Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., questioned Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, on July 12 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public. The focus of the hearing was on extremist far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the role they played in the Capitol insurrection.
Raskin asked Ayres what prompted him to leave the insurrection, and whether a message shared by former President Donald Trump on social media that afternoon instructing people to go home impacted his actions.
“As soon as that came out, everybody started talking about it. It seemed like it started to disperse some of the crowd. Once we got back to the hotel room, we seen that it was still going on. But it definitely dispersed a lot of the crowd,” Ayres testified, confirming that he and the people he attended the rally left when they saw that message from the former president.
Raskin also asked what has happened in Ayres’ life since Jan 6, noting that his prior testimony confirms that Ayres no longer believes Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Ayres testified that he has since lost his job, sold his house and that his decisions on Jan. 6 changed his life, “definitely not for the better.”
Ayres added that it makes him “mad” that Trump is still spreading lies about the 2020 election, and that he used to hang onto every word the former president said, much like “hundreds of thousands or millions” of other supporters who did the same.
In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.
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