January 6th Study Guide

Pantsuit Politics Podcast - January 6 Study Guide 

We created this guide for our listeners and at their request to be a helpful tool in understanding the January 6 hearings. We hope it serves as an extension of our discussions on the podcast about the hearings and that you’ll join our community conversations. Feel free to share this guide with others who might find it beneficial (for non-commercial purposes only, please and thank you). 

You can watch the Full Hearings Without Commentary via The January 6th Committee’s YouTube Channel Here:

Playlist of Pantsuit Politics January 6th Hearings Episodes (Spotify)

Our January 6th Hearings Episodes also include links to our Twitter Threads, Instagram Highlights, and More

Newsletter Recaps

Moments From the Hearings That Left Us Speechless: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Twitter Threads: Hearing 1, Hearing 2, Hearing 3, Hearing 4, Hearing 5, Hearing 6, Hearing 7, Hearing 8

Who

…are the Committee members and how were they chosen? 

Chair: Bennie Thompson (D-MS) 

Vice Chair: Liz Cheney (R-WY) 

Members: Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) 

The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was appointed by resolution of the House, passed on June 30, 2021 (the vote was 222-190). The resolution was passed after a proposal to create a bicameral commission failed to advance in the Senate. Pursuant to the resolution that passed, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was empowered to appoint 8 committee members, and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was empowered to appoint 5 members in consultation with the Speaker Speaker Pelosi appointed 7 Democrats and Republican Liz Cheney to the Committee on July 1, 2021. On July 19, Minority Leader McCarthy announced his appointments, which included members who voted to overturn the Electoral College results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Speaker Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s appointments, and McCarthy subsequently pulled all of his members from the Committee. On July 25, 2021, Speaker Pelosi appointed Republican Adam Kinzinger to the select committee and hired former Republican representative Denver Riggleman as an outside staff-member to the committee. 

The Committee is referred to as a “select” committee because it has a special purpose that is not covered by a standing committee of the House. No one is acting as the “defense” at the hearing because it is an investigation, not a trial. The Committee operates under House rules, so there is some formality about these hearings that might feel odd. For example, Chairman Thompson frequently says things are happening “without objection.” That just means that the committee members are all in agreement about the schedule, rules, and procedures to create a record of the hearings. 

Read more about the Committee members here (NPR). 

…are the witnesses? 

The select committee has interviewed almost 1,000 people over the past year, some in voluntary interviews and others under subpoena. The individuals who are testifying live have been interviewed by the Committee previously and know generally what they will be asked about. The Committee is choosing to have some witnesses testify live and others via video for a number of reasons, and we do not have all of the information about those choices. Here are some of the folks we’ve heard from so far (updated July 26, 2022): 

…are all these other characters? 

Jeff Clark was an assistant attorney general for the environmental and natural resources division for the Department of Justice. Clark, seemingly due to a relationship with Rep. Scott Perry (but we need more information on this point) was connected with Trump and Eastman to assist in the scheme to overturn the election. Clark lobbied Trump to replace Jeff Rosen as acting attorney general, prompting top leadership at DOJ to pledge to resign if Trump did so. 

Pat Cipollone served as White House Counsel for Trump. He has been interviewed by the Committee. 

John Eastman has deep ties to conservative political figures. He clerked for Judge Michael Luttig and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He chaired the Federalist Society. He worked at a law firm and then taught at Chapman University. He began advising Donald Trump in August 2020, and his role with Trump became more prominent in December 2020. Eastman, along with Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, promoted baseless theories on how Trump might remain in power even after Trump had exhausted his legal efforts to challenge the results of the election. A lawsuit concerning John Eastman has been mentioned several times. Eastman challenged the Select Committee’s subpoenas in Court and lost. The judge’s decision in that case said it was more likely than not that Eastman and Trump had engaged in criminal or fraudulent activity. In a deposition with the Committee, Eastman asserted his 5th Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. 

Peter Navarro was Trump’s trade advisor. He has consistently defended efforts to overturn the 2020 election. 

Kayleigh McEnany has been mentioned several times. She served as White House Press Secretary in 2020-2021. 

Mark Meadows served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2020-2021. Meadows turned over documents to the Committee pursuant to subpoena but has refused to testify. He has been held in contempt of Congress, but the Department of Justice declined to prosecute this case. 

Dan Scavino served as White House deputy chief of staff from 2020-2021 and was a close advisor to Trump. 

Steven Bannon was convicted for Contempt of Congress on July 22 for his refusal to answer his subpoena from the January 6th Select Committee to testify and provide documents to the committee.

The Select Committee has issued subpoenas to Representatives Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs. So far, none are complying. Representatives Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene have also been mentioned as spreading Trump’s lies, participating in a meeting about changing the election results, and requesting pardons in connection with their post-election behavior. 

The Select Committee continues to negotiate with former VP Mike Pence’s lawyers. They are approaching Pence carefully but have recently indicated that they might subpoena him. The Committee has indicated it might also want to hear from Ginni Thomas, conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 

The committee is juggling a lot of competing considerations: where to deploy resources, how to do as much as possible in advance of the midterms without appearing to be influencing the midterms, how much to fight in court, etc. If people do not cooperate with the committee after receiving a subpoena, the committee can raise the issue with the full House of Representatives. The House can vote to hold individuals in contempt of Congress. The Department of Justice then decides whether to prosecute individuals who’ve been held in contempt. Steve Bannon will go to trial this summer for contempt of Congress. 

What

Hearing 1: January 6 was a violent attempt to keep Donald Trump in power despite having lost an election. It was the culmination of a concerted campaign to overturn the November 2020 election. Trump tried, in 7 distinct ways, to remain in power after he lost, and those efforts will be the subject of the remaining hearings. 

Hearing 2: Trump definitively lost the November 2020 election. His advisors knew that he lost. They told him constantly that he lost. He asserted claims in court that all failed. Despite that, he continued to tell the American public that he won, and he raised money off of his lies. 

Hearing 3: Trump and his allies pressured VP Mike Pence to do what no Vice President has ever done – refuse to accept certified slates of elections from the state unilaterally to either overturn the results of the election or to send the slates back to state legislatures for them to do so. When Pence refused, Trump turned his angry mob of followers on Pence. 

Hearing 4: Trump and his allies pressured state and local officials to find, pursue, and amplify false claims of election fraud in the states. He pressured them to find enough votes to swing their elections in his favor. He targeted individuals in positions of power and ordinary citizens alike, endangering them and their families. 

Hearing 5: Trump and his allies pressured the Department of Justice to find, pursue, and amplify false claims of election fraud in the states. He threatened to fire Jeff Rosen, acting attorney general, and replace him with Jeff Clark, an environmental lawyer in the Department of Justice whom Trump believed would follow his instructions. He told the DOJ to make it sound like their had been fraud and leave the rest to Trump and Republican congressmen, including Rep. Scott Perry, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Witnesses testified that these members of Congress requested pardons in connection with their activities. 

Hearing 6: Cassidy Hutchinson, served as special assistant to the president and chief of staff to Mark Meadows, testified live about the lead up to January 6th. Her testimony included detailed recollections and colorful testimony that President Trump and his staff knew there were people in the crowd with weapons, that President Trump wanted to personally go to the Capitol, and she detailed the efforts to get the President to tell rioters to leave the Capitol.

Hearing 7: After President Trump’s legal avenues to contest the election resulted in dead ends, he turned his attention to the January 6th rally. This hearing presented evidence that domestic terrorist groups: the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other adjacent to Q-Anon coordinated in common cause to disrupt the counting of electoral college votes and were taking cues from President Trump.

Hearing 8: After President Trump’s speech at the January 6th rally, in which he repeated the big lie that the election had been stolen and told his supporters that he would walk with them to the Capitol, rioters attacked the United States Capitol. Surveillance video details how close rioters came to reaching Vice President Mike Pence, Senators, and Congressional Representatives. Instead of calling the National Guard, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense or even use his twitter platform to call off rioters, President Trump watched events unfold on Fox News in the Presidential Dining Room and continued to call Senators to pressure them to delay and disrupt the certification of Electoral College votes.

When 

The Committee is interviewing new witnesses who have come forward to confess (in the words of Liz Cheney) and will resume hearings in September 2022.

Where 

…can I watch the hearings and see them if I missed them live? 

Sarah and I tend to watch on CSPAN and PBS. All of the hearings are available in full and without commentary on the January 6 Committee’s YouTube channel. We will link every hearing in each of our June newsletters that are published on Fridays. The Committee has indicated that more testimony, transcripts, and other information will eventually be available on its website. The website also includes a tipline for individuals who have information about the Capitol attacks. 

Why 

Many of you have asked what the outcome will be of these hearings. Let’s start with the Select Committee’s official purpose (this language comes from the House of Representatives resolution): 

(1) To investigate and report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex (hereafter referred to as the “domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol”) and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region and other instrumentalities of government, as well as the influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American representative democracy while engaged in a constitutional process.

(2) To examine and evaluate evidence developed by relevant Federal, State, and local governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances surrounding the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol and targeted violence and domestic terrorism relevant to such terrorist attack.

(3) To build upon the investigations of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts by reviewing the investigations, findings, conclusions, and recommendations of other executive branch, congressional, or independent bipartisan or nonpartisan commission investigations into the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, including investigations into influencing factors related to such attack.

The Committee is not in control of all of the outcomes of its work. Members of Congress, while not required to attend or watch the hearings, may rely on the work of the committee in writing laws to try to avoid future attempts to overturn elections. For example, Congress is considering changes to the Electoral Count Act (this one is worth contacting your representatives to support). Congress might look at Capitol security funding, funding for local elections, and changes to laws governing elections and voting. 

In addition, the Department of Justice might use some of the committee’s work to prosecute crimes related to January 6. There has been some reporting about the committee making criminal “referrals” to the Department of Justice. This is all a little misleading. There’s no procedure for the committee to make referrals to DOJ. It just puts its work out publicly and DOJ decides what to do next. For everyone asking, yes, I do think that this work will lead to additional criminal prosecutions. I do not know if that will include former President Trump. 

There are other less obvious ways in which the committee’s work could have impact. The committee’s work might make appearances as evidence in some of the civil suits that have been filed against former President Trump related to January 6. If I were a media executive seeing Sean Hannity’s texts with Mark Meadows on my television in this context, I’d be thinking hard about company policies. We can’t yet know all the ways in which this work will matter. We can know only that telling the truth as loudly and clearly and professionally as possible always matters. 

Maggie PentonJanuary 6th CommitteeComment