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Jan. 6 committee holds second hearing

By Elise Hammond, Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Maureen Chowdhury, Melissa Macaya and Meg Wagner, CNN

Updated 6:59 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022
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5:18 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Takeaways from Monday's Jan. 6 committee hearing — and what to expect at the next one 

From CNN's Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb and Marshall Cohen

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House select committee, center, Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair, right, as well as Rep. Zoe Lofgren, left, and Rep. Stephanie Murphy, third from left, arrive during the second hearing on Monday, June 13.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House select committee, center, Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair, right, as well as Rep. Zoe Lofgren, left, and Rep. Stephanie Murphy, third from left, arrive during the second hearing on Monday, June 13. (Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol detailed Monday how those around then-President Donald Trump told him he lost the 2020 election — but he refused to listen, turning instead to his attorney Rudy Giuliani to embrace false claims that the election was stolen.

The hearing Monday was one witness short from what was planned, but the panel heard testimony from a former Fox News digital politics editor, a conservative lawyer, a former US attorney and a former Republican election official — who all said it was clear President Joe Biden won the election and Trump's claims of fraud were nonsense.

The next hearing is set to take place Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, said the presentation will focus on Trump's "broader planning for Jan. 6, including his plan to corrupt the Department of Justice." The witnesses have not yet been announced.

Here are the key takeaways from the panel's second hearing this month about Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the violence in the Capitol on Jan: 6.

Stepien surprise sets off a scramble — but committee quickly adapts: The committee surprised many observers Sunday when it announced that Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien would be testifying in-person at Monday's hearing. But Stepien had a surprise of his own on Monday morning, when he found out that his wife went into labor, so he pulled out of the hearing.

This whirlwind of events forced the committee to scramble -- and they handled it deftly, albeit after a 45-minute delay.

Lawmakers and committee staff were obviously prepared with video clips from Stepien's private deposition. And they played a lot of footage from his testimony Monday, which revealed new details about his conversations with Trump and how he advised the President not to prematurely declare victory on election night.

In some ways, the outcome gave the Democratic-run committee more power to control what the public heard from Stepien. He wasn't in the room to say his piece, which could have included some defenses of Trump and some pushback against the committee. Instead, the panel could pick and choose which deposition clips it played, and they focused like a laser on the most damaging material for Trump.

Lengthy depositions take place of witness testimony: Stepien's testimony wasn't the committee's only use of depositions on Monday. The panel played lengthy portions of former Attorney General William Barr's deposition with the committee, where he described in detail why Trump's fraud claims were "bogus" and why he has seen nothing since to convince him there was fraud.

"There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were," Barr said in video of his deposition played Monday. "I was somewhat demoralized, because I thought, 'Boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.' "

The committee did not invite Barr to testify publicly for Monday's hearing, but the minutes of his deposition that played made it feel at times as though he was there.

The video depositions have also given the committee the chance to show testimony from others in Trump's inner circle -- including Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner -- without having to bring them in to testify. And by just showing video depositions, the committee controls which soundbites are aired.

Barr becomes debunker-in-chief: Democrats reviled Barr when he was in office — accusing him of wielding the powers of the Justice Department to do Trump's bidding, undermining the Russia investigation, and pushing right-wing conspiracy theories. But over the last two weeks, Barr has become a new hero of sorts for liberals, for aggressively debunking and condemning Trump's lies about the 2020 election.

The Democratic-run committee has featured clips from Barr's deposition more than any other witness so far, and they interviewed more than 1,000 people as part of their yearlong investigation. These clips have established Barr as the highest-ranking Trump administration official to affirm the legitimacy of the election results and disavow Trump's relentless effort to claim that the election was tainted by fraud.

During Monday's hearing, Barr dismantled specific Trump-backed claims about illegal "vote dumps" in Detroit, nationwide vote-rigging by Dominion with its election machines, and other conspiracy theories.

Read more takeaways here.

4:49 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Garland says he and Jan. 6 prosecutors are watching the House select committee hearings

From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz

Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Monday he plans to watch all of the hearings of the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol — and that the prosecutors handling criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection are watching, too.

“I am watching and I will be watching all the hearings, although I may not be able to watch all of it live,” Garland said. “But I will be sure that I am watching all of it. And I can assure you that the Jan. 6 prosecutors are watching all of the hearings as well.”

Garland has faced mounting pressure from Democrats to pursue a criminal case against former President Donald Trump and his allies related to Jan. 6.

Where things stand in the DOJ investigation: The Justice Department has arrested over 840 individuals, charging roughly 255 with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers that day – 90 of whom are charged with using a weapon or causing serious injury to an officer. 

Roughly 185 Capitol rioters have been sentenced so far, with over 80 receiving jail time.   

But the investigation is nowhere close to being over. The Justice Department is still looking for over 350 individuals who they say, “committed violent acts on Capitol grounds.” 

CNN's Holmes Lybrand contributed reporting to this post.

2:46 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Jan. 6 committee details Trump's massive post-election fundraising effort

From CNN's Zachary Cohen, Katelyn Polantz and Jeremy Herb

A general view shows the House Select Committee hearing in session on Monday.
A general view shows the House Select Committee hearing in session on Monday. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 claimed on Monday that former President Donald Trump and his allies used millions of dollars raised under the guise of assisting with the campaign’s election challenges for unrelated political purposes.

The panel made the case that Trump’s false claims about voter fraud dovetailed with his campaign’s fundraising effort — resulting in $250 million being donated to what was called an “official election defense fund,” that did not exist.

"The ‘Big Lie’ was also a big rip-off," Rep Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California, said during Monday’s hearing.

Instead, the committee claimed that most of the money raised went to the “Save America PAC,” which Trump created on Nov. 9 2020, less than a week after the election.

The PAC then made a series of large donations to a handful of other groups. More than $5 million went to Event Strategies Inc., the company that ran President Trump's Jan. 6 rally on the ellipse that preceded the attack on the Capitol, according to the committee.

Also among the groups that received donations from Trump’s newly-created PAC was the Conservative Partnership Institute, a political organization led by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that the committee said received $1 million from the Save America PAC.

The committee also claimed that $1 million went to the America First Policy Institute, a conservative organization which employs several former Trump administration officials. More than $200,000 was also donated to the Trump Hotel Collection. 

The Trump team sent out as many as 25 fundraising emails a day, according to the committee’s financial investigator Amanda Wick. “They knew the claims were false,” said Wick during the video played during Monday’s hearing.

“I don’t believe there is actually a fund called the Election Defense Fund,” said Hannah Allred, a former Trump campaign staffer, in a video played during Monday’s hearing.

In that same video presentation, Gary Coby, a former Trump campaign digital director, responded “yes” when asked if the election defense fund was a marketing tactic. 

“Thirty minutes after the last fundraising email was sent, the Capitol was breached,” Lofgren said during Monday’s hearing.

2:34 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Schiff: "DOJ needs to investigate any credible allegations" regarding Trump campaign post-election fundraising

From CNN's Ryan Nobles

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a member of the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN that the evidence that the committee unveiled today shows directly that former President Donald Trump raised money for purposes that were much different than he and his campaign claimed there were going to be used for. 

“I think it's a very important part of the story, which is, there was the motivation to try to overturn the election, when he lost it when he knew he lost it, totally lost it. But they still wanted to raise money from it. And they told people this big lie, and they asked him for their money. They said they needed it for their election, Defense Fund, and there was no election Defense Fund. So it just shows more of the corruption of that whole effort," he said.

Schiff said Trump’s peddling of election lies around the 2020 presidential results was also corrupt, but added that it was not for him to say that it was a crime. 

“That'll be up for the Justice Department to decide. But I think that the Justice Department needs to investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity, whether it's by a former president or by anyone else,” he said. 
2:25 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Thompson and Lofgren stop short of saying Trump committed crimes, arguing that DOJ must make the case 

From CNN's Manu Raju and Morgan Rimmer

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, left, sits beside Rep. Bennie Thompson as they listen to testimony during the hearing on Monday in Washington, DC.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, left, sits beside Rep. Bennie Thompson as they listen to testimony during the hearing on Monday in Washington, DC. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Jan. 6 House select committee, told CNN that the Trump campaign misled donors by spreading false election claims — and both he and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, stopped short of saying Trump committed crimes, arguing that the Justice Department must make that case.

“We’re a legislative committee. And it's clear that he intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn't exist and used the money raised for something other than what is said. Now it's for someone else to decide whether that's illegal or not. That's not the purview of a legislative committee," Lofgren said.

Lofgren said there’s no need to bring former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien back to the committee in person because the video deposition was sufficient. Stepien was set to testify in the hearing Monday, but pulled out of the appearance because his wife was in labor.

She also said former Attorney General Bill Barr doesn’t want to appear in person before the committee as he feels his video deposition of 2.5 hours was sufficient and the panel does not need him in person.

2:23 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Jan. 6 hearing witness Bill Stepien advising Rep. Cheney's opponent, who has backed election fraud claims

From CNN's Brian Rokus

A video of Bill Stepien is played on a screen above members of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol on Monday.
A video of Bill Stepien is played on a screen above members of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol on Monday. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

As CNN has previously reported, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien is advising Harriet Hageman, who has backed election fraud claims and is challenging January 6 Committee vice chairwoman Liz Cheney in the Wyoming GOP primary.

At depositions played during this morning’s hearing, Stepien testified that as votes continued to be counted in the days after Election Day in 2020 he and other advisers told former President Donald Trump that the odds of him winning the election were “5 to 10%." Stepien also said that his assessment at the time was that things were looking “very, very, very bleak.”

But Hageman, who has been endorsed by Trump, has called into question the results of the 2020 election. During an interview with CNN off-camera last year, Hageman repeatedly decline to acknowledge that Joe Biden won, and said, “I think that there are legitimate questions about what happened during the 2020 election.”

In February, she told The New York Times that she didn’t know who the legitimate winner of the 2020 election was. 

Hageman also appeared with Trump at a May rally in Wyoming during which Trump spread falsehoods about the election results.

Stepien's firm has received more than $190,000 from Hageman's campaign this election cycle for strategy and fundraising consulting and video production, according to federal election filings.

CNN has reached out Stepien’s lawyer for comment. 

2:49 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Rep. Lofgren says Kimberly Guilfoyle was paid a $60,000 speaking fee for Jan. 6 rally intro

From CNN's Zachary Cohen

Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks at the rally held before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks at the rally held before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House Select Committee investigating January 6, said in an interview Monday that the committee has evidence that members of the Trump family personally benefited from money that was raised based on the former President’s false election claims.

Lofgren, who played a key role in Monday’s hearing, said specifically that Kimberly Guilfoyle was paid a $60,000 speaking fee for introducing her fiancé, Donald Trump Jr., at the Jan. 6 Ellipse rally that immediately preceded the Capitol riot. 

“It’s a grift,” Lofgren said, though she would not say if she believed there was a financial crime committed.

CNN has reached out to Guilfoyle for comment.

2:05 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

Catch up: Here were the key moments from today's Jan. 6 committee hearing

From CNN Staff

US Rep. Bennie Thompson delivers opening remarks during a hearing on the January 6th investigation on Monday in Washington, DC.
US Rep. Bennie Thompson delivers opening remarks during a hearing on the January 6th investigation on Monday in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The House select committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol held its second public hearing of the month on Monday, which was focused on former President Trump's lies about the 2020 election.

The committee heard testimony today from several witnesses, including former Fox digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt, conservative Republican election attorney Ben Ginsberg, former US attorney for the North District of Georgia BJay Pak and former Republican Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt — who all said it was clear President Biden won the 2020 election and Trump's claims of fraud were not factual.

The panel also played video of recorded depositions from witnesses, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and former Attorney General William Barr. Ex-Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien was slated to testify today but did not appear at the hearing because his wife is in labor. Instead, the panel showed video of his closed-door interviews.

If you're looking to get caught up on the hearing, here were some of the key moments:

  • Trump claimed there was a “big vote dump” in Detroit, which Barr said wasn’t true. “I said, ‘Did anyone point out to you – did all the people complaining about it point out to you, you actually did better in Detroit than you did last time?’ I mean, there’s no indication of fraud in Detroit,” Barr said of his conversation with former President Trump.
  • Barr says Trump's election fraud claims in Philadelphia "absolute rubbish": Barr also shot down efforts by Trump to suggest there was significant fraud that could have impacted election results in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania. "The President has repeatedly suggested there was some kind of outpouring of unexpected votes in inner-city areas like Philadelphia," Barr said in a video clip. The former attorney general referenced a January interview with NPR where Trump suggested that more people voted in Philadelphia than there were voters. "That was absolute rubbish," Barr said of the claim.
  • Barr said Trump claimed major fraud before there was "any potential of looking at evidence": Barr told the committee that Trump claimed there was major fraud underway “right out of the box on election night … before there was actually any potential of looking at evidence,” according to a previously unseen video clip from his closed-door interview with the panel played during today’s hearing. 
  • Barr said he reiterated “they wasted a whole month on these claims on the Dominion voting machines, and they were idiotic claims.” Trump’s outside lawyers and right-wing media made baseless claims that Dominion voting machines had been used to change votes in the election. “I specifically raised the Dominion voting machines, which I found to be among the most disturbing allegations – disturbing in the sense that I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public,” Barr said. 
  • Jared Kushner said he opposed Rudy Giuliani's 2020 election lies: Some Trump’s top aides were deeply uncomfortable with the conspiracy theories that his outside advisers were pushing about the 2020 election, according to new testimony revealed at the hearing. In a videotaped deposition, Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, said he opposed Giuliani’s post-election activities, though based on Kushner’s own description of his pushback, it did not sound all that forceful. “I guess, yes,” Kushner said, explaining that he told Trump that Giuliani’s strategy was “basically not the approach I would take if I was you.” Kushner said Trump responded by expressing “confidence in Rudy.”  
  • An ex-Trump campaign manager said the former President disagreed on election night that it was too early to declare victory: A video clip was played during the hearing featuring former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien describing a conversation he had with Trump on election night, in which Trump disagreed with Stepien’s recommendation to say it was too early to call the race. The committee played video from Stepien’s deposition where he said that it was his recommendation to say it was “too early to tell” who won the race. “The President disagreed with that,” Stepien said. “I don’t recall the particular words. He thought I was wrong, he told me so, and that they were going to go in a different direction."
  • Former White House lawyer said he never believed Dominion Voting Systems had switched votes: Eric Herschmann, a lawyer who worked in the Trump White House, told the committee he never believed conspiracy theories that election contractor Dominion Voting Systems had switched votes. "I thought the Dominion stuff was ... I never saw any evidence whatsoever to sustain those allegations," Herschmann said in his taped deposition, of which the committee played a short clip. "His view was shared by many of the Trump team whom we interviewed," Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney said. Cheney also quoted former Barr, who called the Dominion accusations "complete nonsense." 
  • Alleged "suitcase of ballots" was an official lockbox, former US attorney for North District of Georgia says: Former US Attorney BJay Pak said Georgia Secretary of State's office investigated a claim by the Trump team of suitcases full of ballots being pulled out from underneath tables after poll watchers were told to leave in Georgia. Pak said his office conducted its own investigation and found that the "suitcase full of ballots" was an official lockbox where ballots were stored to be kept safe.
  • Former Philadelphia city commissioner says Trump's tweet escalated level of threats against him and his family: Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, said the threats against him became more specific and more graphic after former President Donald Trump tweeted against him following the 2020 election. "On some level it feels almost silly to talk about a tweet, but we can really see the impact that they have. Because prior to that [tweet], the threats were pretty general in nature," he told the Jan. 6 committee. "After the President tweeted at me by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific, much more graphic. And included not just me by name but included members of my family by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home."

Read takeaways from today's hearing here.

1:30 p.m. ET, June 13, 2022

What we know about what happened in the White House the night of the 2020 election

From CNN's Sam Woodward

Monday's second hearing from the House Jan. 6 committee brought new information to light on what happened the night of the 2020 election inside former President Donald Trump's White House.

Here's what we know:

  • White House officials and advisers, including the Trump's family, were in attendance at an event on the residence side of the White House the night of the election. Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both former White House senior advisers, detailed their presence to the committee. Kushner, who spoke via deposition tape, said that President Trump was in the upper level of the residence where he met with advisers while votes were coming in.
  • While "apparently inebriated," according to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Rudy Giuliani pushed election fraud conspiracies to Trump that he would eventually use as a backing for the lie that he won. Trump's then-spokesperson Jason Miller told the committee in his deposition that "the mayor was definitely intoxicated" at the White House on election night.
  • In a deposition tape, former Attorney General Bill Barr said Trump claimed election fraud "right out of the box on election night ... before there was actually any potential of looking at evidence."
  • Bill Stepien, Trump's former campaign manager, recalled during a video clip played by the committee that Trump disagreed that it was too early to call the election and that he said, "they were going to go in a different direction." Kushner said he told the former President that if he were in his position, calling the election early " [was] not the approach I would take if I was you"
  • Matt Morgan, the Trump campaign's general counsel, said in a videotaped deposition that after speaking with counsel after hearing about Rudy Giuliani's conspiracies about election fraud, it was determined that "the law firms were not comfortable making the arguments that Rudy Giuliani was making publicly."
  • In the early morning hours of Nov. 5, Trump addressed the nation via video and falsely claimed victory.