During a Jan. 6 committee hearing on June 16, the committee played edited testimony from witnesses present in the White House as the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was underway.
The committee laid out how former Vice President Mike Pence came within 40 feet of rioters in the Capitol building while he was being evacuated. Just moments before, President Donald Trump sent out a tweet criticizing Pence for not taking action to overturn the election results.
According to testimony played during the hearing, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews testified that she and others believed “that was the last thing that needed to be tweeted.”
“The situation was already bad. So it felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire,” she said in the committee’s presentation.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said Trump’s tweet inflamed the crowd.
“Our investigation found immediately after the 2:24 p.m. tweet, the crowds outside of the Capitol and inside the Capitol surged. The crowds inside the Capital were able to overwhelm law enforcement and the vice president was quickly evacuated from his ceremonial office to a secure location within the complex,” he said.
The hearing was the third of several planned by the Jan. 6 committee that focused on Trump’s efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to reject Congress’ official count of Electoral College votes on the day of the attack. 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. The committee postponed a hearing scheduled for June 15 that was meant to focus on Trump’s efforts to replace Attorney General Bill Barr, who did not support his claims of voter fraud after the election.
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