoring.

ABC, CNN, NBC, and other broadcast networks have already announced plans to cover the first prime-time hearings live.

(Screenshot/ABC)

The View host Joy Behar said Tuesday that the Jan. 6 committee‘s prime-time hearing should be done in “the most dramatic way” so that viewers will want to watch.

“My feeling is that they must present this in the most dramatic way they can so that people will continue to watch,” Behar told her co-hosts. “Maybe something like that will slap them into, ‘Wow, is that true?’”

Click here to read the full report.

Credit: Gage Skidmore/The Star News Network, CC BY-SA 2.0 License

A Republican candidate in the Arizona Senate race questioned the origins of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, contributing to conspiracies that the riot had been staged.

Blake Masters, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump, had met with conservative activists at a Phoenix IHOP restaurant on March 30, where he was asked if he would support investigating U.S. intelligence operations to uncover the federal government’s “nefarious activities,” to which he replied, “absolutely,” according to a recording of the meeting obtained by CNN.

Click here to read the full report.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Jan. 6 committee’s first prime-time hearing on findings from its investigation into the deadly riot at the Capitol is slated to take place on Thursday evening, with sources familiar with the efforts asserting it will provide new information pertaining to the siege.

The hearing is expected to feature testimony from Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was injured during the attack, and documentarian Nick Quested, who is expected to speak on his experience being embedded with members of the Proud Boys in the days leading up to the attack.

One select committee aide told reporters that the hearing will “serve as a sort of an opening statement” aimed at previewing what to expect in the hearings, bring “the American people back to the reality of that violence,” and depict the gravity of the situation.

Click here to read the full report.