[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                HEARING ON THE JANUARY 6TH INVESTIGATION

=======================================================================


                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                          SELECT COMMITTEE TO
                      INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH
                             ATTACK ON THE
                         UNITED STATES CAPITOL

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 16, 2022

                               __________

                            Serial No. 117-4

                               __________

Printed for the use of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 
                6th Attack on the United States Capitol
                                     

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                                     

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                               __________
                               

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
49-351 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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 SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE UNITED 
                             STATES CAPITOL

               Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
                    Liz Cheney, Wyoming, Vice Chair
                        Zoe Lofgren, California
                       Adam B. Schiff, California
                        Pete Aguilar, California
                      Stephanie N. Murphy, Florida
                         Jamie Raskin, Maryland
                       Elaine G. Luria, Virginia
                        Adam Kinzinger, Illinois
                           
                           COMMITTEE STAFF

                    David B. Buckley, Staff Director
      Kristin L. Amerling, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel
             Timothy J. Heaphy, Chief Investigative Counsel
                  Hope Goins, Counsel to the Chairman
                      Jamie Fleet, Senior Advisor
          Joseph B. Maher, Senior Counselor to the Vice Chair
               Timothy R. Mulvey, Communications Director
           Candyce Phoenix, Senior Counsel and Senior Advisor

Katherine B. Abrams, Staff           Thomas E. Joscelyn, Senior 
    Associate                            Professional Staff Member
Temidayo Aganga-Williams, Senior     Rebecca L. Knooihuizen, Financial 
    Investigative Counsel                Investigator
Alejandra Apecechea, Investigative   Casey E. Lucier, Investigative 
    Counsel                              Counsel
Lisa A. Bianco, Director of Member   Damon M. Marx, Professional Staff 
    Services and Security Manager        Member
Jerome P. Bjelopera, Investigator    Evan B. Mauldin, Chief Clerk
Bryan Bonner, Investigative Counsel  Yonatan L. Moskowitz, Senior 
Richard R. Bruno, Senior                 Counsel
    Administrative Assistant         Hannah G. Muldavin, Deputy 
Marcus Childress, Investigative          Communications Director
    Counsel                          Jonathan D. Murray, Professional 
John Marcus Clark, Security              Staff Member
    Director                         Jacob A. Nelson, Professional 
Jacqueline N. Colvett, Digital           Staff Member
    Director                         Elizabeth Obrand, Staff Associate
Heather I. Connelly, Professional    Raymond O'Mara, Director of 
    Staff Member                         External Affairs
Meghan E. Conroy, Investigator       Elyes Ouechtati, Technology 
Heather L. Crowell, Printer              Partner
    Proofreader                      Robin M. Peguero, Investigative 
William C. Danvers, Senior               Counsel
    Researcher                       Sandeep A. Prasanna, Investigative 
Soumyalatha O. Dayananda, Senior         Counsel
    Investigative Counsel            Barry Pump, Parliamentarian
Stephen W. DeVine, Senior Counsel    Sean M. Quinn, Investigative 
Lawrence J. Eagleburger,                 Counsel
    Professional Staff Member        Brittany M. J. Record, Senior 
Kevin S. Elliker, Investigative          Counsel
    Counsel                          Joshua D. Roselman, Investigative 
Margaret E. Emamzadeh, Staff             Counsel
    Associate                        James N. Sasso, Investigative 
Sadallah A. Farah, Professional          Counsel
    Staff Member                     Grant H. Saunders, Professional 
Daniel A. George, Senior                 Staff Member
    Investigative Counsel            Samantha O. Stiles, Chief 
Jacob H. Glick, Investigative            Administrative Officer
    Counsel                          Sean P. Tonolli, Senior 
Aaron S. Greene, Clerk                   Investigative Counsel
Marc S. Harris, Senior               David A. Weinberg, Senior 
    Investigative Counsel                Professional Staff Member
Alice K. Hayes, Clerk                Amanda S. Wick, Senior 
Quincy T. Henderson, Staff               Investigative Counsel
    Assistant                        Darrin L. Williams, Jr., Staff 
Camisha L. Johnson, Professional         Assistant
    Staff Member                     John F. Wood, Senior Investigative 
                                         Counsel
                                     Zachary S. Wood, Clerk
                      
                      CONTRACTORS & CONSULTANTS

                             Rawaa Alobaidi
                             Melinda Arons
                              Steve Baker
                            Elizabeth Bisbee
                              David Canady
                             John Coughlin
                             Aaron Dietzen
                              Gina Ferrise
                           Angel Goldsborough
                             James Goldston
                              Polly Grube
                          L. Christine Healey
                             Danny Holladay
                              Percy Howard
                              Dean Jackson
                           Stephanie J. Jones
                              Hyatt Mamoun
                               Mary Marsh
                               Todd Mason
                              Ryan Mayers
                              Jeff McBride
                               Fred Muram
                             Alex Newhouse
                              John Norton
                             Orlando Pinder
                               Owen Pratt
                              Dan Pryzgoda
                              Brian Sasser
                            William Scherer
                              Driss Sekkat
                              Chris Stuart
                            Preston Sullivan
                              Brian Young

                           Innovative Driven
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               Statements

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Select Committee 
  to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States 
  Capitol........................................................     1
The Honorable Liz Cheney, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Wyoming, and Vice Chair, Select Committee to 
  Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol     2
The Honorable Pete Aguilar, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of California............................................     3

                               Witnesses

Mr. Greg Jacob, Former Counsel to Vice President Mike Pence......     5
The Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Retired Judge for the U.S. Court 
  of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Informal Advisor to Mike 
  Pence..........................................................     6

 
                HEARING ON THE JANUARY 6TH INVESTIGATION

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, June 16, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives,
 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on 
                                 the United States Capitol,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:02 p.m., in 
room 390, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Bennie G. Thompson 
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Thompson, Cheney, Lofgren, Schiff, 
Aguilar, Murphy, Raskin, Luria, and Kinzinger.
    Chairman Thompson. The Select Committee to Investigate the 
January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will be in 
order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare the 
Committee in recess at any point.
    Pursuant to House Deposition Authority Regulation 10, the 
Chair announces the Committee's approval to release the 
deposition material presented during today's hearing.
    Good afternoon.
    ``There is no idea more un-American than the notion that 
any one person could choose the American President.''
    ``No idea more un-American.'' I agree with that--which is 
unusual because former Vice President Mike Pence and I don't 
agree on much.
    These are his words, spoken a few months ago about Donald 
Trump's attempt to pressure the former Vice President--pressure 
him into going along with an unlawful and un-Constitutional 
scheme to overturn the 2020 election and give Donald Trump a 
second term in office that he did not win.
    Today, the Select Committee is going to reveal the details 
of that pressure campaign.
    But what does the Vice President of the United States even 
have to do with a Presidential election? The Constitution says 
that the Vice President of the United States oversees the 
process of counting the electoral college votes, a process that 
took place on January 6, 2021.
    Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other 
Vice President has ever done. The former President wanted Pence 
to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send 
the votes back to the States to be counted again.
    Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it 
was illegal. He knew it was wrong. We are fortunate for Mr. 
Pence's courage on January 6th. Our democracy came dangerously 
close to catastrophe.
    That courage put him in tremendous danger. When Mike Pence 
made it clear that he wouldn't give in to Donald Trump's 
scheme, Donald Trump turned a mob on him--a mob that was 
chanting ``Hang Mike Pence,'' a mob that had built a hangman's 
gallows just outside the Capitol.
    Thanks in part to Mike Pence, our democracy withstood 
Donald Trump's scheme and the violence of January 6th. But the 
danger hasn't receded. Led by my colleague Mr. Aguilar, today 
we will lay out the facts for the American people.
    But, first, I will recognize my colleague from Wyoming, Ms. 
Cheney, for any opening statement she would care to offer.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Let me take just a few minutes today to put the topic of 
our hearing in broader context.
    In our last hearing, we heard unequivocal testimony that 
President Trump was told his election fraud allegations were 
complete nonsense. We heard this from members of the Trump 
campaign. We heard this from President Trump's campaign 
lawyers. We heard this from President Trump's former Attorney 
General, Bill Barr. We heard this from President Trump's former 
Acting Attorney General, Jeff Rosen. We heard this from 
President Trump's former Acting Deputy Attorney General, 
Richard Donoghue. We heard from members of President Trump's 
White House staff as well.
    Today, we are focusing on President Trump's relentless 
effort to pressure Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral 
votes on January 6th.
    Here, again, is how the former Vice President phrased it in 
a speech before the Federalist Society, a group of conservative 
lawyers.

    Vice President Pence. I heard this week that President Trump said I 
had the right to overturn the election. But President Trump is wrong. I 
had no right to overturn the election. The Presidency belongs to the 
American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no 
idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose 
the American President.

    Vice Chair Cheney. What the President wanted the Vice 
President to do was not just wrong; it was illegal and un-
Constitutional.
    We will hear many details in today's hearing, but please 
consider these two points:
    First, President Trump was told repeatedly that Mike Pence 
lacked the Constitutional and legal authority to do what 
President Trump was demanding he do.
    This is testimony from Marc Short, the Vice President's 
chief of staff, who served in the Trump administration in 
multiple positions over 4 years.

    Mr. Heaphy. But just to pick up on that, Mr. Short, is it--was it 
your impression that the Vice President had directly conveyed his 
position on these issues to the President, not just to the world 
through a Dear Colleague letter, but directly to President Trump?
    Mr. Short. Many times.
    Mr. Heaphy. And he'd been consistent in conveying his position to 
the President?
    Mr. Short. Very consistent.
    Mr. Heaphy. Okay.

    Vice Chair Cheney. But President Trump plotted with a 
lawyer named John Eastman to pressure Pence to do so anyway.
    As a Federal court has explained, ``Based on the evidence, 
the Court finds that it is more likely than not that President 
Trump and Dr. Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the 
Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.''
    What exactly did President Trump know? When exactly did 
President Trump know that it would be illegal for Mike Pence to 
refuse to count electoral votes?
    Here is one sample of testimony given by one of the 
witnesses before us today, the Vice President's general 
counsel.

    Mr. Wood. Did John Eastman ever admit, as far as you know, in front 
of the President that his proposal would violate the Electoral Count 
Act?
    Mr. Jacob. I believe he did on the 4th.

    Vice Chair Cheney. That was January 4th, 2 days before the 
attack on Congress.
    A second point: Please listen to testimony today about all 
of the ways that President Trump attempted to pressure Vice 
President Pence, including Donald Trump's tweet at 2:24 p.m. 
condemning Vice President Mike Pence when President Trump 
already knew a violent riot was under way at the Capitol.
    In future hearings, you will hear from witnesses who were 
present inside the White House, who were present inside the 
West Wing on that day. But, today, we focus on the earnest 
efforts of Mike Pence, who was determined to abide by his oath 
of office.
    As Vice President Pence prepared a statement on January 5th 
and 6th explaining that he could not illegally refuse to count 
electoral votes, he said this to his staff:

    Mr. Jacob. I mean, the Vice President had said, ``This may be the 
most important thing I ever say.''
    Mr. Heaphy. ``This,'' meaning the statement?
    Mr. Jacob. The statement. And he really wanted to make sure that it 
was just so.

    Vice Chair Cheney. You will hear today that President 
Trump's White House Counsel believed that the Vice President 
did exactly the right thing on January 6th, as did others in 
the White House, as did Fox News Host Sean Hannity.
    Vice President Pence understood that his oath of office was 
more important than his loyalty to Donald Trump. He did his 
duty. President Trump unequivocally did not.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Without objection, I recognize the 
gentleman from California, Mr. Aguilar, for an opening 
statement.
    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today we intend to show the American people that January 
6th was not an isolated incident. In the weeks culminating 
before, it was a legal scheme and deception.
    We have already learned that President Trump knew he lost 
the 2020 election. Shortly after, he began to look for a way to 
circumvent our country's most fundamental civic tradition: The 
peaceful transfer of power.
    The President latched on to a dangerous theory and would 
not let go, because he was convinced it would keep him in 
office.
    We witnessed first-hand what happened when the President of 
the United States weaponized this theory. The Capitol was 
overrun. Police officers lost their lives. The Vice President 
was taken to a secure location because his safety was in 
jeopardy.
    Let's take a look at the effect of Donald Trump's words and 
actions. I want to warn our audience that the video contains 
explicit content.

    President Trump. Mike Pence is going to have to come through for 
us. And if he doesn't, that will be a--a sad day for our country.
    And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our 
Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm 
going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now.
    Voice. I'm telling you what, I'm hearing that Pence--hearing that 
Pence just caved.
    Voice. No.
    Voice. Is that true?
    Voice. I didn't hear it.
    Voice. I'm hear--I'm hearing reports that Pence caved.
    Voice. No way.
    Voice. I'm telling you, if Pence caved, we're going to drag 
motherfuckers through the streets. You fucking politicians are going to 
get fucking drug through the streets.
    Voice. Yes.
    Voice. I guess the hope is that there's such a show of force here 
that Pence will decide to----
    Voice. Just do his job.
    Voice [continuing]. Do the right thing, according to Trump.
    Crowd. Where is Pence? Bring him out! Bring out Pence! Bring him 
out! Bring out Pence! Bring him out! Bring out Pence!
    Crowd. Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike 
Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike 
Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!

    Mr. Aguilar. How did we get to this point? How did we get 
to the point where President Trump's most radical supporters 
led a violent attack on the Capitol and threatened to hang 
President Trump's own Vice President?
    You will hear from witnesses that Donald Trump pressured 
Mike Pence to adopt a legally and morally bankrupt idea that 
the Vice President could choose who the next President can be.
    You will hear about how the Vice President, the White House 
Counsel, and others told Donald Trump that the Vice President 
had no such authority, but President Trump would not listen.
    You will hear how Vice President Pence withstood an 
onslaught of pressure from President Trump, both publicly and 
privately--a pressure campaign that built to a fever pitch with 
a heated phone call on January 6th.
    You will also hear that the President knew there was a 
violent mob at the Capitol when he tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that 
the Vice President did not have the ``courage'' to do what 
needed to be done.
    Let me be clear: Vice President Pence did the right thing 
that day. He stayed true to his oath to protect and defend the 
Constitution.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses this 
afternoon.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Aguilar.
    We are honored to have two distinguished witnesses who 
advised the Vice President regarding his role on January 6th.
    Judge J. Michael Luttig is one of the leading conservative 
legal thinkers in the country. He served in the administrations 
of President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was 
appointed by the latter to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the Fourth Circuit, where he served from 1991 to 2006.
    He provided critical advice for Vice President Pence 
regarding the role of the Vice President in the joint session 
of Congress shortly before that fateful moment.
    He has written that the Vice President does not have the 
power to select the next President of the United States. He has 
also written that the contrary theory, espoused by one of his 
own former law clerks, was ``incorrect at every turn.''
    We are also joined today by one of the people who was with 
Vice President Pence on January 6th. Greg Jacob was counsel to 
Vice President Pence.
    He conducted a thorough analysis of the role of the Vice 
President in the joint session of Congress under the 
Constitution, the Electoral Count Act, and 230 years of 
historical practice.
    But he also has first-hand information about the attack on 
the Capitol because he lived through it. He was with the Vice 
President, and his own life was in danger.
    I will now swear in our witnesses. The witnesses will 
please stand and raise their right hands.
    [Witnesses sworn.]
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you. You may be seated.
    Let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the 
affirmative.
    I now recognize myself for questions.
    In the United States, the people choose our 
representatives, including the highest official in the land, 
the President of the United States. The American people did 
this on November 3, 2020.
    But President Trump did not like the outcome. He did 
everything he could to change the result of the election.
    He tried litigation--62 cases, in fact--and that failed.
    He tried to pressure State legislatures to reverse the 
results of the election in their States, but they refused.
    He tried to enlist the Department of Justice in his efforts 
to overturn election results, but officials leading the 
Department refused to comply.
    So, eventually, he latched on to a completely nonsensical 
and antidemocratic theory that one man, his own Vice President, 
could determine the outcome of the election. He wanted the Vice 
President to unilaterally select the President.
    This theory, that the Vice President could unilaterally 
select the President, runs completely contrary to our 
Constitution, our laws, and the entirety of our American 
experience. But that didn't matter to President Trump.
    I would now like to explore how President Trump came to 
latch onto this ridiculous legal theory that the Vice President 
can select the President of the United States.
    Mr. Jacob, how did this theory first come to your 
attention?
    Mr. Jacob. The first time that I had a conversation with 
the Vice President about the 12th Amendment and the Electoral 
Count Act was in early December, around December 7th.
    The Vice President called me over to his West Wing office 
and told me that he had been seeing and reading things that 
suggested that he had a significant role to play on January 6th 
in announcing the outcome of the election.
    He told me that he had been first elected to Congress in 
2000 and that one of his earliest memories as a Congressman was 
sitting in on the 2001 certification, and he recalled that Al 
Gore had gaveled down a number of objections that had been 
raised to Florida.
    He asked me, ``Mechanically, how does this work at the 
joint session? What are the rules?''
    I told the Vice President that, in fact, I had a fairly 
good idea of how things worked, that actually there aren't 
rules that govern the joint session, but what there is is a 
provision of the Constitution that is just one sentence long 
and then an Electoral Count Act that had been passed in 1887.
    I told the Vice President that I could put a memo together 
for him overnight that would explain the applicable rules.
    Chairman Thompson. So, Mr. Jacob, when you looked at this 
theory, what did you conclude?
    Mr. Jacob. So, we concluded that what you have is a 
sentence in the Constitution that is inartfully drafted. But 
the Vice President's first instinct, when he heard this theory, 
was that there was no way that our Framers, who abhorred 
concentrated power, who had broken away from the tyranny of 
George III, would ever have put one person--particularly not a 
person who had a direct interest in the outcome because they 
were on the ticket for the election--in a role to have decisive 
impact on the outcome of the election.
    Our review of text, history, and, frankly, just common 
sense, all confirmed the Vice President's first instinct on 
that point. There is no justifiable basis to conclude that the 
Vice President has that kind of authority.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Jacob.
    We will hear more today about how, despite this conclusion 
by you and other top legal advisors, the former President used 
this discredited theory in his campaign to pressure the Vice 
President to decide the outcome of the Presidential election.
    I now recognize the gentlewoman from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney, 
for questions.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Judge Luttig, thank you, as well, for being here with us 
today.
    You issued a very important statement earlier today, which 
I urge all Americans to read. I would like to ask you, Judge, 
about one of the sentences in your statement and ask if you 
could explain to us the significance of it.
    You say, ``Had the Vice President of the United States 
obeyed the President of the United States, America would 
immediately have been plunged into what would have been 
tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing Constitutional 
crisis.''
    Would you elaborate on that for us, Judge?
    Judge Luttig. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
    That passage in my statement this morning referenced the 
most foundational concept in America, which is the rule of law. 
Thus, as I interpret your question, you are asking about that 
foundational truth of these United States which we call 
``America.''
    The foundational truth is the rule of law. That 
foundational truth is, for the United States of America, the 
profound truth.
    But it is not merely the profound truth for the United 
States; it is also the simple truth, the simple foundational 
truth of the American Republic.
    Thus, in my view, the hearings being conducted by this 
Select Committee are examining that profound truth--namely, the 
rule of law in the United States of America.
    The specific question, of course, before you and before the 
Nation--not before me--is whether that foundational rule of law 
was supremely violated on January 6, 2021.
    Now, to the question specifically that you asked, Madam 
Vice Chair, I believe that had Vice President Pence obeyed the 
orders from his President--and the President of the United 
States of America--during the joint session of the Congress of 
the United States on January 6, 2021, and declared Donald Trump 
the next President of the United States, notwithstanding that 
then-President Trump had lost the electoral college vote as 
well as the popular vote in the 2020 Presidential election, 
that declaration of Donald Trump as the next President would 
have plunged America into what I believe would have been 
tantamount to a revolution within a Constitutional crisis in 
America, which, in my view--and I am only one man--would have 
been the first Constitutional crisis since the founding of the 
Republic.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Judge, for your 
solemn attention to these issues and for your appearance here 
today.
    We are going to describe and discuss in detail what 
happened, and, as we do, I am going to describe a few of the 
details now of some of the actions taken by a gentleman named 
Kenneth Chesebro.
    After the electoral college met and cast their votes on 
December 14th--actually, the day before they met--Kenneth 
Chesebro sent a memo to Rudy Giuliani, the President's lead 
outside counsel.
    Mr. Chesebro wrote to Mayor Giuliani that the Vice 
President is charged with, ``making judgments about what to do 
if there are conflicting votes.''
    Mr. Chesebro wrote that, when the joint session of Congress 
got to Arizona in the alphabetical list of States, the Vice 
President should not count the Biden votes, ``because there are 
two slates of votes.''
    His justification, which we will learn more about in our 
next hearing, was that a group of Trump supporters in Arizona 
and other swing States decided to proclaim themselves the true 
electors for the State, creating two sets of electors--the 
official electors selected by the State and a group of fake 
electors.
    This document was ordered to be produced to the Select 
Committee by a Federal district court judge. As you will see on 
the screen shortly, Judge David Carter wrote, ``The draft memo 
pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count 
Act . . . ''
    The judge concluded that ``the memo is both intimately 
related to and clearly advanced the plan to obstruct the joint 
session of Congress on January 6, 2021.''
    A few days later, Professor John Eastman took up this 
cause. Eastman was at the time a law professor at Chapman 
University Law School.
    He prepared a memo outlining the nonsensical theory that 
the Vice President could decide the outcome of the election at 
the joint session of Congress on January 6th. You will see 
portions of this memo on the screen.
    In the first line, he wrote, ``7 States have transmitted 
dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate.''
    But Dr. Eastman goes on to rely on those so-called ``dual 
slates of electors'' to say that Vice President Pence could 
simply declare President Trump the winner of the 2020 election.
    Mr. Jacob, were there, in fact, dual slates of electors 
from 7 States?
    Mr. Jacob. No, there were not.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Just a few days after that, Dr. Eastman 
wrote another memo, this one ``war gaming'' out several 
scenarios. He knew the outcome he wanted, and he saw a way to 
go forward if he simply pretended that fake electors were real.
    You will see that memo up on the screen now.
    Here, Dr. Eastman says the Vice President can reject the 
Biden electors from the States that he calls ``disputed.'' 
Under several of the scenarios, the Vice President could 
ultimately just declare Donald Trump the winner, regardless of 
the vote totals that had already been certified by the States.
    However, this was false. Dr. Eastman knew it was false. In 
other words, it was a lie.
    In fact, on December 19, 2020, just 4 days before Dr. 
Eastman sent this memo, Dr. Eastman himself admitted in an 
email that the fake electors had no legal weight, referring to 
the fake electors as ``dead on arrival in Congress,'' because 
they did not have a certification from their States.
    Judge Luttig, did the Trump electors in those 7 States, who 
were not certified by any State authority, have any legal 
significance?
    Judge Luttig. Congresswoman, there was no support 
whatsoever in either the Constitution of the United States nor 
the laws of the United States for the Vice President, frankly, 
ever to count alternative electoral slates from the States that 
had not been officially certified by the designated State 
official in the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
    I did notice in the passage from Mr. Eastman's memorandum, 
and I took a note on it. Correct me if I am wrong, but he said 
in that passage that there was both legal authority as well as 
historical precedent.
    I do know what Mr. Eastman was referring to when he said 
that there was historical precedent for doing so. He was 
incorrect. There was no historical precedent from the beginning 
of the founding in 1789, even as mere historical precedent, as 
distinguished from legal precedent, that would support the 
possibility of the Vice President of the United States 
``counting'' alternative electoral slates that had not been 
officially certified to the Congress pursuant to the Electoral 
Count Act of 1887.
    I would be glad to explain that historical precedent if the 
Committee wanted, but it would be a digression.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Judge. I know my 
colleagues will be pursuing that issue in more depth.
    Now I would like to yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
    Pursuant to section 5(c)(8) of House Resolution 503, the 
Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Aguilar, 
and staff counsel, Mr. John Wood, for questioning.
    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    We are fortunate to have a bipartisan staff. Senior 
Investigative Counsel John Wood previously served as United 
States attorney in Missouri under President George W. Bush. He 
and I will share today's lines of questioning.
    Mr. Wood.
    Mr. Wood. Thank you, Mr. Aguilar.
    Judge Luttig, I had the incredible honor of serving as one 
of your law clerks. Another person who did was John Eastman.
    You have written that Dr. Eastman's theory that the Vice 
President could determine who the next President of the United 
States is is, in your words, ``incorrect at every turn.''
    Could you please explain briefly your analysis?
    Judge Luttig. It was my honor, Mr. Wood, to have you serve 
as my law clerk.
    I could answer that question perfectly if I had at my 
disposal either Mr. Eastman's tweet or my own analytical tweet 
of September 21st, but I don't.
    But, that said, let me try to remember Mr. Eastman's 
analysis.
    Mr. Wood. Judge, I can read to you and to the audience I 
think what was really a key passage from your very insightful 
analysis, when you wrote, ``I believe(d) that Professor Eastman 
was incorrect at every turn of the analysis in his January 2 
memorandum, beginning with his claim that there were 
legitimate, competing slates of electors presented from 7 
States.''
    You have already addressed that issue.
    But your next sentence said: `` . . . continuing to his 
conclusion that the Vice President could unilaterally decide 
not to count the votes from the 7 States from which competing 
slates were allegedly presented.''
    So, what was your basis for concluding that Dr. Eastman was 
incorrect in his conclusion that the Vice President could 
unilaterally decide not to count the votes from these disputed 
States?
    Judge Luttig. I understand.
    As I previously stated in response to Congresswoman Cheney, 
there was no basis in the Constitution or laws of the United 
States at all for the theory espoused by Mr. Eastman--at all. 
None.
    With all respect to my co-panelist, he said, I believe in 
partial response to one of the Select Committee's questions, 
that the single sentence in the 12th Amendment was, he thought, 
inartfully written.
    That single sentence is not inartfully written. It was 
pristine clear that the President of the Senate on January 6th, 
the incumbent Vice President of the United States, had little 
substantive Constitutional authority, if any at all.
    The 12th Amendment, the single sentence that Mr. Jacob 
refers to, says in substance that, following the transmission 
of the certificates to the Congress of the United States and, 
under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the Archivist of the 
United States, that the presiding officer shall open the 
certificates in the presence of the Congress of the United 
States in joint session.
    It then says, unmistakably, not even that the Vice 
President himself shall count the electoral votes. It clearly 
says merely that the electoral count votes shall then be 
counted.
    It was the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that filled in, if 
you will, the simple words of the 12th Amendment in order to 
construct for the country a process for the counting of--the 
sacred process for the counting of--the electoral votes from 
the States that neither our original Constitution nor even the 
12th Amendment had done.
    The irony, if you will, is that, from its founding until 
1887, when Congress passed the Electoral Count Act, the Nation 
had been in considerable turmoil during at least 5 of its 
Presidential elections, beginning as soon thereafter from the 
founding as 1800. So, it wasn't for almost 100 years later 
until the Electoral Count Act was passed.
    So that is why, in my view, that piece of legislation is 
not only a work in progress for the country but, at this moment 
in history, an important work in progress that needs to take 
place.
    That was long-winded, I understand.
    Mr. Wood. Well, Judge Luttig, at the risk of 
oversimplifying for the non-lawyers who are watching, is it 
fair to say that the 12th Amendment basically says two things 
happen: the Vice President opens the certificates, and the 
electoral votes are counted.
    Is it that straightforward?
    Judge Luttig. I would not want that to be my testimony 
before the Congress of the United States. The language of the 
12th Amendment is that simple.
    Mr. Wood. Thank you, Judge.
    Mr. Jacob, I have a question for you. I believe during your 
deposition before this Committee you said something to the 
effect of you had read every word written about the 12th 
Amendment, the Electoral Count Act, and historical practice.
    I know in response to the Chairman's earlier question you 
gave your bottom-line conclusion, but can you tell us a little 
bit about the process that you and your colleagues went through 
of researching this issue and what conclusion you came to after 
your thorough research?
    Mr. Jacob. So, as a lawyer who is analyzing a 
Constitutional provision, you start with the Constitutional 
text, you go to structure, you go to history.
    So, we started with the text. We did not think that the 
text was quite as unambiguous as Judge Luttig indicated. In 
part, we had a Constitutional crisis in 1876 because, in that 
year, multiple slates of electors were certified by multiple 
States, and, when it came time to count those votes, the 
antecedent question of which ones had to be answered.
    That required the appointment of an independent commission. 
That commission had had to resolve that question. The purpose 
of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 had been to resolve those 
latent ambiguities.
    Now, I am in complete agreement with Judge Luttig; it is 
unambiguous that the Vice President does not have the authority 
to reject electors. There is no suggestion of any kind that it 
does. There is no mention of rejecting or objecting to electors 
anywhere in the 12th Amendment. So the notion that the Vice 
President could do that certainly is not in the text.
    But the problem that we had, and that John Eastman raised 
in our discussions was, we had all seen that in Congress, in 
2000, in 2004, in 2016, there had been objections raised to 
various States, and those had even been debated in 2004. So 
here you have an amendment that says nothing about objecting or 
rejecting and yet we did have some recent practice of that 
happening within the terms of the Electoral Count Act.
    So, we started with that text. I recall, in my discussion 
with the Vice President, he said, ``I can't wait to go to 
heaven and meet the Framers and tell them, `The work that you 
did in putting together our Constitution is a work of genius. 
Thank you. It was divinely inspired. There is one sentence that 
I would like to talk to you a little bit about.' ''
    So, then we went to structure. Again, the Vice President's 
first instinct here is so decisive on this question. There is 
just no way that the Framers of the Constitution, who divided 
power and authority, who separated it out, who had broken away 
from George III and declared him to be a tyrant--there was no 
way that they would have put in the hands of one person the 
authority to determine who was going to be President of the 
United States.
    Then we went to history. We examined every single electoral 
vote count that had happened in Congress since the beginning of 
the country. We examined the Electoral Count Act. We examined 
practice under the Electoral Count Act.
    Critically, no Vice President in 230 years of history had 
ever claimed to have that kind of authority, hadn't claimed 
authority to reject electoral votes, had not claimed authority 
to return electoral votes back to the States. In the entire 
history of the United States, not once had a joint session ever 
returned electoral votes back to the States to be counted.
    In the crisis of 1876, Justice Bradley of the U.S. Supreme 
Court, who supplied the decisive final vote on that commission, 
had specifically looked at that question and said, first, the 
Vice President clearly doesn't have authority to decide 
anything and, by the way, also does not have authority to 
conduct an investigation by sending things back out for a 
public look at things.
    So, the history was absolutely decisive.
    Again, part of my discussion with Mr. Eastman was, if you 
were right, don't you think Al Gore might have liked to have 
known in 2000 that he had authority to just declare himself 
President of the United States? Did you think that the Democrat 
lawyers just didn't think of this very obvious quirk that he 
could use to do that? Of course, he acknowledged Al Gore did 
not and should not have had that authority at that point in 
time.
    But so text, structure, history. I think what we had was 
some ambiguous text that common sense and structure would tell 
you the answer cannot possibly be that the Vice President has 
that authority--as the Committee already played the Vice 
President's remarks, there is almost no idea more un-American 
than the notion that any one person would choose the American 
President--and then unbroken historical practice for 230 years 
that the Vice President did not have such an authority.
    Mr. Wood. Thank you.
    I reserve the remainder of my time.
    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, you weren't the only one who knew 
that the legal theory was wrong, though. Here is what various 
advisors to the President thought about that theory.

    Mr. Heaphy. Had you been clear repeatedly with Mr. Meadows about 
you and the Vice President having a different view about his authority 
on January 6th?
    Mr. Short. I believe I had.
    Mr. Heaphy. Did Mr. Meadows ever explicitly or tacitly agree with 
you, or say, ``Yeah, that makes sense, okay''?
    Mr. Short. I believe that--that Mark did agree.
    Mr. Heaphy. What makes you say that?
    Mr. Short. I believe that's what he told me. But, as I mentioned, I 
think Mark had told so many people so many different things that it was 
not something that--that I would necessarily accept as okay, well, that 
means that's resolved.
    Mr. Heaphy. I see. Tell me more what--what he told you on this 
topic.
    Mr. Short. Well, I think it was that, you know, the Vice President 
doesn't have any broader role. I think he was understanding of that.
    Mr. Heaphy. So, despite the fact that he may have said other things 
to the President or others, to you he said he understands the Vice 
President has no role.
    Mr. Short. Yes.
    Mr. Heaphy. Okay. Did he say that to you several times?
    Mr. Short. A couple of times, um-hmm.
    Mr. Heaphy. Before January 6th?
    Mr. Short. Yes.
    Mr. Jason Miller. The way it was communicated to me was that Pat 
Cipollone thought the idea was--was nutty and had at one point 
confronted Eastman basically with the same sentiment.
    Mr. Short. Pat expressed his admiration for the Vice President's 
actions on the day of the 6th and said that he concurred with the legal 
analysis that--that our team had--had put together to reach that point.
    Mr. Herschmann. It made no sense to me that, in all the protections 
that were built into the Constitution for a President to get elected 
and steps that had to be taken, that the--or to choose the next 
President would be sitting at--with the Vice President.
    Mr. George. Do you know if Mr. Clark or Mr. Morgan--is it Morgan--
viewed about that--thought about that, Mr. Eastman's advice?
    Mr. Jason Miller. Yeah, they thought he was crazy.
    Mr. George. Do you know if they ever expressed an opinion on 
whether they thought the Vice President had the power that John Eastman 
said he did?
    Mr. Jason Miller. I know for a fact I heard both say that his 
theory was crazy, that there was no validity to it in any way, shape, 
or form.
    Mr. George. And did they express that before January 6th?
    Mr. Jason Miller. Yes.
    Mr. George. To whom?
    Mr. Jason Miller. I think anyone who would listen.
    Mr. Wood. Okay. What were your prior interactions with Eastman?
    Mr. Herschmann. He described for me what he thought the ambiguity 
was in the statute, and he was walking through it at that time. And I 
said, ``Hold on a second. I want to understand what you're saying. 
You're saying that you believe the Vice President, acting as President 
of the Senate, can be the sole decision maker as to, under your theory, 
who becomes the next President of the United States.''
    And he said, ``Yes.''
    And I said, ``Are you out of your effing mind?'' Right? And I--you 
know, that was pretty blunt.
    I said, ``You're completely crazy.''
    I said, ``You're going to turn around and tell 78-plus million 
people in this country that your theory is this is how you're going to 
invalidate their votes, because you think the election was stolen?''
    And I said, ``They're not going to tolerate that.'' Said: ``You're 
going to cause riots in the streets.''
    And he said words to the effect of: There has been violence in the 
history of our country, Eric, to protect the democracy or protect the 
Republic.

    Mr. Aguilar. In fact, there was a risk that the lawyers in 
the White House Counsel's Office would resign.
    For example, Fox News Host Sean Hannity expressed concern 
that the entire White House Counsel's Office could quit. As you 
can see from these texts, Mr. Hannity wrote to White House 
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that, ``we can't lose the entire WH 
counsels office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is 
being told.''
    A few days later, on January 5th, Mr. Hannity wrote to Mr. 
Meadows that, ``I'm very worried about the next 48 hours.'' 
``Pence pressure. WH counsel will leave.''
    While Sean Hannity was apparently very concerned about the 
possibility that the White House Counsel would resign in 
protest of the President's effort to force the Vice President 
to violate the Constitution, some others close to the President 
were more dismissive of the White House Counsel's position.
    Here is what Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared 
Kushner, said during his deposition regarding White House 
Counsel Pat Cipollone's threats to resign.

    Vice Chair Cheney. Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat 
Cipollone threatened to resign?
    Mr. Kushner. I--I kind-of--like I said, my interest at that time 
was on trying to get as many pardons done. And I know that, you know, 
he was always--to him and the team were always saying, Oh, we're going 
to resign. We're not going to be here if this happens, if that happens. 
So, I kind-of took it up to just be whining to be honest with you.

    Mr. Aguilar. The President's own lead outside counsel, Rudy 
Giuliani, also seemed to concede that the Vice President did 
not have the authority to decide the outcome of the election or 
send it back to the States.
    Here is what White House attorney Eric Herschmann said 
about his call with Mayor Giuliani on the morning of the 6th.

    Mr. Herschmann. The morning of January 6th, I think he called me 
out of the blue, right? And I was like getting dressed. And we had an 
intellectual discussion that--about Eastman's--I don't know if it's 
Eastman's theory per se, but the VP's role. And, you know, he was 
asking me my view and analysis and then the practical implications of 
it. And when we finished, he said, like, ``I believe that, you know, 
you're probably right.''
    I think he thought, when we were done, that it would be something 
he'd have to consider if he was sitting on the bench, but he'd probably 
come down in that, you know, you couldn't interpret it or sustain the 
argument long-term.

    Mr. Aguilar. Of course, the fact that Mayor Giuliani seemed 
to admit that the theory was wrong did not stop him from going 
before the crowd just a few hours later on January 6th and 
saying the exact opposite.
    Here is Mayor Giuliani's speech at the Ellipse rally on 
January 6th.

    Mr. Giuliani. We're here just very briefly to make a--very 
important two points. No. 1, every single thing that has been outlined 
as the plan for today is perfectly legal. I have Professor Eastman here 
with me to say a few words about that. He's one of the preeminent 
constitutional scholars in the United States.
    It is perfectly appropriate, given the questionable 
constitutionality of the Election Counting Act of 1887, that the Vice 
President can cast it aside, and he can do what a President called 
Jefferson did when he was Vice President. [applause]
    He can decide--he can decide on the validity of these crooked 
ballots, or he can send it back to the legislatures, give them 5 to 10 
days to finally finish the work.

    Mr. Aguilar. Here is what Dr. Eastman said in his speech at 
the Ellipse on January 6th.

    Mr. Eastman. And all we are demanding of Vice President Pence is 
this afternoon at 1 o'clock he let the legislatures of the State look 
into this, so we get to the bottom of it and the American people know 
whether we have control of the direction of our Government or not. 
[applause]

    Mr. Aguilar. Even Dr. Eastman knew his theory didn't hold 
water.
    Mr. Jacob, you discussed and even debated this theory at 
length with Dr. Eastman. Did Dr. Eastman ever tell you what he 
thought the U.S. Supreme Court would do if it had to decide 
this issue?
    Mr. Jacob. Yes. We had an extended discussion, an hour-and-
a-half to 2 hours, on January 5th. When I pressed him on the 
point, I said, ``John, if the Vice President did what you are 
asking him to do, we would lose 9 to nothing in the Supreme 
Court, wouldn't we?''
    He initially started, ``Well, I think maybe you would lose 
only 7-2,'' and after some further discussion acknowledged, 
``Well, yes, you are right, we would lose 9-nothing.''
    Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate that.
    In our investigation, the Select Committee has obtained 
evidence suggesting that Dr. Eastman never really believed his 
own theory. Let me explain.
    On the screen, you can see a draft letter to the President 
from October 2020. In this letter, an idea was proposed that 
the Vice President could determine which electors to count at 
the joint session of Congress. But the person writing in blue 
eviscerates that argument.
    The person who wrote the comments in blue wrote, ``The 12th 
Amendment only says that the President of the Senate opens the 
ballots in the joint session and then, in the passive voice, 
that the votes shall then be counted.''
    The comments in blue further state, ``Nowhere does it 
suggest that the President of the Senate gets to make the 
determination on his own.''
    Judge Luttig, does it surprise you that the author of those 
comments in blue was, in fact, John Eastman?
    Judge Luttig. Yes, it does, Congressman.
    But let me--watching this unfold, let me try to unpack what 
was at the root of what I have called ``the blueprint to 
overturn the 2020 election,'' and it is this. I foreshadowed 
this answer in my earlier testimony to Congresswoman Cheney.
    Mr. Eastman, from the beginning, said to the President that 
there was both legal as well as historical precedent for the 
Vice President to overturn the election. What we have heard 
today, I believe, is what happened within the White House and 
elsewhere as all the players, led by Mr. Eastman, got wrapped 
around the axle by the ``historical evidence'' claim by Mr. 
Eastman.
    Let me explain very simply. This is what I have said would 
require a digression that I would be glad to undertake if you 
wish.
    In short, if I had been advising the Vice President of the 
United States on January 6th, and even if then-Vice President 
Jefferson and even then-Vice President John Adams and even 
then-Vice President Richard Nixon had done exactly what the 
President of the United States wanted his Vice President to do, 
I would have laid my body across the road before I would have 
let the Vice President overturn the 2020 election on the basis 
of that historical precedent.
    But what this body needs to know--and now America needs to 
know--is that that was the centerpiece of the plan to overturn 
the 2020 election. It was the historical precedent in the years 
and with the Vice Presidents that I named, as Congressman 
Raskin understands well.
    The effort by Mr. Eastman and others was to drive that 
historical precedent up to and under that single sentence, 
single pristine sentence, in the 12th Amendment to the United 
States Constitution, taking advantage of, if you will, what 
many have said is the inartful wording of that sentence in the 
12th Amendment.
    Scholars before 2020 would have used that historical 
precedent to argue not that Vice President Pence could overturn 
the 2020 election by accepting noncertified State electoral 
votes, but they would have made arguments as to some 
substantive, not merely procedural, authority possessed by the 
Vice President of the United States on the statutorily 
prescribed day for counting the electoral college votes.
    This is Constitutional mischief.
    Mr. Aguilar. Judge, I think that is a good point. I think 
it kind-of begs the question that if the Vice President had 
this power to determine the outcome of a Presidential election, 
why hasn't it ever been used before? Why hasn't that ever 
happened? Why hasn't a Vice President simply rejected the 
outcome of an election and declared someone else the winner?
    Instead, as the Chairman mentioned in his opening, for over 
two centuries Vice Presidents have presided over the joint 
sessions of Congress in a purely ceremonial role.
    This even includes, as Mr. Jacob mentioned, Vice President 
Al Gore. For those of us who are old enough to remember, the 
2000 election came down to one State: Florida. There were weeks 
of recounts and litigation after the election, and Al Gore 
conceded.
    Of course, Al Gore was the Vice President at the time, but 
he never suggested that he could simply declare himself the 
winner of the 2000 election when he presided over the counting 
of the electoral votes.
    Let's hear what Vice President Gore said when he described 
the situation he faced in 2000.

    Vice President Gore. [I]mportance of the United States of America 
in all of human history, in Lincoln's phrase, we still are the last 
best hope of humankind. And the choice between one's own disappointment 
in your personal career and upholding the--the noble traditions of 
America's democracy, it's a pretty easy choice when it comes down to 
it.

    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, did Dr. Eastman say whether he 
would want other Vice Presidents, such as Al Gore after the 
2000 election, or Kamala Harris after the 2024 election, to 
have the power to decide the outcome of the election?
    Mr. Jacob. So, this was one of the many points that we 
discussed on January 5th. He had come into that meeting trying 
to persuade us that there was some validity to his theory. I 
viewed it as my objective to persuade him to acknowledge he was 
just wrong.
    I thought this had to be one of the most powerful 
arguments: ``I mean, John, back in 2000, you weren't jumping up 
and saying Al Gore had this authority to do that. You would not 
want Kamala Harris to be able to exercise that kind of 
authority in 2024 when I hope Republicans will win the 
election, and I know you hope that too, John.''
    He said, ``Absolutely. Al Gore did not have a basis to do 
it in 2000. Kamala Harris shouldn't be able to do it in 2024. 
But I think you should do it today.''
    Mr. Aguilar. Marc Short told the Select Committee that Vice 
President Pence consulted with one of his predecessors, Vice 
President Dan Quayle, regarding the role of the Vice President. 
Vice President Quayle confirmed Pence's view that the role was 
purely ceremonial.
    Mr. Short also told the Committee that he, Mr. Short, 
received a call from former House Speaker Paul Ryan. Here is 
Mr. Short's description of his conversation with Speaker Ryan.

    Mr. Short. Speaker Ryan wanted to call and say, ``You know, you 
don't have any greater authority.'' And I--I said to him, ``Mr. Speaker 
you--you know, Mike, you know he doesn't--you know, he recognizes 
that.'' And we sort-of laughed about it, and he said, ``I get it.'' And 
he later spoke to the Vice President, too, to I think have the same 
conversation.

    Mr. Aguilar. Fortunately for the fate of our Republic, Vice 
President Pence refused to go along with President Trump's 
demands that he determine the outcome of the Presidential 
election.
    Mr. Jacob, what was the Vice President's reaction when you 
discussed with him the theory that the Vice President could 
decide the outcome of the election?
    Mr. Jacob. Congressman, as I have testified, the Vice 
President's first instinct was that there was no way that any 
one person, particularly the Vice President, who is on the 
ticket and has a vested outcome in the election, could possibly 
have the authority to decide it, by rejecting electors, or to 
decisively alter the outcome by suspending the joint session 
for the first time in history in order to try to get a 
different outcome from State legislatures.
    Mr. Aguilar. Despite the fact that the Vice President had a 
strongly held and correct view that he could not decide the 
outcome of the election, President Trump launched a multi-week 
campaign of both public and private pressure to get Vice 
President Mike Pence to violate the Constitution.
    Here are some examples of the intense pressure the Vice 
President faced from all sides and what his chief of staff 
thought of it.

    President Trump. And I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. I have 
to tell you. [applause] I hope that our great Vice President--our great 
Vice President comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course, if he 
doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much. [laughter]
    Mr. Heaphy. Was it your impression that the Vice President had 
directly conveyed his position on these issues to the President, not 
just to the world through a Dear Colleague letter, but directly to 
President Trump?
    Mr. Short. Many times.
    Mr. Heaphy. And he'd been consistent in conveying his position to 
the President?
    Mr. Short. Very consistent.
    Mr. Giuliani. I am--I am aware of the fact that the President was 
upset with the way Pence acted.
    Mr. Bannon. Are we to assume that this is going to be a climactic 
battle?
    Mr. Eastman. Well, I think a lot of that depends on the courage and 
the spine of the individuals involved.
    Mr. Bannon. That would be a nice way to say a guy named Mike--Vice 
President Mike Pence?
    Mr. Eastman. Yes.
    Mr. Short. I think we'd been clear as to what the Vice President's 
role was. I think the Vice President made clear with the President. And 
I think I'd been clear with Mark Meadows.
    Mr. Jason Miller. I think the Vice President is going to throw down 
tomorrow and do the right thing because, Lou, like I said before, this 
is a time for choosing. People are going to look back at this moment 
tomorrow and remember where every single one of their elected officials 
were.
    Did they vote for the rule of law in getting these elections right? 
Or did they give it away to the Democrats and the people who cheated 
and stole their way through this election?
    Definitely the--you know, I got back into town approximately like 
the 5th and the 6th. The President was, you know, all the attention was 
on what Mike would do or what Mike wouldn't do.
    Mr. Short. The Vice President really was not wavering in his 
commitment to what he--what his responsibility was. And so, yeah, was 
it--was it painful? Sure.

    Mr. Aguilar. The President's pressure campaign started in 
December. For example, although the Vice President made his 
views clearly and unmistakably known to the President and 
others in the White House on December 23rd, President Trump 
retweeted a memo from an individual named Ivan Raiklin, 
entitled ``Operation Pence Card,'' that called on the Vice 
President to refuse the electoral college votes from certain 
States that had certified Joe Biden as the winner.
    President Trump started his pressure campaign in December, 
but he dialed up the pressure as January 6th approached.
    The testimony we have received in our investigation 
indicates that by the time January 4th arrived, President Trump 
had already engaged in a ``multi-week campaign'' to pressure 
the Vice President to decide the outcome of the election.
    This had included private conversations between the two 
leaders, Trump's tweets, and at least one meeting with Members 
of Congress.
    We understand that the Vice President started his day on 
January 4th with a rally in Georgia for the Republican 
candidates in the U.S. Senate runoff.
    When the Vice President returned to Washington, he was 
summoned to meet with the President regarding the upcoming 
joint session of Congress.
    Mr. Jacob, who attended that meeting?
    Mr. Jacob. The attendees were the Vice President, the 
President, Marc Short, the chief of staff to the Vice 
President, myself, and John Eastman. There was about a 5-minute 
period where Mark Meadows came in on a different issue.
    Mr. Aguilar. Let's show a photo of that meeting.
    Mr. Jacob, during that meeting between the President and 
the Vice President, what theories did Dr. Eastman present 
regarding the role of the Vice President in counting the 
electoral votes?
    Mr. Jacob. During the meeting on January 4th, Mr. Eastman 
was opining that there were two legally viable arguments as to 
authorities that the Vice President could exercise 2 days later 
on January 6th.
    One of them was that he could reject electoral votes 
outright. The other was that he could use his capacity as 
presiding officer to suspend the proceedings and declare 
essentially a 10-day recess, during which States that he deemed 
to be disputed--there was a list of 5 to 7 States that the 
exact number changed from conversation to conversation--but 
that the Vice President could sort-of issue a demand to the 
State legislatures in those States to reexamine the election 
and declare who had won each of those States.
    So, he said that both of those were legally viable options. 
He said that he did not recommend, upon questioning, he did not 
recommend what he called the more aggressive option, which was 
reject outright, because he thought that that would be less 
politically palatable, that the imprimatur of State legislature 
authority would be necessary to ultimately have public 
acceptance of an outcome in favor of President Trump.
    So, he advocated that the preferred course of action would 
be the procedural route of suspending the joint session and 
sending the election back to the States.
    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, I know you won't discuss the direct 
conversations between the President and the Vice President, so 
rather than asking you what the Vice President said in that 
meeting, I will ask you a more general question.
    Did the Vice President ever waver in his position that he 
could not unilaterally decide which electors to accept?
    Mr. Jacob. The Vice President never budged from the 
position that I have described as his first instinct, which was 
that it just made no sense, from everything that he knew and 
had studied about our Constitution, that one person would have 
that kind of authority.
    Mr. Aguilar. Did the Vice President ever waver in his 
position that he could not delay certification and send it back 
to the States?
    Mr. Jacob. No, he did not.
    Mr. Aguilar. Did Dr. Eastman admit in front of the 
President that his proposal would violate the Electoral Count 
Act?
    Mr. Jacob. So, during that meeting on the 4th, I think I 
raised the problem that both of Mr. Eastman's proposals would 
violate several provisions of the Electoral Count Act.
    Mr. Eastman acknowledged that that was the case, that even 
what he viewed as the more politically palatable option would 
violate several provisions, but he thought that we could do so 
because in his view the Electoral Count Act was 
unconstitutional.
    When I raised concerns that that position would likely lose 
in court, his view was that the court simply wouldn't get 
involved. They would invoke the political question doctrine and 
therefore we could have some comfort proceeding with that path.
    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Wood.
    Mr. Wood. But just to reiterate, he told you--maybe this 
was in a later conversation--but he told you at some point that 
if, in fact, the issue ever got to the Supreme Court, his 
theory would lose 
9-0, correct?
    Mr. Jacob. The next morning, starting around 11 or 11:30, 
we met for an hour-and-a-half to 2 hours. In that meeting, I 
have already described the text, structure, history 
conversation, but we started walking through all of that.
    I said, ``John, basically what you have is some texts that 
may be a little bit ambiguous, but then nothing else that would 
support it, including the fact that nobody would ever want that 
to be the rule. Wouldn't we lose 9 to nothing in the Supreme 
Court?''
    Again, he initially started, ``Well, maybe you would only 
lose 
7-2,'' but ultimately acknowledged that, no, we would lose 9-0, 
no judge would support his argument.
    Mr. Aguilar. After his meeting with the Vice President, 
Donald Trump flew to Georgia for a rally in support of the 
Republican candidates in the U.S. Senate runoff.
    Even though the Vice President had been steadfast in 
resisting the President's pressure, President Trump continued 
to publicly pressure Vice President Pence in his Georgia 
speech.
    Rather than focusing exclusively on the Georgia Senate 
runoff, Trump turned his attention to Mike Pence. Here is what 
the President said during that rally in Georgia.

    President Trump. [P]ence comes through for us. I have to tell you. 
[applause] I hope that our great Vice President--our great Vice 
President comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course, if he 
doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much. [laughter]

    Mr. Aguilar. So, the President had been told multiple times 
that the Vice President could not affect the outcome of the 
election, but he nonetheless publicly pressured Mike Pence to 
do exactly that by saying, ``If he doesn't come through, I 
won't like him as much.''
    Let's turn now to January 5th.
    Mr. Wood.
    Mr. Wood. Thank you.
    That morning, meaning January 5th, the President issued a 
tweet expressly stating that the Vice President had the power 
to reject electors.
    Let's look at what the President wrote. ``The Vice 
President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen 
electors.''
    Mr. Jacob, you have already told us about your meeting with 
Dr. Eastman and the President on January 4th, and you briefly 
made reference to the meeting you had with Dr. Eastman the next 
day, January 5th.
    Can you tell us a little bit more about that meeting with 
Dr. Eastman on January 5th? For example, where was the meeting? 
Who was there?
    Mr. Jacob. So, at the conclusion of the meeting on the 4th, 
the President had asked that our office meet with Mr. Eastman 
the next day to hear more about the positions he had expressed 
at that meeting, and the Vice President indicated that--offered 
me up as his counsel to fulfill that duty.
    So, we met in Marc Short's office in the Executive Office 
Building across the way from the White House. Dr. Eastman had a 
court hearing by Zoom that morning, so it didn't start first 
thing, but rather started around 11.
    That meeting went for about an hour-and-a-half, 2 hours. 
Chief of Staff Marc Short was at that meeting most of the time. 
There were a few times that he left. Essentially, it was an 
extended discussion.
    What most surprised me about that meeting was that when Mr. 
Eastman came in, he said, ``I am here to request that you 
reject the electors.''
    So on the 4th, that had been the path that he had said, ``I 
am not recommending that you do that,'' but on the 5th, he came 
in and expressly requested that.
    I grabbed a notebook because I was heading into the 
meeting. I didn't hear much new from him to record, but that 
was the first thing I recorded in my notes, was, ``Request that 
the VP reject.''
    Mr. Wood. Just to be clear, you are saying that Dr. Eastman 
urged the Vice President to adopt the very same approach that 
Dr. Eastman appeared to abandon in the Oval Office meeting with 
the President the day before. Is that correct?
    Mr. Jacob. He had recommended against it the evening 
before, and then on the 5th came in--and I think it was 
probably his first words after introductions and as we sat down 
were, ``I am here to request that you reject the electors in 
the disputed States.''
    Mr. Wood. You referenced a moment ago some handwritten 
notes, which you have provided to the Select Committee. I would 
now like to show you those notes.
    As you can see, you wrote there at the top--the writing is 
a little bit faint in the copy--but you wrote, ``Requesting VP 
reject.''
    Does that accurately reflect what Dr. Eastman asked of you 
in your meeting on January 5th?
    Mr. Jacob. Yes.
    Mr. Wood. What was your reaction when Dr. Eastman said on 
January 5th that he was there to ask the Vice President of the 
United States to reject electors at the joint session of 
Congress?
    Mr. Jacob. I was surprised, because I had viewed it as one 
of the key concessions that we had secured the night before 
from Mr. Eastman, that he was not recommending that we do that.
    Mr. Wood. So what did you say to him?
    Mr. Jacob. Well, as I indicated, to some extent it 
simplified my task because there are more procedural 
complexities to the ``send it back to the States'' point of 
view. I actually had spent most of my evening the night before 
writing a memorandum to the Vice President explaining all of 
the specific provisions of the Electoral Count Act that that 
plan would violate.
    So instead, since he was pushing the sort-of robust 
unilateral power theory--I have already walked the Committee 
through the discussions that we had--again, I started out with 
our points of commonality--or what I thought were our points of 
commonality--we are conservatives, we are small government 
people, we believe in originalism as the means by which we are 
going to interpret this.
    So we walked through the text, we walked through the 
history. The Committee has shown footage of Mr. Eastman on the 
stage on the 6th claiming that Jefferson supported his position 
in a historical example of Jefferson.
    In fact, he conceded in that meeting Jefferson did not at 
all support his position, that in the election of 1800 there 
had been some small technical defect with the certificate in 
Georgia. It was absolutely undisputed that Jefferson had won 
Georgia.
    Jefferson did not assert that he had any authority to 
reject electors. He did not assert that he had any authority to 
resolve any issue during the course of that.
    So, he acknowledged by the end that there was no historical 
practice whatsoever that supported his position. He had 
initially tried to push examples of Jefferson and Adams.
    He ultimately acknowledged they did not work, as we have 
covered. He acknowledged it would lose 9-0 in the Supreme 
Court.
    He again tried to say, ``But I don't think the courts will 
get involved in this. They will invoke the political question 
doctrine. So if the courts stay out of it, that will mean that 
we will have the 10 days for the States to weigh in and resolve 
it. Then they will send back the Trump slates of electors, and 
the people will be able to accept that.''
    I expressed my vociferous disagreement with that point. I 
did not think that this was a political question.
    Among other things, if the courts did not step in to 
resolve this, there was nobody else to resolve it. You would be 
in a situation where you have a standoff between the President 
of the United States and, counterfactually, the Vice President 
of the United States, saying that we have exercised authorities 
that, Constitutionally, we think we have by which we have 
deemed ourselves the winners of the election.
    You would have an opposed House and Senate disagreeing with 
that. You would have State legislatures that, to that point, I 
mean, Republican leaders across those legislatures had put 
together--had put out statements--and we collected these for 
the Vice President as well--that the people had spoken in their 
States and that they had no intention of reversing the outcome 
of the election.
    We did receive some signed letters that Mr. Eastman 
forwarded us by minorities of leaders in those States, but no 
State had any legislative house that indicated that it had any 
interest in it.
    So, you would have had just an unprecedented Constitutional 
jump ball situation with that stand-off. As I expressed to him, 
that issue might well then have to be decided in the streets. 
Because if we can't work it out politically, we have already 
seen how charged up people are about this election. So, it 
would be a disastrous situation to be in.
    So, I said I think the courts will intervene. I do not see 
a commitment in the Constitution of the question whether the 
Vice President has that authority to some other actor to 
resolve. There are arguments about whether Congress and the 
Vice President jointly have a Constitutional commitment to 
generally decide electoral vote issues.
    I don't think that they have any authority to object or 
reject them. I don't see it in the 12th Amendment. But 
nonetheless.
    I concluded by saying, ``John, in light of everything that 
we have discussed, can't we just both agree that this is a 
terrible idea?''
    He couldn't quite bring himself to say yes to that, but he 
very clearly said, ``Well, yes, I see we are not going to be 
able to persuade you to do this.''
    That was how the meeting concluded.
    Mr. Wood. You just described a terrifying scenario. It 
sounds like there could have been chaos under the Eastman 
approach. You have described it as it potentially could be 
decided in the streets. You described several concessions that 
Dr. Eastman made throughout that discussion or even debate that 
you had with him.
    At some point during that meeting on January 5th, did Dr. 
Eastman seem to admit that both of the theories that he had 
presented to the United States the day before--so the theory 
that the Vice President could reject electors outright and 
declare Donald Trump the winner, and his less aggressive theory 
that the Vice President could simply send it back to the 
States--at some point in that conversation on the 5th, did Dr. 
Eastman seem to admit that both of these theories suffered from 
similar legal flaws?
    Mr. Jacob. So I had at least one, possibly two other 
conversations with Dr. Eastman later that day.
    In the earlier meeting, we really were focused, because his 
request that he made had been reject the electors outright, on 
why that theory was wrong, and why we certainly would not be 
doing that.
    Later that day, he pivoted back to, ``Well, we hear you 
loud and clear, you are not going to reject. But remember last 
night, I said that there was this more prudent course where you 
could just send it back to the States. Would you be willing to 
do that?''
    During the course of our discussion about his renewed 
request that we consider that option, he acknowledged to me--he 
put it--both Mr. Eastman and myself are graduates of the 
University of Chicago Law School, and he said, ``Look, as 
graduates of that august institution, you and I will mutually 
understand that the underlying legal theory of plenary Vice 
Presidential authority is what you have to have to get there.''
    Because this new theory, as I was pointing out to him--or 
the procedural theory--still violates several provisions of the 
Electoral Count Act, as he acknowledged. The only way that you 
could ever be able to ignore several provisions of statutory 
law is if it was pretty clear that they were unconstitutional.
    The only way they could be unconstitutional is if the Vice 
President had the plenary authorities that formed the basis for 
the reject the votes as well.
    So, he acknowledged in those conversations that the 
underlying legal theory was the same. He just thought that the 
``send it back to the States'' option would be more politically 
palatable and he hoped more palatable to the Vice President for 
that reason.
    Mr. Wood. In fact, when Dr. Eastman made this concession 
during that meeting, according to your earlier deposition, Dr. 
Eastman said, ``Just between us University of Chicago 
chickens.'' Is that right?
    Mr. Jacob. I don't think that the University of Chicago is 
going to start a Chicago chickens fundraising fund. But, yes, 
that is the terminology that he used. He said, you know, ``Just 
between us Chicago chickens, we will understand, as lawyers who 
have studied the Constitution, that the underlying basis really 
is the same.''
    Mr. Wood. I reserve the remainder of my time.
    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Wood.
    Mr. Jacob, the President and the Vice President meet again 
on that same topic the next day, January 5th, correct?
    Mr. Jacob. After my extended meeting with Mr. Eastman that 
morning, during that time the Vice President had been back at 
his residence working on his statement to the Nation that we 
released the next day.
    He got down to the White House some point between 1 o'clock 
and 2 o'clock as my meeting with Mr. Eastman was wrapping up. 
When we, Marc Short and I, went over to meet with the Vice 
President and--actually, we thought maybe we had good news. We 
felt like we had sort-of defeated Mr. Eastman. He was sort-of 
acknowledging that there was no ``there'' there.
    But the Vice President was then asked down to the Oval 
Office, and he went down to the Oval Office while Marc and I 
stayed back in the Vice President's office.
    Mr. Aguilar. You weren't in that meeting?
    Mr. Jacob. I was not.
    Mr. Aguilar. In the book ``Peril'' journalists Bob Woodward 
and Robert Costa write that the President said, ``If these 
people say you have the power, wouldn't you want to?''
    The Vice President says, ``I wouldn't want any one person 
to have that authority.''
    The President responds, ``But wouldn't it almost be cool to 
have that power?''
    The Vice President is reported to have said, ``No. Look, I 
have read this, and I don't see a way to do it. We have 
exhausted every option. I have done everything I could and then 
some to find a way around this. It is simply not possible. My 
interpretation is no.''
    To which the President says, ``No, no, no, you don't 
understand, Mike. You can do this. I don't want to be your 
friend anymore if you don't do this.''
    We asked Marc Short about this during his deposition.

    Mr. Short. [A]n understanding that I would have. In other 
conversations with the Vice President, he articulated to me that, no, 
he wouldn't want that power bestowed upon any one person.

    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, did you, Mr. Short, and the Vice 
President have a call later that day again with the President 
and Dr. Eastman?
    Mr. Jacob. So, yes, we did.
    Mr. Aguilar. What did Dr. Eastman request on that call?
    Mr. Jacob. On that phone call, which I believe was around 5 
o'clock that afternoon, Mr. Eastman stated that he had heard us 
loud and clear that morning, we were not going to be rejecting 
electors, but would we be open to considering the other course 
that we had discussed on the 4th, which would be to suspend the 
joint session and request that State legislatures reexamine 
certification of the electoral votes.
    Mr. Aguilar. That same day, January 5th, The New York Times 
ran a story about the disagreement between the President and 
the Vice President about whether the Vice President could 
determine the outcome of the election.
    Even though The New York Times story was indisputably 
correct, Donald Trump denied it. Trump issued a statement 
claiming that the Vice President had agreed that he could 
determine the outcome of the election, despite the fact that 
the Vice President had consistently rejected that position.
    Let's look at what the President said in his statement. 
``The New York Times report regarding comments Vice President 
Pence supposedly made to me today is fake news. He never said 
that. The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the 
Vice President has the power to act.''
    Mr. Jacob, how did the Vice President's team react to this 
statement from the President that the Vice President could take 
an active role in determining the winner of the Presidential 
election?
    Mr. Jacob. So, we were shocked and disappointed, because 
whoever had written and put that statement out, it was 
categorically untrue.
    Mr. Aguilar. The Vice President's Chief of Staff, Marc 
Short, had an angry phone call with Trump campaign senior 
advisor Jason Miller about this statement. Here is what Mr. 
Short and Mr. Miller told the Committee about that call.

    Mr. Heaphy. Okay. Tell me about the conversation you had with 
Jason.
    Mr. Short. It was brief. I was irritated and expressed displeasure 
that a statement could have gone out that misrepresented the Vice 
President's viewpoint without consultation.
    Mr. Heaphy. The statement says the Vice President and I are in 
total agreement, that the Vice President has the power to act. Is that 
incorrect?
    Mr. Short. I think the record shows that that's incorrect.
    Mr. Heaphy. Yeah.
    Mr. Short. I mean, we've--we've been through many documents that 
clarify that this is not where the Vice President was.
    Mr. Heaphy. Right. So, essentially, the President is sending out a 
baldly false statement about being in alignment, purported alignment, 
with the Vice President despite all of the predicate that you indicated 
had gone before about their respective positions. Is that effectively 
what happened?
    Mr. Short. I interpret the statement is false. I'll let you figure 
out who sent it out.
    Mr. George. When Marc Short contacted you, he--he was upset. Is 
that what you said?
    Mr. Jason Miller. He clearly was not pleased.
    Mr. George. Tell us what he said.
    Mr. Jason Miller. What's the process for putting out a statement 
for a meeting where only two people were in the room?
    Mr. George. Did he ask you to retract the statement?
    Mr. Jason Miller. No, he just--I think it went right to what's the 
process for putting out a statement for a meeting when only two people 
were in the room.
    Mr. George. And he clearly disagreed with the substance though, 
right, because he said that--he said the Vice President doesn't agree 
with this.
    Mr. Jason Miller. I'm trying to think what exactly he said. I mean, 
the--the tone was very clearly that he'd--that he'd used some language 
to strongly infer that the Vice President disagreed with--with that 
take, but I don't remember what that language was.
    Mr. Heaphy. Did he dictate this statement?
    Mr. Jason Miller. We--he dictated--he dictated most of it. I mean, 
typically on these--typically on these, I might have a couple of 
wording suggestions, or maybe I'd, you know, have a--a sense or a rough 
framework or something of that. But I--I know with--specifically on 
this one that it was me and him on the phone talking through it, and 
ultimately the way this came out was the way that he wanted to.

    Mr. Aguilar. The dispute between the President and the Vice 
President had grown to the point where the Vice President's 
Chief of Staff, Marc Short, was concerned that the President 
could, in Mr. Short's words, ``lash out'' at the Vice President 
on January 6th.
    In fact, Mr. Short was so concerned about it that he talked 
with the head of the Vice President's Secret Service detail on 
January 5th. Here is Mr. Short.

    Mr. Short. Concern was for the Vice President's security, and so I 
wanted to make sure the head of the Vice President's Secret Service was 
aware that--that likely, as these disagreements became more public, 
that the President would lash out in some way.

    Mr. Aguilar. After the recess, we will hear that Marc 
Short's concerns were justified. The Vice President was in 
danger.
    Mr. Chairman, I reserve.
    Chairman Thompson. Pursuant to the order of the Committee 
of today, the Chair declares the Committee in recess for a 
period of approximately 10 minutes.
    [Accordingly, at 2:41 p.m., the Committee recessed until 
2:53 p.m., when it was called to order by the Chairman.]
    Chairman Thompson. The gentleman from California, Mr. 
Aguilar, is recognized.
    Mr. Aguilar. I would now like to turn to the events of 
January 6, 2021, which turned out to be a fateful day in our 
Nation's history.
    Despite the fact that the Vice President consistently told 
the President that he did not have and would not want the power 
to decide the outcome of the Presidential election, Donald 
Trump continued to pressure the Vice President, both publicly 
and privately.
    As you will hear, things reached a boiling point on January 
6th, and the consequences were disastrous.
    In the middle of the night on January 5th, into the morning 
of the 6th, around 1 a.m., President Trump tweeted ``at'' the 
Vice President, meaning that the comments in response to the 
President's tweet would also show up on the Vice President's 
Twitter feed.
    The tweet stated that the Vice President could ``come 
through for us'' and ``send it back'' to the States.
    Then, around 8 a.m. on January 6th, President Trump again 
tweeted, this time to say that the Vice President could send it 
back to the States and ``We win,'' and that ``this is the time 
for extreme courage.''
    Mr. Short told us during his deposition that the Vice 
President started a meeting on January 6th in prayer. Here is 
what Mr. Short said.

    Mr. Heaphy. You arrived at the Vice President's residence.
    Mr. Short. As would often be the case, I recall, that knowing it 
would be an important day, we gathered in prayer. And often that would 
be something the staff member would--would lead. So, it would have just 
been at that time, I believe, the Vice President, myself, Greg, and 
Chris.
    And we would have just asked for guidance and wisdom, knowing that 
the day was going to be a challenging one.

    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, did you go to the Vice President's 
Residence on the morning of January 6th?
    Mr. Jacob. Yes.
    Mr. Aguilar. Who else was with you?
    Mr. Jacob. Marc Short, Devin O'Malley, our communications 
director, and Chris Hodgson, our legislative affairs director.
    Mr. Aguilar. Did the Vice President have a call with the 
President that morning?
    Mr. Jacob. He did.
    Mr. Aguilar. Were you with the Vice President during the 
call?
    Mr. Jacob. So, we had been putting--the Vice President had 
finalized his statement overnight. We were in the process of 
proofing it so that we could get that out. We were told that a 
call had come in from the President. The Vice President stepped 
out of the room to take that call, and no staff went with him.
    Mr. Aguilar. The President had several family members with 
him in the Oval that morning for that call. I would like to 
show you what they and others told the Select Committee about 
that call, along with never-before-seen photographs of the 
President on that call from the National Archives.

    Mr. Herschmann. When I got in, somebody called me and said that the 
family and others were in the Oval. And do I want to come up. So I--I 
went upstairs.
    Mr. Wood. And who do you recall being in the Oval Office?
    Mr. Herschmann. Don, Jr., Eric, Lara, Kimberly. I believe Meadows 
was there. At some point, Ivanka came in.
    Ms. Trump. It wasn't a specific, formal discussion. It was very 
sort-of loose and casual.
    Mr. Wood. So, then you said at some point there's a telephone 
conversation between the President and the Vice President. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Herschmann. Yes.
    Ms. Trump. When I entered the office the second time, he was on the 
telephone with who I later found out to be was the--the Vice President.
    Mr. Wood. Could you hear the Vice President or only hear the 
President's end?
    Mr. Herschmann. Only hear the President's end. And at some point, 
it started off as a calmer tone, and everything, and then it became 
heated.
    Ms. Trump. The conversation was--was pretty heated.
    Mr. Herschmann. I think 'til it became somewhat, you know, louder 
tone, I don't think anyone was paying attention to it initially.
    Mr. George. Did you hear any part of the phone call, even if just 
this--the end that the President was speaking from?
    Mr. Luna. I did. Yes.
    Mr. George. All right. And what did you hear?
    Mr. Luna. So, as I was dropping off the note, I--my memory--I 
remember hearing the word ``wimp.''
    Either he called him a wimp--I don't remember if he said, ``You are 
a wimp,'' ``You'll be a wimp.'' ``Wimp'' is the word I remember.
    Mr. George. It's also been reported that the President said to the 
Vice President that--something to the effect of, ``You don't have the 
courage to make a hard decision.''
    General Kellogg. Worse. I don't remember exactly either, but it was 
something like that. Yeah.
    Mr. George. Do you----
    General Kellogg [continuing]. Being--you're--you're not tough 
enough to make the call.
    Ms. Trump. It was a different tone than I'd heard him take with the 
Vice President before.
    Mr. Tonolli. Did Ms. Trump share with you any more details about 
what had happened or any details about what had happened in the Oval 
Office that morning?
    Ms. Radford. That her dad had just had an upsetting conversation 
with the Vice President.
    Mr. Roselman. Do you recall anything about her demeanor either 
during the meeting or when you encountered her in Dan Scavino's office?
    Mr. Herschmann. I don't remember specifically. I mean, I think she 
was uncomfortable over the fact that there was obviously that type of 
interaction between the two of them.
    Mr. Luna. Something to the effect this is--the wording is wrong. I 
made the wrong decision 4 or 5 years ago.
    Mr. Tonolli. And the--the word that she related to you that the 
President called the Vice President, I apologize for being impolite, 
but do you remember what she said her father called him?
    Ms. Radford. The P-word.

    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, how would you describe the demeanor 
of the Vice President following that call with the President?
    Mr. Jacob. When he came back into the room, I would say 
that he was steely, determined, grim.
    Mr. Aguilar. Of course, the most dangerous part of what 
Donald Trump did on January 6th was what he did himself. As 
will be discussed in detail in a future hearing, our 
investigation found that early drafts of the January 6th 
Ellipse speech prepared for the President included no mention 
of the Vice President. But the President revised it to include 
criticism of the Vice President and then further ad-libbed.
    Here is what the President said on January 6th after his 
call with Vice President Pence.

    President Trump. I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope 
so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the 
election.
    All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the States to 
recertify, and we become President. And you are the happiest people. 
And I actually--I just spoke to Mike.
    I said, ``Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to 
do nothing.'' That takes courage. And then we're stuck with a President 
who lost the election by a lot, and we have to live with that for 4 
more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
    And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he 
doesn't, that will be a--a sad day for our country.
    And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But 
the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back.
    So, I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope 
he doesn't listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he's 
listening to.

    Mr. Aguilar. Of course, we all know what happened next. The 
President's words had an effect. President Trump's supporters 
became angry. When the Vice President issued his public letter, 
the crowd at the Capitol erupted in anger. The rioters, who had 
erected makeshift gallows, began chanting, ``Hang Mike Pence!''
    Testimony in our investigation has made clear what the 
target of the rioters' ire was: Vice President Mike Pence.
    The rioters breached the Capitol at 2:13 p.m.
    [Video shown.]
    Mr. Aguilar. Now, let's take a look at what was going on at 
the White House at this time.
    We received testimony that the President's Chief of Staff, 
Mark Meadows, was notified of the violence at the Capitol by 2 
p.m. and likely earlier.
    The testimony further establishes that Mr. Meadows quickly 
informed the President and that he did so before the President 
issued his 2:24 p.m. tweet criticizing Vice President Pence for 
not having ``courage'' to do what needed to be done.
    Here is what the President wrote in his 2:24 p.m. tweet 
while the violence at the Capitol was going on. Here is what 
the rioters thought.

    Voice. [N]othing but a traitor, and he deserves to burn with the 
rest of `em.
    Voice. So this--so this all escalated after Pence--what--what 
happened? Did Pence--Pence, yeah, Pence didn't do what we wanted.
    Voice. Pence voted against Trump.
    Voice. Okay. And that's when all this started?
    Voice. Yup. That's when we marched on the Capitol. We've been shot 
at with rubber bullets, tear gas.
    Mr. Fuentes. We just heard that Mike Pence is not going to reject 
any fraudulent electoral votes.
    Crowd. Boo!
    Voice. You're a traitor!
    Mr. Fuentes. That's right. You've heard it here first. Mike Pence 
has betrayed the United States of America.
    Crowd. Boo!
    Voice. Fuck you, Mike Pence!
    Mr. Fuentes. Mike Pence has betrayed this President, and he has 
betrayed the people of the United States, and we will never, ever 
forget.
    Voice. It's real simple. Pence betrayed us, which apparently 
everybody knew he was going to, and the President mentioned it like 
five times when he talked. You can go back and watch the President's 
video.
    Voice. This is our Capitol. Let's be respectful to it.
    Voice. There's four million people coming in. So, there's a lot 
of----
    Voice. We love you guys. We love the cops.
    Voice. [inaudible]
    Voice. It's only a matter of time. Justice is coming.

    Mr. Aguilar. Although the President's Chief of Staff, Mark 
Meadows, has refused to testify before this Committee, Mr. 
Meadows's aide, Ben Williamson, and White House Deputy Press 
Secretary Sarah Matthews testified that Mr. Meadows went to the 
dining room near the Oval Office to tell the President about 
the violence at the Capitol before the President's 2:24 p.m. 
tweet.
    In future hearings you will hear more about exactly what 
was happening in the White House at that time. But here is what 
some White House staff told the Select Committee.

    Mr. George. Do you know where he went?
    Mr. Williamson. Yes, I followed him down the hallway, and I 
followed him into the Outer Oval corridor, which is the hallway between 
the Oval Office hallway and the Outer Oval section of the Oval Office. 
I followed him into that little corridor hallway. I saw him walk into 
Outer Oval. I maybe took a step into Outer Oval and then left. And I 
don't know where he went outside of that, but it looked like he was 
headed in the direction of the Oval Office.
    Ms. Matthews. You know, we had all talked about--at that point--
about how it was bad and the, you know, situation was getting out of 
hand. And I--I know Ben Williamson and I were conferring, and we 
thought that the President needed to tweet something and tweet 
something immediately. And I think when Kayleigh gave us that order of 
don't say anything to the media, I told her that I thought the 
President needed to tweet something.
    And then I remember--then I remember getting a notification on my 
phone. And I was sitting in a room with Roma and Ben, and we all got a 
notification. So, we knew it was a tweet from the President, and we 
looked down and it was a--a--a tweet about Mike Pence.
    Mr. Williamson. I believe I had sent him a text saying that we may 
want to put out some sort of statement because the situation was--was 
getting a little hairy over at the Capitol. And then it was common for 
after I would text him, I would just go down and--and see him in 
person.
    Mr. George. You went down to speak with Mark Meadows after this. 
What was that conversation?
    Mr. Williamson. Very brief. I went down and told him the same thing 
I have in the text that I can recall. And I--I don't remember anything 
that was said between us other than I told him that and to my 
recollection he immediately got up and--and left his office.

    Mr. Aguilar. Our investigation found that immediately after 
the President's 2:24 p.m. tweet, the crowds, both outside the 
Capitol and inside the Capitol, surged.
    The crowds inside the Capitol were able to overwhelm the 
law enforcement presence, and the Vice President was quickly 
evacuated from his ceremonial Senate office to a secure 
location within the Capitol complex.

    Crowd. Whose house?
    Crowd. Our house!
    Mr. Aguilar. By 2:24 p.m., the Secret Service had moved Vice 
President Pence from the Senate Chamber to his office across the hall.
    Mr. Hodgson. The noise from the rioters became audible, at which 
point we recognized that maybe they had gotten into the building.
    Mr. Aguilar. Then President Trump tweeted, ``Mike Pence didn't have 
the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and 
our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of 
facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to 
previously certify. USA demands the truth!''
    Voice. Bring out Pence!
    Voice. Bring him out!
    Ms. Matthews. It was clear that it was escalating and escalating 
quickly.
    Crowd. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence.
    Ms. Matthews. So then when that tweet--the Mike Pence tweet--was 
sent out, I remember us saying that that was the last thing that needed 
to be tweeted at that moment. The situation was already bad, and so it 
felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that.
    Mr. Aguilar. Thirty seconds later, rioters already inside the 
Capitol opened the East Rotunda door just down the hall. And just 30 
seconds after that, rioters breached the Crypt one floor below the Vice 
President.
    Mr. Hodgson. The Secret Service couldn't control the situation and 
do their job of keeping him safe.
    Mr. Aguilar. At 2:26 p.m., Secret Service rushed Vice President 
Pence down the stairs.
    Mr. Jacob. I think they had been trying to figure out whether they 
had a clear route to get us to where they--it was that they wanted to 
move us to.
    Mr. Hodgson. We moved pretty quickly down the stairs and through 
various hallways and tunnels to the secure location. Upon arriving 
there, there was further discussion as to whether or not we were going 
to leave the Capitol complex or stay where we were.
    Mr. Aguilar. Vice President Pence and his team ultimately were led 
to a secure location where they stayed for the next 4\1/2\ hours, 
barely missing rioters a few feet away.

    Mr. Aguilar. Approximately 40 feet, that is all there was, 
40 feet between the Vice President and the mob.
    Mr. Jacob, you were there. Seeing that for the first time, 
does it surprise you to see how close the mob was to the 
evacuation route that you took? Forty feet is the distance from 
me to you, roughly.
    Mr. Jacob. I could hear the din of the rioters in the 
building while we moved, but I don't think I was aware that 
they were as close as that.
    Mr. Aguilar. Make no mistake about the fact that the Vice 
President's life was in danger. A recent court filing by the 
Department of Justice explains that a confidential informant 
from the Proud Boys told the FBI that the Proud Boys would have 
killed Mike Pence if given a chance.
    This witness, whom the FBI affidavit refers to as ``W-1,'' 
``stated that other members of the group talked about things 
they did that day, and they said that anyone they got their 
hands on they would have killed, including Nancy Pelosi.''
    W-1 further stated that members of the Proud Boys said that 
they would have killed Mike Pence if given a chance.
    We understand that Congressional leaders and others were 
evacuated from the Capitol complex during the attack. We would 
like to show you what happened after the Vice President was 
evacuated from the Senate.

    Mr. Aguilar. The Select Committee has obtained never-before-seen 
photos from the National Archives that show Vice President Pence 
sheltering in a secure, underground location as rioters overwhelmed the 
Capitol.
    At 4:19 p.m., Vice President Pence is seen looking at a tweet the 
President had just sent, a tweet asking the rioters to leave the 
Capitol.
    After 4\1/2\ hours spent on working to restore order, the Vice 
President returned to the Senate floor to continue the certification of 
electors.

    Mr. Aguilar. So, Vice President Pence was a focus of the 
violent attack.
    Mr. Jacob, did the Vice President leave the Capitol complex 
during the attack?
    Mr. Jacob. He did not.
    Mr. Aguilar. Could you please explain why the Vice 
President refused to leave the Capitol complex?
    Mr. Jacob. When we got down to the secure location the 
Secret Service directed us to get into the cars, which I did. 
Then I noticed that the Vice President had not. So, I got out 
of the car that I had gotten into, and I understood that the 
Vice President had refused to get into the car.
    The head of his Secret Service detail, Tim, had said, ``I 
assure you; we are not going to drive out of the building 
without your permission.'' The Vice President had said 
something to the effect of, ``Tim, I know you, I trust you, but 
you are not the one behind the wheel.''
    The Vice President did not want to take any chance that the 
world would see the Vice President of the United States fleeing 
the United States Capitol. He was determined that we would 
complete the work that we had set out to do that day that it 
was his Constitutional duty to see through, and that the 
rioters who had breached the Capitol would not have the 
satisfaction of disrupting the proceedings beyond the day on 
which they were supposed to be completed.
    Mr. Aguilar. Let me see if I understand this right. You 
were told to get in the cars. How many of the Vice President's 
staff got in the cars while he did not?
    Mr. Jacob. Most of us.
    Mr. Aguilar. During our investigation, we received 
testimony that while the Vice President was in a secure 
location within the Capitol complex, he continued the business 
of Government.
    We understand that the Vice President reached out to 
Congressional leaders, like the Acting Secretary of Defense and 
others, to check on their safety and to address the growing 
crisis.
    In addition, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Marc 
Short, made several calls to senior Government officials.
    Here is Mr. Short's testimony regarding his call with 
Representative Kevin McCarthy.

    Mr. Short. He indicated that he had had some conversation. I don't 
recall whether it was with the President or somebody at the White 
House, but I think he expressed frustration that--not taking the 
circumstances seriously as they should at that moment.
    Mr. Heaphy. So, Mr. McCarthy indicated he'd been in touch with 
someone at the White House, and he conveyed to you that they weren't 
taking this as seriously as they should. You have to answer. Yes or no?
    Mr. Short. Yes, yes.
    Mr. Heaphy. Okay.

    Mr. Aguilar. While the Vice President made several calls to 
check on the safety of others, it was his own life that was in 
great danger.
    Mr. Jacob, did Donald Trump ever call the Vice President to 
check on his safety?
    Mr. Jacob. He did not.
    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, how did Vice President Pence and 
Mrs. Pence react to that?
    Mr. Jacob. With frustration.
    Mr. Wood. Mr. Jacob, immediately before you and the Vice 
President were evacuated to a secure location within the 
Capitol, you hit ``send'' on an email to John Eastman 
explaining why his legal theory about the Vice President's role 
was wrong.
    You ended your email by stating that, ``thanks to your 
bullshit, we are now under siege.'' We will take a look at that 
email.
    Dr. Eastman replied--and this is hard to believe--but his 
reply back to you was, ``The `siege' is because you and your 
boss,'' presumably referring to the Vice President of the 
United States, ``did not do what was necessary to allow this to 
be aired in a public way so the American people could see for 
themselves what happened.''
    Mr. Jacob, later that day you wrote again to Dr. Eastman. 
Let's show that email on the screen.
    In that email you wrote, and I quote, ``Did you advise the 
President that in your professional judgement the Vice 
President DOES NOT have the power to decide things 
unilaterally?'' You ended that email saying, ``[I]t does not 
appear that the President ever got the memo.''
    Dr. Eastman then replied, ``He has been so advised.'' He 
ends his email with, ``But you know him. Once he gets something 
in his head, it is hard to get him to change course.''
    Mr. Jacob, when Dr. Eastman wrote, ``Once he gets something 
in his head, it is hard to get him to change course,'' did you 
understand the ``he'' in that email to refer to the President 
of the United States?
    Mr. Jacob. I did.
    Mr. Wood. Mr. Jacob, did you hear from Dr. Eastman further 
after the riot had been quelled? If so, what did he ask?
    Mr. Jacob. Late that evening, after the joint session had 
been reconvened, the Vice President had given a statement to 
the Nation saying that violence was not going to win, freedom 
wins, and that the people were going to get back to doing their 
work.
    Later that evening, Mr. Eastman emailed me to point out 
that, in his view, the Vice President's speech to the Nation 
violated the Electoral Count Act, that the Electoral Count Act 
had been violated because the debate on Arizona had not been 
completed in 2 hours--of course, it couldn't be, since there 
was an intervening riot of several hours--and that the speeches 
that the Majority and Minority leaders had been allowed to make 
also violated the Electoral Count Act, because they hadn't been 
counted against the debate time.
    Then he implored me: Now that we have established that the 
Electoral Count Act isn't so sacrosanct as you have made it out 
to be, I implore you one last time, can the Vice President 
please do what we have been asking him to do these last 2 days, 
suspend the joint session, send it back to the States?
    Mr. Wood. We will show you the text of that email, which 
Dr. Eastman wrote at 11:44 p.m. on January 6th.
    So, after the attack on the Capitol and after law 
enforcement had secured the Capitol, he still wrote, as you 
described, ``So now that the precedent has been set that the 
Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was 
previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more 
relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the 
legislatures to finish their investigations . . . ''
    So, even after the attack on the Capitol had been quelled, 
Dr. Eastman requested, in writing no less, that the Vice 
President violate the law by delaying the certification and 
sending the question back to the States.
    Is that correct, Mr. Jacob?
    Mr. Jacob. It is.
    Mr. Wood. Did you eventually share Dr. Eastman's proposal 
with Vice President Pence?
    Mr. Jacob. Not right at that time, because the Vice 
President was completing the work that it was his duty to do. 
But a day or two later, back at the White House, I did show him 
that final email from Mr. Eastman.
    Mr. Wood. What was Vice President Pence's reaction when you 
showed him the email where Dr. Eastman, after the attack on the 
Capitol, still asked that the Vice President delay 
certification and send it back to the States?
    Mr. Jacob. He said, ``That's rubber room stuff.''
    Mr. Aguilar. I am sorry, Mr. Wood.
    He said it is ``rubber room stuff''?
    Mr. Jacob. Yes, Congressman.
    Mr. Aguilar. What did you interpret that to mean?
    Mr. Jacob. I understood it to mean that, after having seen 
play out what happens when you convince people that there is a 
decision to be made in the Capitol legitimately about who is to 
be the President and the consequences of that, that he was 
still pushing us to do what he had been asking us to do for the 
previous 2 days, that that was certifiably crazy.
    Mr. Aguilar. We know that the Vice President did not do 
what Dr. Eastman requested, because he presided over the 
completion of the counting of electoral votes late in that 
evening.

    Vice President Pence. The number of electors appointed to vote for 
President of the United States is 538. Within that whole number, a 
majority is 270. The votes for President of the United States are as 
follows: Joseph R. Biden, Jr., of the State of Delaware has received 
306 votes. Donald J. Trump of the State of Florida has received 232 
votes.
    The whole number of electors appointed to vote for Vice President 
of the United States is 538. Within that whole number, a majority is 
270. The votes for Vice President of the United States are as follows: 
Kamala D. Harris of the State of California has received 306 votes. 
Michael R. Pence of the State of Indiana has received 232 votes.
    The announcement of the state of the vote by the President of the 
Senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected 
President and Vice President of the United States, each for the term 
beginning on the 20th day of January, 2021, and shall be entered, 
together with the list of the votes, on the Journals of the Senate and 
the House of Representatives.

    Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Jacob, we heard earlier that you and the 
Vice President and the team started January 6th with a prayer. 
You faced a lot of danger that day. This is a personal 
question, but how did your faith guide you on January 6th?
    Mr. Jacob. My faith really sustained me through it. I, down 
in the secure location, pulled out my Bible, read through it, 
and just took great comfort.
    Daniel 6 was where I went. In Daniel 6, Daniel has become 
the second in command of Babylon, a pagan nation that he 
completely faithfully serves. He refuses an order from the king 
that he cannot follow, and he does his duty, consistent with 
his oath to God. I felt that that is what had played out that 
day.
    Mr. Aguilar. It spoke to you.
    Mr. Jacob. Yes.
    Mr. Aguilar. At the end of the day, Marc Short sent the 
Vice President a text message with a Bible verse. Here is what 
he told the Select Committee.

    Mr. Short. At 3:50 in the morning, when we finally adjourned and 
headed our ways, I remember texting the Vice President a passage from 2 
Timothy, chapter 4, verse 7 about, ``I fought the good fight, I 
finished the race, I have kept the faith.''

    Mr. Aguilar. He started his day with a prayer and ended his 
day with a Bible verse: ``I have fought the good fight, I have 
finished the race, I have kept the faith.''
    White House attorney Eric Herschmann testified that the 
next day, January 7th, he received a call from Dr. Eastman. 
Here is Mr. Herschmann's account of that call.

    Mr. Herschmann. The day after, Eastman--I don't remember why--he 
called me--or he texted me or called me, wanted to talk with me, and he 
said he couldn't reach others. And he started to ask me about something 
dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal.
    And I said to him, ``Are you out of your f-ing mind?''
    I said--I said I only want to hear two words coming out of your 
mouth from now on, ``Orderly transition.'' And I said I don't want to 
hear any other f-ing words coming out of your mouth no matter what 
other than ``orderly transition.'' Repeat those words to me.
    Mr. Wood. What did he say?
    Mr. Herschmann. Eventually he said, ``Orderly transition.''
    I said, ``Good, John. Now I'm going to give you the best free legal 
advice you're ever getting in your life. Get a great f-ing criminal 
defense lawyer. You're going to need it.'' And then I hung up on him.

    Mr. Aguilar. In fact, just a few days later, Dr. Eastman 
emailed Rudy Giuliani and requested that he be included on a 
list of potential recipients of a Presidential pardon. Dr. 
Eastman's email stated, ``I've decided that I should be on the 
pardon list, if that is still in the works.''
    Dr. Eastman did not receive his Presidential pardon. So, 
let's see what Dr. Eastman did as a result when he was deposed 
by this Committee.

    Mr. Eastman. I assert my Fifth Amendment right against being 
compelled to be a witness against myself.
    Mr. Wood. Did the Trump legal team ask you to prepare a memorandum 
regarding the Vice President's role in the counting of electoral votes 
at the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021?
    Mr. Eastman. Fifth.
    Mr. Wood. Dr. Eastman, did you advise the President of the United 
States that the Vice President could reject electors from 7 States and 
declare that the President had been reelected?
    Mr. Eastman. Fifth.
    Mr. Wood. Dr. Eastman, the first sentence of the memo starts off by 
saying 7 States have transmitted dual slates of electors to the 
President of the Senate. Is that statement in this memo true?
    Mr. Eastman. Fifth.
    Mr. Wood. Has President Trump authorized you to discuss publicly 
your January 4, 2021, conversation with him?
    Mr. Eastman. Fifth.
    Mr. Wood. Are--so, is it your position that you can discuss in the 
media direct conversations you had with the President of the United 
States, but you will not discuss those same conversations with this 
Committee?
    Mr. Eastman. Fifth.

    Mr. Aguilar. Dr. Eastman pled the Fifth 100 times.
    Finally, let's hear from a Federal court judge, the only 
one to date who has opined on whether the President was 
involved in criminal activity.
    Page 36 of Judge Carter's ruling says, ``Based on the 
evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that 
President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint 
Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.''
    Page 40 of the ruling says, ``Based on the evidence, the 
Court find that it is more likely than not that President Trump 
and Dr. Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the Joint 
Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.''
    Page 44: ``Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a 
campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action 
unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not 
confined to the ivory tower--it was a coup in search of a legal 
theory.''
    Mr. Jacob, what would have happened to our democracy if 
Vice President Pence had gone along with this plan and 
certified Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election?
    Mr. Jacob. So, there would have been short-term and long-
term effects.
    The short term I have previously described: A 
Constitutional jump-ball situation, political chaos in 
Washington, lawsuits, and who knows what happening in the 
streets. You would have had the Vice President of the United 
States having declared that the outcomes of these State 
elections were incorrect.
    So, for all of those reasons, there would have been 
significant short-term consequences.
    But in the long term, we would have established a situation 
where a Vice President would have asserted that one person 
could have the authority to determine the outcome of an 
election--which is antithetical to everything in our democracy, 
antithetical to the rule of law.
    So, it would have been significant impacts both in the 
short and the long term.
    Mr. Aguilar. Judge Luttig, in the statement you released 
earlier today, you wrote that the efforts by President Trump to 
overturn the 2020 election were, ``the most reckless, 
insidious, and calamitous failures in both legal and political 
judgment in American history.''
    What did you mean by that?
    Judge Luttig. Exactly what I said, Congressman.
    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Judge.
    Thank you, Mr. Jacob.
    Mr. Chairman, this was an informative hearing, a powerful 
hearing. I am grateful for your leadership and the leadership 
of the distinguished Vice Chair.
    Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, but he could 
not bring himself to participate in the peaceful transfer of 
power. So, he latched on to a scheme that, once again, he knew 
was illegal. When the Vice President refused to go along with 
it, he unleashed a violent mob against him.
    When we began, I asked how we got to this place. I think 
the answer to that question starts with the fact that people in 
positions of power put their political party before their 
country. It cannot be allowed to continue.
    I will yield back now, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
    Without objection, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman 
from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney, for a closing statement.
    Vice Chair Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you to my colleague, Representative Aguilar.
    Thank you very much to our witnesses today, Mr. Jacob and 
Judge Luttig. Thank you for being here with us.
    We have seen so far in our hearings that President Trump 
knew that his claims of a stolen election were false. You have 
seen that he knew that Mike Pence could not legally refuse to 
count electoral votes. You have seen what President Trump did 
to pressure Mike Pence into taking illegal action.
    Over the course of our next hearings, you will see 
information about President Trump's efforts, John Eastman's 
efforts, the Trump legal team's efforts to apply pressure to 
Republican State legislatures, State officials, and others.
    Judge Carter has recently written, ``Dr. Eastman's actions 
in these few weeks indicate that his and President Trump's 
pressure campaign to stop the electoral count did not end with 
Vice President Pence. It targeted every tier of Federal and 
State elected officials.''
    We will examine all of those threats. We will examine the 
Trump team's determination to transmit materially false 
electoral slates from multiple States to officials of the 
Executive and Legislative branches of our Government. We will 
examine the pressures put on State legislatures to convene to 
reverse lawful election results.
    An honorable man receiving the information and advice that 
Mr. Trump received from his campaign experts and his staff, a 
man who loved his country more than himself, would have 
conceded this election. Indeed, we know that a number of 
President Trump's closest aides urged him to do so.
    This Committee will address all of these issues in greater 
detail in the coming weeks.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Thompson. The gentlelady yields back.
    Judge Luttig and Mr. Jacob, our Nation owes you a great 
debt for your knowledge, integrity, and your loyalty to our 
Constitution. You and Vice President Pence are exactly the 
people our Nation needed at a critical time. You had the 
courage to do what was right.
    In the weeks leading up to January 6th, many people failed 
this test when they had to choose between their oath to the 
country or the demands of Donald Trump. But there were others 
who, like you, stood tall in the face of intimidation and put 
our democracy first.
    They include the judges who rejected the bogus claims of 
election fraud, the senior Justice Department officials who 
stood up to Donald Trump, and the State officials whom we will 
hear from at our next hearing.
    We are deeply grateful for your courage and devotion to our 
country.
    There are some who think the danger has passed, that even 
though there was violence and a corrupt attempt to overturn the 
Presidential election, the system worked. I look at it another 
way: Our system nearly failed and our democratic foundation 
destroyed but for people like you.
    Judge Luttig, I want to give you an opportunity to share 
your thoughts on the on-going threat.
    You have written, ``The clear and present danger to our 
democracy now is that former President Donald Trump and other 
political allies appear prepared . . . to seize the Presidency 
in 2024 if Mr. Trump or one of his anointed candidates is not 
elected by the American people.''
    What do you mean by this?
    Judge Luttig. Mr. Chairman, I am honored beyond words by 
your words. I was honored on January 6, 2021, then also honored 
beyond words, to have been able to come to the aid of Vice 
President Mike Pence.
    I prayed that day, just like the Vice President prayed that 
day. I believe we may have prayed the same prayer to the same 
God. I prayed that same prayer with my wife this morning before 
I came into these hearings.
    I have written, as you said, Chairman Thompson, that, 
today, almost 2 years after that fateful day in January 2021, 
that, still, Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a 
clear and present danger to American democracy.
    That is not because of what happened on January 6th. It is 
because, to this very day, the former President, his allies and 
supporters pledge that, in the Presidential election of 2024, 
if the former President or his anointed successor as the 
Republican Party Presidential candidate were to lose that 
election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 
election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 
2020 election but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.
    I don't speak those words lightly. I would have never 
spoken those words ever in my life except that that is what the 
former President and his allies are telling us.
    As I said in that New York Times op-ed wherein I was 
speaking about the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the former 
President and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 
in open and plain view of the American public.
    I repeat: I would have never uttered one single one of 
those words unless the former President and his allies were 
candidly and proudly speaking those exact words to America.
    Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear here 
today for these proceedings.
    Chairman Thompson. Thank you again, Judge Luttig.
    As a part of the Select Committee's charge to make 
recommendations that are informed by other investigative 
findings, we will be reviewing the views shared by Judge Luttig 
and other experts on potential improvements to the Electoral 
Count Act, among a range of other initiatives.
    I know the information we have presented over the last week 
is shocking--the idea that a President of the United States 
would orchestrate a scheme to stay in power after the people 
have voted him out of office.
    We are able to present this information because so many 
witnesses have cooperated with our probe. But the fact is, 
there are more people with direct knowledge, with evidence 
germane to our investigation. I ask those who might be on the 
fence about cooperating to reach out to us.
    The Committee's website address is being displayed behind 
me: january6th.house.gov. There, you can view the evidence we 
presented in our hearings and find a tip line to submit any 
information you might think would be helpful for our 
investigation. Despite how you might not think it is important, 
send us what you think.
    I thank those who have sent us evidence for their bravery 
and patriotism.
    Without objection, Members will be permitted 10 business 
days to submit statements for the record, including opening 
remarks and additional questions for the witnesses.
    The Chair requests those in the hearing room remain seated 
until the Capitol Police have escorted Members from the room.
    Without objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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