Thread by @SethAbramson

(📢) LIVE THREAD: This thread is a live-tweet of today’s House January 6 Committee hearing. I’m an attorney, journalist, and historian who has been contacted by the Committee and whose January 6–focused substack, PROOF, the Committee has cited. I hope you will RETWEET and follow.

1/ At times I will reference, in this thread, evidence previously published in the 200+ fully sourced reports on January 6 that appear at PROOF. About half of these reports are free at PROOF, while the other half are for subscribers ($5/month or $50/year). sethabramson.substack.com

2/ This live thread is free, but if, as you follow along over its 5 hours, you feel moved to use the Venmo tip jar in my bio—see the image below for its location—I really appreciate it. If the button isn’t visible to you, you can instead donate via PayPal: sethabramson.net/pp

3/ The PROOF substack also offers a free-to-the-public House January 6 Committee archive. This archive includes all PROOF’s HJ6C live threads—hundreds and hundreds of tweets in total—and all House January 6 Committee hearing videos. You can find it here: sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-house-ja…

4/ I want to start this thread by saying that if there’s one thing all Americans of good faith should be able to agree on, it’s that no congressional investigation should be either started or stopped for political reasons. All such probes should reach a wholly natural conclusion.

5/ There’s no doubt that the January 6 investigation is the largest FBI investigation in history. It’s also arguably the most historic, abidingly important, and complex investigation in congressional history. And yet it’s being curtailed for political reasons—which is a disgrace.

6/ The Republican Party—by its words, deeds, and congressional votes unambiguously (and yes, I say this as a journalist) an insurrectionist entity—has promised U.S. voters that if they will simply vote red in November, the GOP will end all investigation of the Trumpist coup plot.

7/ This public promise by the GOP was designed to be an active threat against a duly constituted House select committee tasked with investigating the deadliest attack on America’s capital, Washington, since the War of 1812. The goal of the threat was to curtail the investigation.

8/ The reason for the threat was likewise clear: because dozens of members of the GOP—including elected officials in and out of D.C.—participated in the plotting of the January 6 coup attempt, including GOP House members who begged for presidential pardons directly or indirectly.

9/ We know the names of the state and national Republican politicians who participated in Donald Trump’s violent attempt to overthrow American democracy—men and women who acted as fake electors, aided and abetted domestic terrorists, incited violence and committed election fraud.

10/ The very GOP politician who has most frequently publicly threatened to end the House January 6 Committee in January 2023, prospective future House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), is one of several GOP politicians who has obstructed the HJ6C probe by refusing to be interviewed.

11/ But even without a McCarthy interview—or an interview with other Trump co-conspirators, like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)—we know for certain a large number of Trump allies in Congress have been caught lying about January 6. They know the HJ6C can (and has) publicized these lies.

12/ It’s with all this in mind—and mindful of the cost/duration of past congressional investigations, including investigations of comparatively minor events like an attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi—that most analysts acknowledge the HJ6C probe could go on for 3+ more years.

13/ Instead, multiple Committee members have told media that this will be the last public HJ6C hearing before the midterms and likely the last public HJ6C hearing ever. Why? Because the Committee feels it must finish its work by Christmas, in advance of being forcibly disbanded.

14/ These Committee members are likely correct in thinking that if they don’t finish their (surely lengthy) final report by Christmas—a report that will make critical recommendations about how to keep America safe from future coup attempts—the report might never be issued at all.

15/ But what Americans *mustn’t* do is confuse a duly constituted House select committee investigating the gravest attack on D.C. since the War of 1812 ending its public hearings *years early* with the idea that the Committee is done with its work.

It’s not even *close* to done.

16/ I’m not merely speaking here of the fact that the House January 6 Committee hasn’t yet even decided whether to subpoena—or seek a voluntary interview with—the two chief witnesses in the entire investigation, former president Donald Trump and former vice president Mike Pence.

17/ I’m not merely speaking of the possibly historic number of witnesses—many of them elected officials or individuals who worked for years in public service (in many instances with salaries paid by taxpayers)—who are currently in contempt of Congress by ignoring their subpoenas.

18/ I’m not merely speaking of the nearly Trump administration–wide deletion of critical January 6–related digital evidence—texts and other electronic communications—which mass deletions haven’t been remedied yet and in several cases have even been *aided* by Trump-appointed IGs.

19/ I’m not merely speaking of the fact that the federal January 6 tip-line has received 10,000 tips in the last 140 days, confirming—as Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, has also said—that evidence regarding January 6 continues to pour into Congress and remain unreviewed.

20/ I’m not merely speaking of the fact that January 6 arrests are still being made—and hundreds of January 6 defendants are still being investigated or in mid-prosecution, meaning they may yet provide January 6 evidence Congress will be unable to review if the HJ6C is disbanded.

21/ I’m not merely speaking of the fact that the House January 6 Committee still has pending interview negotiations—e.g., with Trump adviser Newt Gingrich and Trump surrogate Doug Mastriano—as well as other interviews (G. Thomas, Mnuchin, Pompeo) too recent to be fully processed.

22/ I’m not merely speaking of the fact that the House January 6 Committee freely admits that *even amongst the forms of evidence it’s already shared with the public* there are clips of depositions and video clips of January 6 that are *essential* but have not yet been disclosed.

23/ No—what I’m mostly focused on here, due to my own work on January 6 and because I know the House January 6 Committee has read it, is that the American public has found at PROOF literally *scores* of fully sourced lines of investigative inquiry that the HJ6C hasn’t publicized.

24/ While the House January 6 Committee is understandably time-limited within hearings—3-hour hearings would lose public attention, and themed hearings are deemed preferable to help focus attention—the complexity of the investigation *as a whole* likely demands a 5-year duration.

25/ While the media pens thinkpieces suggesting that public interest in the hearings has waned, this is misleading. The midterm elections, the war in Europe, emerging COVID-19 variants, and continued inflation has simply temporarily pushed from the news an *ongoing insurrection*.

26/ January 6 was merely the public launch of a previously clandestine plot to steal the 2020 presidential election and end American democracy. That plot began in Summer 2020 and—critically—has only *gained massively* in scope, ambition, and dangerousness since January 6, 2021.

27/ January 6 is not, therefore, a date or point in time that becomes less relevant the farther we move away from it. It is a *shorthand* for Donald Trump’s ongoing insurrection, which on January 6 stormed the Capitol but is now set to poison and destroy our democracy nationwide.

28/ So when we investigate the *leaders* of the January 6 plot—which is what Congress, unlike the FBI or DOJ, has specifically tasked itself with doing—we are investigating the *current leaders* of an illegal insurrection.

They are the same people; it is the same investigation.

29/ Even right-leaning outlets like Politico concede the House January 6 Committee never believed it would, could, or should influence election outcomes. As recently as June, Politico was conceding that that isn’t what the HJ6C is about.

So the midterms shouldn’t *end* anything.

30/ In fact, the FBI/DOJ investigation of the leaders of the January 6 insurrection (and ongoing insurrection) has only just begun—approximately 18 months late, after much of the key evidence has been lost, destroyed, tampered with, improperly synchronized, or otherwise degraded.

31/ That the FBI and DOJ are so heavily relying on witness interviews by the House January 6 Committee underscores that the HJ6C is *so far ahead* of the FBI and DOJ in its investigation that *of course* it’s *this* investigation the Republican Party is most keen to scuttle ASAP.

32/ The Republican Party knows that if it wins the House in 2022 and/or the White House in 2024 it will have ample opportunities to delay or nix the FBI and DOJ investigations of GOP insurrectionists. But for now, it knows the HJ6C threatens revelations that are relevant *today*.

33/ This is the key point in this part of today’s thread: the House January 6 Committee may or may not make criminal referrals to DOJ, but as DOJ can ignore these at will this *isn’t* what the GOP fears. It fears what the HJ6C teaches us about *ongoing* insurrectionist schemes.

34/ The leaders of the insurrection haven’t changed. Their tactics haven’t changed. Their allies haven’t changed. Their aims haven’t changed. Their strategies haven’t changed. Their mechanisms haven’t changed.

To understand the January 6 plot is to understand a *present* danger.

35/ In promising to disband the House January 6 Committee if Americans inexplicably put an insurrectionist, anti-democratic, neo-fascist party in power in November—sacrificing America over upset about gas prices set by OPEC—the GOP seeks to blind us to their *current* treachery.

36/ All this is the backdrop against which we experience today’s likely final public hearing of the House January 6 Committee. It’s a context that you won’t hear from either media or the HJ6C itself—which for their own separate reasons aim to present this as a natural conclusion.

37/ But in each new revelation we receive today—and new revelations *have* been promised by Committee members—we will see the evidence of a prematurely wound-down investigation. For instance, consider the new Secret Service emails we’re told we will hear about at today’s hearing.

38/ These critical emails—which are said to underscore and corroborate past (historically shocking) testimony confirming that Donald Trump wanted to *personally lead* what he *knew* was an armed attack on the Capitol on January 6—are in fact just a drop in the proverbial bucket.

39/ The USSS emails we see today will obscure the fact that exponentially *more* were destroyed by Trump’s co-conspirators and other allies—a destruction then intermittently covered up and incompetently investigated by the DHS IG. So who’ll investigate this massive cover-up, now?

40/ Anything we see in these emails today—and what we see may be shocking—is still likely *less* shocking than the evidence the Trumpists were able to destroy. But if the destruction isn’t investigated, those who did it can’t be leaned on to tell the truth of what they destroyed.

41/ By the same token, evidence we see today will implicitly scream of its incompleteness. We’ll get videotape from a Danish documentary on Roger Stone that reveals that Stone anticipated and desired violence and a coup attempt *before* the 2020 election—which *is* shocking. But.

42/ Those who’ve been reading PROOF know that there is *also* video of Roger Stone fundraising for the equipment the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers used to storm the Capitol on January 6. There is *also* audio of him saying Trump asked him to lead the January 6 march on the Capitol.

43/ And there’s multimedia from Stone’s Stop the Steal co-organizers—Alex Jones and Ali Alexander—that they too were asked by Trump to lead a march Trump knew would be dangerous, at a time he knew they were coordinating with domestic terrorists in the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

44/ In short, leading January 6 researchers know we’re seeing but a pittance of the January 6 evidence available—and while in some cases we’re seeing the best of it, in many *more* cases we’re seeing mid-level evidence from a stock of evidence significantly *more* incriminating.

45/ This is by no means an attack on the House January 6 Committee—which is doing historic, courageous work. The problem is that the HJ6C has known from the start that it’s brutally time-limited, so it’s had to tell a streamlined story that is almost exclusively focused on Trump.

46/ The problem—as PROOF and other media outlets have exhaustively detailed over thousands of fully sourced reports—is that Trump is just one figure in a scheme that at various points pulled into its ambit 200+ individuals. Trump’s at the heart of parts of this but not all of it.

47/ At times, the House January 6 Committee has given a sense of the scope of January 6. For instance, today it will show never-before-seen video of House and Senate leaders *after* they were evacuated from the House and Senate chambers on January 6. I’m sure it will be stunning.

48/ But we’ve seen no video of the January 5—that’s right, January 5—Black Lives Matter Plaza riot that was organized by Trumpist paramilitaries, and gave the Pentagon and other units in the Trump administration all the evidence it needed of what was going to happen on January 6.

49/ The Stop the Steal coordinators Trump personally interfaced with—Stone, Jones and Alexander—produced hours and hours (and hours) of video and audio about their crimes, but the Committee has shown virtually none of it. Why? Because it makes the narrative—allegedly—too complex.

50/ Just so, we have leading insurrectionists like Mark Finchem running for positions in November from which they could stage another coup in 2024—but how much have you heard of Finchem’s offenses? Virtually nothing, because it’d make things “too complex” and not focus on Trump.

51/ As a practicing criminal defense attorney, I made many closing arguments. A good closing argument offers a totalizing narrative of a complex case, undergirded by reliable evidence that is both sprawling and minute, conspicuous and esoteric.

That’s not what we will get today.

52/ Today we’ll hear from nine elected officials—two Republicans and seven Democrats—who’ll take turns directing us through evidence (without live witnesses) relating to a tiny component of a historically complex fact-pattern. And only a brief overview of that component, at that.

53/ Despite this, we’ll be told this is a proper closing argument—a summary of a completed case-in-chief. In service of this, we’ll hear otherwise perceptive political analysts telling us that “this all comes down to Trump” and that today’s “closing argument” is a textbook one.

54/ To understand what Trump did before and on and after January 6, you *must* understand what Stone did, and Jones, and Alexander... and Mark Finchem, and Kim Guilfoyle, and Caroline Wren, and Enrique Tarrio, and Stewart Rhodes, and scores and scores of other insurrectionists.

55/ Journalists and politicians think in political and entertainment terms—not a full accounting of the truth. I’m watching journalists saying the HJ6C can’t get into minute details of January 6 because they’ll “lose their audience.” As though this is all about ratings and votes.

56/ In fact, America and the world need and deserve a comprehensive *historical* accounting of what happened on, before, and immediately after January 6—and a careful *illumination* of how all these leaders, tactics, strategies, and ambitions remain a threat to democracy *today*.

57/ To some extent, the final HJ6C Report—which is already, pre-release, an Amazon bestseller—may offer this. If the FBI and DOJ had begun a proper investigation of the January 6 coup plotters a year and a half ago, which they didn’t, that investigation might’ve offered this too.

58/ But as we saw with the Mueller Report, crimes can be found by FBI and DOJ (e.g. 12 Obstruction crimes by Trump) and not be charged. Evidence can be destroyed because the FBI and DOJ took too long to get to it (e.g., Bannon and Prince’s texts) and there’s *no remedy* for that.

59/ Just so, how can we judge if the HJ6C Report will be anything like complete or effective if we’ve seen only a pittance of what the Committee has? How can we have confidence that the report isn’t degraded by an artificial political calendar when we know in advance it has been?

60/ In short, I don’t care what the ratings are for any one HJ6C hearing; I don’t care whether they directly influence any Election Day; I don’t care whether media gets bored of them. Neither should anyone else. There could/should be one such hearing a month for the next 4 years.

61/ Instead, we have what is going to happen today.

So let’s take a look at that in particular.

62/ The theme of today’s hearing—as reported by the Committee and media—is that (in paraphrase) “Donald Trump remains a clear and present danger to America, having led an effort to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election.” There will be 9 speakers but no live witnesses.

63/ There’s some thought that we’ll hear via video from recent interviewees Mike Pompeo (Trump Secretary of State) and Steve Mnuchin (Trump Treasury Secretary). There have been competing reports on whether we’ll hear any information emanating from a recent Ginni Thomas interview.

64/ No one doubts that the House January 6 Committee’s work has been both powerful and compelling; no lawyers of any good faith whatsoever any longer doubt that Donald Trump can be charged for crimes—which does seem to have been the general thrust of the HJ6C hearings thus far.

65/ Just so, no one doubts the FBI and DOJ investigation is far behind the HJ6C investigation—maybe even hopelessly so. Both investigations require far more time than (once again) the political calendar is likely to give them. The FBI and DOJ essentially must move by next spring.

66/ For this reason, today’s hearing is both the last summary of the January 6–related case against Republican leadership—and Trump—we will get before the midterm elections *and* possibly the last pseudo-comprehensive account we will *ever* get (the HJ6C Report notwithstanding).

67/ As I live-tweet today’s hearing now, I ask everyone to remember that there’s no more important topic than the one we’re discussing today—because encompassed by the future of America is the future of every policy initiative and foreign policy event in which America is engaged.

68/ The hearing has just begun.

69/ Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is beginning with a summary. He says the "evidence" has "proven" Donald Trump "led" a "plan" to "overturn" the 2020 election—and that this "plan" led directly to an attack on the U.S. Capitol and an attempt to stop a congressional proceeding.

70/ Thompson underscores that *nearly all* of the Committee’s evidence has come from Republicans. He uses this as one of several indications that the (bipartisan) Committee’s work has *not* been partisan, as Trump and his co-conspirators within the Republican Party falsely claim.

71/ (Note that the Committee’s insistence on taking evidence primarily from Republican witnesses has of course enabled Republicans to slow or degrade the investigation simply by refusing to testify or even lying/eliding information in their testimony.)

72/ Rep. Thompson is now mentioning some of the new testimony we will hear today, all of which (that he mentions now) have been discussed already in this thread.

But Thompson also says Trump’s "knowledge" and "intent" will be revealed (and/or summarized) in greater detail today.

73/ BREAKING NEWS: Thompson says that because today is a formal "business meeting" of the Committee, *live votes may be taken* today regarding "further investigative steps" the Committee plans to take.

74/ Now Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is raising the prospect of criminal referrals to DOJ without assuring that these will occur. She notes that the real focus of the Committee are "specific recommendations" of how to ensure that something like January 6 never happens again in America.

75/ Thompson and Cheney underscore that today we’ll hear new evidence *and* summaries of past evidence, with a focus on Trump, his "state of mind"—the Committee is consistently using legal/legal-adjacent terms common in criminal law—and the danger of a January 6 happening again.

76/ Critical to the case the House January 6 Committee is making is that Trump *knew* he had lost the 2020 presidential election—because of the information he had, because of the advice he received, and because of his knowledge of what court decisions ruling against him had said.

77/ Also critical to the case the House January 6 Committee is now making is that Trump knew the January 6 rioters were armed, knew they planned to engage in illegal conduct, and knew that his own conduct increased substantially the likelihood of this illegal conduct occurring.

78/ Both Cheney and Thompson underscore that there is every reason to fear an event like January 6 could happen again—and future elections could be overturned using some of the same people and tactics who were in play on, before and after January 6. She’s issuing a stark warning.

79/ CHENEY: "There is no evidence Trump was duped or irrational." She is laying out the elements of a criminal offense, and doing so quite self-consciously—including that Trump knew he was committing misconduct and has no "defense" to that allegation.

80/ CHENEY: "Our nation cannot only punish the [January 6] foot-soldiers."

She’s essentially speaking to DOJ here. She’s acknowledging that none of the leaders of the coup plot inside the U.S. government have been held to account yet—nor is there any indication yet they will be.

81/ Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) is now giving an opening statement. She is most focused on the fact that Trump knew in advance that his own rhetoric on mail-in voting pre-election *ensured* that there would be a large swing to Biden on election night once mail-ballots were counted.

82/ Videos of Trump campaign officials indicating they advised Trump of all this are now being shown. This gives the lie to every preposterous claim ever made by Trump that he couldn’t explain (nor could anyone) why the vote tallies shifted strongly to Biden late on Election Day.

83/ Now we’re getting videos of Trump campaign officials saying they told Trump he couldn’t *under any circumstances* declare victory on election night because of early tallies—which Trump did anyway, in fact going so far as demanding that *all vote-counting stop* (an obscenity).

84/ Rep. Lofgren says Trump’s "false victory speech" was "premeditated" and planned "well before" the election. Indeed, video testimony now shows that people around him—including those in VP Mike Pence’s circle—knew that a false victory declaration was likely to come from Trump.

85/ The VP’s camp was so certain this would happen that it produced a paper trail of legal memos *pre-election* to dictate how it would handle a false Trump victory claim. Lofgren calls out insurrectionist Tom Fitton for having advised Trump pre-election to falsely claim victory.

86/ (Infamously, Fitton also advised Trump to not return classified documents he stole from the White House. One would think that Fitton may be in some conspiracy-related legal trouble, but we’ll see.)

87/ Now we get video of Bannon telling Chinese associates in a secretly recorded video that he *knew in advance* Trump would falsely declare victory on election night. Bannon seemed to have gleeful foreknowledge of the "crazy shit"—Bannon’s words—Trump would do on election night.

88/ Now we have the infamous January 5 "all hell is going to break loose [on January 6]" video of Steve Bannon seeming to have foreknowledge of how the Trump camp wanted and expected January 6 to unfold.

89/ Now we get the Danish-filmmaker-made video of Roger Stone that PROOF reported on days ago. In the video, Stone—around the time of the election, months before January 6—urges violence if Trump loses and says Trump should claim victory even if he loses. sethabramson.substack.com/p/breaking-new…

90/ Now we have video of Stone pleading the Fifth Amendment rather than answer whether he was involved in planning for the events—and violence—of January 6. PROOF has already published video of Stone having just this sort of involvement. It’s not yet being shown here by the HJ6C.

91/ Lofgren notes that many Roger Stone associates have been charged with Seditious Conspiracy, and at least one has already pleaded guilty to it.

92/ (Note that Stone has publicly threatened to sue PROOF for its early, fully sourced, entirely accurate reports on his involvement in the events of January 6.)

93/ Having discussed Stone’s contacts with Oath Keepers, Lofgren now focuses on Stone’s association with Proud Boys—e.g., Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio. We’re hearing about Tarrio visiting the White House in December and a scary, terrorist-like video he recorded pre-January 6.

94/ Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is now giving an opening statement.

95/ Kinzinger focuses on Trump being told on election night that he’d lost, and was told in advance of election night he’d likely lose (which is of course what happened, by 7+ million votes). He was also told, Jason Miller says, that election challenges were unlikely to succeed.

96/ Now we have testimony from *many* Trump aides—Farah, Hutchinson, and others—that after the election Trump privately *acknowledged* to aides that he knew he had lost. Trump even began issuing policy orders that he knew he had to rush on because he *knew* he was leaving office.

97/ One order Trump gave pre-January 20 was an order for a *full withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan*—an action Joe Biden took, and which Republicans now want to (amazingly!) *impeach* Biden over. This was already fully covered in PROOF OF COUP: sethabramson.substack.com/p/book-release…

98/ Much discussion now of the so-called MacGregor Order—which Trump personally signed, after it was handed to him by John McEntee, while still in office—covered in full in PROOF OF COUP: HOW THE PENTAGON SHAPED AN INSURRECTION (2022). It called for a full Afghanistan withdrawal.

99/ Now we are getting tons of video of top Trump advisers (e.g., Bill Stepien) saying they told Trump and Meadows the supposed evidence of "fraud" in the 2020 presidential election was *bunk*—absolutely worthless and nothing that would change the result of the election one iota.

100/ Rep. Kinzinger notes that Trump’s record in court post-election was 1-61, with the 1 win (of 62 cases) having no impact on the election results whatsoever.

101/ One court even told Trump and his lawyers that not only did they have no "proof," they didn't even have "specific allegations." Courts repeatedly told Trump and his team that they were losing *on the merits*—*not* simply as a matter of procedure. (Trump has lied about this).

102/ A new Secret Service email is now revealed showing Trump was "pissed" and "livid" when he lost his last bid to have SCOTUS take up his cause, as—according to aides—Trump appeared to know that this was his last *legal* avenue to challenge his loss.

This was *pre-January 6*.

103/ CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: "[Trump said] I don't want people to know we lost [the election], Mark [i.e., Mark Meadows]. This is embarrassing. Fix it."

104/ That new bit of testimony by Hutchinson is absolutely stunning, and qualifies as BREAKING NEWS.

Read Tweet #103 again—it establishes "mens rea" (a criminal mental state) for several federal criminal offenses committed by Trump.

105/ Now we have a litany of video depos (e.g., Deere, Barr) of top Trump advisers telling him that after his final bid to get before the Supreme Court was unsuccessful, his efforts to win the election were *over*.

This was *pre-January 6*.

106/ To be clear, Donald Trump was being told by all his experts and senior staff and lawyers and DOJ agents that *the election was over* in mid-December 2020—*weeks* before January 6. He had been told he had no legal options left, meaning he knew he would have to act unlawfully.

107/ Now Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) is making a presentation. She says Trump was "personally and directly" involved in every component of the "plan" to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election using means he knew were contrary to the rule of law.

108/ Repeatedly—videos now show—Trump would be told that a *specific false claim of election fraud* was false and had been fully debunked, and then Trump would go out in public and repeat the very claim he had just been told was false.

He’d say anything that would incite people.

109/ Any jury would convict Trump of federal conspiracy charges on the evidence we are seeing right now. Any jury.

110/ Now Rep. Luria is switching to Trump's efforts to pressure "numerous states' officials" to take corrupt official actions to ensure Biden's win would be overturned.

111/ We're hearing the infamous "I just want to find 11,780 votes...Look, we need only 11,000 votes...fellas, I need 11,000 votes" phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Trump had already been told that there was no election fraud in Georgia.

112/ Now we are listening to Trump threatening Sec. Raffensperger with criminal indictment if he doesn't engage in corrupt political conduct. Immediately after, Mark Meadows said to his assistant Cassidy Hutchinson, "He knows he lost, Cass." (Per Hutchinson depo shown just now.)

113/ Rep. Luria is now summarizing Donald Trump's coup plot inside the DOJ: to install Jeffrey Clark as AG because he had promised to falsely declare that the election in Georgia had been fraudulent.

Trump and Clark both knew such a DOJ representation would itself be fraudulent.

114/ The HJ6C continues to erroneously say that the appointment of Clark as AG did not happen. This is incorrect—it *did* happen. On Sunday, January 3. It's simply that Trump *countermanded* his appointment the next day—Monday, January 4—after strong DOJ pushback to his conduct.

115/ Now Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) is detailing the involvement of Donald Trump, John Eastman, and Ronna McDaniel in attempts to coordinate "fake electors" (a federal crime) who would falsely "certify" Trump as the 2020 election winner in *every battleground state Trump lost*.

116/ Rep. Murphy now links the "fake electors plot" to the plot Trump orchestrated to try to pressure VP Mike Pence into overturning the 2020 presidential election by accepting the fake electors Trump and Eastman had sought to orchestrate over a range of key battleground states.

117/ Now we have video confirming that on January 4, 2021 Trump lawyer John Eastman told Trump and Mike Pence that his fake elector plot (which required Pence's involvement) was *illegal*—a violation of the Electoral Count Act.

Trump knew this *pre-January 6*.

118/ After Trump was told his and Eastman's plot was illegal, Trump attempted to coerce/threaten Pence into going along with his criminal conspiracy. Note that a federal judge has already formally held that it is "more likely than not" Trump and Eastman ran a criminal conspiracy.

119/ Now we have a new text message from January 6 rally organizer Kylie Kremer showing that she knew *in advance* that Trump was going to pseudo-spontaneously call for a march on the Capitol on January 6—when in fact that coordination of the rally and the march was premeditated.

120/ Now Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is speaking. He is focusing on Donald Trump's prior knowledge that the January 6 crowd at the Ellipse—which he pseudo-spontaneously (in fact, *premeditatedly*) called to march on the U.S. Capitol—was in fact *heavily armed*.

121/ Schiff now reveals that newly disclosed Secret Service messages reveal the Secret Service and Trump *knew* prior to his Ellipse speech that there was a strong possibility of violence at the Capitol January 6.

Much of this evidence came in *days* before the January 6 attack.

122/ It now appears that USSS messages may have been deleted en masse in significant part because these messages prove Trump and his top Secret Service agents *knew in advance of January 6* that there was *almost certain* to be a "direct assault on the U.S. Capitol" on January 6.

123/ The sources the USSS and Trump saw at least ten days prior to January 6 specifically cited the "Proud Boys" having a plan to come into D.C. "armed" and "kill people" on January 6. This plan also specifically involved a plan to "occupy" Capitol Hill.

124/ The question is whether the intel failures pre-January 6 were intentional—which they now appear to be. Both the USSS *and* Pentagon intel (run by Trump sycophant Ezra Cohen-Watnick) appear to have deliberately scuttled any public or even interagency warnings about January 6.

125/ We are now seeing text after text after text from the United States Secret Service (USSS) confirming that it knew violence was coming well before January 6. It did nothing and appears to have told virtually no one—except Trump.

126/ Again we're hearing about Bobby Engel and Tony Ornato—Trump's closest confidants inside the USSS—having an *acute* awareness of how dangerous the situation was on January 6. Both men now have Trumpworld attorneys and appear to be unwilling to cooperate further with the HJ6C.

127/ *Many* of the pre-attack arrests on January 6 involved *guns*. The USSS was aware that the crowd was heavily armed and would be going to the Capitol as soon as Trump was done inciting them.

Rep. Schiff shows that there were similar arrests *on January 5*—Insurrection Eve.

128/ Still no mention of the Black Lives Matter Plaza riot the Proud Boys initiated on Insurrection Eve—even though federal agents were clearly aware of it and what it portended. PROOF has extensively covered this Insurrection Eve riot, including with pictures and video.

129/ Much of what Schiff is showing are specific threats pre-January 6. I won't repeat them here, but just know that they're as vile and violent as you could possibly imagine.

Despite all this, Trump's intel sources carefully *hid* the threats it knew about prior to January 6.

130/ These violent threats, many from late December 2020, came from TheDonald[.]win and Parler, among other far-right websites. Many of these threats involved Pence, and yet Trump's intel sources falsely contended in interagency communications that *there were no such threats*.

131/ The Committee is now taking a brief recess (approximately 10 minutes).

132/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (🚨): CNN Reports That the House January 6 Committee Is About to Subpoena Donald Trump at Today’s Hearing

133/ Trump will of course fight this subpoena. And even if he showed up he'd plead the Fifth Amendment. But of course this will be tied up in federal court *more* than long enough for Republicans to take over the House first *if* American voters vote for insurrection in November.

134/ Trump of course does not want to plead the Fifth Amendment, so this subpoena will go right to the courts and Trump will do all he can to delay any resolution of the issue until January 2023 or later—when the House GOP may be in a position to quash this duly issued subpoena.

135/ But this also goes to the major PROOF report coming tomorrow (Friday), which will propose a way for the congressional investigation of January 6 to *continue* no matter *what* happens in November.

And if the investigation continues, today's subpoena may become un-quashable.

136/ DOJ will be in a position to bring Contempt charges against Trump for as long as Biden is president—so, through at *least* January 20, 2025—meaning that if there's a way to avoid having this subpoena be quashed, Trump (a private citizen) may *have* to appear before Congress.

137/ Yes, if he appears Trump would plead the Fifth, but a) that would be one of the most historic moments in U.S. history and b) it becomes impossible to understand how the man could win the presidency when he is on video implying the truth about January 6 would incriminate him.

138/ The other thing we're told we'll see/hear after this 10-minute recess concludes is a historic video of the leaders of the House and Senate—Democratic and Republican—responding to the Capitol attack in real time on January 6.

This should make for some truly stunning viewing.

139/ The Trump subpoena is a smart—and appropriate—move. He's a witness Congress must hear from, and whatever his response to it one thing will be clear: Donald Trump claims he did nothing wrong and has nothing to hide but *will not testify*. Because he knows he committed crimes.

140/ Should this subpoena have come earlier? Yes. The HJ6C knew issuing a subpoena now means it won't have sufficient time to litigate it. But the Committee wanted to show America that it was going to *first* do all it could to marshal the evidence of what happened on January 6.

141/ Obviously when this subpoena is issued, Trump will go nuclear on Truth Social and Fox News. So stay tuned for that, I guess.

142/ The Committee's recess has now ended. We are back in session.

143/ Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) is now presenting.

He is showing more evidence gathered by the United States Secret Service on January 6—and is saying something we have never heard before: it is the view of the Committee that the USSS should have *stopped* Trump's January 6 rally.

144/ Aguilar also repeats something we heard at the last hearing (but it bears repeating): Trump *knew* about this Secret Service intelligence before he took the stage on January 6. He knew the crowd was armed; wanted them to march on the Capitol armed; and wanted to *lead* them.

145/ In fact we now have an explanation for the bizarre aside in Trump's January 6 speech about "letting people come up [closer to the stage]"—he was referring to domestic terrorists he knew were armed and wearing military-grade armor. He wanted them to be allowed into his crowd.

146/ Aguilar is now focusing (using actual texts) on the altercation inside the presidential SUV on January 6—in which Trump attacked a Secret Service agent to try to get him to drive him (Trump) to the Capitol so he could personally lead an armed mob in storming the Capitol.

147/ I continue to believe that Trump demanding to personally lead a mob he knew was armed against the Capitol is the most stunning evidence in the entire January 6 timeline.

148/ BREAKING NEWS (🚨): House January 6 Committee Will Recall Witnesses to Testify Further About Trump's Violent Attempt to Ensure He Could Lead An Armed Mob to the Capitol on January 6; Committee Has Evidence of Criminal Witness Tampering Involving Witnesses on This Key Issue

149/ Now we are hearing depo video from Kayleigh McEnany testifying that she heard Donald Trump say he either wanted to walk with the armed mob to the Capitol on January 6 or else take "the Beast" there—a heavily armored federal vehicle intended for the exclusive use of a POTUS.

150/ Even after Trump returned to the White House on January 6, Secret Service texts reveal that Trump was focused on taking an "OTR" trip to the Capitol. This planned trip wasn't scuttled until *well after* the violent attack on the Capitol had begun—and was being televised.

151/ Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is now using Secret Service texts to establish a timeline of what Trump knew—and when—after he completed his speech at the Ellipse. It's clear that Trump knew in real time an attack was happening but *nevertheless* spurred on the violence on Twitter.

152/ This timeline is so damning. Trump knew there was violence at the Capitol; he was being advised by trusted advisers, even his own family members, that he needed to do something to stop it; and instead of this Trump sent out tweets designed to incite the crowd—which they did.

153/ I want to underscore something here that no one ever seems to say: there is absolutely no *exculpatory* evidence involving Donald Trump and January 6. All the evidence we have—and apparently all the evidence that exists—is harrowingly *incriminating*.

Literally *all of it*.

154/ We're now getting evidence of the Trump allies who begged Trump to do something to stop the violence. Meadows told an aide, however, "He [Trump] doesn't want anything done [to stop the violence]."

Every witness agrees Trump watched the violence on TV and did *nothing* else.

155/ I wonder how many Americans fully appreciate *how many phone calls* Trump's Oath of Office required him to be making on January 6th. He was supposed to be *helping to coordinate* the federal response to the coup attempt. Instead, he further incited it as he watched it on TV.

156/ We are now going to see the historic video of congressional leaders I spoke of earlier.

157/ Give me a moment to watch and detail this. It is truly historic.

158/ This lengthy video showed GOP and Republican leaders of the House and Senate—Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, McConnell, Thune, Scalise—working honorably and diligently and urgently and intelligently to contact DoD, DOJ, the VP, and VA/MD governors seeking aid as Trump did *nothing*.

159/ From a criminal investigation standpoint, it is stunning that congressional leadership was originally told that the joint session would be delayed *days*—which is exactly what Trump wanted. We did not know until today how close Trump was to getting what he wanted and needed.

160/ Everyone must watch this video. To put a finer point on it, it's now clear that the reason Trump did nothing on January 6 is because—as PROOF OF COUP (2022) detailed—he had a good chance of getting inaction by the Pentagon to lead to a several-day delay of the joint session.

161/ With a *several day* delay, Trump's "fake elector plot" could have worked—and PROOF has published a *mountain* of fully sourced evidence confirming that this is exactly what Trump and his legal team were planning in the days *before* January 6. A several day delay = victory.

162/ So it's not just that this video is inspiring because it lets us see leaders of both parties acting honorably to combat a siege of the U.S. Capitol. It's shocking because it helps explain precisely *why* the ever-dishonorable Trump had a *specific* reason to act differently.

163/ This video alone should lead to a full investigation of whether the Pentagon response on January 6 was part of a criminal conspiracy. I wrote a 250-page, exhaustively sourced book on this subject. It is here: sethabramson.substack.com/p/book-release…

164/ Rep. Raskin now focuses on (a) Trump telling Kevin McCarthy (falsely) that the attackers were "antifa," then immediately admitting they weren't but condoning their (his supporters' actions), and (b) McCarthy thereafter lying about what Trump said to him to protect the POTUS.

165/ Rep. Raskin now reveals Secret Service texts confirming that the USSS took Trump's texts as calling for Pence's execution and making his assassination *considerably* more likely. In real time, Trump's own bodyguards *knew* that he was attempting to incite political violence.

166/ We're now hearing internal communications between insurrectionists as they attacked the Capitol, as well as reactions of insurrectionists on the ground as they heard Trump's inciting tweets attempting to get Pence killed and further encourage violent anger against Congress.

167/ We're now hearing testimony from Trump administration officials who resigned office on or immediately after January 6 due to Trump's actions.

One such official is Elaine Chao—Mitch McConnell's wife—who Trump has recently made racist social media posts about on Truth Social.

168/ We're now seeing stunning video of insurrectionists in real time agreeing to leave the Capitol *exclusively* because Trump finally released a video asking them to do so. It is clear that had Trump issued such a message earlier, the attack would have ended hours earlier.

169/ Rep. Raskin is underscoring, via testimony by Sarah Matthews and Pat Cipollone, that Trump could have at any time given a statement to stop the violence. Instead, even after he told people to go home—finally—he excused their conduct and blamed Democrats for causing it.

170/ Raskin ends his presentation by reminding America that under the laws of the United States a man who acted as Donald Trump did on January 6 is supposed to be banned from ever holding federal office again.

This is clearly now building toward a vote to subpoena Donald Trump.

171/ Now Rep. Thompson, the Committee chair, is saying that the Committee *must* hear directly from Trump in order to conduct a comprehensive investigation. Thompson says that it is *also* the case that Trump must appear to testify to be held "accountable to the American people."

172/ Thompson says it is Congress' "obligation" to seek Trump's testimony, and there is *precedent* for Congress seeking presidential testimony. He acknowledges that a subpoena for a former president is nevertheless a "serious" step. But he says that it is nevertheless necessary.

173/ BREAKING NEWS: REPUBLICAN congresswoman Liz Cheney has just moved to subpoena REPUBLICAN private citizen Donald Trump before the U.S. House of Representatives.

174/ Cheney says that there is sufficient evidence to issue criminal referrals to DOJ, but that before this occurs—if it occurs—Trump must be subpoenaed. Not just because of the evidence the HJ6C has, but because many witnesses pleaded the Fifth to hide *what Trump said to them*.

175/ We're now hearing Trump advisers Roger Stone and Michael Flynn pleading the Fifth Amendment to avoid discussing their private conversations with Donald Trump. And we're now hearing John Eastman—a Trump attorney—do the same to hide similar conversations.

Now Jeff Clark, too.

176/ Clearly everyone who spoke with Trump believes that if they reveal what they discussed with him, they're likely to be indicted (examples Cheney provides includes Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro; she also mentions that Mark Meadows refuses to honor his congressional subpoena).

177/ The House January 6 Committee will now vote on subpoenaing Donald Trump.

178/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (🚨): House January 6 Committee Unanimously Votes to Subpoena Donald Trump As Part of Its Investigation into the Violent Attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021

179/ The Committee now stands in recess.

180/ This subpoena is for both testimony and documents.

While we know there will be no more House January 6 Committee hearings before the midterm elections, this does *not* mean there will be no more public hearings.

Breaking news upcoming—

181/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (CNN): House January 6 Committee Likely to Issue Criminal Referrals to DOJ at An Upcoming (Possibly Public) Hearing

182/ Individuals likely—but not guaranteed—to be criminally referred to DOJ by the House January 6 Committee, per CNN, include:

🔴 Bannon
🔴 Clark
🔴 Flynn
🔴 Eastman
🔴 Meadows
🔴 Navarro
🔴 Stone
🔴 Trump

CNN reports that any HJ6C referrals are almost certain to be UNANIMOUS.

183/ We now await a public rant from Donald Trump; federal court proceedings attempting to block the subpoena of him; HJ6C votes on issuing multiple criminal referrals to DOJ (which DOJ can ignore); and what is certain to be a massive final report from the Committee in December.

184/ Tomorrow PROOF will issue an extensive report on the way forward for Congress with respect to January 6—as there is much, *much* more to be said on this subject than what we heard from the House January 6 Committee or we are hearing from the media in post-hearing commentary.

185/ As this live thread approaches 5 hours—one of the longest I’ve done—I want to say I hope you’ve found it helpful. If you feel moved to use the Venmo tip jar in my bio, I really appreciate it. If the jar isn’t visible to you, you can donate via PayPal: sethabramson.net/pp

186/ BREAKING NEWS: CNN Says It Will Air Full, 40-Minute Video of Congressional Leaders Convening on January 6 at 8PM ET Tonight; Video Was Taken By Alexandra Pelosi, Daughter of the Speaker of the House

187/ Apparently, one thing we’ll learn from this video—which we saw 5-8 minutes of during the HJ6C hearing today—is that Trump and his plotters were so close to getting the several-day delay of the joint session they wanted that Congress considered convening at a second location.

188/ This video will also focus on concerns among congressional leaders on January 6 that there was a secret hold at the Pentagon keeping it from providing a response to the Capitol on that day.

Spoiler: Chris Miller (then Secretary of Defense) says there was not. But there was.

189/ In my book PROOF OF COUP: HOW THE PENTAGON SHAPED AN INSURRECTION—a new book in the NYT-bestselling Proof series—I provide 250 pages of well-sourced proof there *was* a hold at the Pentagon on January 6.

The book is free with a $5 PROOF subscription. sethabramson.substack.com/p/book-release…

190/ #TrumpCoupAttempt is now trending on Twitter—underscoring that there *is* significant attention being paid to the ongoing Trumpist insurrection still today.

And rightly so: the insurrection isn’t over, and despite this *none* of its leaders have yet been held accountable.

CONCLUSION1/ As this live thread hits 5 hours and 1,500 retweets, I want to ask everyone to RETWEET the first tweet in this ~200-tweet thread, so that Americans who were unable to watch this midday-Thursday hearing can get the most comprehensive real-time coverage of it tonight.

CONCLUSION2/ The big takeaways from today are:

1⃣ Trump will receive a subpoena for testimony and documents.
2⃣ There’ll likely be multiple unanimous criminal referrals coming out of the House January 6 Committee.
3⃣ The destroyed Secret Service texts almost certainly mattered.

CONCLUSION3/

4⃣ The intel failures that preceded January 6 were deliberate, and orchestrated in part by Trump allies in federal agencies.
5⃣ There appears to have been some sort of effort at the Pentagon aimed at ensuring a several-day delay of the joint session—and a Trump win.

CONCLUSION4/

6⃣ The Committee plans to recall past witnesses who it believes either lied or did not tell the whole truth about the most important piece of evidence in the entire January 6 timeline: evidence that Trump fought to lead the armed attack on the Capitol *personally*.

CONCLUSION5/

7⃣ The Committee says it has evidence of tampering with witnesses—based on what we know Secret Service and/or Trump White House witnesses—who could testify that Trump knew the January 6 attackers were armed and demanded to lead them personally in attacking Congress.

CONCLUSION6/

8⃣ New video of congressional leaders’ response to the January 6 siege offers the clearest evidence yet of the sort of conduct demanded of Trump by his Oath of Office—instead of which he sat watching TV to try to ensure the several-day joint session delay he needed.

CONCLUSION7/

9⃣ The foregoing confirms that the January 6 investigation isn’t *close* to complete—and the HJ6C is wrapping up its work literally years early *exclusively* because US voters seem to want to put insurrectionists back in power, at which point they will end the HJ6C.

CONCLUSION8/

🔟 Further House January 6 Committee hearings in mid-November, late November, or sometime in December remain a possibility, as there are still interviews to be conducted, evidence to be collected, referrals to be issued, and revelations to be shared with the public.

NOTE/ As ever, this live thread will be added to the House January 6 Committee archive at PROOF, which you can find at the link below (along with 200+ exhaustive January 6 reports, approximately half of which are free, with the other half for subscribers): sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-house-ja…

NOTE2/ As media responds to today’s HJ6C hearing by saying we still have little info on what the Secret Service or Pentagon knew pre-January 6, I underscore that those who subscribe to PROOF should immediately read its USSS-related articles and this book: sethabramson.substack.com/p/book-release…

NOTE3/ One of the major, fully sourced reports on the Secret Service and January 6 that’s archived at PROOF—published way back in March 2021 but still well ahead of what most media outlets have reported—is free to the public, and can be found at this link: sethabramson.substack.com/p/january-6-se…

NOTE4/ A second major, fully sourced PROOF report on the Secret Service and January 6 is also free; you can find it below. (For the most comprehensive book on events at the Pentagon on January 6, see PROOF OF COUP: HOW THE PENTAGON SHAPED AN INSURRECTION.) sethabramson.substack.com/p/15-questions…

BREAKING NEWS (🚨): It’s always exciting when you can end a live thread on breaking news.

CNN just reported that the United States Supreme Court has declined to intervene on Trump’s behalf in the ongoing federal investigation of his theft of classified documents from Washington.

NOTE5/ Stay tuned to this feed for a major PROOF report on the House January 6 Committee—and the future of the January 6 investigation in Congress—tomorrow at PROOF. It’ll be for PROOF subscribers and be pinned atop the feed sometime tomorrow evening. /end sethabramson.substack.com