众议院特别委员会的任务是调查1月6日袭击周二在国会大厦举行了第一次听证会立法者听到了戏剧性的执法人员情绪激动地描述道,他们为大楼辩护,反对支持特朗普的暴徒。
“我们今天将重温其中的一些时刻,这并不容易,”D-Miss董事长本尼·汤普森说。,一边说着要开听证会,一边称赞军官们坚守阵地。“但历史会记住你们的名字和行动。”
吉姆·洛·斯卡佐/通过盖蒂图像池
左起,美国国会大厦警察局的阿奎利诺·戈内尔中士,华盛顿特区警察局的迈克尔·法农警官.
以下是一些关键要点:
所有目击者都担心在袭击中丧生
作证的四名警察——国会大厦警察阿奎利诺·戈内尔和哈里·邓恩以及大都会警察局警察迈克尔·法诺内和丹尼尔·霍奇斯——断然拒绝了任何改写历史的企图,并淡化了这起不应该进一步调查的袭击,告诉立法者他们都担心1月6日的生命安全。
当共和党众议员利兹·切尼要求戈内尔回应前总统时唐纳德·特朗普她称人群为“爱”戈内尔认为他有责任把他的支持者送到国会大厦。
“这是一个可悲的借口,他的行为是他自己帮助创造的——这个怪物,”戈内尔说。“我还在从那天那些‘拥抱和亲吻’中恢复过来。”
吉姆·博格/美联社泳池
美国国会大厦警察阿奎利诺·戈内尔中士在观看正在播放的视频时擦了擦眼睛...
霍奇斯称暴乱者为“恐怖分子”,他详细描述了当天针对警察使用的武器,包括警用盾牌、警棍、锤子、大锤、旗杆、泰瑟枪、胡椒喷雾、熊和黄蜂喷雾、铜管、岩石、折断的桌腿、护栏、圆锥体以及“他们能拿到的任何物品”。
“那里有9000多名恐怖分子,拥有数量不明的武器,也许还有我们几百人。所以我们不能——如果这变成了一场交火,我们就输了,”他说。“这是一场我们输不起的战斗。”
霍奇斯当天被压在门口,他回忆起自己如何不得不与一名试图抢走他指挥棒的暴徒搏斗,以及另一名暴徒如何对他大喊:“你会跪着死去。”"
乔恩·法里纳/地位政变
华盛顿大都会警察局的丹尼尔·霍奇斯警官在一场.
戈内尔还将这一天描述为“来自中世纪战场”的场景。
他说:“我能感觉到自己失去了氧气,回想起自己在想,‘这就是我将如何死去,被践踏来保卫这个入口’。
但官员们表示,他们对捍卫国会大厦和民主没有三思,因为这段经历对他们、他们的同事和家人来说都是痛苦的。
邓恩说:“我们四名军官,我们将在1月6日从头再来一次。“我们不会呆在家里,因为我们知道会发生什么。我们会出现的。真勇敢。太英雄了。所以我向你们所有人要求的是弄清到底发生了什么。”
在包括众议员亚当·金辛格在内的官员作证时,议员们有时会哽咽。,谁告诉他们,“你们可能喜欢单独感觉有点破碎...但你们赢了。”
“民主不是由我们糟糕的日子来定义的。我们的定义是如何从糟糕的日子里回来,”他说。
暴乱中听到的种族诽谤萦绕在听证室:“我想这是美国。”
审讯室里充斥着种族歧视的声音,官员们讲述着暴徒的呼喊,一些官员泪流满面,一些立法者不得不低下头。
邓恩在情绪化的证词中讲述了他所忍受的暴徒的种族主义辱骂,并说这是他第一次被称为穿制服的n字。
“我是一名执法人员,我尽最大努力让政治远离我的工作,但在这种情况下,我回应说,‘好吧,我投票给了乔·拜登,我的投票不算吗?“我是无名之辈吗?”他说,他告诉那些对他大喊大叫的暴徒,选举被偷了。
邓恩说:“这引发了一连串的种族偏见。”一个穿着粉色MAGA衬衫的女人喊道“你们听到了吗,这个n*****投票给了乔·拜登。"
邓恩也目睹了一面邦联旗帜穿过国会大厦,他说其他黑人军官从那天起就分享了类似的种族虐待故事。
奥利弗·孔特雷拉斯/通过盖蒂图像池
美国国会警察哈里·邓恩在众议院作证时情绪激动...
“我和我的一个朋友坐在圆形大厅的长椅上,他也是一名黑人国会警察,我告诉了他我所忍受的种族诽谤。我变得非常情绪化,开始大喊,‘空白怎么会发生这样的事情?“这是美国吗?”他说。我开始抽泣。"
当加州民主党众议员亚当·希夫(Adam Schiff)后来向邓恩提出同样的问题时,这位官员说,“我想这是美国。不应该。”
索尔·勒布/法新社,通过盖蒂图像公司
唐纳德·特朗普总统的支持者,他不顾安全,于1998年进入美国国会大厦...
委员会希望传唤特朗普,立法者
切尼在她的开幕词中明确表示,委员会愿意传唤前总统、白宫助手和国会议员,因为他们正在制定当天的时间表。
“我们还必须知道那天在白宫的每一分钟都发生了什么。每一个电话,每一次谈话,每一次会议,在袭击之前、期间和之后。可敬的男人和女人有义务站出来,”她说。
安德鲁·哈尼克/普尔通过路透社
众议员利兹·切尼问候华盛顿警察局警官迈克尔·法农贝...
更大的压力是,四名证人都告诉立法者,他们希望对那些可能帮助和教唆暴乱者的当权者进行调查。
邓恩用一个杀手的比喻来描述他的期望,这显然是对前总统的认可,此前目击者花了三个半小时讲述了“特朗普派我们来的”等口号。
“如果一个杀手被雇佣,他杀了人,这个杀手会进监狱,但不仅杀手会进监狱,雇佣他们的人也会进监狱。1月6日发生了一起袭击,一名杀手派他们去的,”他说。“我希望你弄清楚这件事。”
布兰登·斯米卢夫斯基/通过法新社/盖蒂图像公司分享
左起,众议员皮特·阿吉拉尔、众议员斯蒂芬妮·墨菲、众议员亚当·希夫和众议员佐伊·洛弗格伦..
汤普森在听证会后的新闻发布会上表示,该委员会可能会在众议院8月休会期间再次举行听证会,听证会将于周五开始。该小组表示,他们的工作才刚刚开始。
根据美国广播公司新闻周二早些时候审查的消息来源和信件,司法部在给特朗普前官员的信中表示,他们可以参与对1月6日袭击的调查,并提供给国会委员会。
切尼和金辛格在共和党反对委员会的论点上戳洞
在1月6日之后,小组中的两名共和党人花了他们的提问时间反驳了一些最突出的共和党谈话要点,包括骚乱者并不暴力,无论在国会大厦发生了什么,与antifa在种族正义抗议期间实施的暴力相比都相形见绌。
金辛格说:“我谴责那些骚乱和由此造成的财产破坏——但我从未像1月6日那样感到自治的未来受到威胁。“违法和拒绝法治是有区别的,犯罪,甚至严重犯罪和政变也是有区别的。”
金辛格还为自己选择在该委员会任职进行了辩护,称这“不是因为我是共和党成员,而是因为这一点,不是为了赢得一场政治斗争,而是为了了解事实,捍卫我们的民主。”
切尼在开幕词中提醒说,她和其他议员更倾向于成立一个独立委员会来调查这次袭击,但这一努力“被参议院的共和党人击败了。”
“这样我们就有了今天。我们不能对1月6日的暴力事件及其原因置之不理,”她说。“如果那些负有责任的人没有被追究责任,如果国会没有采取负责任的行动,这将仍然是我们宪政共和国的一颗毒瘤。”
这位前众议院三号共和党人还提醒说,在袭击发生后的几天里,她的共和党同事已经“认识到了那天发生的事件的真实情况”,即使议员们现在淡化了这一点。
在周二的听证会之前,抵制特选小组的共和党人表示,听证会应该关注国会大厦警察对1月6日没有准备的事实。但是因为他们放弃了参与听证会的能力,他们无法按照自己喜欢的方向引导讨论——或者像切尼和金辛格那样质疑民主党的调查路线。
军官们虽然因英雄主义而受到赞扬,却抨击立法者的党派政治
尽管这些官员在1月6日的听证会上因坚守立场而受到赞扬,小组中的立法者感谢他们的保护,但这些官员在描述他们对党派政治如何阻碍寻求真相的不满时没有退缩。
周二,被拖下国会大厦台阶、被用旗杆殴打、多次被泰瑟枪电击并被高呼“用他自己的枪杀了他”的大都会警察局官员法农(Fanone)呼吁阻止调查努力的立法者。
“对我的同事表现出的漠不关心是可耻的,”他说,用拳头猛击证人席上。“我觉得我去了地狱,又回来保护他们和这个房间里的人,但现在有太多的人告诉我,地狱并不存在,或者地狱实际上并没有那么糟糕。”
他补充说:“没有什么——真的没有什么——让我准备好向那些继续否认当天事件的当选政府成员发表讲话,这样做违背了他们的就职誓言。
戈内尔在谈到前总统淡化这一天时说,“这是一种侮辱,令人沮丧,因为我们所做的一切都是为了防止国会大厦的每个人受到伤害。”
邓恩说,由于袭击周围的环境,调查本质上是政治性的,但它不应该阻止立法者寻求真相。
“这不是秘密,这是政治性的。他们是来阻止偷窃的。所以当人们说它不应该是政治性的,它是。过去是,现在也是。这是绕不开的,”他说。
“利兹·切尼和亚当·金辛格被誉为勇敢的英雄,虽然我同意这种说法,但为什么呢?因为他们说了实话?为什么说实话很难?”他问道。“我想在这个美国,的确如此。”
Key takeaways from Jan. 6 hearing: Powerful testimony counters revisionist history
The House select committee tasked with investigating theJan. 6 attackon the Capitol held its first hearing Tuesday in whichlawmakers heard dramatic, emotional accounts from law enforcement officers who defended the building against a pro-Trump mob.
"We're going to revisit some of those moments today, and it won't be easy," Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said to open the hearing, while praising the officers for holding the line. "But history will remember your names and your actions."
Here are some key takeaways:
All witnesses feared for their lives during attack
The four officers testifying -- Capitol Police officers Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges -- flatly rejected any attempts to rewrite history and downplay the attack as one that shouldn't be investigated further, telling lawmakers they all feared for their lives on Jan. 6.
When Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asked Gonell to respond to former PresidentDonald Trump's calling the crowd "loving." Gonell placed responsibility on him for sending his supporters to the Capitol.
"It's a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create -- this monstrosity," Gonell said. "I'm still recovering from those 'hugs and kisses' that day."
Hodges, who referred to the rioters as "terrorists," detailed the weapons used against officers that day including police shields, batons, hammers, a sledgehammer, flag poles, tasers, pepper spray, bear and wasp spray, copper pipes, rocks, table legs broken down, guardrails, cones and "any items they can get their hands on."
"There were over 9,000 of the terrorists out there with an unknown number of firearms and a couple hundred of us, maybe. So we could not -- if that turned into a firefight, we would have lost," he said. "And this was a fight we couldn't afford to lose."
Hodges, who was crushed in a doorway that day, recalled how he had to wrestle with one rioter who tried to take his baton and how another shouted at him, "'You will die on your knees.'"
Gonell also described the day as a scene "from a medieval battlefield."
"I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, 'this is how I'm going to die, trampled defending this entrance,'" he said.
But the officers said they didn't think twice about defending the Capitol and democracy, as traumatic as the experience was for them, their colleagues and families.
"Us four officers, we would do Jan. 6 all over again," Dunn said. "We wouldn't stay home because we knew what was going to happen. We would show up. That's courageous. That's heroic. So what I ask from you all, is to get to the bottom of what happened."
The lawmakers choked up at times during the officers' testimony including Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who told them, "You guys may like individually feel a little broken ... but you guys won."
"Democracies are not defined by our bad days. We're defined by how we come back from bad days," he said.
Racial slurs heard at riot haunt hearing room: 'I guess it is America'
Racial slurs haunted the hearing room as officers recounted chants made by the mob, moving some officers to tears and prompting some lawmakers to hang their heads.
Dunn recounted the racist verbal abuse he endured from rioters in emotional testimony and said it was the first time he had been called the n-word in uniform.
"I'm a law enforcement officer and I do my best to keep politics out of my job, but in this circumstance I responded, 'Well, I voted for Joe Biden, does my vote not count? Am I nobody?'" he said he told rioters who falsely shouted at him the election was stolen.
"That prompted a torrent of racial epithets," Dunn said. "One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled "You hear that guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden."
Dunn, who also witnessed a Confederate flag carried through the Capitol, said that other Black officers shared similar stories of racial abuse from the day.
"I sat down on the bench in the Rotunda with a friend of mine, who is also a Black Capitol Police officer and told him about the racial slurs I endured. I became very emotional and began yelling, 'How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?'" he said. "I began sobbing."
When Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., posed the same question to Dunn later, the officer said, "I guess it is America. It shouldn't be."
Committee looking to subpoena Trump, lawmakers
Cheney, in her opening statement, made clear the committee is open to subpoenaing the former president, White House aides and members of Congress as they create a timeline of the day.
"We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House. Every phone call, every conversation, every meeting, leading up to, during, and after the attack. Honorable men and women have an obligation to step forward," she said.
Adding to that pressure, all four witnesses told lawmakers they wanted an investigation into those in power who may have aided and abetted rioters.
Dunn used an analogy with a hitman to describe his expectations, in an apparent nod to the former president, after the witnesses spent three and a half hours recounting chants of "Trump sent us," among others.
"If a hitman is hired and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to jail, but not only does the hitman go to jail but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on Jan. 6 and a hitman sent them," he said. "I want you to get to the bottom of that."
Thompson said at a press conference after the hearing that the committee could be brought back for another hearing during the House's August recess, which starts Friday. The panel said its work is just beginning.
The Department of Justice said in letters to former Trump officials, and provided to congressional committees, that they can participate in the investigations into the Jan. 6 attack, according to sources and letters reviewed by ABC News earlier Tuesday.
Cheney and Kinzinger poke holes in GOP arguments against committee
The two Republicans on the panel spent their questioning time pushing back on some of the most prominent Republican talking points after Jan. 6 -- including that the rioters were not violent and that whatever took place at the Capitol paled in comparison to violence perpetrated by antifa during racial justice protests.
"I condemn those riots and the destruction of property that resulted -- but not once did I ever feel that the future of self-governance was threatened like I did on Jan. 6," Kinzinger said. "There was a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law, between a crime, even grave crimes and a coup."
Kinzinger also defended his choice to serve on the committee, saying it's "not in spite of my membership in the Republican Party, but because of it, not to win a political fight, but to learn the facts and defend our democracy."
Cheney reminded in her opening statement that she and other lawmakers preferred to establish an independent commission to investigate the attack, but that effort was "defeated by Republicans in the Senate."
"That leaves us where we are today. We cannot leave the violence of Jan. 6 and its causes uninvestigated," she said. "If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic."
The former No. 3 House Republican also reminded that her GOP colleagues had "recognized the events that day for what they actually were" in the days after the attack, even if members downplay it now.
Ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Republicans who boycotted the select panel said the hearing should focus on the fact that Capitol Police were unprepared for Jan. 6. But because they gave up their ability to participate in the hearing, they couldn't lead the discussion in their preferred direction -- or challenge Democrats' lines of inquiry the way Cheney and Kinzinger picked apart some of their claims.
Officers, while praised for heroism, blast lawmakers for partisan politics
While the officers were praised throughout the hearing for holding the line on Jan. 6, with lawmakers on the panel thanking them for their protection, the officers didn't hold back when describing their disapproval in how partisan politics has muddied the search for the truth.
Fanone, the Metropolitan Police Department officer who was dragged down the Capitol steps, beaten with a flagpole, tased repeatedly and taunted with chants of "kill him with his own gun," called out lawmakers on Tuesday who have blocked efforts for an investigation.
"The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful," he said, slamming his fist on the witness table. "I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad."
"Nothing -- truly nothing -- has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so betray their oath of office," he added.
Gonell said of the former president downplaying the day, "It's insulting, it's demoralizing because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt."
Dunn said that the investigation is innately political because of the landscape surrounding the attack, but that it shouldn't stop lawmakers from seeking the truth.
"It's not a secret that it was political. They literally were there to stop the steal. So when people say it shouldn't be political, it is. It was and it is. There's no getting around that," he said.
"Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes and while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard?" he asked. "I guess in this America, it is."