Jan. 6 panel to dig into Donald Trump’s 187 minutes as Capitol attacked

The panel is expected to provide a tally of the Trump administration aides and even Cabinet members who resigned after Trump failed to call off the attack.

The House Jan. 6 committee will hold its final hearing of the summer the way the series began — vividly making the case that Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election fueled the grisly U.S. Capitol attack, which he did nothing to stop but instead “gleefully” watched on television at the White House.

Thursday’s prime-time hearing will dive into the 187 minutes that Trump failed to act on Jan. 6, 2021, despite pleas for help from aides, allies and even his family. The panel intends to show how the defeated president’s attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory has left the United States facing enduring questions about the resiliency of its democracy.

“A profound moment of reckoning for America,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the committee.

With live testimony from two former White House aides, and excerpts from its trove of more than 1,000 interviews, the nearly two-hour session will add a closing chapter to the past six weeks of hearings that at times have captivated the nation.

Returning to prime time for the first time since the series of hearings began, the panel aims to show just how close the United States came to what one retired federal judge testifying this summer called a constitutional crisis.

The events of Jan. 6 will be outlined “minute by minute,” said the panel’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

“You will hear that Donald Trump never picked up the phone that day to order his administration to help,” Cheney said.

“He did not call the military. His Secretary of Defense received no order. He did not call his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security,” Cheney said. “Mike Pence did all of those things; Donald Trump did not.”