House Jan. 6 committee presents new evidence about plot to overturn 2020 election, votes to subpoena Trump

New video clips showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and others calling multiple Trump administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, to urge them to take action to quell the riot as they hid from the mob that overran the Capitol.

"We're trying to figure out how we can get this done today," Pelosi is seen telling Pence in a phone call. "We've gotten a really bad report about the condition of the House floor ... defecation and all that kind of thing as well," she said.

The clips showed Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also calling acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and asking if he can mobilize the National Guard to come defend the Capitol from the mob.

They are then shown calling Jeffrey Rosen, Trump's acting attorney general at the time, and describing the violent scenes occurring elsewhere in the building.

"And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States," Pelosi said.

"Why don't you tell the president to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility?" Schumer asked.

Pelosi also called then-Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam for help, the video showed.

Pelosi and Schumer are also seen in a huddle with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other congressional leaders during a call with a Pentagon official.

— Kevin Breuninger

The Jan. 6 committee will be recalling witnesses who have already testified under oath and looking at whether they lied about former President Donald Trump's actions on the day of the riot, said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.

Aguilar said the decision to revisit testimony was prompted by more than 1 million pages of new Secret Service internal communication records, some of which appear to contradict testimony from witnesses.

Additionally, Aguilar said, the committee is "reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue, including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about this specific topic."

The comments were the first indication that the committee intends to pursue White House aides and others who did not give accurate testimony.

— Christina Wilkie

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., presented new evidence that U.S. Secret Service agents were monitoring right-wing websites ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and were aware that people at the rally were armed and planning violence.

"By the morning of January 6th, it was clear that the U.S. Secret Service anticipated violence," Schiff said. "It felt like 'the calm before the storm,' one agent predicted in a protective intelligence division chat."

"The Secret Service could also see that many rally goers were assembled outside the security perimeter" at Trump's rally, said Schiff. He described how one agent wrote that this was "possibly because they have stuff that couldn't come through" the magnetometers.

"By 9:30 that morning, agents reported more than 25,000 people outside the rally site," said Schiff. "The head of the President's Secret Service protective detail Robert Engel was specifically aware of the large crowds outside magnetometers."

— Christina Wilkie

The committee plans to vote to subpoena former President Donald Trump, NBC News reported.

The move to subpoena Trump has been under consideration for some time, sources familiar with the committee's plans tell NBC.

Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., clarified in his opening statement that the committee was gathering in a "formal committee business meeting," and not a hearing, which opens the possibility under committee rules for them to vote on further investigative action.

— Kevin Breuninger

President Donald Trump planned to declare victory on Election Day 2020 regardless of the outcome of the election, according to new evidence presented by Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

Lofgren showed testimony from former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, who said he thought that as early as July 2020, Trump planned to declare victory even if he lost.

The committee also showed a draft statement prepared for Trump to read on Election Night by Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, an informal adviser to the president. The statement, dated Oct. 31, declared victory and urged a halt to any more vote counting.

Vice President Mike Pence's aides also knew that Trump was planning to declare victory on Election Night. They took steps ahead of the election to keep Pence far away from the claims.

Pence chief of staff Marc Short was "trying to figure out a way of avoiding the Vice President being thrust into a position of needing opine on" Trump's declaration, according to Pence counsel Greg Jacobs.

— Christina Wilkie

Rep. Zoe Lofgren focused on remarks made by two Trump allies, GOP political operative Roger Stone and former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon, prior to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot.

"If Biden's winning…Trump is going to do some crazy s---," Bannon said in one clip recorded before Election Day.

Lofgren pointed out that Bannon has been convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee's subpoena for his testimony.

She also played clips of Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, who before the election urged Trump to declare victory even if he was not winning: "I suspect it will still be up in the air. When that happens the key thing to do is claim victory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. We won. F--- you. Sorry. Over. We won. You're wrong. F--- you."

Stone spoke with Trump on Dec. 27, 2020, as preparations for Jan. 6 were underway, Lofgren noted.

— Kevin Breuninger

Select committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney called to hold the instigators of the Jan. 6 riot, especially Trump, responsible for the attack.

"The violence and lawlessness of January 6th was unjustifiable, but our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers" who stormed the Capitol, said Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, in her opening statement.

"Those who planned to overturn our election and brought us to the point of violence must also be accountable," she said.

"With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former president, we chip away at the foundation of our republic," she said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the "most striking fact" lawmakers have gleaned from the hearings "is that all of this evidence came almost entirely from Republicans."

"Loyal aides who worked for Donald Trump for years, Republican state officials and legislators, Republican electors, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and political professionals who worked at the highest levels of the Trump campaign" provided evidence against Trump, he said.

Thompson said the panel's also collected evidence against Trump from some of his senior-most officials in the Justice Department, his staff, closest advisors in the White House, family and White House counsel.

"I want to be clear, not all of these witnesses were thrilled to talk to us. Some have put up quite a fight. But ultimately, the vast majority cooperated with our investigation," he said.

— Christina Wilkie

The Jan. 6 select committee's eight previous hearings have shown a "multi-part plan led by former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election," Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his introduction to Thursday's presentation.

"In a staggering betrayal of his oath, Donald Trump attempted a plan that led to an attack on a pillar of our democracy. It's still hard to believe," Thompson said.

He noted that almost all of the information that the committee gathered in order to reach that conclusion came from Republican witnesses, including a few who "put up quite a fight" with the investigation.

Thompson said Thursday's hearing will reveal new evidence and new witness testimony.

He also clarified that the event is technically not a hearing, but a "formal committee business meeting" so members can potentially hold a vote on further investigative action.

— Kevin Breuninger

If the committee's previous public hearings are any example, the new evidence emerging today could shift voters' views of Trump, including Republican voters.

Following the committee hearings last summer, Republican views of former President Donald Trump shifted, according to a large poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos.

The two-day poll, finished hours before a scheduled eighth hearing of the congressional probe, showed a 7% swing among GOP voters, with 40% percent of Republicans telling the survey they believed Trump was at least partly to blame for the deadly riot, up from 33% in a poll conducted six weeks before that.

This close to the midterm elections, that shift could negatively affect Republicans in congressional races. Many of those GOP candidates have pegged their campaigns to Trump and his popularity within the GOP.

— Reuters and Christina Wilkie

A week after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a person warned a senior FBI official that a "sizable percentage of the employee population" of the agency "felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol," according to an email made public Thursday.

The sender, whose name is redacted, told then-FBI Associate Deputy Director Paul Abbate that those FBI employees believed the riot was "no different than the [Black Lives Matter] protests of last summer," the email shows.

The Jan. 13, 2021, message, titled "Internal Concerns," was made public under the Freedom of Information Act, NBC News reported.

The writer listed several examples of alleged FBI sympathy with the rioters, including the claim that a "senior analyst from my first unity who retired less than 2 years ago has a Facebook page full of #StoptheSteal content."

"These are not one-off events -- they are representative of a larger group within the organization," the email alleged.

The FBI did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the email.

— Kevin Breuninger

More than 1 million newly obtained electronic communications records from the Secret Service are expected to play a key role in helping committee members fill in details of President Donald Trump's actions and his state of mind as protesters swarmed the Capitol.

Specifically, the records could paint a fuller picture of Trump's effort to convince his security detail to take him to the Capitol following his speech at the Stop the Steal rally. The agents ultimately refused his directive, citing the danger it would pose to Trump's safety, and brought the president back to the White House.

The records include "emails, radio transmissions, Microsoft Teams chat messages and exhibits that address aspects of planning, operations and communications surrounding Jan. 6," a Secret Service spokesperson told NBC.

— Christina Wilkie

Shortly after the committee postponed the hearing in late September, investigators interviewed Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for about 3.5 hours.

Thomas, who goes by Ginni, had reportedly pushed Trump administration officials and others to try to challenge Biden's electoral victory in 2020.

But it's not clear if Thomas' testimony will feature in Thursday's hearing. And even if Thomas is heard, it's unlikely she will be seen.

"I don't think she was a key figure, necessarily," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said of Thomas in an MSNBC interview on Sunday.

Thomas was not videotaped during her interview with the committee, Lofgren said, explaining that was part of the agreement reached in exchange for her testimony.

"We may" hear from Thomas, Lofgren said. But "we did not video her interview, so it would be transcripts, if they're going to use that. But we have plenty of other information as well."

A committee aide previewing the hearing declined to say whether Thomas would be a part of the presentation, NBC reported.

— Kevin Breuninger

The hearing will touch on the "close ties between people in Trump world and some of these extremist groups," committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren said in a CNN interview Tuesday.

But "that's not the only thing the hearing will be about," said Lofgren, D-Calif. "We're going to be going through, really some of what we've already found, but augmenting with new material that we've discovered through our work throughout this summer."

That involves focusing on Trump's intentions, including "what he knew, what he did, what others did," she said.

Asked to be more specific about the alleged ties between "Trump world" and the extremist groups, Lofgren said, "Let's just say that the mob was led by some extremist groups, they plotted in advance what they were going to do, and those individuals were known to people in the Trump orbit."

"I do think that it will be worth watching," Lofgren said. "There's some new material that, you know, I found as we got into it, pretty surprising."

— Kevin Breuninger

The committee's ninth hearing comes more than two months after the last presentation in late July, resurfacing the riot in the final sprint to the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

The hearing was originally scheduled for late last month, but the committee leaders opted to delay it on the eve of the event, citing the major hurricane bearing down on Florida at the time.

It now arrives less than four weeks before Election Day, where Democrats and Republicans are vying for control of both chambers of Congress and key positions of power at the state level.

The committee also faces an end-of-the-year deadline to submit a final report to the president and Congress containing its findings and policy recommendations.

— Kevin Breuninger