--:-- Shamitha Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, June 10th. I'm Shamitha Basu.
--:-- Benny Thompson: January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one writer put it shortly after January 6th, to overthrow the government. The violence was no accident. It represents Senate Trump's last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: A lot of what they laid out confirms existing reporting and won't sound especially new. But what was remarkable was the presentation itself, the voices and testimony, text messages and never before seen footage. The nine person bipartisan panel conducted more than a thousand interviews and reviewed 140,000 documents.
--:-- Benny Thompson: A key point the committee made was that Donald Trump, his lawyers, his aides, even members of his family, knew early on that their lies about the election being stolen were just that, that they were lies, and that they continued to spread them to their followers anyway.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Here's never-before-seen testimony of Trump's attorney general, Bill Barr.
--:-- Bill Barr: I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullsh**. And, I didn't want to be a part of it. And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The committee even produced a tape of Trump's daughter Ivanka answering a question about Barr saying her father lost the election and that there was no fraud.
--:-- Ivanka Trump: I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Despite knowing that he had lost the election, the committee said Trump engaged in a massive effort to convince his supporters the election was stolen and that he specifically called on them to come to the United States Capitol on January 6th and to fight for his cause. Members of the far-right groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, answered that call.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The committee played video from rioters who said they were there that day because Donald Trump asked them to be.
--:-- Rioter: And Trump asked us to come. He personally asked for us to come to D.C. that day. And I thought, for everything he's done for us, if this is the only thing he's going to ask of me, I'll do it.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: We also learned that during the insurrection, as the mob was chanting to hang Mike Pence, the president was saying, quote, maybe our supporters have the right idea and that Pence, quote, deserves it.
--:-- Liz Cheney: The AP reports how there was an audible gasp in the room when that detail was read aloud by Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a Republican and the vice chair of the committee.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The committee also revealed that several Republican members of Congress, including Representative Scott Perry, contacted the White House after the insurrection to seek presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the election results.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Some of the more emotional parts of the night came when the committee played video footage that we've never seen before of the attacks that day.
--:-- Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards: One video montage was 11 minutes long and featured security and body camera footage from officers who were under attack. At one point, I was thrown to the ground, hitting my head on the concrete steps and blacking out. At another point, I described being alongside Officer Brian Sicknick. We were both pepper sprayed and tear gassed. I called it a war scene.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: More than 100 police officers were injured that day. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died the following day.
--:-- Liz Cheney: Reporters say there were several police officers and their families in the hearing room as Edwards was speaking, some of them tearing up, consoling each other as they watched the footage of officers being pummeled with flagpoles and trash cans.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: A few months after the attack, the House voted to award congressional gold medals to all police officers who responded that day. 406 lawmakers supported that measure. It was opposed by 21 Republicans.
--:-- Liz Cheney: I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Before the hearing, Trump posted on his social media platform that January 6th represents, quote, the greatest movement in the history of our country to make America great again.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: In a way, these hearings are also a vehicle for the panel to deliver a strong message to a very specific person, Attorney General Merrick Garland. And that message is, pursue criminal charges against people who participated in this to make sure it doesn't happen again.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The Justice Department has arrested and charged more than 800 people in connection to January 6th. The committee made it clear that their investigation is still ongoing and that they plan to release a final report in September.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: This was the first of several public hearings scheduled for the weeks ahead. The next one is on Monday morning.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: We have more coverage, analysis, and reaction from last night's hearing on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Before we let you go, a few other major news updates worth knowing about this morning.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: There been one important perspective missing from the coverage of the mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde. Chief of police for the Uvalde School District, Pete Arredondo, spoke to the Texas Tribune, his first extended comments since the killings.
--:-- Pete Arredondo: It was 77 minutes from the time the shooting began until officers shot the gunman.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Arredondo says the locked classroom door held them back, that they couldn't kick it in. He says he tried dozens of different keys, but couldn't get one to unlock the door.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Finally, officers were able to unlock it and kill the gunman.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: In another reminder of the reality of gun violence in America, three people are dead following a shooting at a plant in Western Maryland.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The suspect is in custody. Investigators have not established a motive for the workplace shooting. It is the 254th mass shooting this year.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: And a Grand Rapids, Michigan police officer faces second-degree murder charges for shooting a Black man.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Prosecutors say Officer Christopher Schur was not acting in self-defense when he killed Patrick Leoya during a traffic stop in April.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Coming up on our weekend interview show, In Conversation, I speak with Gabriel DiBenedetti from New York Magazine.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: He's been talking to lots of Washington insiders and elected officials who are looking for a backup plan in case Joe Biden unexpectedly decides not to seek re-election in 2024.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: By the time the election rolls around, he'll be on the eve of his 82nd birthday.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: All of these people have said over and over, and I know I keep saying this, but it is an important dynamic.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: They keep saying, we're supporting Joe Biden. This is ridiculous. But, and the but is the interesting part.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Check out that weekend listen.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: I'll be taking off all next week, but my colleague Mark Garrison will be filling in for me. He'll be with you on Monday with the news.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Thank you.
