2022 series of congressional hearings
A series of televised congressional investigations by the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack about events related to the January 6 United States Capitol attack ran from 2021 to January 2023.
In July 2021, the House Select Committee held a preliminary public hearing about the law enforcement experience during the mob violence on that day.
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Schedule.
Early in the investigation, the committee held a preliminary hearing in 2021. It was only carried by C-SPAN and not widely covered on broadcast television. In June 2022, the committee held highly publicized hearings intended for live broadcast. As used by the committee, labels such as "first hearing", "second hearing", et cetera refers to this series of televised hearings. 
The committee publicly voted on December 19, 2022, to make criminal referrals for Donald Trump and John Eastman to the DOJ, and ethics referrals for four members of Congress (Representatives McCarthy, Jordan, Biggs, and Perry) to the House Ethics Committee. (The news had previously identified Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, and Rudy Giuliani as likely to be referred.) The committee released its final report on December 22, which became a bestseller.
Background.
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election culminated in a mob of Trump's supporters attacking the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The House of Representatives passed a bill to create a bipartisan independent commission to investigate the attack, modeled after the 9/11 Commission, but it failed due to a filibuster by Republicans in the Senate. The House then formed a select committee led by seven Democrats and two Republicans. The hearings are part of the select committee's investigation.
In advance of the hearings, congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, began to organize themselves to defend Trump. This messaging presented a challenge for them, in part because they did not know in advance what information the committee would reveal at the hearings. McCarthy spoke to donors on the morning of the second hearing, advising Republicans to ignore the proceedings, refuse public comment and avoid the topic. He suggested their party should instead discuss election issues that could garner more votes, such as focusing on rising inflation or fuel prices. Insiders have said former president Trump was not necessarily pleased with this strategy and felt there was "no one to defend" him.
Preliminary hearing – July 27, 2021.
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Synopsis of preliminary hearing.
On July 27, 2021, the committee held a hearing titled "The Law Enforcement Experience on January 6th [2021]".
According to C-SPAN, "January 6 Committee Meeting with Capitol and D.C. Police: Capitol and District of Columbia police testified at the first hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Witnesses described their experiences on that day and efforts to protect the Capitol and elected officials. Throughout the hearing, graphic video footage captured during the attack was shown."
The four officers—Dunn, Fanone, Gonell, and Hodges—were given a front-row seat to all of the committee's public hearings in 2022. All four, along with others, received the Presidential Citizens Medal from Joe Biden on January 6, 2023.
First hearing – June 9, 2022 – Primetime.
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Synopsis of first hearing.
This was the "first" of the hearings for broadcast on live television and was held during prime time. The committee showed never-before-seen footage of the Capitol attack to provide an accessible and compelling narrative of events for the public.
Opening statements by the panel members.
The committee panel observed that Donald Trump attempted to overturn a free and fair democratic election by promoting a seven-part conspiracy. According to Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee, "Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government ... The violence was no accident. It represents Trump's last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power." According to the committee, Trump "lied to the American people, ignored all evidence refuting his false fraud claims, pressured state and federal officials to throw out election results favoring his challenger, encouraged a violent mob to storm the Capitol and even signaled support for the execution of his own vice president."
Panel members made reference to a federal district court opinion in which the Judge David O. Carter said Trump had "likely" violated two federal statutes and staged a "coup in search of a legal theory". Rep Liz Cheney read part of the opinion, in which the court said:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;If Dr. Eastman and President Trump's plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will
repeat itself.
Cheney urged all Americans to read the opinion in full. Cheney said Trump's efforts were part of a "sophisticated seven-part plan", which the committee hearings would establish.
The Trump administration's seven-part plan to overturn the 2020 election, according to the January 6 Committee
1. Trump had knowledge that he lost the 2020 election but spread misinformation to the American public and made false statements claiming significant voter fraud led to his defeat;
2. Trump planned to remove and replace the Attorney General and Justice Department officials in an effort to force the DOJ to support false allegations of election fraud;
3. Trump pressured Vice President Pence to refuse certified electoral votes in the official count on January 6, in violation of the U.S. Constitution;
4. Trump pressured state lawmakers and election officials to alter election results in his favor;
5. Trump's legal team and associates directed Republicans in seven states to produce and send fake "alternate" electoral slates to Congress and the National Archives;
6. Trump summoned and assembled a destructive mob in Washington and sent them to march on the U.S. Capitol; and
7. Trump ignored multiple requests to speak out in real time against the mob violence, refused to instruct his supporters to disband, and failed to take any immediate actions to halt attacks on the Capitol.
A written version of the above plan was released after the hearing.
Trump knew that he lost.
Many in Trump's inner circle informed the president he had lost and there was no evidence of widespread fraud. According to several video clips of prior testimony shown by the committee:
Rush to issue presidential pardons.
Cheney observed White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his team of lawyers had threatened to resign in response to an increasingly hostile climate of lawless activity within the Oval Office. Another video clip was then shown in which Jared Kushner characterized Cipollone's concerns as "whining." During his testimony, Kushner claimed that his primary "interest at that time" was to complete as many presidential pardons as possible. Cheney also said that Representative Scott Perry and other Republican members of Congress had "sought Presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election."
Attack on the Capitol.
The committee showed video, much of it never before seen by the public, of the mob charging the Capitol and battling police. The video began with scenes of roughly 200 Proud Boys leading the assault on the Capitol. As later scenes showed a violent rampage, audio was overlaid of Trump later saying, "The love in the air. I've never seen anything like it." As the attack lasted several hours, the video contained timestamps to illustrate the timeline. Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested provided testimony during the live hearing; he was embedded with the Proud Boys on January 6. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards also testified live and in-person; she was seriously injured on January 6 while defending the Capitol against initial attacks by Proud Boys and during the mob violence that followed.
Quested testified that he joined the Proud Boys at the National Mall at 10:30 a.m., saying "I don't know if violence was a plan, but I do know that they weren't there to attend the rally because they had already left the rally by the time the president had started his speech." According to Quested, they then walked around the Capitol while taking some pictures and observed a sole police officer at the barricades by the Peace Circle. After suggesting the Proud Boys were doing reconnaissance to spot security weaknesses, Chairman Thompson observed that the Proud Boys chose that barricade and breached it at about the same time President Trump directed the rally attendees to march to that same location. He then said: ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Now a central question is whether the attack on the Capitol was coordinated and planned. What you witnessed is what a coordinated and planned effort would look like. It was the culmination of a months' long effort spearheaded by President Trump.
Officer Edwards, who had sustained multiple injuries during the attack, testified that the group of Proud Boys who first approached the police barricades began by shouting rhetoric to turn the police into "villains" and then began their assault. She described in detail her experiences and injuries as police fell back. When asked what she remembers most vividly, Edwards described moving from an area with a relatively small field of view to one where she had her first view of the events unfolding before the Western Terrace.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;When I fell behind that line and I saw, I can just remember my—my breath catching in my throat, because what I saw was just a—a war scene. It was something like I'd seen out of the movies. I—I couldn't believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. You know, they were bleeding. They were throwing up ... 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—I'm trained to detain, you know, a couple of subjects and—and handle—you know, handle a crowd, but I—I'm not combat trained."
Pence called for the National Guard.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, in videotaped testimony, said the White House encouraged him to claim that Trump had ordered the National Guard to respond on January 6, even though it was Pence who in fact gave the order. Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted on January 6 that former President Trump had "directed" the National Guard to respond. The reasons that the White House attempted to falsely credit Trump for National Guard mobilization remains unclear.
It was always known that Pence gave the order. Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller had publicly stated so on the day of the attack. As a result, CNN later questioned whether Pence was "acting as commander in chief." Miller gave similar testimony to Congress on May 12, 2021, before the House select committee was formed.
Second hearing – June 13, 2022.
Synopsis of second hearing.
The second televised hearing concentrated on both how and why Trump and surrogates spread false claims of voter fraud in various jurisdictions proliferated following the 2020 United States presidential election.
Witness testimony.
Former US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia B. J. Pak testified. Pak resigned from his position days before the January 6 attack; he later told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the White House informed him Trump would fire him if he did not publicly state his office had found election fraud in Georgia.
Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News politics editor, testified. Fox News was the first network to declare Biden as having won Arizona in the 2020 election; Stirewalt testified that as the vote count wrapped up, he saw Trump's statistical chances of winning shrink to essentially zero. After Stirewalt defended that journalistic choice, Fox News fired him in January 2021.
Al Schmidt, the Republican former city commissioner of Philadelphia, testified. He had drawn Trump's ire for refusing to publicly announce the city's election results were rife with fraud. He resigned in 2021, saying he had received death threats.
Ben Ginsberg, a long-term Republican election attorney involved in the controversial "Bush v. Gore" litigation, testified as an expert about why Trump's election lawsuits failed.
Subpoena and absence of Bill Stepien.
Bill Stepien was subpoenaed to testify, but his wife went into labor and he canceled his appearance; his attorney was then to have read a statement on his behalf, but did not. Stepien is a longtime Republican operative who joined Trump's 2016 campaign, later becoming the White House