Summary
The January 6 Committee will hold its first televised hearing tomorrow after 11 months of investigation. Norm Eisen, the Special Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, joined Hayes to discuss what to expect from the January 6 public hearings. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) joins Hayes to preview the January 6 live hearings. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn joins Hayes to discuss his expectations on the January 6 live hearings.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Our coverage of this historic hearing begins tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern here on MSNBC. Do not miss it.
That is tonight`s "REIDOUT." Stay tuned for a special edition right now of ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight, on a special edition of ALL IN. One year, five months and three days ago, it wasn`t a protest that spun out of control, it was the violent culmination of an attempt to steal the presidency. This week, for the first time, the nation will hear the evidence live in primetime. Tonight, we`ll talk to the people on the front lines against the mob.
HARRY DUNN, CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: There was an attack carried out on January 6, and a hitman sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that.
HAYES: The people defending democracy from the inside.
REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): I was ready to fight. I saw a lot of (BLEEP) back in my day and I was not going to die on the floor of the (BLEEP) House of Representatives.
HAYES: A key member of the committee investigating the coup.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): The hearings will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the house.
HAYES: And the Republican congressman who wore a bulletproof vest on January 6 joins me live.
REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL): He always brings up, we`ve got to rescind the election, we`ve got to take Joe Biden out and put me in now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He still says that.
BROOKS: Yes.
HAYES: A special two-hour edition of ALL IN: An American Coup starts now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. In 24 hours, the first public hearings on the January 6 insurrection will finally begin. And while the story has been fairly front and center for a year and a half, the true horror of that day, the terrifying threat, the violence directed at members of Congress, the police at the Capitol, the Vice President of the United States himself and our democracy, the reality of that fades over time. It just does.
Some of it is natural, some of it, of course, the result of an organized effort to force us to forget the truth of that day, the truth of how bad it really was, and how very much worse it almost became. But on that day, but on January 6, 2021, we, all, Democrats, Republicans alike, we knew it.
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LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Breaking News Tonight, the deadly siege on Congress as an angry pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. We`ve seen shocking images of chaos. Rioters rushing past barricades and police up the Capitol steps forcing their way inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight, the horror and chaos and the sadness over what is played out at our nation`s capitol.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are witnessing history and what can only be described as a national disgrace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mob pounding on doors, smashing windows, the armed standoff inside the building. Police there with guns drawn trying to hold them back. Members of Congress diving to the floor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It was a terribly violent day, one of the worst days of injuries for law enforcement since September 11. About 140 officers sustained injuries ranging from losing part of the finger to fractured ribs, head trauma. Five officers died following the attack. Four members the crowd also lost their lives.
The Capitol Building was ransacked. Rioters left windows and doors smashed, furniture destroyed and defaced and graffiti and debris all over. Those members of Congress who were inside who heard the mob coming through and breaking doors and windows, they all feared for their lives.
It was shortly after 2:00 p.m. that rioters smashed the first-floor windows of the Capitol and started streaming in. The Senate and the House quickly locked down their chambers and called their sessions to recess, rushed to get their members to safety. The top Republican in the House, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California first retreated to his office until his security detail insists he leave for secure undisclosed location.
As he waited, hiding out from the mob that we`re tearing through the Capitol, he desperately called the President, Donald Trump, begging him to call off the mob. And then dialed into both Fox News and CBS to publicly express how upset he was about what was happening.
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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): This is so unAmerican. I condemn any of this violence that`s happening in the Capitol right now. I could not be sadder and more disappointed with the way our country looks at this very moment. People are getting hurt. Anyone involved in this, if you`re hearing me, you`re being very loud out in clear, this is not the American way. This is not protected by the First Amendment. This must stop now.
I spoken to the President. I asked him to talk to the nation to tell him to stop this. This is not who we are.
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[20:05:15]
HAYES: We now know how Donald Trump reacted to that request from Kevin McCarthy. When they spoke on the phone, Trump reportedly said, well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. That is, according to Republican congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington who heard it straight from McCarthy himself because he was terrified by what was happening.
Around that same time, a little after two in the afternoon, the Secret Service rush Vice President Mike Pence off the Senate floor where he had been presiding over that day`s big event, right, the source of the mob`s anger, the certification of the electoral votes that would transfer power peacefully from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Washington Post journalist Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig who reported on what happened next, "Lead special agent in charge to the Vice President`s protective detail, twice asked Pence to evacuate the Capitol but Pence refuse saying I`m not leaving the Capitol. The third time, it was more of an order than a request. Pence`s detail guided them down a staircase to a secure subterranean area that rioters couldn`t reach, where the Vice President`s armored limousine awaited."
Mike Pence though didn`t want to get into that car. That`s despite the fact that the mob put a gallows with the noose outside the capitol. And the crowd was chanting hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence. Marc Short, chief of staff to Mike Pence, explained his boss` thinking.
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MARC SHORT, CHIEF OF STAFF TO MIKE PENCE: He said I`m not leaving. And the reason you say he`s not leaving is because he said, he did not want our adversaries across the globe to see a 15-car motorcade fleeing the Capitol. I think he exerted enormous leadership under enormous pressure. And I think he, again, despite efforts to have him evacuated, he said, I don`t want that that visual for the world to see. I`m going to stay here.
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HAYES: The optics certainly would have been bad. I mean, they were pretty bad already. There`s also evidence the vice president may have been afraid of what might happen if he got in that car. Who would be controlling where it went?
Rucker and Leonnig reported on this exchange that took place back at the White House while Pence was holed up -- Pence was holed up in that underground garage, a man by the name of Anthony Ornato, a Trump loyalist and a Senior Agent overseeing Secret Service movements, told Pence`s National Security Adviser Keith Kellogg that Pence`s detail was planning to move the Vice President to Joint Base Andrews.
Kellogg replied, "You can`t do that, Tony. Leave him where he`s at. He`s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You`ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don`t do it." Clearly, members of the Pence team believed the President wanted Mike Pence physically out of the picture whatever it took. And they wanted that, the President, because Pence would not go along with coup.
But it was not just that. New reporting indicates that Pence may have feared for his own safety because of Donald Trump. As Maggie Haberman reports on the New York Times on January 5, the day before the insurrection, "Marc Short called Pence`s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office. The chief of staff for Mike Pence had a message for the agent. The President Donald Trump was going to turn to publicly against the Vice President and there could be a security risk to Pence because of it."
He got that right, didn`t he? Mike Pence knew what his boss was capable of. And he was, one could deduce, scared. He was, as far as we could tell, horrified by what was happening, so much so that Pence`s chief of staff reached out Pence`s security detail with concerns, again, about Pence`s personal safety as he`s in that building, as the mob is chanting hang Mike Pence, as Donald Trump is doing nothing to stop them. And yet ultimately, the Vice President stayed and did the right thing in spite of the risk.
And that comes on top of more reporting for the times that while the angry mob was storming the Capitol and chanting famously hang Mike Pence, Trump was at the very least open to the idea. "His chief of staff Mark Meadows told colleagues that Trump said something to the effect of maybe Pence should be hanged."
Hopefully, we will learn more about all of this during the public committee hearings. There`s a lot more I want to know. Marc Short is expected to be called to testify. And Chief Counsel to Mike Pence, Greg Jacob, will reportedly testify next week. As Mike Pence waited in that underground garage and members of Congress hid or fled from the mob descending on the Capitol fearing for their lives, Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows was being bombarded with frantic, hairy messages from people trying to get through to Trump, telling him he needed to do or say something, anything to stop the violent insurrection taking place on live TV.
A texts came in from the President`s own son, apparently unable to get through his dad. Don Jr. wrote "He`s got to condemn this shit ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough." He sent another. "We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand. And a third, "This is one you go to the mattresses on. They will try to eff his entire legacy on this if it gets worse."
Even Trump`s faithful, dogged, loyal supporters of Fox News were distraught, begging him to do something.
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REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): "Mark, the President needs to tell people in the capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy." Laura Ingraham wrote. "Please get him on TV, destroying everything you have accomplished," Brian Kilmeade texted. "Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol," Sean Hannity urged.
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HAYES: It`s notable they all appeal to Trump`s vanity in their entries because they know the man. Now, another of the Trump children, Ivanka, reportedly spent much of the afternoon trying to convince her daddy to do something. Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig write, "She spent several hours walking back and forth to the Oval trying to persuade the president to be stronger and telling his supporters he stood with law enforcement and ordering them to disperse. Just when Ivanka thought she made headway, Meadows would call her to say the President still needed more persuading. I need you to come back down here, Meadows would tell her. We got to get this under control. The cycle repeated itself several times that afternoon."
The people around Donald Trump including his own kids, his flesh and blood, they all knew. They all saw what`s happening. They were all aware of how dangerous, how awful the situation was at the Capitol. Everyone other than Trump, who was holed up in his private dining room at the White House knew.
And according to White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, Trump was "gleefully watching on his TV saying, look at all the people fighting for me, hitting rewind, watching it again." Trump and his mob were the only people enjoying the insurrection at that moment. I feel confident in saying that. Across all kinds of lines of difference of religion, race, ethnicity, faith, partisan affiliation, I think just about everyone else was horrified.
That night, after law enforcement was able to regain control and clear the Capitol after hours, the joint session finally resumed and Trump`s closest supporters rose up to condemn what happened.
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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Trump and I, we`ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it end this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he`s been a consequential president. But today, the first thing you`ll see. All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): The United States Senate will not be intimidated. We will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs, or threats. We will not bow to the lawlessness or intimidation.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA); The violence, destruction and chaos we saw earlier was unacceptable, undemocratic, and unAmerican. It was the saddest day I`ve ever had as serving as a member of this institution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Kevin McCarthy went even further a few days later on this leaked call with Republican leadership.
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MCCARTHY: I`ve had it with this guy. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it. The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass and it would be my recommendation that you should resign.
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HAYES: Remember those words. Remember those words. Etch them in your memory. Nobody can defend it. Nobody should defend it. Then Kevin McCarthy and the same Republican colleagues all began the process of well, starting to defend it. At least the process of a kind of willful collective amnesia. One week later, when it came time to vote on whether Donald Trump incited the insurrection, just 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump. Kevin McCarthy, notably not one of them.
Just seven Republican senators voted to convict Trump. They did not include Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham who was so tearful, sad about what he`d seen, despite their apparent horror about the insurrection about the cops getting their brains bashed in a few feet away just a few weeks before.
And when it came time to investigate, some of those same Republicans who are shocked and dismayed and in the immediate aftermath, they work to prevent the truth from coming out. Kevin McCarthy, the guy who said nobody can defend it, nobody should defend it, it`s the saddest day, that Kevin McCarthy nominated Republicans to serve on the January 6 Committee who he knew would try to suppress the facts.
In fact, three of the five members who tap, Jim Banks, Jim Jordan, Troy Nehls, voted against certifying the election results after the attack on the Capitol. That is to say they voted with the mob. And we soon learned that at least one of them was directly involved in the conspiracy.
[20:15:37]
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REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): I think that Congressman Jordan may well be a material witness. He is somebody who was involved in a number of meetings in the lead up to what happened on January 6, involved in planning for January 6, certainly for the objections that day, as he said publicly, so he may well be a material witness.
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HAYES: We know that Jim Jordan spoke to Donald Trump multiple times on January 6, including a 10-minute call that morning, even though he spent months dodging the question.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On January 6, did you speak with him before, during or after the Capitol was attacked?
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): I have to go -- I spoke with him that day after, I think after. I don`t know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I just don`t know. I`d have to go back. I mean, I don`t -- I don`t know that -- when those conversations happen. But what I know is I spoke with him all the time. melatonin.
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HAYES: We also know that Jordan was intimately involved in the planning and preparation for January 6. He attended crisis meetings with the Trump team days after the election was called for Joe Biden. He met with Trump and fellow members of the Freedom Caucus near the end of December, and he pushed Trump`s big lie about a stolen election, even forwarding a text to Mark Meadows outlining a legal strategy to overturn the election.
Last month, the committee issued Jim Jordan a subpoena after he did not comply with an earlier request to cooperate. Again, we all saw it. We all bore witness to the same things on January 6, the incitement, the terror, and the violence, the attempt at mob intimidation, Republicans saw it all too, a lot of them were there. They`re probably sweating.
In the immediate aftermath, they had the same reaction as the rest of us. You can see and hear the adrenaline their voices. Their early condemnations of the insurrection are a matter of record. We have played some for you because we have the recordings and the interviews and the speeches. But here`s what happened. In the first days after January 6, two divergent projects began.
One was an attempt to whitewash or even to erase the very reality we all saw that day. A concerted effort to lie to the American people, to place lie atop lie about the election, to ignore Donald Trump`s involvement inciting the coup, and to further subvert our democracy. And the other project was a fact finding mission, an attempt to uncover the full, unvarnished truth about who planned and participated in the insurrection, who holds responsibility for the horror and the havoc it wreaked.
That effort resulted in the select committee to investigate January 6. And tomorrow night, this time, you will get to hear straight from them. What they have found.
[20:20:00]
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PETER NAVARRO, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: Instead of call me and say, hey, we need you down at court, we`ve got a warrant for you, we`re glad you`d come, what did they do? They intercepted me getting on the plane, and then they put me in handcuffs and bring me here. They put me in leg irons, and they stick me in itself. By the way, just historical moment, I was in John Hinckley`s cell. They seem to think that that was like an important historical note.
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HAYES: Trump adviser Peter Navarro is one of the 91 people and seven organizations we know the January 6 Committee has subpoenaed. The committee has spoken more than 1000 witnesses followed up on 471 tips, received more than 140,000 documents. In a video depositions with at least two dozen people including the daughter of the ex-President Ivanka and his son in law, Jared Kushner for a combined 14 hours. The video the committee plans on using in the hearings.
All that is not even including the pile of evidence in the public domain from reporters digging into what happened behind the scenes. And then there`s the stuff that committee has yet to share. It will be the focus of these upcoming hearings that start tomorrow, an opportunity for the bipartisan committee to display its findings to the American people to give us a fuller understanding of what happened that deadly day at the Capitol.
Ambassador Norm Eisen was the U.S. envoy to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014, served as Special Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. He is the co-author of a Brookings Institution report titled Trump On Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings And The Question Of Criminality, editor of Overcoming Trumpery: How To Restore Ethics, The Rule Of Law And Democracy.
Norm, it`s good to have you on tonight. As someone who has some experience in all this was -- with the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment trial, what is your conception of what these hearings are? How would you describe what you`re expecting?
[20:25:07]
NORM EISEN, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Chris, thanks for having me back on this show. I`m expecting that the committee is going to do Watergate hearings for the age of streaming. They know they need to provide new information to grab the attention of the American people. They know that they need to have a gripping narrative that they tell. And they know that they have to wake up the country to the alarm of democracy.
You know, listening to your monologue, watching Mr. Navarro`s -- this is the man who`s responsible for the Green Bay Sweep, a plan to illegally overturn an election, to sweep the Constitution into the trash, Chris. So, they need to convey a sense of the importance of what happened.
And it`s not just January 6, as important as that is, it`s the long run up, the conspiracy of federal judges found a likely criminal conspiracy led by Trump. And of course, the aftermath. The Big Lie still burns in American politics.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, I think so -- it`s funny. So, obviously, there was -- there was an impeachment trial for what the president did in inciting the mob that day. And that was a high crime or misdemeanor committed in plain sight. We saw him incite the mob. We told -- we saw him invite them to the Capitol, right?
What wasn`t known at that time was just how much work had gone into what looks like plausibly a criminal scheme to defraud the United States. And I do think the crime that was committed hangs over all of this, even though this isn`t a criminal inquiry. I thought that the sort of guide that you co-authored was really useful on this, talking about the conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstructing official proceeding. And I wonder how much you expect that framing, the understanding of this as a crime to frame this here.
EISEN: Chris, the commitment of the committee, with these strong voices from both sides of the aisle, is to get the truth out to the American people of that whole story, all the new things we know about January 6 since the second impeachment, but also the long run up and the aftermath. They would be ill served to argue the case as prosecutors would and I believe prosecutors will, starting with the D.A. down in Georgia. That`s not the committee`s role. They need to put the facts out there, then -- and they need to keep the objectivity, Chris, to -- so the American people will listen.
Then, after they`ve laid out all the evidence, at the end of their hearings they`ll need to decide, are they going to do formal referrals where they say, hey, crimes were committed, much like the substantial evidence that we lay out building on a federal judge who found there were likely federal crimes by Donald Trump. Or will they do a Watergate style roadmap where they lay out all the evidence for prosecutors.
But make no mistake, even though they are not arguing the case to a criminal jury, they`re arguing the case to the jury of the American people, and they need to set up the ultimate accountability. The ultimate impact of these hearings will come when, as I believe, there are prosecutions down the line after the hearings end.
HAYES: You know, something that I think is important here is consciousness of guilt, because, again, it goes into the story that`s being told here, right? There`s a kind of exculpatory view which is that Donald Trump quite literally doesn`t understand the difference between right and wrong. Therefore, he`s essentially psychologically incapable of forming corrupt intent, which is basically argument that was used in the first impeachment trial and subsequently.
You`ve got these little bits of evidence that I think, again, we`re going to see focused in the hearing just little glimpses, right? So, Washington Post reports that the fake Trump electors in Georgia were told to shroud plans in secrecy, email shows. We also have a new Eastman, John Eastman, the coup memo lawyer, former Thomas clerk, whose emails have to be turned over because they`re subject to the crime-fraud exception, talks about that not bringing their strategy to court prematurely because a negative ruling could tank this strategy, right?
These are just some of the examples I think of this consciousness of guilt that strikes me as an important part of the story to tell.
EISEN: Chris, I think that`s right. And we explain in our Brookings Report. When you look at all the evidence, it`s extremely implausible that Donald Trump didn`t know what was going on here. There`s overwhelming evidence. And one of the things we`ll watch the hearings for, will we get to the point where we can all say hey, there`s proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- reasonable doubt that Donald Trump knew what he was doing was wrong and the indicators you point to. There`s another Eastman statement where he admits it`s illegal. So, that`s all there.
But, Chris, you can`t say as Trump did that Washington Post story to talk about Trump`s said in Georgia, just find 11,780 votes, no matter if you believe you were ripped off, you can`t take vigilante election fraud into your own hands. So, in a sense, the intent questions are beside the point.
[20:30:35]
HAYES: There are still a lot of facts like this that we learn -- we have been learning. I`ve been covering this as closely as just about anyone and I suspect we will learn more in the days to come. Norm Eisen, thank you very much.
EISEN: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: All right, we`re just getting started on this Wednesday night. 24 hours before his committee starts the hearings, he says, will blow the roof of the Capitol, Congressman Jamie Raskin will join me live for more on what we can expect in primetime tomorrow.
And later, we have Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn on the long wait for accountability. Don`t go anywhere. We`ll be right back.
[20:35:00]
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RASKIN: People died that day. Officers ended up with head damage and brain damage. People`s eyes were gouged. An officer had a heart attack. An officer lost three fingers that day. Two officers have taken their own lives. Senators, this cannot be our future. This cannot be the future of America. We cannot have presidents inciting and mobilizing mob violence against our government and our institutions because they refuse to accept the will of the people under the Constitution in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s been almost a year and a half since Maryland Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin led the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection. Congressman Raskin is now a key member of the January 6 Committee, which is kicking off its public hearings 24 hours from now.
And Congressman Raskin, thank you for making time to join us tonight. I really appreciate this.
RASKIN: Hey, Chris, my pleasure.
HAYES: Let me start -- let me start with some -- the polling context for this. I mean, look, again, I work we`ve talked about this. I work in a business that is the news cycle business, that is the attention business, and it is hard to keep people focused on things and lots of -- lots happening in our world.
But if you look at polling from Quinnipiac, you know, back in August 2021, you say like, should it never be forgotten January 6 or is it time to move on with sort of a forced choice. And what you see is that, like we`re getting closer to 50-50 on should never be forgotten versus it`s time -- it`s time to move on. How does that inform what your committee is doing with these public hearings?
RASKIN: Well, people will come to understand that this is an ongoing struggle that we`re in. I think it was Congressman Mo Brooks who said not long ago that former President Trump is still trying to get GOP politicians to rescind the election. And of course, there`s an ongoing assault on voting rights and the integrity of our elections taking place around the country.
But look, to my mind, it goes to the question of how exactly these hearings will be different from what the country saw during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the Senate and that series of events and discussions that we had focused on one guy, Donald Trump, and one crime, inciting insurrection against the union. Our charge today in the Select Committee is far broader than that, because we`re not looking at one crime, we`re looking at multiple crimes. And we`re looking more generally at the assault on democracy.
Now inciting insurrection had to do basically with the mob and the domestic violent extremist groups that had been mobilized against the Congress in the Capitol and the vice president. But behind all of it was an assault on the election, an attempt to overturn the results in the 2020 presidential election. That`s a story that we can only begin to tell just several weeks after the attack during the impeachment trial that took place in the Senate in February of 2021.
This is a story which we can now tell in far greater detail. It was a multi-level, multi-step process of trying to negate nullify and destroy Joe Biden`s majority in electoral college and overthrow the result of that popular election, despite the fact that he had won by more than seven million votes, and had a 306 to 232 victory in the electoral college. So, we`re going to tell that and then we`re going to tell about the incitement of the insurrection, the mobilization of the extremist groups and how these two streams of activity converged on January 6. the sixth.
HAYES: There`s another challenge here. As someone who, again, who`s reported and covered on this cover this quite closely, this is -- this is my colleagues in NBC news writing this that so much about the failed coup is already known that many Americans may see no compelling reason to watch. Text messages published recently by news outlets revealed how then President Trump`s allies contrived to keep him in power after his defeat and 2020 election. Recordings of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, his private phone calls showed just how alarmed he was by Trump`s actions, and on and on and on. We`ve got an avalanche of information. Are there new things to learn?
[20:40:15]
RASKIN: Well, I think that the whole comprehensive story has not been told at all. We do have, you know, leaks or appearances of particular details. There were counterfeit electors out there. There were connections between different -- of the domestic violent extremist groups, the tweets exhorted the mob at pivotal moments, but I don`t think anybody`s put the whole thing together.
Certainly, it is eye-opening for me to see the story that we are about to tell America. And you`re right, you know, Chris, it`s not an Agatha Christie, who done it, as I think you and I talked about before. We know who done it, but we don`t know exactly how they`ve done it. And that`s what we`re going to do. We`re going to explain exactly how it happened and why it happened.
And also, we need America to know that this is an ongoing assault on the democracy. And so, you know, this is deadly serious business for us. We`re in the middle of a process of fortifying democratic institutions and democratic values.
HAYES: Yes, you know, there`s -- there are a number of audiences here, one, obviously, the public, but I do think about the audience of the folks that you serve with, the members of Congress, particularly Republican members of Congress, many of whom, most of whom were there that day. If you have any faith that there`s some part of them that`s reachable -- obviously, there`s a few, right? There`s two on your committee, there are some others. But whether you think there`s a part of them that`s reachable, just to remind them of what their feeling was that day in the aftermath, which was the correct instinct.
RASKIN: Well, it`s interesting. One of my Republican colleagues who`s not on our committee told me about 15 minutes ago before he came out to talk to you, Chris, that he was a little bit jealous that I was on a bipartisan committee where the two sides were actually working together. And it has been an amazing, remarkable experience because, you know, most of Americans are familiar with hearings on Capitol Hill being a series of combative diatribes and mutual denunciations. And suddenly, we have a committee where everybody is working for one purpose, which is to arrive at the truth.
So, I think that there will be multiple breakthroughs and epiphanies for people along the way. And at the end, I think everybody is going to be able to answer for himself or herself, including members of Congress, is this something that we ever want to allow to happen again. And if not, then they`re going to have to listen to the final act of our committee, which is we will be issuing recommendations on what should be done in order -- in order to fortify ourselves against coups and insurrections in the future.
HAYES: I look forward to that. Congressman Jamie Raskin, we`re very much looking forward to tomorrow. Thank you for making time during a very busy period. I appreciate it.
RASKIN: You bet.
HAYES: Still to come --
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DUNN: I use an analogy to describe what I want as a hitman. If a hitman is hired and he kills somebody, the Hitman goes to jail. But not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on January 6, and a hitman sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Nearly one year after his testimony, Officer Harry Dunn is about to find out if the committee has his answer. And he joins me next.
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DUNN: Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes, and while I agree with that notion, why, because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is. As for officers, we would do January 6 all over again. We wouldn`t stay home because we knew it was going to happen. We would show up. That`s courageous. That`s heroic. So, what I asked from you all, is to get to the bottom of what happened.
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HAYES: U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn testified before the January 6 Committee last summer about what he experienced during the insurrection. Harry Dunn grew up in DC suburbs, graduated with a master`s degree from James Madison University before joining the Capitol Police. He`s a 14-year veteran the force.
On the day of the insurrection, Dunn was posted on the steps leading to the Senate chamber. During the assault, he defended an area inside the building where officers were recovering from their injuries. He was victimized by pepper spray and tear gas. In a piece for The Washington Post earlier this year, Dunn and a colleague wrote, "We urge the Justice Department not only to bring appropriate prosecutions of those who defy congressional subpoenas, but also to fully investigate whether additional individuals including current or former government officials should be held criminally liable for their conduct in connection with the attack on the Capitol."
And U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn joins me now. It`s good to see you again. I wanted to start by asking how you are and how you`ve been and what it has been like to do your job day in day out in the wake of all this?
[20:50:10]
DUNN: Thanks for having me on. It`s good to see you too. I appreciate you asking how I`m doing. I`m doing all right. I`m a little anxious, not necessarily in a good or excited kind of way. But we`re going to find out some information, some may not be good, some may not be pleasant. But we`re going to find out some things that we didn`t know 24 hours ago, and that could possibly shape the future of this country. So, I`m a little anxious to see what happens there.
I`m doing my job. It`s -- I`m still doing my job. I focus on what`s important and why I do what I do, and try to block out all the background noise, even though it`s very loud. But here I am, you know.
HAYES: Is it still loud, background noise? I mean, is it still -- I mean, you know, obviously, this was a traumatic day. You were in the public eye. I know that can be disruptive to people`s lives and something I know a little bit about. Are you able to block it?
DUNN: I don`t have a choice, right? What choice do you have, right? Like you, you succumb to come to it, and then then what? Then it`s all for nothing. I`m just trying to make the most of this opportunity, or this platform, whatever you want to call it that I have. People that are listening to me now and I appreciate that. But I just want the truth about what happened that day.
I really -- I want to applaud what or echo what Congressman Raskin just said in your last segment about the recommendations that they`re -- the committee -- so, not only that I asked for finding out what happened, but also how we can make this sure this never happens again. And what the congressman said about making recommendations to prevent this from happening, that`s a huge part, not just -- not just holding the people accountable but, you know, making sure that it doesn`t happen again. Like, because what`s to stop this from happening again?
There`s nothing that`s been in place -- put in place to keep this from happening again. You know, a couple of different security postures and stuff like that, but you know, the letter of the law, what`s to say that this can`t happen again. So, I`m encouraged that the congressman said that.
HAYES: One of the themes that we`ve been talking about tonight and I talked about the congressman, of course, is just the fact that, you know, on that day, in the aftermath of that day, in the days after that day, everyone knew what had happened. I mean, knew it at a -- at an intuitive level. I mean, not like the facts, but that this was a horrible, awful, unacceptable, and indefensible act, right?
DUNN: Yes.
HAYES: There has been an effort to whitewash that, to change that. And I wonder what it looks like from you to see members of Congress or politicians or media figures, or whoever who tried to say, oh, well, these were just -- you know, these were just nice old patriots who are upset about their country and wanting to protect American democracy.
DUNN: You know, what`s crazy -- and actually, I just came to this, you know, this thought while you -- the last segment that, you know, the more information that the committee has put out, the more damning it has been for the people that are involved, the more convictions, the more charges that are brought against the perpetrators of that day.
The more that comes out is the further away certain individuals pivot from how bad it was, like on January 7, or even you know, later that night, on January 6, when Congress did reconvene, you know, there were people talking about how, you know, dangerous this -- how something like this couldn`t happen. But, you know, as you get more evidence and information that comes out, that confirms what a lot of people thought what happened that day, and who was responsible for it.
The evidence that confirms that, you would think that more people would, you know, go towards that, but the opposite has happened. A lot of people are pushing back away from it and change -- they tried to attempt -- attempting to change the narrative about what happened that day.
I`m sure a lot of things went wrong that day, a lot of things on a lot of different levels, and every single level should be investigated. But you know, let`s keep it real. What happened to us was -- and to this country, us -- when I say us, I mean this country, what happened to us was bad. You know, who would have thought that cops getting their ass whooped would be a bipartisan issue?
HAYES: That is -- that is something that I keep coming back to as well. Who would have thought that but it`s a strange time. And Harry Dunn, I appreciate the work that you`ve done and for speaking out and for coming on the show. And I wish you well. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
[20:55:03]
DUNN: Thanks for having me on. Have a good night.
HAYES: All right, we`ve got plenty more to come in this special edition of ALL IN. In our second hour, we`ll bring you the unique story of Committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney, plus my interview with the Democratic congressman who is prepared to fight for his life on January 6. And I`ll talk to the Republican Congressman who was wearing body armor as he riled up the crowd on the morning of the attack. That`s coming up next.