Initially, tonight's hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th was supposed to be the final hearing. That was before all the rest of the hearings caused so many other witnesses and tangential stories to come out of the woodwork. Nevertheless, it was indeed (as I wrote yesterday) the "season finale" of the summer miniseries of televised hearings. The committee is now promising to reconvene and hold more public hearings in September, to cover all the new information. The committee will stay busy during the August congressional break, digging into all the new evidence and witnesses who have come forward, and then they'll report back afterwards to the public. So there's all that to look forward to....

Tonight was billed as the "187-minute hearing," but (cue rimshot) it only lasted about 165 minutes. The "187" figure, of course, was the time between Donald Trump leaving the stage at his rally at the Ellipse and when he (finally) put out his "go home" tweet, over three hours later.

There were two live witnesses today, both former Trump White House aides. Deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews both resigned their jobs on January 6th, after seeing Donald Trump's dangerous responses and inaction on that day. Matthews had been with the 2016 Trump campaign and had worked in the White House for Trump's entire term, after Kayleigh McEnany brought her over from the campaign very early on. But neither one could stomach what happened on that dark day. We also heard a lot more of Pat Cipollone's videotaped testimony.

The chair of the House Select Committee has contracted COVID-19, so Bennie Thompson only appeared remotely, while his vice chair, Liz Cheney, took over the gavel for the hearing. The two questioners today were Adam Kinzinger, the only other House Republican other than Cheney who has honored his oath to the Constitution, and Elaine Luria, a vulnerable Democrat from a district in Virginia where she could face a very tough race for re-election in the midterms. In interviews prior to the hearing, she was undaunted by this, saying: "If I don't get re-elected because of this, that's OK." In other words, she's quite willing to do her duty even if it means the end of her own political career.

A footnote to today's proceedings is that the trial of Steve Bannon will wrap up on Friday with closing statements by both sides, which is odd timing but somehow seems appropriate.

Today's hearing [editorial note: much of this was written last night....] was billed as only lasting two hours, but that was an obvious fib, since in the end it ran to two-and-three-quarter hours. But then, it had a lot to cover and what it set out to cover it certainly accomplished. So let's just get right to the hearing itself.

Public Hearings of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol [Episode 8]

We started today with the by-now-familiar opening rites. Bennie Thompson kicked things off remotely, due to contracting COVID-19. But it didn't detract from what he had to say in the slightest. He then handed things off to Liz Cheney.

Cheney addressed all the elements she had promised in the initial hearings, recounting how each one of them had been addressed already, with one omission. Then she promised the country that this summer miniseries would indeed continue (at least on a limited basis) in September, after the select committee spent August doing the hard work of digging through all the new testimony that has apparently been flooding in.

Cheney pointedly reminded all Republicans who might be watching how both congressional GOP leaders reacted in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection attempt -- which might be summed up as "sheer horror." She played video clips of both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell denouncing Trump's culpability as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's initial (and shocked) reaction. This set the stage for everything that has followed, as first McCarthy went down to Trump's Florida resort to grovel and abase himself, and then McConnell shrugged and figured why not just continue to support a man who had abjectly attacked both the institution he was part of as well as American democracy itself. This preamble served as nothing more than an example of "Profiles In Cowardice." Cheney finished with a particularly damning statement: Trump "refused to defend our nation and our Constitution."

This was reinforced by Elaine Luria, who began by displaying the oath of office Trump swore, a pointed reminder of how he failed to perform the duty that he swore he would. Adam Kinzinger took over and continued the theme: "President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home. He chose not to act." Kinzinger also referenced "Trump's dishonor and dereliction of duty."

After the two witnesses were sworn in, they were given a chance to speak of their experience and credentials. Matthew Pottinger was deputy national security advisor and recounted his long experience in the field. Sarah Matthews was on Trump's communications team from the start -- during his campaign -- and she had remained with him for his entire tenure in the White House. Both of them resigned their posts on January 6th, after seeing how Trump cheered on the insurrectionists while refusing to lift a finger to call them off. Both were proud to work for Donald Trump up until that day, however, continuing a long line of witnesses who in no way could be called Trump's political opposition. Quite the contrary -- all of these people worked for Trump, after being hand-picked.

Luria then introduced another anonymous witness, a person who is apparently afraid to testify openly -- just like a witness in a mob trial might be fearful of retribution. The witness was part of the security team who were monitoring communications from the Secret Service and other law enforcement. He said he was "in a state of shock" when he learned Trump wanted to walk to the Capitol, because he knew that it would have changed the situation dramatically. No longer would it be a political rally, it would be more akin to: "I don't know if you want to use the word insurrection, coup, whatever." We heard other testimony about how "irate" Trump was when his security team refused to let him either walk or drive down to the Capitol, to be with the rioters.

Once Trump got back to the White House, he was informed "within 15 minutes" that the crowd had turned violent and the United States Capitol was under siege. Trump moved to the dining room adjacent to the Oval Office, where he spent most of the day sitting and watching the events play out on Fox News. This is the time period when there was a gigantic gap in the official White House call log and in Trump's presidential diary. The official photographer was not allowed to take any photos, either. Trump entered a twilight zone where his actions were not recorded or under much scrutiny. He did make many phone calls, assumably from a private cell phone, but virtually all of them were to senators he was trying to talk into contesting the results.

Trump did not contact the military. He did not contact the F.B.I. or any other law enforcement agency. He did absolutely nothing to stop the riot whatsoever. This was all attested to by the people who should have gotten those calls, such as General Keith Kellogg. He called senators to browbeat them, and he called Rudy Giuliani rather than his own attorney general. All the while, he watched with apparent glee while the crowd overwhelmed the police officers and began their rampage in the Capitol.

Kinzinger pointed out that Pat Cipollone testified that he was pleading with Trump to make a public statement and tell the rioters to go home, and that he wasn't the only one. Cipollone urged for "an immediate and forceful response... a public statement that people needed to leave the Capitol now.... Many people suggested it, not just me."

When the crowd began chanting "Hang Mike Pence," Cipollone told Trump: "They are literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung!" But Trump didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Cipollone begged to differ: "That is outrageous. I thought it was terrible. I thought it was outrageous and wrong and I expressed that."

Sarah Matthews was asked how long it would have taken to get on the air if Trump had decided to make a public statement, and she responded: "Less than 60 seconds. He could have been on camera almost instantly." He could even have done it from the Oval Office if he wished, which would only have taken "a matter of minutes" to set up. Or he could have just sent a tweet.

Trump refused to do anything.

More and more witnesses recounted trying to convince Trump he had a duty to act and to tell the rioters to stop and go home, but none could. Even after they broke into the building and caused Mike Pence and the entire United States Congress to flee for their lives, Trump still did nothing.

The Secret Service was desperately trying to protect Pence, and from the anonymous person listening to the radio calls, there was "a lot of yelling, a lot of very personal calls over the radio... there were calls to family members... the vice presidential detail thought that this was about to get very ugly.... It was just chaos." They were close to having to use "lethal options," which would have meant firing into the crowd in an attempt to keep Pence alive. The agents were "saying goodbye to their families" over the radio, because they were in fear for their own lives as well.

Throughout it all, Trump never tried to call Pence to see how he was doing. Pence, at this point, was the one who was calling the Pentagon and issuing orders to get some troops to the Capitol to retake it from the insurrectionists.

This was around the same time that Trump sent a tweet out calling Pence a "coward." This tweet absolutely enraged the mob, and pointed them directly at Pence. Pottinger testified that the tweet "looked to me like the opposite of what we really needed at that moment, which was a de-escalation, and that's why I said earlier that it looked like fuel being poured on the fire. So that was the moment that I decided that I was going to resign, that that would my last day at the White House. I simply didn't want to be associated with the events that were unfolding on the Capitol." Matthews said almost exactly the same thing:

I thought that the tweet about the vice president was the last thing that was needed in that moment. And I remember thinking that this was going to be bad for him to tweet this because it was essentially him giving the green light to these people, telling them that what they were doing at the steps of the Capitol and entering the Capitol was okay, that they were justified in their anger. And he shouldn't have been doing that. He should have been telling these people to go home and to leave and to condemn the violence that we were seeing.

She also used the metaphor of "pouring gasoline on the fire" to describe Trump's actions. Others reacted in similar fashion. Similar testimony was played from several people, including Pat Cipollone, Judd Deere, and Cassidy Hutchinson: "As an American, I was really disgusted. It was unpatriotic, it was un-American, we were watching the Capitol being defaced over a lie."

Meanwhile, Trump was still calling senators, trying to get them to somehow magically make several states' votes disappear. One senator who needed no convincing to do so was Josh Hawley, who infamously gave a fist-pump to the crowd as he entered the building -- an image he is so proud of he uses it in fundraising efforts. Luria pointed out how others saw this gesture: "We spoke with a Capitol police officer who was out there at the time. She told us that Senator Hawley's gesture riled up the crowd, and it bothered her greatly because he was doing it in a safe space, protected by the officers and the barriers." The first segment of the hearings closed on an amusing note, as video was played of Hawley running in fear down a hallway of the Capitol, fleeing for his life from the crowd he had just riled up. There was apparently laughter in the committee room as this clip played (the internet is now having a field day with the clip, paring it with amusing musical clips such as the Benny Hill theme song).

After an hour and 11 minutes, the committee declared a 10-minute recess.

When it returned, Kinzinger began again. He pointed out that Trump essentially sat on his behind and watched television, while refusing to listen to everyone begging him to make some sort of statement and call his dogs off. Even Don Junior was texting: "He got to condemn this shit. Asap.... This is one you go to the mattresses on... they will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse." The bit about the mattresses was helpfully explained as "a Godfather reference." In other words, they even talk like movie mobsters. Ivanka and Jared Kushner also attempted to talk Trump into acting as well.

Trump, rather than calming anybody down, was sending out tweets that riled them up even more. Everyone around Trump was telling him to tell his followers to go home, but Trump didn't care. He was seemingly enjoying watching it all unfold, and probably didn't understand why everyone around him wasn't enjoying it too. Matthews testified that she had a conversation with someone in the White House who "thought it would be handing a win to the media" if Trump called the mob off. "I couldn't believe we were arguing over this in the middle of the West Wing," she said, while pointing to a television showing all the violence. "Do you think it looks like they are 'winning'? Because I don't think it does."

Kevin McCarthy was one of those trying as well, but even though he got to talk directly to Trump on the phone, he couldn't impress upon him how bad things had gotten. First Trump tried to claim "these aren't my people, they're Antifa." When McCarthy told Trump that they definitely were Trump people, Trump responded: "Well, Kevin, I guess they're more upset over the election than you are." As a witness to this call put it, "that's when the swearing started." McCarthy was "scared" and "begging for help" from Trump, but Trump was deaf to his pleas.

At 4:17, Trump finally put out a video message. He had filmed it at 4:03, right after he realized that the military was about to swoop in, and that his insurrection attempt had failed. Hundreds of cops and national guardsmen were on the way, and the F.B.I. was sending their agents as well. This is the point when Trump gave in and filmed a quick message. He refused to read the script as written, and ad-libbed most of his statement -- which was pretty obvious, even at the time. He trotted out his Big Lie again ("we had an election that was stolen from us") and told the rioters: "We love you, you're very special." For good measure, he called his political opponents "so bad and so evil."

Trump then decided he was done for the day. He walked away from it all. The White House staff was "emotionally drained" from the whole experience, but it was hard to feel sorry for any of them, since the cops at the Capitol were beyond merely being "emotionally drained" by that point. But Trump "refused to lift another finger to help."

One does wonder what would have happened if Mike Pence hadn't made the calls that he did, on that fateful day. Pence was the one to mobilize the troops to defend the Capitol. If Pence hadn't given that order, who else would have? Would the rioters have been allowed to freely occupy the Capitol for the rest of the day and night? It's a frightening thought -- as is the thought that Pence, much like Dick Cheney on 9/11, didn't actually have one whit of constitutional authority to order what he did. Thankfully nobody cared, because the people who received the orders were downright eager to see them carried out -- since they were so obviously the right thing to do. They were "very direct, very unambiguous orders" and they were welcomed at the time.

The chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff testified that finally Mark Meadows did call him up, after Pence had mobilized the response, in order to beg him to "kill the narrative that the vice president is making all the decisions," even though that was exactly what had taken place. The general ignored this as "politics... I don't do political narratives."

Trump later tweeted: "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long." This further horrified the people around him. He had, Kinzinger stated, "absolutely no remorse."

Rudy Giuliani kept working into the night, as Congress reconvened to finish the certification of the vote, begging senators to "just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to just get more information to you."

As Congress finished up, we heard statements from the two Republican leaders about what had happened that day. Mitch McConnell didn't mince words: "President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it."

Pottinger was asked how the events of January 6th impacted our nation internationally. He called it "a time of vulnerability.... when you have a contested election, I was certainly concerned that some of our adversaries would be inclined to probe" our defenses. Also, "National security was harmed in a different way by January sixth. It emboldened our enemies by helping give them ammunition to feed a narrative that our system of government doesn't work, that the United States is in decline." Countries such as China, Russia, and Iran all love to push this narrative, Pottinger testified. And our allies were "concerned about the health of our democracy." Or, to put it another way, Donald Trump was aiding and abetting the enemies of our country. That's about as far away from the presidential oath as you can get, folks.

The next day, January 7th, Trump was cajoled into recording another video. We saw a few outtakes of the filming of this video, where Trump objected to certain words and phrases (including, inexplicably, the word "yesterday," which Trump said "is a hard word for me"). Trump would read a statement and then object strongly: "I can't say that," or "I will not say that." The most poignant of them all was Trump reading "This election is now over... I don't want to say the election is over, I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, OK?" These clips ended with one of Trump getting so annoyed he smacked the podium hard with his hand. You know... just like a small child, throwing a tantrum.

Pottinger finished up his testimony with some strong statements: "This isn't the first time we've had a close election in this country." Trump had every right to challenge the result in court, but "once you've had due process under the law, you have to conform with the law.... If you continue to contest an election, you're not just contesting an election any more, you are challenging the Constitution itself." He went on to cite Richard Nixon losing to J.F.K. and Al Gore's concession speech after losing his case at the Supreme Court.

Kinzinger then wrapped up the hearing with a summary. Donald Trump spent three long hours doing absolutely nothing. He refused to take advice "from his own family, his own friends, his own staff, and his own advisors." Trump still "refused to lead... and to honor his oath." Kinzinger insisted:

Oaths matter. Character matters. Truth matters. If we do not renew our faith and commitment to these principles, this great experiment of ours -- our shining beacon on a hill -- will not endure.... Donald Trump's conduct on January sixth was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty to our nation. It is a stain on our history. It is a dishonor to all those who have sacrificed and died in service of our democracy.

Luria, Thompson, and Cheney all had their own closing statements. Cheney profusely thanked the witnesses who had come forward, both in this hearing and all the previous ones. She ridiculed the Republican talking point that somehow the committee would be better with some Republicans fighting for Trump's side of the story, pointing out that virtually all of the key witnesses were Republicans themselves, scathingly asking: "Do you really think Bill Barr is such a delicate flower that he would wilt under cross examination?"

Cheney specifically thanked Cassidy Hutchinson again, saying: "She knew all along that she would be attacked by President Trump and by the 50-, 60- and 70-year-old men who hide themselves behind executive privilege. But like our witnesses today, she has courage and she did it anyway."

After two hours and 45 minutes, the hearing was gavelled closed.

Conclusion

The eight hearings that took place over the past six weeks have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump was responsible for what happened on January 6th. It wasn't some spontaneous event, it was planned as a last-ditch effort if all the other ways Trump explored to overturn an American presidential election had failed (which they all did). As Cheney put it in her final statement: "it was premeditated." She went on to denounce Trump in the strongest terms possible:

Here's the worst part. Donald Trump knows that millions of Americans who supported him would stand up and defend our nation. Were it threatened, they would put their lives and their freedom at stake to protect her. And he is preying on their patriotism. He is preying on their sense of justice. And on January sixth, Donald Trump turned their love of country into a weapon against our Capitol and our Constitution.

She ended with a pointed question: "Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January sixth ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?" One would hope that the answer to this is a resounding "No!" but these days you just never know.

Kinzinger, in his final remarks, made another point that all of these hearings have been stressing:

The reason that's imperative is that the forces Donald Trump ignited that day have not gone away. The militant intolerant ideologies, the militias, the alienation and the disaffection, the weird fantasies and disinformation -- they're all still out there ready to go.

He called it "the elephant in the room," and went on to say:

But if January sixth has reminded us of anything, I pray it has reminded us of this: Laws are just words on paper. They mean nothing without public servants dedicated to the rule of law and who are held accountable by a public that believes oaths matter more than party tribalism or the cheap thrill of scoring political points.

So far, this round of hearings has done an excellent job at telling the narrative of what happened before, during, and after the insurrection attempt on the U.S. Capitol. But their job isn't done yet, and this job will not be (as they originally planned) just to put out a final report to the public. So many people have been inspired by hearing the testimony given so far that the committee is now being swamped with new information. So the committee will be working all of August to process all this new information, and will then put on more hearings to explore future subjects (such as the missing Secret Service text messages from January 5th and 6th). So we're going to end today with Liz Cheney's "tune in next time" message, because it applies to these write-ups as well:

"We will see you all in September."

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant