January 6 Committee Public Hearings Begin

Primetime Presentation

The House Select Committee launched its public hearings on the evening of June 9, 2022, in a primetime session broadcast live across major networks. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney laid out the committee’s case that January 6 was not a spontaneous riot but the culmination of what they described as a “sophisticated seven-part plan” orchestrated by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The hearings drew more than 20 million viewers for the first session alone.

Key Testimony

Over the course of multiple hearings through the summer of 2022, the committee presented testimony from more than a thousand witnesses, the vast majority of whom were Republicans and members of Trump’s own administration. Among the most dramatic moments was the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who described Trump demanding to be taken to the Capitol on January 6 and lunging at a Secret Service agent when told he could not go. She also testified that Trump had been informed that members of the crowd were armed and said, “They’re not here to hurt me.”

The Evidence

The committee presented a wealth of documentary evidence, including White House call logs showing a gap of over seven hours on January 6 during which Trump made no official calls, text messages from Trump allies pleading for intervention, and draft tweets Trump considered sending in support of the rioters. The hearings revealed that Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, had told Trump his election fraud claims were “bullshit,” and that virtually every senior advisor had told Trump he had lost the election.

Political Fallout

Vice Chair Liz Cheney, the committee’s most prominent Republican member, became a central figure in the hearings. Her participation came at an enormous political cost: she was censured by the Republican National Committee and ultimately lost her Wyoming Republican primary in August 2022 by a wide margin. Cheney framed her work on the committee as a matter of constitutional duty, saying the evidence showed Trump had engaged in conduct that was “a supreme violation of his oath of office.”