the capitol quickly causing the evacuation of both the house and the senate. the count ground to an absolute halt and was ultimately delayed for hours. the mob was accomplishing president trump s purpose, so of course, he did not intervene. here is what will be clear by the end of this hearing. president trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the ellipse and telling the mob to go home. he chose not to act. but there were hundreds that day who honored their oaths and put their lives on the line to protect the people inside the capitol and to safeguard our democracy. many of them are here tonight with us, and many more are watching from home. as you already know, you will see again tonight their service and sacrifice shines a bright light on president trump s dishonor and dereliction of duty. i yield to the vice chair. thank you very much, mister kinzinger. i would like to begin by welcoming our witnesses this evening. tonight,
move quickly. we have smoke downstairs. standby. unknown smoke, downstairs. by the protesters? is that route compromised? we have the it s secure. however, we will bypass some protesters that are being contained. there is smoke. unknown, what kind of smoke it is. copy? clear, we re coming out now. all right, make away. the presidents national security council staff was the sending to these developments and tracking them in realtime. on the screen, you can see excerpts from the chat logs among the national among the presidents national council national security council staff. at 2:13, the staff learned that the rioters were kicking in the windows at the capitol. three minutes later, the staff said the vice president was being pulled. which meant agents evacuated
and i disagreed with the sentiment. and i thought it was wrong. what was your reaction when you saw that tweet? extremely unhelpful. why? it wasn t the message that we needed at that time. it wasn t going to the scenes at the u.s. capitol were only getting worse at that point. this was not going to help that. how would it get worse? certainly. miss hutchinson, what was your reaction when you saw this tweet. as a staffer that works to always represent the administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good things that he had done for the country, i remember
on multiple fronts before convening further hearings this september. today we know far more about the presidents plans and actions to overturn the election than almost all members of congress did when president trump was impeached on january 13th, 2021, or when he s tried by the senate in february of that year. 57 of 100 senators voted to convict president trump at that time. and more than 20 others said they were voting against conviction because the president s term had already expired. at the time the republican leader of the united states senate said this about donald trump. a mob was assaulting the capitol in his name. these criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him. it was obvious. only president trump could in this. he was the only one.
in more detail. for context here is what was happening at that time. [noise] they broke the glass. everybody stay down! there are people flooding the hallway. we were just told that there has been tear gas in the rotunda and we were told that each of us to get gas masks. we went from a peaceful protest and this is a very dangerous situation right now. there are i am being told, these protesters are on the inside are around both chambers and there is now tear gas inside the capitol rotunda. in fact, members locked inside the house are being instructed to put on masks. miss matthews, after