Jan. 6 committee holds first prime-time hearing

The committee showed video of former Attorney General William Barr’s closed-door deposition, where Barr said simply that Trump’s claims were “bullshit.”

Barr, who resigned in December 2020, said part of the reason that he left the Trump administration was because of the false claims of fraud Trump was making.

“I made it clear that I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the President was bullshit,” Barr said in the deposition.

Barr announced publicly on December 1, 2020, that the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud. His comments enraged Trump, and Barr he resigned several weeks later. 

Barr was replaced by then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who was subjected to a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to throw the Justice Department’s support behind Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. When he resisted, Trump considered replacing him with a loyalist who would back the baseless fraud allegations.

At the time of his resignation, Barr didn't give that reason. Instead he started with:

“I appreciate the opportunity to update you this afternoon on the department’s review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued. At a time when the country is so deeply divided, it is incumbent on all levels of government, and all agencies acting within their purview, to do all we can to assure the integrity of elections and promote public confidence in their outcome.”

Watch the moment:

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the chairman of the House select committee, compared those trying to justify the actions of insurrections at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to those who try to justify racism and racial violence in American history.

Thompson in his opening remarks talked about how he is from a rural part of the state.

Remember: Members of the committee recognize that they have two important missions tonight: First to re-introduce the events of Jan. 6, 2021, to the American people and remind them of the gravity of the situation and the implications it could have had on the peaceful transfer of power. 

The second is to introduce their thesis — that Donald Trump is specifically responsible for the push to undermine the election results and that effort was directly tied to the Capitol riot.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi is the chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack and also serves as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, the first ever Democrat to hold the position.

As chairman of the Homeland Security panel, Thompson introduced and oversaw the House's passage of the legislative recommendations after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Thompson is a civil rights pioneer who started his political career by registering fellow African Americans to vote in the segregated South. His first political victory was being elected the first Black mayor of his hometown of Bolton, Mississippi. He is the only Democrat serving in Mississippi's delegation.

Thompson views the work of the January 6 committee in the same vein as his work in the civil rights struggle.

"Our democracy is at stake," he told CNN. "We have to defend our democracy. We have to defend our government."

Read about the other eight committee members here.

Justice Department officials are watching the House select committee Jan. 6 hearing for what kind of possible crimes the committee believes it has uncovered.

It’s possible at the end of the committee’s investigation, it makes criminal referrals, or something less formal by turning over evidence that prosecutors could examine. 

During a hearing for the criminal case against the Proud Boys on Thursday, Justice Department prosecutors said that the committee is planning to release all 1,000 witness transcripts from its investigation in early September, coinciding with the trial of five Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the riot.

Officials are mindful that some members of the committee have been critical at the pace of the DOJ investigation.

But they believe that criticism is outdated. Recent subpoenas looking into the “alternate electors” scheme and ties to the Trump campaign, as well as other indications prosecutors are looking beyond the rioters and focusing on people who helped instigate the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot has started its first prime-time hearing.

The nine-person panel has spent months investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — interviewing members of the Trump administration and the former President's inner circle.

Tonight, they will unveil an in-depth assessment of events leading up to the day Congress was to affirm Joe Biden's victory, the administration's response to the violence at the Capitol and what unfolded in the aftermath among Trump and his allies.

Here's a quick look at what to expect:

CNN's Chandelis Duster contributed reporting to this post.

A source familiar with the matter said that the hearing will set the stage for the events of Jan. 6, 2021, but won’t answer every question. Yet it will end with a video that this source says will be very revelatory. The source declined to provide any more details.

In the hallway right now, a number of House Democrats are piling into the spectator seats of the hearing room, and some members of the Capitol Police are expected to also attend.

Hero cop Eugene Goodman is not expected to attend, another source said.

Three women — all the wives or long-time partner of the officers who died after responding to the Capitol attack — are expected to attend the first Jan. 6 hearing tonight. 

Erin Smith, Sandra Garza and Serena Liebengood will attend the hearing in person, accompanied by Capitol police officers Harry Dunn, Daniel Hodges, and Sgt. Aquilino Gonell.  

Erin Smith’s attorney confirmed she plans to attend, but does not plan to speak. Smith’s husband Jeffrey Smith was an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department. Officer Smith died nine days after responding to the Capitol attack. Video evidence turned over to the District of Columbia’s Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board showed Officer Smith assaulted by the mob and hit in the head with a metal pole on Jan. 6, 2021. His death by suicide was declared a line of duty death in early March of this year, and his wife Erin is now entitled to full benefits. 

Serena Liebengood is still fighting to have her husband’s death ruled in the line of duty. Capitol Police officer Howie Liebengood died by suicide in the days after Jan. 6, 2021. Liebengood says her husband assisted with riot control on Jan. 6, 2021 and then worked lengthy shifts in the days that followed. 

In a letter to Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton soon after his death in 2021 urging her husband’s death be declared in the line of duty, Liebengood wrote of her husband's experience: “Although he was severely sleep-deprived, he remained on duty — as he was directed — practically around the clock from January 6th through the 9th. On the evening of the 9th, he took his life at our home.”

Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes one day after he confronted rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a ruling from D.C.’s chief medical examiner. 

His longtime partner Sandra Garza wrote an op-ed for CNN last June blasting Republican lawmakers who refused to acknowledge the gravity of the Capitol attack: “As the months passed, my deep sadness turned to outright rage as I watched Republican members of Congress lie on TV and in remarks to reporters and constituents about what happened that day. Over and over they denied the monstrous acts committed by violent protestors….To know that some members of Congress – along with the former President, Donald Trump, who Brian and I once supported but who can only now be viewed as the mastermind of that horrible attack – are not acknowledging Brian’s heroism that day is unforgivable and un-American.”

CNN's Jamie Gangel contributed to this report.

Americans will not be hearing from their former Presidents tonight.

The House select committee asked some of the former living Presidents whether they would record a video message about the importance of the peaceful transition of power in the United States, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, with a particular focus from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama.

The three former Presidents decided against making the video messages, people familiar with the matter say, fearful that it could unnecessarily inject politics into the investigation — and create an unnecessary opening for the other member of the President’s club, Donald Trump, to seize upon. 

While Clinton, Bush and Obama all have spoken out against the attack on the Capitol — in real-time messages on that day, as the violence was underway, and multiple times over the past year — the trio will not be heard from tonight. 

The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 will use its first prime-time public heariay to make the case that former President Donald Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and prevent the transition of power, according to the committee.

The panel will reveal new evidence that aides say will help “connect the dots” between Trump’s election lies, his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop the counting of electoral votes.

Aides outlined the first public hearing, which will take place in prime time, as the committee’s opening salvo – previewing what’s to come in the month’s worth of planned hearings.

Here’s what to watch for:

New video and attempt to draw a direct line between Trump and violence

Thursday, the committee plans to show previously unseen video of testimony collected during closed depositions that includes interviews with Trump White House aides, campaign officials and members of Trumps’ family.

Committee aides said they also plan to show video to remind the public what happened on January 6 when the Capitol was overrun by a violent mob. “We’ll bring the American people back to the reality of that violence and remind them of just how horrific it was,” one aide said.

The committee said the “vast majority” of the video that it plans to show has not been seen publicly before.

That video will be supplemented by live witness testimony from two witnesses who had an up-close view of the rioters: US Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was among the first injured by rioters on January 6, and documentarian Nick Quested, who had unique access to members of militia groups who took part in the attack.

The committee will seek to use that evidence to draw a direct line between Trump and the groups who perpetrated the violence on Jan. 6. Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney will make opening statements and they will be the ones to question the witnesses Thursday, aides said.

While the hearings won’t be the committee’s final word – a report is planned for later in the year – it’s the panel’s highest-profile opportunity to convince the public whose views have hardened about why it should care about what happened on January 6. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are preparing their own counter-programming to attack the committee’s work as a political attack on Trump.

Read more of what to watch for here:

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What to watch at the House's first prime-time hearing on the January 6 insurrection