What the Jan. 6 hearings revealed about Trump’s actions before and after the Capitol attack

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to release its final report later this month in a public presentation in Washington, D.C.

The committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and held nine public hearings investigating aspects of what led up to the Jan. 6 attack, what occurred minute by minute that day, and the aftermath.

CNN reported that the committee is considering whether to recommend criminal charges to the Justice Department for former President Donald Trump and some of his former aides. Such recommendations carry no legal weight; they don’t require the Justice Department to file charges. Trump is fighting a subpoena from the committee, whose power expires when the new Congress convenes in January.

Norm Eisen, who co-wrote a report at the Brookings Institution think tank that laid out potential criminal charges for Trump, said a criminal referral is more than symbolic. The referral could influence prosecutorial decision-making. Also, because the committee is bipartisan, a referral would defy criticism that any charges came from Biden’s handpicked Justice Department, Eisen said. 

"The committee has a vitally important role to play in explaining to the public why this is merited as a matter of evidence and law," said Eisen, who worked in the Obama White House.

PolitiFact watched all the committee’s hearings, here are some of the highlights.

The committee presented evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, but publicly denied it.

As early as July 2020, according to what Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale told investigators, Trump talked about declaring victory regardless of the actual votes.

As results were still being tallied, Trump falsely claimed victory.

"We will win this," Trump said. "As far as I’m concerned, we already have."

But privately, Trump acknowledged that he lost, testimony from multiple White House officials showed.

About a week after the election, then-White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah said she walked into the Oval Office. Trump was watching Biden on the television.

"He said, ‘do you believe I lost to this effing guy?’" Farah told investigators.

White House officials and Attorney General Bill Barr told the committee that they also told Trump that there was no election fraud.

Multiple hearings showed how Trump was intimately involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, from urging Georgia election officials to "find" just enough additional Trump votes, to pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject results from particular states. 

Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said each element had something in common.

"Donald Trump participated in each substantially, and personally oversaw or directed the activity of those involved," she said.

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who wanted Trump to win re-election, rebuffed Trump’s personal plea to call a special session to revoke the results that confirmed Biden’s victory. 

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told the committee that Trump’s claims about thousands of ineligible voters (underage or dead people) were unsubstantiated. "They said that there were over 66,000 underage voters, we found that there were actually zero," Raffensperger said.

On Dec. 14, 2020, as battleground states certified their presidential election results, Republican state lawmakers and party officials supporting Trump decided that they, too, would gather as purported electors to sign certificates falsely attesting that Trump had won and submit them for approval by Congress.

This was part of a plan by Trump aides to give Pence a pretext for setting aside the official Electoral College votes Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, tried to organize the fake slates of electors.

By mid-December 2020, Trump was running out of options. He had lost 60 out of 61 court challenges to state election results. His top campaign and White House advisers were telling him there was no evidence of significant fraud and that he should prepare to concede. But Trump wasn’t willing to admit defeat. 

A pivotal moment came Dec. 19, when Trump tweeted at 1:42 a.m. that there would be a big protest in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, and that it "will be wild." It was one of more than a dozen tweets the president sent promoting the event. 

The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two armed alt-right activist groups, joined conspiracy theorists and ordinary Americans in spreading Trump’s invitation across social media.

What emerged from the hearings was a picture of a president and his inner circle that knew violence was likely on Jan. 6, 2021, and behaved as if the rioters who rushed the U.S. Capitol were doing nothing wrong. 

Meadows’ aide Cassidy Hutchinson described a conversation with Meadows on the night of Jan. 2, 2021. She had just walked Giuliani to the White House exit. As he was leaving, Giuliani asked her whether she was excited about Jan. 6 and said, "We’re going to the Capitol," Hutchinson recounted.

Puzzled, Hutchinson said she asked Meadows what Giuliani meant.

"There's a lot going on," Meadows said, according to Hutchinson. "Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6."

Hutchinson said that just days before Jan. 6, the national security adviser and the Secret Service received reports about violence and weapons expected on Jan. 6.

Minutes before Trump spoke to his followers Jan. 6 on the Ellipse, a park south of the White House, Hutchinson said, Trump expressed anger that the secured space in front of the stage was not packed with people. When he was told that many people didn’t want to pass through security because they would have to give up their weapons, Hutchinson said Trump was dismissive.

"They're not here to hurt me," Trump said, according to Hutchinson. 

She said Trump also ordered the removal of security metal detectors: "Let the people in. They can march to the Capitol from here."

Two former White House staff members testified about the chaos inside the White House that afternoon. Matthew Pottinger, a member of the National Security Council, resigned that day, when Trump’s first tweet after the riot started didn’t call for peace. 

Pence refused to comply with Trump’s scheme to reject the electoral votes from a handful of states, a move that would deny Biden’s legitimate victory.

Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews told the committee that Trump’s initial tweet "felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire."

The committee detailed how Trump’s daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, tried to persuade her father to tell the rioters to stop. So did sympathetic Fox News hosts who always enjoyed an open door to the president, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the top White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Trump made no effort to connect with security forces during the Jan. 6 rampage. The committee showed video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., calling for reinforcements from the National Guard and nearby police.

The committee detailed the 187 minutes that passed before Trump sent a video message telling his supporters to leave the Capitol. White House officials testified that they tried to get him to act earlier.

As the riot unfolded, Trump instead tweeted that Pence lacked "courage." 

Republican Congressional leaders and Fox News pundits contacted Meadows asking him to have Trump call off the rioters. Trump didn’t tell the rioters to go home until 4:17 p.m., while praising them, "We love you. You’re very special." 

PolitiFact senior correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this article.

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