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The Jan. 6 hearing, in under 7 minutes · Apple News Today

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  [MUSIC FADES IN]
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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, June 10th. I'm Shumita Basu.
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  January 6th was the result of an attempted coup led by Donald Trump. That was the message we heard over and over again last night, as the House committee that has spent a year now investigating the events of that day told the American public in a rare congressional hearing broadcast during prime time. Here's Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson.
• 0:04
  [START C-SPAN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Bennie Thompson: January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup. "A brazen attempt," as one rioter put it shortly after January 6th, "to overthrow the government." The violence was no accident. It represents Trump's last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.
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  [END C-SPAN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  A lot of what they laid out confirms existing reporting and won't sound especially new, but what was remarkable was the presentation itself, the voices and testimony, text messages and never-before-seen footage. The nine-person, bipartisan panel conducted more than a thousand interviews and reviewed 140,000 documents.
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  A key point the committee made was that Donald Trump, his lawyers, his aides, even members of his family knew early on that their lies about the election being stolen were just that, that they were lies, and that they continued to spread them to their followers anyway. Here's never-before-seen testimony of Trump's attorney general, Bill Barr.
• 0:09
  [START JANUARY 6TH COMMITTEE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Bill Barr: I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was [BLEEP]. And, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it, and that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did.
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  [END JANUARY 6TH COMMITTEE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  The committee even produced a tape of Trump's daughter Ivanka answering a question about Barr, saying her father lost the election and that there was no fraud.
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  [START PBS NEWSHOUR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Ivanka Trump: I respect Attorney General Barr. So, I accepted what he was saying.
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  [END PBS NEWSHOUR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Still, despite knowing that he had lost the election, the committee said Trump engaged in a massive effort to convince his supporters the election was stolen. And that he specifically called on them to come to the United States Capitol on January 6th and to fight for his cause. Members of the far-right groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers answered that call. The committee played video from rioters, who said they were there that day because Donald Trump asked them to be.
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  [START C-SPAN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Unidentified Speaker 1: And Trump asked us to come.
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  Unidentified Speaker 2: He personally asked for us to come to D.C. that day. And I thought, "For everything he's done for us, if this is the only thing he's gonna ask of me, I'll do it."
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  [END C-SPAN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  We also learned that, during the insurrection, as the mob was chanting to hang Mike Pence, the president was saying, quote, "Maybe our supporters have the right idea," and that Pence, quote, "deserves it." The AP reports how there was an audible gasp in the room when that detail was read aloud by Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a Republican and the vice chair of the committee.
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  The committee also revealed that several Republican members of Congress, including Representative Scott Perry, contacted the White House after the insurrection to seek presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the election results.
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  Some of the more emotional parts of the night came when the committee played video footage that we've never seen before of the attacks that day. One video montage was 11 minutes long and featured security and body camera footage from officers who were under attack. One of those officers testified, Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who says she suffered a brain injury while trying to hold the line against rioters. At one point, she was thrown to the ground, hitting her head on the concrete steps and blacking out. At another point, she described being alongside Officer Brian Sicknick. She said they were both pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed. She called it a "war scene."
• 0:24
  [START CNN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Officer Caroline Edwards: I couldn't believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. You know, they were bleeding, they were throwing up, they were… You know, they had I mean, I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people's blood.
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  [END CNN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  More than 100 police officers were injured that day. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died the following day. Reporters say there were several police officers and their families in the hearing room as Edwards was speaking, some of them tearing up, consoling each other as they watched the footage of officers being pummeled with flag poles and trash cans. A few months after the attack, the House voted to award Congressional Gold Medals to all police officers who responded that day. 406 lawmakers supported that measure. It was opposed by 21 Republicans. Congresswoman Liz Cheney spoke directly to some of those people in her party.
• 0:28
  [START C-SPAN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Congresswoman Liz Cheney: I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.
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  [END C-SPAN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Before the hearing, Trump posted on his social media platform that January 6th represents, quote, "the greatest movement in the history of our country to Make America Great Again."
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  In a way, these hearings are also a vehicle for the panel to deliver a strong message to a very specific person, Attorney General Merrick Garland. And that message is: pursue criminal charges against people who participated in this to make sure it doesn't happen again. The Justice Department has arrested and charged more than 800 people in connection to January 6th.
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  The committee made it clear that their investigation is still ongoing and that they plan to release a final report in September. This was the first of several public hearings scheduled for the weeks ahead. The next one is on Monday morning. We have more coverage, analysis, and reaction from last night's hearing on the Apple News app.
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  [GENTLE MUSIC]
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  Before we let you go, a few other major news updates worth knowing about this morning. There's been one important perspective missing from the coverage of the mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde: chief of police for the Uvalde school district. And now we have it. Pete Arredondo spoke to the "Texas Tribune," his first extended comments since the killings.
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  There's been criticism of law enforcement response for not breaking into the classroom to stop the shooter sooner. It was 77 minutes from the time the shooting began until officers shot the gunman. Arredondo says the locked classroom door held them back, that they couldn't kick it in. He says he tried dozens of different keys, but couldn't get one to unlock the door. Finally, officers were able to unlock it and kill the gunman.
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  In another reminder of the reality of gun violence in America, three people are dead following a shooting at a plant in western Maryland. The suspect is in custody. Investigators have not established a motive for the workplace shooting. It is the 254th mass shooting this year.
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  And a Grand Rapids, Michigan, police officer faces second-degree murder charges for shooting a Black man. Prosecutors say Officer Christopher Schurr was not acting in self-defense when he killed Patrick Lyoya during a traffic stop in April.
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  Coming up on our weekend interview show, "In Conversation," I speak with Gabriel Debenedetti from "New York" magazine. He's been talking to lots of Washington insiders and elected officials who are looking for a backup plan in case Joe Biden unexpectedly decides not to seek reelection in 2024. By the time the election rolls around, he'll be on the eve of his 82nd birthday.
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  [START APPLE NEWS IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
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  Gabriel Debenedetti: All of these people have said over and over, and I know I keep saying this, but it is an important dynamic, they keep saying, "We're supporting Joe Biden. This is ridiculous, but…" And the "but" is the interesting part.
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  [END APPLE NEWS IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
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  Check out that weekend listen. I'll be taking off all next week, but my colleague Mark Garrison will be filling in for me. He'll be with you on Monday with the news.
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