US Capitol riots: Hearing plays radio calls of police begging for help on January 6

Rep. Liz Cheney warned America could face a riot every four years if those behind the January 6th MAGA riot are not held accountable for their actions. 

Cheney gave an opening statement at the first hearing of the committee charged with investigating what happened that day, calling it a ‘cancer’ on the Constitution. 

‘If those responsible are not held accountable and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic, undermining the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democratic system. We will face the threat of more violence in the months to come and another January 6 every four years,’ she said.

In the six months since the MAGA riot, 590 people have been charged with having  a role in that day. More than 300 suspects are still wanted by law enforcement. 

She called on those in the Donald Trump White House with knowledge of the day to step forward and testify.

‘We must know what happened here at the Capitol. We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House – every phone call every conversation every meeting, leading up to during an after the attack. Honorable men and women have an obligation to step forward,’ she said. 

Cheney and Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger are the only two Republicans on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Both serve at the invitation of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Cheney said the investigation will be nonpartisan, countering charges from Republican leadership that the hearing is a ‘sham’ with its outcome pre-determined.

‘When a threat to our constitutional order arises as it has here, we are obligated to rise above politics. This investigation must be nonpartisan,’ Cheney, a Republican lawmaker from Wyoming, said. 

The committee began its hearing with dramatic new footage that day, showing Trump’s  supporters over running the building and attacking police officers.

Filled with shouting obscenities, the video showed the rioters throwing objects and gas canisters at police officers, screaming and shouting as they broke the Capitol’s windows to breach the building.

On the video, police officers are heard on the radio, begging for help as the rioters overwhelmed them.

‘Can I speak to Pelosi? We’re coming b***h,’ one rioter is seen saying of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

‘Hang Mike Pence,’ the crowd is heard shouting about the then-vice president.

The footage was shown to emphasize Democrats’ point that the rioters were trying over throw the government.

‘A peaceful transfer of power did not happen this year. It did not happen. Let that sink in. Think about it. A violent mob was pointed at the Capitol and told to win a trial by combat,’ Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the panel, said in his opening statement.

‘These rioters were organized, they were ready for fight, and they came close to succeeding. It’s frightening to think about how close,’ he added.

At Tuesday’s hearing, the lawmakers will hear from four police officers who were at the Capitol on January 6th, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building, leaving five people dead and a trail of destruction.

The officers are:  

• Harry Dunn, Private First Class, U.S. Capitol Police 
• Aquilino Gonell, Sergeant, U.S. Capitol Police 
• Michael Fanone, Officer, Metropolitan Police Department 
• Daniel Hodges, Officer, Metropolitan Police Department 

 In his testimony, Gonell recounted how the ‘rioters call me traitor.’

‘The rioters were vicious and relentless. We found ourselves in a violent battle,’ he said of that day.

He described his experience ‘like something from a medieval battle. We fought hand to hand, inch by inch, to prevent an invasion of the Capitol by the mob intend on subverting our democracy.’

Meanwhile, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday slammed the committee as ‘a sham that no one can believe.’ 

His comments ahead of the hearing as Republicans tried to get their talking points in before the officers testified.

‘Speaker Pelosi will only pick on people on the committee that will ask the questions she wants asked – that becomes a failed committee and a failed report, a sham that no one can believe. If you want to do answers, do not be afraid of the questions that will get asked,’ McCarthy said a press conference with Republican leaders.

Republicans sought to place the blame on Pelosi, arguing without proof she was responsible for security that day.

‘We now have a committee that all of America wants to know the answers to why were we ill prepared for that day, and how can we make sure that that will never happen again,’ McCarthy argued.

Pelosi’s office fired back. 

‘McCarthy and House Republicans have desperately tried to undermine and prevent a real investigation into the events of January 6th from the start. Now that the bipartisan Select Committee is beginning its work, the only tools left in House Republicans’ arsenal are deflection, distortion, and disinformation,’ the speaker’s office said in a statement.

Pelosi doesn’t direct the DC National Guard, which is actually under the purview of the White House. She does not oversee day-to-day operations in the Capitol and is not in charge of its security. 

Republicans left out that Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP Leader, was also in leadership on that day as they repeatedly tried to tie the lack of proper security preparation back to decisions made by Pelosi in the run up to January 6.  

McCarthy dismissed questions about Trump’s role on that day, a question the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will examine as part of its probe.  

Instead, the Republicans, who were trying to set the stage before the committee gaveled its hearing to order later Tuesday morning, tried to keep the focus on the speaker and berated her for removing Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks from the panel.

Rep. Steve Scalise, the Number 2 in House GOP Leadership, charged Pelosi with ‘canceling’ the two lawmakers.

‘They got canceled by this new cancel culture that we see moving throughout the country led by Speaker Pelosi and a lot of our socialist allies here in Congress, where they want to shut out voices that raise tough questions that they don’t want to be asked or answered,’ he said.

The GOP leadership also complained they would have none of their people asking questions at the hearing. But Pelosi, who said she vetoed Banks and Jordan to protect the ‘integrity’ of the investigation, accepted McCarthy’s other three picks. He pulled them in response to her veto of his other two lawmakers.

Cheney and Kinzinger – both of whom voted for Trump’s second impeachment and who have been vocal critics of the former president’s – give the panel the veneer of bipartisanship.

McCarthy has combined his attacks on Pelosi with hits on his two wayward GOP lawmakers.

‘She’s broken Congress. Then it just makes the whole committee sham and the outcome predetermined,’ McCarthy told reporters at the White House on Monday of Pelosi.

He also slammed Cheney and Kinzinger as ‘Pelosi Republicans.’ McCarthy, facing pressure from some conservatives in his GOP conference to punish the two lawmakers, merely told DailyMail.com ‘we’ll see’ about any possible consequences. 

In response, Cheney and Kinzinger called McCarthy ‘childish’ as they met with the seven Democrats serving on the committee in the Capitol Monday as part of their prep session. 

‘We’ve got very serious business here. We have important work to do,’ Cheney said to reporters on Capitol Hill.  She was booted off the House GOP leadership team earlier this year for her criticism of Trump.

Kinzinger said that McCarthy ‘can call me whatever names he wants,’ before reassuring, ‘I’m a Republican.’

‘If the conference decided, or if Kevin decides, they want to punish Liz Cheney and I for getting to the bottom and telling the truth, I think that probably says more about them than it does for us,’ he continued.

McCarthy offered a privileged resolution on the House floor on Monday night to seat all five of his original picks. 

But Democrats easily voted it down – with Kinzinger and Cheney joining them to kill McCarthy’s attempt to get his people back on the panel.   

The House committee also won’t hesitate to subpoena Trump or anyone who had conversations with him that day, which could include McCarthy.

‘Anybody who had a conversation with the White House and officials in the White House while the invasion of the Capitol was going on is directly in the investigative sights of the committee,’ Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the panel, told The Wall Street Journal on Monday. 

‘I don’t want to name him, but what I will say is that in the conversations we’ve had as a committee, there’s been no reluctance whatsoever to go where the facts lead us,’ he said when asked specifically about Trump.

He also noted the panel won’t hesitate to subpoena any necessary records or phone records as part of their investigation. 

The Justice Department notified former Trump administration officials this week that they could testify to the various committees investigating the riot, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times. 

Cheney said on GMA on Tuesday morning that Trump and McCarthy could be subpoenaed.

‘It could,’ she said of the possibility. ‘The committee will go wherever we need to go to get to the facts.’

Trump has denied any wrong doing. He spoke to his supporters at a rally outside the White House on January 6th and spent the weeks after the November election falsely claiming he won and was the victim of voter fraud. 

He was impeached a second time on charges of he incited an insurrection at the Capitol. He was acquitted by the Senate. 

McCarthy said Republicans will launch their own investigation of January 6th. 

Republicans opposed Pelosi’s original call for a 9/11-style bipartisan commission. McCarthy opposed it in the House where it passed with Democratic support. But the bill died in the Senate once Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would not support it.  

Republicans wanted the commission to have a larger scope – and not just study what happened on January 6, but other acts of so-called ‘political violence’ including last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests.