January 6 hearings: Highlights and analysis of Day 9, Trump subpoena vote

These hearings have demonstrated the willingness of Trump and his followers to use the threat of violence, and sometimes actual violence, to intimidate and impose their political will.

A lot needs to be done in the wake of all we’ve seen: holding Trump personally accountable for his role in the Jan. 6 plot, as well as passing laws to shore up the loopholes that Trump and his followers sought to exploit to overturn the election. 

But the GOP is still invested in voter intimidation tactics — including violent intimidation — and that’s worthy of congressional attention, too. For instance, Florida’s right-wing governor, Ron DeSantis, has thrown his weight behind armed groups he has authorized to police elections for purported widespread fraud. 

There have also been plenty of reports on the GOP’s strategy of recruiting thousands of activists to serve as poll watchers during the upcoming midterms in search of supposedly fraudulent voters. 

It’s a reminder that the threats to American democracy aren’t confined to Jan. 6, or even centered around Trump in particular. For the foreseeable future, the GOP will be driven by anti-democratic sentiment whether he’s leading their movement or not.

The footage the committee showed today of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders attempting to wrangle additional law enforcement resources is stunning. Even as she watches live footage of the rioters shattering Capitol windows, Pelosi is unflappable both as the de facto wartime general and a real-time analyst, noting that everything unfolding was “all at the instigation of the president of the United States.”

But by the time Pelosi and her counterpart, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, get then-Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on the phone, they are more skittish. Pelosi tells Rosen, with a sense of urgency, that while the concern about the personal safety of those in the building transcends everything, he should be alarmed about the “many different ways” that the law was being broken. Schumer then pipes up, more angrily: “Why don’t you get the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General?”

What we know, of course, that Pelosi and Schumer didn’t know is that three days earlier, Rosen had barely survived a version of “The Apprentice,” live from the Oval Office. On Jan. 3, Trump had forced Rosen to go head to head with the then-acting head of the DOJ's civil division, Jeffrey Bossart Clark, whom Trump intended to name as attorney general until he was faced with a unified revolt from senior DOJ leaders and the White House counsel’s office. By Jan. 6, Rosen was likely whiplashed, exhausted and in no position to ask Trump for anything.

Rep. Liz Cheney ended the meeting by explaining why we need to hear from Trump himself. The reason is that many of his loyalists have refused to cooperate. 

Cheney played video of Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s former legal adviser John Eastman, and former Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark all invoking their right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, rather than answer the committee’s questions. 

Cheney also explained that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Trump’s former trade adviser Peter Navaro and former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows have all refused to cooperate on some level for various — and largely illegitimate — reasons.  

Those in Trump world left the committee with no choice but to ask for Trump.

There wasn’t a lot of new footage screened today, but the most interesting was of members of Congress struggling to wrap their arms around the crisis confronting them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are featured prominently, trying to get additional assistance from police and the National Guard. As Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., pointed out, Republican leadership in the room was also engaged in trying to get the Capitol cleared out in Trump’s absence. 

There are a number of questions this footage raises, including: Who decided that it was necessary to document what Congress was doing during the attack? Also: What were some of the Trump fans in Congress busy doing in some of that footage? And, as NBC News’ Ginger Gibson asked on Twitter, what happened to the full, unedited footage from that time? It’s my hope that we can hopefully see it all at some point, bearing in mind the security concerns at play.

No one will ever say today was a slow news day. The conservatively leaning Supreme Court just ruled against Trump's latest request regarding special master access to the classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in August.

The brief decision was unsigned, with no recorded dissents. Read more from NBC News:

The question of what to do about Trump himself has hung over the Jan. 6 committee’s work for months now. On Thursday, the panel voted unanimously to subpoena the former president to testify before the panel about the attack on the Capitol.

“The need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact-finding,” Chair Bennie Thompson said, saying it is a matter of accountability. “He is required to answer for his actions, he is required to answer to those police officers who put their lives on the line to defend our democracy. He is required to answer to those millions of Americans whose votes he wanted to throw out to ensure his remaining in office.”

It’s a major escalation that has been discussed — and at times dismissed — among committee members for months. Thompson said in April that “the concern is whether or not he would add any more value with his testimony.” The knowledge that Trump has waged lengthy legal battles against any subpoena against him, both during his term and after, likely also gave the committee pause because of the distraction it would provide.

Now, with the committee’s work wrapping up, the decision has been made to pull the trigger. Whether Trump refuses to comply or not, the committee is now on the record as believing that Trump should have to explain to Congress his actions that put lawmakers at risk on Jan. 6, 2021.

As Lisa Rubin just noted, the Secret Service testimony that the committee has obtained definitely bolsters the claims from Cassidy Hutchinson. She told the committee that the president was “irate” on his ride to the White House after his Jan. 6 speech and being told that he could not join the mob. That story had been relayed to her via deputy White House chief of staff Tony Ornato, Hutchinson testified.

After her testimony, unnamed sources in the Secret Service tried to discredit her testimony — but the new material that the Jan. 6 committee has received since then has borne out her claims. Rep. Pete Aguilar made clear that the new information from the Secret Service means that “the committee will be calling additional witnesses and conducting investigations regarding that material.”

Importantly, “the committee is reviewing testimony regarding additional obstruction on this issue,” the California Democrat said, “including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about the specific topic.” That can’t be good news for Ornato, who spoke with the committee before Hutchinson’s testimony, according to a Secret Service spokesperson. 

(Ornato, it’s also worth noting, was a Secret Service official before being named to his White House role and returned to the agency after Trump’s term ended — and may have been leading the efforts to discredit Hutchinson while there.)

Having already covered how Trump set the events of Jan. 6 into motion, Rep. Jamie Raskin detailed how Trump affirmatively refused to call off his supporters.  

Raskin explained that people “begged him to disperse his supporters and tell him to go home.” He did nothing but watch the violence play out on TV. This wasn’t just a few people asking the president to stop what he started. This included Fox News host Sean Hannity, members of his family, members of his Cabinet, and members of Congress.”

Raskin detailed Trump’s “chilling and steady passivity that day.” That may be an understatement. 

Next, Raskin played videos showing the elected leaders of our country begging for help. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for help, explaining it was a matter not just of property damage or inconvenience, but of safety. 

But all of these leaders, including then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, knew the same thing: Trump was the one who could restore order. Trump was the one who could denounce his mob. Trump abdicated his responsibility.  

Having done everything but walk to the Capitol and light a match on its steps, Trump simply sat back and watched the building burn.

We just got some chilling testimony from a White House security official, whom Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said reported to national security officials during Jan. 6, that illustrates how American democracy was teetering on a knife’s edge that day.

The anonymous official explained how it felt after learning Trump wanted to join members of the armed, pro-Trump mob as they descended upon the Capitol: “To be honest, we were all in a state of shock.” 

The official continued:

“We all knew what that implicated and what that meant. That this was no longer a rally, that this was going to move to something else if he physically walked to the Capitol. I don’t know if you want to use the word ‘insurrection,’ ‘coup’ — whatever. We all knew that this would move from a normal, democratic, you know, public event into something else.”