An 'imposter Christianity' is threatening American democracy | CNN

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Three men, eyes closed and heads bowed, pray before a rough-hewn wooden cross. Another man wraps his arms around a massive Bible pressed against his chest like a shield. All throughout the crowd, people wave “Jesus Saves” banners and pump their fists toward the sky.

At first glance, these snapshots look like scenes from an outdoor church rally. But this event wasn’t a revival; it was what some call a Christian revolt. These were photos of people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, during an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The insurrection marked the first time many Americans realized the US is facing a burgeoning White Christian nationalist movement. This movement uses Christian language to cloak sexism and hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants in its quest to create a White Christian America.

A report from a team of clergy, scholars and advocates — sponsored by two groups that advocate for the separation of church and state — concluded that this ideology was used to “bolster, justify and intensify” the attack on the US Capitol.

Demonstrators pray outside the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Much of the House January 6 committee’s focus so far has been on right-wing extremist groups. But there are plenty of other Americans who have adopted teachings of the White Christian nationalists who stormed the Capitol — often without knowing it, scholars, historians, sociologists and clergy say.

White Christian nationalist beliefs have infiltrated the religious mainstream so thoroughly that virtually any conservative Christian pastor who tries to challenge its ideology risks their career, says Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of the New York Times bestseller, “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.”

“These ideas are so widespread that any individual pastor or Christian leader who tries to turn the tide and say, ‘Let’s look again at Jesus and scripture,’ are going to be tossed aside,” she says.

The ideas are also insidious because many sound like expressions of Christian piety or harmless references to US history. But White Christian nationalists interpret these ideas in ways that are potentially violent and heretical. Their movement is not only anti-democratic, it contradicts the life and teachings of Jesus, some clergy, scholars and historians say.

Samuel Perry, a professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma who is authority on the ideology, calls it an “imposter Christianity.”

Here are three key beliefs often tied to White Christian nationalism.

A belief that the US was founded as a Christian nation

One of the banners spotted at the January 6 insurrection was a replica of the American flag with the caption, “Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President.”

Erasing the line separating piety from politics is a key characteristic of White Christian nationalism. Many want to reduce or erase the separation of church and state, say those who study the movement.

One of the most popular beliefs among White Christian nationalists is that the US was founded as a Christian nation; the Founding Fathers were all orthodox, evangelical Christians; and God has chosen the US for a special role in history.

This painting chronicles lawmakers' signing of the Constitution of the United States in 1787. MPI/Getty Images

These beliefs are growing among Christians, according to a survey last year by the Barna Group, a company that conducts surveys about faith and culture for communities of faith and nonprofits. The group found that an “increasing number of American Christians believe strongly” that the US is a Christian nation, has not oppressed minorities, and has been chosen by God to lead the world.

But the notion that the US was founded as a Christian nation is bad history and bad theology, says Philip Gorski, a sociologist at Yale University and co-author of “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.”

“It’s a half truth, a mythological version of American history,” Gorski says.

Some Founding Fathers did view the founding of the nation through a Biblical lens, Gorski says. (Every state constitution contains a reference to God or the divine.)

But many did not. And virtually none of them could be classified as evangelical Christians. They were a collection of atheists, Unitarians, Deists, and liberal Protestants and other denominations.

A Trump supporter holds a Bible as he gathers with others outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. John Minchillo/AP

The Constitution also says nothing about God, the Bible or the Ten Commandments, Gorski says. And saying the US was founded as a Christian nation ignores the fact that much of its initial wealth was derived from slave labor and land stolen from Native Americans, he says.

For evidence that the United States was founded as a secular nation, look no further than the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, an agreement the US negotiated with a country in present-day Libya to end the practice of pirates attacking American ships. It was ratified unanimously by a Senate still half-filled with signers of the Constitution and declared, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on Christian religion.”

Does this mean that any White Christian who salutes the flag and says they love their country is a Christian nationalist? No, not at all, historians say. A White Christian who says they love America and its values and institutions is not the same thing as a White Christian nationalist, scholars say.

Gorski also notes that many devout Black Americans have exhibited a form of patriotism that does not degenerate into Christian nationalism.

American social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, circa 1880. Graphic House/Getty Images

Gorski points to examples of the 19th century abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both were devout Christians who expressed admiration for America and its founding documents. But their patriotism also meant that “they challenged the nation to live up to its highest principles, to become a place of freedom, equality, justice and inclusion,” he says.

The patriotism of White Christian nationalists, on the other hand, is a form of racial tribalism, Gorski says.

“It’s a ‘My tribe. ‘We [White people] were here first. This is our country, and we don’t like people who are trying to change it or people who are different’ form of nationalism,” Gorski says.

A belief in a ‘Warrior Christ’

Videos from the January 6 attack show a chaotic, tear-gas-soaked scene at the Capitol that looked more like a medieval battle. Insurrectionists punched police officers, used flagpoles as spears and smashed officers’ faces against doors while a mob chanted, “Fight for Trump!” The attack left five people dead and nearly 140 law enforcement officers injured.

The incongruity of people carrying “Jesus Saves” signs while joining a mob whose members are pummeling police officers leads to an obvious question: How can White Christian nationalists who claim to follow Jesus, the “Prince of Peace” who renounced violence in the Gospels, support a violent insurrection?

A protester holds up a Bible amid the crowd storming the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington on January 6, 2021. Ashley Gilbertson/VII/ Redux/

That’s because they follow a different Jesus than the one depicted in the Gospels, says Du Mez, who is also a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University — a Christian school — in Michigan. They follow the Jesus depicted in the Book of Revelation, the warrior with eyes like “flames of fire” and “a robe dipped in blood” who led the armies of heaven on white horses in a final, triumphant battle against the forces of the antichrist.

White Christian nationalists have refashioned Jesus into a kick-butt savior who is willing to smite enemies to restore America to a Christian nation by force, if necessary, Du Mez and others say.

While warlike language like putting on “the full armor of God” has long been common in Christian sermons and hymns, it has largely been interpreted as metaphorical. But many White Christian nationalists take that language literally.

That was clear on January 6. Some insurrectionists wore caps emblazoned with “God, Guns, Trump” and chanted that the blood of Jesus was washing Congress clean. One wrote “In God We Trust” on a set of gallows erected at the Capitol.

“They want the warrior Christ who wields a bloody sword and defeats his enemies,” says Du Mez. “They want to battle with that Jesus. That Jesus brings peace, but only after he slays his enemies.”

And that Jesus sanctions the use of righteous violence if a government opposes God, she says.

“If you deem somebody in power to be working against the goals of a Christian America, then you should not submit to that authority and you should displace that authority,” she says. “Because the stakes are so high, the ends justify the means.”

Supporters of then-President Donald Trump gather on the Ellipse near the White House to hear him speak on January 6, 2021. Mark Peterson/Redux

That ends-justify-the means approach is a key part of White Christian nationalism, says Du Mez. It’s why so many rallied behind former President Trump on January 6. She says he embodies a “militant White masculinity” that condones callous displays of power and appeals to Christian nationalists.

But with few exceptions, White Christian nationalists do not accept this “militant masculinity” when exhibited by Black, Middle Eastern and Latino men, Du Mez writes in “Jesus and John Wayne.” Aggression by people of color “is seen as a threat to the stability of home and nation,” she writes.

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson echoed this double standard last year when he said on a radio talk show that he never really felt threatened by the mostly White mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6.

“Now, had … President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned,” Johnson said.

Johnson later elaborated, saying “there was nothing racial about my comments– nothing whatsoever.”

This embrace of a warrior Christ has shaped some White evangelicals’ attitudes on issues ranging from political violence to gun safety laws.

A survey last year by the Public Religion Research Institute revealed that of all respondents, White evangelicals were the religious group most likely to agree with the statement, “true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save the country.”

There are also some White Christian nationalists who believe the Second Amendment was handed down by God.

Gun rights activists carrying semi-automatic firearms pose for a photograph in the state Capitol Building on January 31, 2020, in Frankfort, Kentucky. Bryan Woolston/Getty Images

Samuel Perry, co-author of “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” wrote in a recent essay that among Americans surveyed who believe “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” over two-thirds rejected the idea that the federal government should enact stricter gun laws.”

“The more you line up with Christian nationalism, the less likely you are to support gun control,” wrote Perry. “Guns are practically an element of worship in the church of white Christian nationalism.”

A belief there’s such a person as a ‘real American’

In the 2008 presidential election, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin introduced a new term to the political discourse. She talked about “the real America” and the “pro-America areas of this great nation.” Since then, many conservative political candidates have used the term “real Americans” to draw contrasts between their supporters and their opposition.

Such language has been co-opted into a worldview held by many White Christian nationalists: The nation is divided between “real Americans” and other citizens who don’t deserve the same rights, experts on White Christian nationalism say.

Republican vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Gorski, author of “The Flag and the Cross,” says he found in his research a strong correlation between White Christian nationalism and support for gerrymandering—an electoral process where politicians manipulate district lines to favor one party or, some critics say, race over another. He found similar support among White Christian nationalists for the Electoral College, which gives disproportionate political power to many rural, largely White areas of the country.

When White Christian nationalists claim an election was stolen, they are reflecting the belief that some votes don’t count, he says.

“It’s the idea that we are the people, and our vote should count, and you’re not the people, and… you don’t really deserve to have a voice,” Gorski says. “It doesn’t matter what the voting machines say, because we know that all real Americans voted for Donald Trump.”

Why White Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy

Those who want the US to become a Christian nation face a huge obstacle: Most Americans don’t subscribe to their vision of America.

The mainstreaming of White Christian nationalism comes as a growing number of Americans are rejecting organized religion. For the first time in the US last year, membership in communities of worship fell below 50%. Belief in God is at an all-time low, according to a recent Gallup poll.

A parishioner bows his head to pray while celebrating midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on December 24, 2021, in New York City. Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

Add to that the country’s growing racial and religious diversity. People who identify as White alone declined for the first time since the census began in 1790, and the majority of Americans under 18 are now people of color.

On the surface, White Christian nationalism should not be on the ascent in America.

So White Christian nationalists look for salvation from two sources.

One is the emboldened conservative majority on the US Supreme Court, where recent decisions overturning Roe vs. Wade and protecting school prayer offer them hope.

Critics, on the other hand, say the high court is eroding the separation of church and state.

Not all Christians who support the high court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and its school prayer decision are White nationalists. For example, plenty of Roman Catholics of all races support racial justice yet also backed the overturning of Roe.

But White Christian nationalists are inspired by those decisions because one of their central goals is to erase the separation of church and state in the US.

A recent study concluded that five of the justices on the Supreme Court are the “most pro-religion since at least World War II,” and that the six conservative justices are “all Christian, mostly Catholic,” and “religiously devout.”

The sun sets in front of the Supreme Court on June 28, 2022, in Washington. A Supreme Court decision last month overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and erased a federal right to an abortion. Nathan Howard/Getty Images

While some Americans fear the dangers of one-party rule, others like Pamela Paul, a columnist, warn of the Supreme Court instituting one-religion rule.

“With their brand of religious dogma losing its purchase, they’re imposing it on the country themselves,” she wrote in a recent New York Times editorial.

Gorski, the historian, says White Christian nationalism represents a grave threat to democracy because it defines “we the people” in a way that excludes many Americans.

“The United States cannot be both a truly multiracial democracy – a people of people and a nation of nations – and a white Christian nation at the same time,” Gorski wrote in “The Flag and the Cross.” “This is why white Christian nationalism has become a serious threat to American democracy, perhaps the most serious threat it now faces.”

The other source of hope for White Christian nationalists is a former occupant of the White House. Their devotion to him is illustrated by one of most striking images from the January 6 insurrection: A sign depicting a Nordic-looking Jesus wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.

If Trump returns to the presidency, some White Christian nationalists may interpret his political resurrection as divine intervention. His support among White evangelicals increased from 2016 to 2020.

And what the men carrying wooden crosses among the Capitol mob couldn’t achieve on January 6, they might yet accomplish in 2024.

January 6 hearing recap: Panel presents Capitol attack evidence

Rep. Liz Cheney said Trump oversaw a "7-part plan" to overturn election.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said he resigned rather than challenge election results.

Ivanka Trump said she accepted the Justice Department's finding of no election fraud.

A documentarian showed footage of extremists meeting the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

WASHINGTON – The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack heard riveting testimony Thursday from a police officer wounded in the attack and broadcast to a prime-time audience video of a meeting between men charged with seditious conspiracy.

The committee also outlined subjects it will cover in a series of June hearings, including former President Donald Trump's pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election and his attempt to replace his attorney general.

The highlights:

• Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards described how she suffered a concussion while grappling with rioters over bike racks. “I was slipping in people’s blood,” she said. “I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage.” She also recalled seeing Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day, turn ghostly white after being sprayed with chemicals.

• Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the committee, charged that Trump “oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election."

• Video from British documentarian Nick Quested showed a meeting between leaders of two far-right groups, Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, in a parking garage the night before the attack. Tarrio and Rhodes are each charged with seditious conspiracy and each has pleaded not guilty.

• Former Attorney General William Barr told the House panel investigating the Capitol attack he resigned in December 2020 from the Trump administration rather than challenge the election results.

• Ivanka Trump, the former president's daughter and senior adviser, said she accepted the Justice Department’s finding of no fraud sufficient to overturn the 2020 – in contrast to her father.

"Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy," said the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. said, which he called "the culmination of an attempted coup."

Trump rebuked Jan. 6 panel as biased after first hearing

Former President Donald Trump derided the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as biased in a statement posted to Truth Social shortly after the panel's first hearing concluded.

"So the Unselect Committee of political HACKS refuses to play any of the many positive witnesses and statements, refuses to talk of the Election Fraud and irregularities that took place on a massive scale, and decided to use a documentary maker from Fake News ABC to spin only negative footage," he wrote. "Our Country is in such trouble!"

The former president's claims of election fraud are unfounded.

- Ella Lee

Fact check:Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims

When is the next Jan. 6 committee hearing?

The next hearing of the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will be Monday at 10 a.m.

Two more have been announced as well: Wednesday, also at 10 a.m and next Thursday (June 16) at 1 p.m.

Several more hearings are expected to be announced in the coming days.Thursday's hearing was the first in a series of public hearings over the next few weeks.

Who's watching?:Jan. 6 committee's long-awaited hearings promise revelations. Will a divided US want to hear them?

- Chelsey Cox

At DC watch party, hearing gets positive reviews

After the hearing concluded at a DC watch party hosted by progressive group Public Citizen, viewers left largely satisfied.

Debbie Allen, 65, a DC native, says she "was glad to see some new footage."

"I thought they were presenting a cohesive story that gave us a glimpse of what was happening before, during, and after the insurrection."

Allen says she has never seen anything like the hearing before. "I'm 65. The America I grew up in, I thought we were more united about good and bad, right and wrong."

- Kenneth Tran

New evidence: Donald Trump didn't mind the idea of hanging Mike Pence

One new revelation that surfaced in this hearing: Direct quotes from Donald Trump expressing approval of threats by supporters to hang Vice President Mike Pence.

In previewing future testimony, committee member Liz Cheney said: "You will hear that President Trump was yelling and, quote, 'really angry at advisors who told him he needed to be doing something more' and aware of the rioters' chants to 'hang Mike Pence'."

She added: "The President responded with this sentiment: 'Maybe our supporters have the right idea.' Mike Pence, quote, 'deserves it'."

The New York Times reported last month that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told colleagues that Trump "had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged."

Trump was angry at Pence for his refusal to throw out the electoral votes that elected President Joe Biden; Pence said he lacked the legal authority to do such a thing.

- David Jackson

The witnesses:Who were the witnesses at the Jan. 6 committee hearing? Here's who testified about the Capitol riot

‘I was slipping in people’s blood,’ Capitol Police officer says

A Capitol Police officer who was injured during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021 described what she saw as a “war scene” that caused her breath to catch into her throat as she saw what was going on.

“It was something like I had seen out of the movies,” said Caroline Edwards. "I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up.”

“I saw friends with blood all over their faces,” Edwards said. “I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos.”

- Erin Mansfield

Gallery:Chilling images from the Capitol riot: Jan. 6 insurrection in photos

For one attendee, Jan. 6 committee is compelling, but little hopes of change

At a DC watch party, Zak Sabim from Virginia listened to the hearing "because I think right is right and wrong is wrong." He said he found the committee's evidence compelling.

"You have to document it. If it's not appreciated now. Hopefully people in the future will appreciate it," he said.

But Sabim also said he sees America as too polarized now for the committee to achieve any outcomes. The Capitol attack has become like a "soap opera" for Sabim.

"I feel like there's been a couple seasons I missed out on," he said "It seems like something if you're a Democratic voter, you probably know all the cast of characters."

- Kenneth Tran

The hearings:Who will be Jan. 6 hearing's most avid viewer? Donald Trump, with a team ready to hit back.

Proud Boys membership tripled; then they organized for Jan. 6

Membership in the "western chauvinist" group the Proud Boys nearly tripled after then-President Donald Trump told them in a debate to "stand back and stand by," according to testimony.

Then, when Trump urged Twitter followers to show up for a rally on Jan. 6, “Be there, will be wild!” Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio created a social media group to organize its members to show up on Jan. 6.

The group was called a “Ministry of Self Defense,” according to Department of Justice Documents shared in the hearing.

- Erin Mansfield

Who are the Proud Boys? They joined the Wisconsin Proud Boys looking for brotherhood. They found racism, bullying and antisemitism.

Capitol Police officer describes spraying of colleague who died

Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick turned ghostly white after being sprayed with chemicals while grappling with rioters Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards told the House panel investigating the attack.

Sicknick died the next day from strokes ruled by natural causes. But Edwards, who suffered a concussion, said she returned to the police line where she served outside the House clashing with the mob over bicycle racks for more than a half-hour with Sicknick.

“All of a sudden, I see movement to the left of me and I turned and it was Officer Sicknick with his head in this hands,” Edwards testified Thursday. “And he was ghostly pale, which I figured at that point that he had been sprayed and I was concerned.”

“My cop alarm bells went off because if you get sprayed with pepper spray, you're going to turn red,” she added, holding up a sheet of paper. “He turned just about as pale as this sheet of paper.”

- Bart Jansen

Edwards describes blacking out after rioters ripped down first barricade

Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards described her injuries during the Jan. 6 attacks after rioters ripped down the first barricade moments after she told her sergeant that “we're going to need a few more people down here.”

Edwards said that after the first barricade came down, she and other officers started grappling over the bike racks “to make sure that we can get more people down and get our CPU units time to answer the call.” But she said that she felt a back rack come on top of her head, and her foot caught the stair behind where she was standing.

“My chin hit the handrail and then — I at that point I blacked out — but my back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me,” Edwards said.

- Rebecca Morin

Leaders of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers met in a parking garage

Leaders of the ‘western chauvanist’ Proud Boys and the extremist militia group Oath Keepers met in a parking garage the night before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker, testified that he and his crew went to pick up Enrique Tarrio from jail before meeting with Stewart Rhodes.

The crew “drove down into the parking garage and filmed the scene of Mr. Tarrio and Mr. Rhodes and certain other individuals in that garage,” Quested said.

— Erin Mansfield

Committee airs film about Trump's inspiration to Proud Boys, other extremist groups

The committee produced video clips from a documentary about the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other white nationalist groups who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol – and Trump's incitement of them.

The film replayed Trump's infamous 2020 presidential debate comment about the Proud Boys – "stand back and stand by" – and his tweet encouraging people to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Many violent offenders said they believed they were acting at Trump's behest.

"We have obtained substantial evidence showing that the president's December 19th tweet, calling his followers to D.C. on January 6th, energized individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups," said committee chairman Bennie Thompson.

Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested testified about his filming of the Proud Boys,

- David Jackson

Proud Boys:Who are the Proud Boys? Far-right group has concerned experts for years

House panel outlines hearing subjects

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., outlined the subjects of other June hearings the House panel investigating the Capitol attack Jan. 6, 2021:

--The hearing Monday at 10 a.m. will explore how former President Donald Trump and his advisers knew he lost the 2020 election, but still spread false and fraudulent information, Cheney said.

--The hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m. will reveal Trump corruptly planning to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Cheney said.

--The hearing Thursday at 1 p.m. will describe Trump’s pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to reject state electors.

The fifth June hearing will focus on Trump pressuring officials in states he lost to change their results, particularly in Georgia where he urged them to “find” 11,780 votes he needed to win.

The final two hearings in June will cover Trump summoning a mob and directing them to march on the Capitol, and then failing to stop the violence, Cheney said.

- Bart Jansen

Edwards says she wondered ‘how we had gotten here’ during Capitol attacks

Caroline Edwards, a U.S. Capitol Police officer injured during the Capitol attack, said that she had never had her “patriotism or duty been called into question” but that she would “gladly sacrifice everything to make sure that the America my grandfather defended is here for many years to come.”

In her opening statement, Edwards said that she had been called “Nancy Pelosi’s dog” and “a traitor to my country, my oath and my constitution” during the attacks at the Capitol.

“In actuality, I wasn't none of those things,” she said. “I was an American standing face to face with other Americans asking myself…how we had gotten here.”

- Rebecca Morin

Pence chief of staff: Veep chose Constitution over Trump

Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said he felt proud of much of what was accomplished during the Trump administration, but that his boss split with the president over fighting the election results.

Pence refused to single-handedly reject electors, as Trump and his lawyer, John Eastman, repeatedly pressured him to do.

“I think he ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath,” Short told the House panel investigating the Capitol attack in a videotaped deposition. “That's what he articulated publicly. And I think that that's what he felt.”

- Bart Jansen

Investigation remains ongoing, even as hearings begin

More information continues to pour into the committee investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is continuing, even as public hearings are ongoing.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., told the public to expect additional information to be included in the final report disclosed to the public because the committee’s investigation remains ongoing.

Cheney also said that the Department of Justice has been working with cooperating witnesses and so far has only disclosed some of the information it has identified.

- Erin Mansfield

Adviser Jason Miller: Donald Trump didn't believe evidence he had lost

A Donald Trump political adviser whose videotaped testimony popped up at the Jan. 6 hearing said the committee did not broadcast his remarks in full.

In the hearing video, Miller testified that an aide told Trump he simply did not have the votes to win the 2020 election.

On Twitter, Miller said the video was cut off before his next remarks, which were about how Trump did not believe the analysis.

He provided a transcript:

"Q: Okay. And what was the President's reaction then when Matt said to him, 'hey, we've looked at the numbers, you're going to lose'? A: I think it's safe to say he disagreed with Matt's analysis."

– David Jackson

Head Oath Keeper:Vegas parking valet, Yale law graduate, unhinged Oath Keepers leader: Who is Stewart Rhodes?

For some DC watch party attendees, the hearing is personal

Two attendees, Whitney Williams and Raleigh Lancaster, both DC natives, say the hearing is more personal to them since they were close by when protestors breached the Capitol.

"This isn't really a place where this happens," says Lancaster. "I've just never seen anything like this before."

Williams is retired, and is barely involved in politics. But because the attack was at her doorstep, "it's so important," for her. She says she never listens to congressional hearings but tonight's hearing is different.

"It'd be a sad day for America," says Lancaster, if nothing comes out of the hearing.

- Kenneth Tran

Cheney to Republicans: ‘Your dishonor will remain’

In the final remarks of her opening statement, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney condemned the members of her party who have chosen to look the other way on the events of Jan. 6 and the efforts that led to it.

“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible,” she said. “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

- Ella Lee

Committee shows video detailing timeline of Capitol attack

After opening remarks, the hearing turned to a video of the Jan. 6 attack, detailing minute-by-minute how the attack unfolded led by Trump’s speech outside the White House beforehand.

“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing,” Trump is shown saying. ” I hope. Because if Mike does the right thing, we win the election.”

The video detailed involvement of the far-right organization Proud Boys. It also showed communication from Capitol Police officers as rioters began to breach the building, breaking windows and storming the steps as members of Congress met to certify the 2020 electoral count.

- Joey Garrison

Widows of officers who died as result of Jan. 6 emotional watching video

Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn stretched his arm out around widows Serena Liebengood and Sandra Garza as the video played of the violence unfolding on Jan. 6.

Liebengood and Garza pulled out tissues and wiped away tears watching the video — their husbands Howie Liebengood and Brian Sicknick died in the aftermath of Jan 6., one by suicide and one after suffering two strokes.

– Dylan Wells

Sean Hannity, Kayleigh McEnany wanted Trump to end 'crazy' stuff

The committee has released notable text messages from major supporters who urged then-President Donald Trump to stop claiming the 2020 election had been stolen – advice Trump has ignored to this day.

A day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, talk show host Sean Hannity texted White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany about what Trump needed: "No more crazy people" and "no more stolen election talk ... Many people will quit."

McEnany texted back: “Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook.”

Trump did not heed that advice.

- David Jackson

Milley recalls Meadows saying ‘need to kill’ narrative that Trump wasn’t in charge

Mark Meadows, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that they “need to kill the narrative” that Trump was not in charge.

Milley said during a video deposition that Vice President Mike Pence "issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders” to “get the military down here."

“We need to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions,” Milley recalled Meadows telling him in a deposition excerpt. “We need to establish the narrative that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable.”

- Rebecca Morin

Trump met with Flynn, Powell, Giuliani before tweeting “Be there, will be wild!”

Former President Donald Trump met with former aide Gen. Michael Flynn, attorney Sidney Powell, and advisor Rudy Giuliani, among others, to discuss “having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections,” according to Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

The meeting that ran late into the evening took place on Dec. 18, according to Cheney. The president met with the group alone before “White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there and rushed to intervene.”

The next day, Trump tweeted that there would be a big protest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6th. “Be there, will be wild!” he told his followers.

- Erin Mansfield

More:What we don't know about Jan. 6: What Trump's family told the committee, whether attack was organized

Ivanka Trump accepted DOJ’s finding of no election fraud

Ivanka Trump, former President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, said she accepted the Justice Department’s finding of no fraud sufficient to overturn the 2020 – in contrast to her father.

Ivanka Trump said she trusted the finding because she respected then-Attorney General William Barr, who said he resigned in part rather than fight to overturn the election. Her conclusion contrasted to her father’s continued efforts to overturn election results.

“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka Trump said. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”

- Bart Jansen

Ivanka's take:House Jan. 6 panel shows Ivanka Trump opposing claims of 2020 election fraud, in contrast to former President Donald Trump

Cheney: Trump had 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election

Rep. Liz Cheney said former President Donald Trump “oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election.”

Cheney said Trump wanted to prevent the transfer of presidential power. She added that evidence of each element of the plan will be laid out during the hearing.

“All Americans should keep and bear in mind that on the morning of Jan. 6, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain President of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election,” she said.

- Rebecca Morin

Bennie Thompson: Donald Trump was "the center of this conspiracy"

In case there was any doubt, committee chairman Bennie Thompson made clear the night's main theme: President Donald Trump engineered a plot to steal the 2020 election from President-elect Joe Biden.

"Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy," Thompson said, describing Jan. 6 as "the culmination of an attempted coup."

Thompson pledged to show evidence to back up his claim.

- David Jackson

What to know:Here's what you need to know about the Jan. 6 committee and its June hearings

Cheney: testimony will show Trump ignored aides' pleas to call off attack

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said testimony from a more than a half-dozen Trump aides that Thursday’s hearing will highlight will show that Trump ignored pleas from his staff to call off the riot because he supported it.

"In the hearings to come, President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol, and I quote, “were doing what they should be doing,’ Cheney said. “This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob."

Cheney said that evidence will also show Trump was angry at advisor who told him that he needed to be do something more even though he was aware of threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence

"The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot,” Cheney said, pointing to intelligence about the attack beforehand.

- Joey Garrison

Barr opposed Trump’s claims 2020 election was ‘stolen’

Former Attorney General William Barr told the House panel investigating the Capitol attack he resigned in December 2020 from the Trump administration rather than challenge the election results.

Barr, who has said publicly the Justice Department found no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, said he met with then-President Donald Trump on Nov. 23, Dec. 1 and Dec. 14 to make it clear he didn’t agree with putting out the election was stolen.

“I told the president it was bull----,” Barr said in a videotaped deposition played at the hearing. “I didn’t want to be a part of it and that’s one of the reasons that went into me leaving when I did.”

- Bart Jansen

Police officers and widows of officers who died are in attendance

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, and D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone are in the hearing room, seated behind where witnesses will testify.

Erin Smith, Serena Liebengood, and Sandra Garza – all widows of officers who died in the aftermath of Jan. 6 – are seated with them.

Dunn is wearing a shirt that shows definitions of "insurrection," including "January 6, 2021"

– Dylan Wells

Thompson: American democracy ‘remains in danger’

The chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, will open Thursday’s hearing saying efforts to undermine the Constitution and thwart the will of the American people aren’t over, according to excerpts of his remarks.

Thompson, D-Miss., will say "our democracy remains in danger" and must be protected through the investigation of the Capitol attack. He said a series of hearings this month won’t just look backward at what happened Jan. 6, 2021, but also forward to protect the rule of law.

“We can’t sweep what happened under the rug,” Thompson will say. “We must confront the truth with candor, resolve and determination.”

--Bart Jansen

Who's on the panel:Meet the members of the January 6 House select committee ahead of first public hearing Thursday

Open minds but no high expectations at a DC watch party

At a watch party in the Taft Memorial Carillon hosted by the non-profit progressive consumer group Public Citizen, a couple hundred of attendees are anxiously and excitedly waiting for the long awaited Jan. 6 hearing.

Glenn Daigon, from North Bethesda MD, says he doesn't want to be too excited or disappointed with how the hearing turns out: "I don't see this as a slam dunk either way."

But he would like to see at least some "indictments and convictions." He says if there's no accountability for the Capitol attack, "there's no point" in the hearings.

- Kenneth Tran

What is Donald Trump doing during the hearing?

Don't expect former President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence to testify –but Trump is expected to watch, according to people who have spoken with him in recent days.

Trump, a prolific and mercurial watcher of television news during his four years in the White House wants to know what the special House committee, packed with political opponents, will bring out to show to the American people, particularly since he has no allies on the committee to tip him off ahead of time, said two people who have talked with him recently and spoke on condition of anonymity about private conversations.

The original panel would have included GOP allies of Trump but House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy removed all five of his choices after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of them.

- Chelsey Cox

Trump tuned in:Who will be Jan. 6 hearing's most avid viewer? Donald Trump, with a team ready to hit back.

Jim Jordan spurns Jan. 6 committee as Saturday subpoena deadline looms

In an 11-page letter sent to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, questioned the panel’s legitimacy and again asked its members to share the information amassed on him before he agrees to testify.

“While some courts have recognized the Select Committee’s investigation as having a legitimate legislative purpose, it does not necessarily follow that the Select Committee’s subpoena to me is in furtherance of a legitimate legislative purpose,” Jordan writes in the letter, sent the day of the committee’s first public hearing.

Jordan is one of five GOP members subpoenaed by the select committee, alongside Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; Andy Biggs of Arizona; Mo Brooks of Alabama; and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. Jordan has until Saturday to comply with the subpoena.

- Ella Lee

Get the latest politics news in your inbox:Sign up for our On Politics newsletter

House GOP Leader McCarthy declines to address 2020 election legitimacy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Thursday declined to say clearly whether President Joe Biden rightfully won the 2020 election.

“We’ve asked this question a long time,” McCarthy said to reporters during a press conference. “Joe Biden is the president. I think you can look that there’s a lot of problems still with the election process.”

McCarthy, who said Thursday he has answered the questions many times before, has shifted his views since the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection attempt. He suggested days after the attack that Trump resign, but has refused to cooperate with a subpoena from the committee investigating that day.

- Erin Mansfield

Biden calls Jan. 6 attack a ‘flagrant violation of the Constitution’ ahead of primetime hearing

President Joe Biden called the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol “a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution” Thursday, hours before a House committee investigating the insurrection holds its first public hearing.

“A lot of Americans are going to see for the first time some of the details that occurred,” Biden said, giving unprompted remarks on the hearing at the beginning of a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Los Angeles at the Summit of Americas.

“I think these guys broke the law and tried to turn around the results an of election. There's a lot of questions - who's responsible, who's involved? I'm not going to make a judgment on that.”

- Joey Garrison

More:Menendez: Mexico's president tried to ‘blackmail’ Biden to invite ‘dictators’ to Americas summit

Bill Barr met with committee about Trump’s election fraud claims

A week before the first public hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee, former attorney general Bill Barr met with the panel about Trump’s claims of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s claims are seen by some as a catalyst for the attack on the Capitol.

Barr’s meeting focused on material in his book, "One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General." Though he left the Trump administration weeks before the insurrection, Barr was still the nation’s top law enforcement officer during and after the presidential election.

After a Justice Department investigation into the fraud claims, Barr told the Associated Press in December 2020 that the agency hadn’t “seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

- Chelsey Cox

First 2 witnesses are injured Capitol Police officer, documentarian

Two witnesses spoke at the first hearing. One was Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury when the mob pushed her to the ground after breaking through a fence of bicycle racks outside the Capitol.

She was the first of 140 officers injured that day, according to the committee. Other officers have recalled hearing her pleas for help.

The other witness was an acclaimed British documentarian, Nick Quested, who filmed around the Capitol during the attack. The day before the riot, Quested also filmed the leaders of two far-right groups – Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who are each charged with seditious conspiracy – meeting in a parking garage near the Capitol, according to the New York Times.

More:Who invaded the US Capitol on Jan. 6? Criminal cases shed light on offenses

What Republicans are saying: Some blast committee as illegitimate, partisan

House Republicans have blasted the committee as illegitimate, partisan and a sham because of how it was set up.

The heart of the complaint is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to seat GOP Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio on the panel. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., then pulled his nominees rather than have her vet them. Pelosi then appointed nine members – including GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – rather than the 13 authorized.

Federal courts have upheld the panel’s authority repeatedly. But Republicans argue the one-sided appointments mean there will be no meaningful cross-examination of witnesses or alternate views presented during hearings.

What we don't know about Jan. 6:What Trump's family told the committee, whether attack was organized

Biden plans to watch hearings

President Joe Biden is expected to watch some of Thursday’s hearing despite hosting the Summit of the Americas in California, according to White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

Biden waived executive privilege to give the committee access to Trump administration documents as part of the investigation.

“These are important hearings,” Klain told MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" on Wednesday. “He believes in executive privilege generally, but there is no executive privilege to overthrow the government of the United States. There is no executive privilege to protect plans on an insurrection.”

What kind of evidence does the committee have?

The panel collected more than 100,000 documents and more than 1,000 witnesses cooperated in the inquiry. Pictures and thousands of hours of video from security cameras and body-worn cameras on police officers illustrate how the violent mob smashed its way into the Capitol.

“People have gotten information in snippets over the course of a year plus, but the fact is that we’re going to tell the story in a coherent thread through the hearings,” said a committee member, Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va. “It was a tragic event for our country that there were villains that day, of course. But there were people who were heroic, who through their actions really prevented a much worse outcome.”

More:After Jan. 6, lawmakers want to clarify that vice presidents have ceremonial role in counting votes

More:What we don't know about Jan. 6: What Trump's family told the committee, whether attack was organized

More:Prosecutors charge former Proud Boys leader, 4 others with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 attack

More:Who has been subpoenaed so far by the Jan. 6 committee?

Photos: The January 6 hearings | CNN Politics

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol held its last public meeting on Monday, laying out its findings, approving its final report and outlining criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and other officials.

"Evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed," the committee wrote in a summary of its final report. "None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him."

The committee voted to refer Trump to the Justice Department on multiple criminal charges, including obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the United States, making false statements and giving aid or comfort to an insurrection. While the referrals are largely symbolic in nature — as the panel lacks prosecutorial powers and the Department of Justice is already conducting its own investigation — committee members have stressed the move serves as a way to document their views for the record. Attorney General Merrick Garland will make the ultimate call on charging decisions.

The committee's final report will be released to the public on Wednesday, marking the end of an expansive investigation that has spanned more than 17 months, encompassed more than 1,000 interviews and culminated in accusations that Trump and his closest allies sought to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power.

The committee held a series of public hearings this year regarding the Capitol attack. Throughout the hearings, there was live testimony from more than a dozen witnesses and recorded depositions of more than 40 others. Much of the recorded testimony was from members of Trump's inner circle, including former Attorney General William Barr and Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump.

Analysis: Donald Trump's wildest lines from his statement on the ...

CNN —

In response to the second public hearing of the January 6 committee, former President Donald Trump released a 12-page statement – yes, 12 full pages! – seeking to rebut the charges leveled against him.

It’s filled with the usual name-calling, exaggerations and conspiracy theories that have dominated Trump’s post-2020 election life. But it’s also a window into the former President’s psyche as the January 6 committee weighs whether to recommend a criminal indictment of Trump to the Department of Justice.

I went through Trump’s, um, statement. The lines from it you need to see are below.

1. “If they had any real evidence, they’d hold real hearings with equal representation.”

Remember that the reason there isn’t an independent commission – like the one that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks – is because Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell killed it after it had passed the House with 35 GOP votes. And away we go!

2. “They use the illegally-constituted committee to put on a smoke and mirrors show for the American people, in a pitiful last-ditch effort to deceive the American public … again.”

It’s not at all clear to me what Trump thinks is illegal about the January 6 committee. It is a select committee established by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Not unlike the Benghazi select committee established by then-House Speaker John Boehner.

3. “They have refused to allow their political opponents to participate in this process, and have excluded all exculpatory witnesses, and anyone who so easily points out the flaws in their story.”

Again, this is not quite accurate. First off, the reason the committee has two Republicans and nine Democrats is because a) McConnell nixed the idea of an independent commission and b) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled all five of his picks for the committee when Pelosi rejected the appointments of Indiana Rep. Jim Banks and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. Second, plenty of strongly pro-Trump witnesses have been subpoenaed by the committee. In fact, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two close Trump confidants, have refused to comply with subpoenas to testify before the committee.

4. “The Unselect Pseudo-Committee has coordinated with their media puppets to broadcast their witnesses on national television without any opposition, cross-examination, or rebuttal evidence.”

I hate to sound like a broken record here, but the committee took more than 1,000 depositions from all sorts of witnesses – including Bill Stepien, who managed Trump’s 2020 campaign, and Bill Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general. Those aren’t exactly portraits of Trump haters. Plus, the committee tried to talk to people like Bannon and Navarro.

5. “What are the members of this treasonous ‘Committee’ afraid of?”

This is coming from someone who refused to accept the results of a free and fair election and incited people to protest the results because of a series of easily debunked conspiracy theories.

6. “Democrats created the narrative of January 6th to detract from the much larger and more important truth that the 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen.”

Uh, what. So, several people died as a result of the riots on January 6. More than 100 police officers were injured. Over 800 people have been criminally charged for their roles in the insurrection that day. That’s less important that a set of lies about supposed election fraud?

7. “They illegally inflated voter rolls, illegally allowed harvested and stuffed ballots, abused the use of mail-in ballots, physically removed Republicans from counting facilities, abused the elderly in nursing homes, bribed election officials with donations, stopped counting on Election Night, gave Democrats three extra days to harvest ballots, and demanded that the American people believe it was legitimate.”

Wow. That’s, um a lot. There has been absolutely no evidence that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Haberman on how Trump is setting up his defense to Jan. 6 hearings 00:55 - Source: CNN

8. “The truth is that Americans showed up in Washington, D.C. in massive numbers (but seldom revealed by the press), on January 6th, 2021, to hold their elected officials accountable for the obvious signs of criminal activity throughout the Election.”

Crowd size has long been a Trump hobbyhorse. But there’s just no evidence that the press purposely low-balled the crowd on January 6. Also, that is totally beside the point. Which is this: A mob of rioters stormed the US Capitol fueled by an election lie pushed by Trump that he had somehow been cheated out of victory.

9. “This is all a ridiculous and treasonous attempt to cover up the fact that Democrats rigged the Election and are siphoning Americans’ freedoms and power for their own benefit.”

What, exactly, is treasonous about the January 6 committee? Trump – surprise, surprise – doesn’t explain.

10. “On Election Night, America watched as my lead grew and grew over Joe Biden, as I was set to claim another victory.”

Simply not true. We knew well in advance of Election Day that, in large part because of new rules in place to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of mail-in ballots would be far higher than in past elections. And we knew that it would take some time to properly process all of them. Here’s what Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, suggested he say on election night: “My recommendation was to say that ‘votes were still being counted, it’s too early to tell, too early to call the race but we’re proud of the race we ran and we think we’re in good position.’” Trump didn’t take that advice.

11. “The Swamp was so determined to keep their stranglehold on power that they delayed the results of the Election so that they could find, manufacture, or produce more ballots, after they knew how many they needed to beat me.”

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said on December 1, 2020.

12. “There’s no reasonable explanation for why it took so much longer to count the few remaining ballots as opposed to the millions on Election Day – other than they needed to traffic more ballots, and it took four days to produce the ballots and do it.”

Aside from simply claiming it to be so, Trump offers no evidence for his claim that there were “few remaining ballots” left to be counted after Election Day. The reason he doesn’t offer any proof for this claim is that none exists.

13. “Like drug mules, in this context, mules are those paid to illegally traffic ballots from nonprofits organizations and drop them into the ballot drop boxes.”

It’s well worth watching – or reading – Barr’s complete takedown from Monday’s hearing of the film “2,000 Mules” which is where Trump gets this bogus information. Here’s the gist of it in one Barr quote: “If you take 2 million cell phones and figure out where they are physically in a big city like Atlanta or wherever, just by definition, you will find many hundreds of them have passed by and spent time in the vicinity of these boxes.”

14. “The truth is, according to Joe Biden, that the Swamp has created the ‘most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics – and it centers around ballot trafficking.’”

As Reuters noted of the Biden quote cited by Trump here: “It was a slip of the tongue - Biden was describing the voter protection program his campaign has launched in anticipation of potential legal fights over the outcome of the Nov. 3 election against President Donald Trump.”

'The claims of fraud were bulls**t!': Former AG Barr slams Trump's election fraud claims 02:34 - Source: CNN

15. “It’s also highly likely that True the Vote did not uncover 100% of the mules, making the numbers much larger than a landslide in scope, and that there were many more mules out there affecting more of the Election than we realize. This was not a close Election.”

Joe Biden won more than 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million. So no, by recent measures it wasn’t a particularly close election. But I don’t think that’s what Trump means.

16. “Joe Biden, a candidate who never left his basement and can’t speak without a teleprompter, outperformed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their two high-charged elections.”

In terms of raw vote totals, that’s true. Biden’s 81 million votes is more than either Clinton or Obama received. But, in both 2008 (365) and 2012 (332), Obama received more electoral votes than Biden.

17. “Either there’s a lot of black voters in America who identify more with Joe Biden than Barack Obama, or Democrats are stealing black votes – and we all know the answer to that.”

Before this line, Trump cites a handful of majority-Black counties and areas where Biden did better in 2020 than Obama did in 2008 or 2012. That fact is proof positive of fraud, according to Trump. Of course, it’s not. First of all, the population, in the Black community and elsewhere, grew between 2008 and 2020, meaning that there were just more voters to be had for Biden than for Obama. Also, and I am just spitballing here, isn’t it possible that the desire to vote Trump out of office was a powerful motivator for lots and lots of Black voters?

18. “Mark Zuckerberg contributed $419 million dollars to election initiatives around the country.”

Trump is suggesting here that Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that Democrats won the 2020 election. The only thing he gets right though is the amount of money Zuckerberg spent. Trump would do well to read this Protocol piece headlined “How ‘Zuck Bucks’ saved the 2020 election — and fueled the Big Lie.”

19. “Zuckerberg should be criminally prosecuted. Election laws prevent individuals from donating more than $5,000 per year, yet Zuckerberg gave $419 million.”

Again, Trump is simply wrong about what Zuckerberg did in the 2020 election. As Protocol notes: “He offered grants to any election official who wanted one, so long as they spent it on what a lot of people would consider mundane essentials that make it easier and safer for everyone to vote: ballot sorters, drop boxes, poll workers and — because it was 2020 — hand sanitizer.”

18. “Rumors circulated that the Justices devolved to shouting and argued intensely over how to handle the Texas v. Pennsylvania case. Ultimately, the Justices yielded to the same fear mongering tactics Democrats had deployed for years. They punted and threw the case out on standing.”

As CNN reported of the election fraud case brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: “The court’s order, issued with no public dissents, to dismiss the challenge is the strongest indication yet that Trump has no chance of overturning election results in court, and that even the justices whom he placed there have no interest in allowing his desperate legal bids to continue.” No public dissents. So, yeah.

19. “But, the Swamp runs deep. I guess that turning around an election was a step too far.”

Yes, I would say overturning an election was a “step too far.”

20. “Americans are struggling to fill their gas tanks, feed their babies, educate their children, hire employees, order supplies, protect our border from invasion, and a host of other tragedies that are 100% caused by Democrats who obtained power through a rigged election, and the people of our country are both angry and sad.”

This sentence is 53 words long. Yup.

21. “Nobody brings this up, but as President, I suffered years of vicious lies, scandals, and innuendo concerning a fake and contrived narrative of Russia, Russia, Russia.”

Allow me to quote from the Mueller Report: “(I)f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” reads the Mueller report. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. … Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

22. “This is merely an attempt to stop a man that is leading in every poll, against both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins, from running again for the Presidency.”

So, is Trump saying he is running for president again in 2024? Big news! Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.

What's in the Jan. 6 committee's report summary | CNN Politics

CNN —

The full report was published December 22, 2021. Read here.

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has concluded that former President Donald Trump was ultimately responsible for the insurrection, laying out for the public and the Justice Department a trove of evidence for why he should be prosecuted for multiple crimes.

“That evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” the committee writes in a summary of its final report released on Monday. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

The summary describes in extensive detail how Trump tried to overpower, pressure and cajole anyone who wasn’t willing to help him overturn his election defeat – while knowing that many of his schemes were unlawful. His relentless arm-twisting included election administrators in key states, senior Justice Department leaders, state lawmakers, and others. The report even suggests possible witness tampering with the committee’s investigation.

The committee repeatedly uses forceful language to describe Trump’s intent: that he “purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud” in order to aid his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to successfully solicit about $250 million in political contributions. “These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th.”

The full report, based on 1,000-plus interviews, documents collected including emails, texts, phone records and a year and a half of investigation by the nine-member bipartisan committee, will be released Wednesday, along with along with transcripts and other materials collected in the investigation.

Here’s what’s in the report summary:

The committee thinks Trump and others committed crimes, and is referring them to DOJ

The House committee lays out a number of criminal statutes it believes were violated in the plots to stave off Trump’s defeat and says there’s evidence for criminal referrals to the Justice Department for Trump, Trump attorney John Eastman and “others.”

The report summary says there’s evidence to pursue Trump on multiple crimes, including obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make false statements, assisting or aiding an insurrection, conspiring to injure or impede an officer and seditious conspiracy.

Former President Donald Trump and John Eastman

The committee says it also has the evidence to refer Eastman on the obstruction charge, and it names him as a co-conspirator in other alleged criminal activity lawmakers have gathered evidence on.

In addition, several others are named as being participants in the conspiracies the committee is linking to Trump, including then-DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, as well as Trump-tied lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Rudy Giuliani.

The committee alluded to evidence of criminal obstruction of the House investigation but the summary does not go into detail about that evidence.

Several of the individuals named by the committee – including Trump, Eastman and Giuliani – had their own responses Monday.

Trump’s false victory declaration was ‘premeditated’

The committee outlines 17 findings from its investigation that underpin its reasoning for criminal referrals, including that Trump knew the fraud allegations he was pushing were false and continued to amplify them anyway.

“President Trump’s decision to declare victory falsely on election night and, unlawfully, to call for the vote counting to stop, was not a spontaneous decision. It was premeditated,” the summary states.

The committee revealed emails from Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, from before the 2020 presidential election that say Trump should declare victory regardless of the outcome.

It also notes that Trump’s top allies, including those who testified before the committee, acknowledged they found no proof to back up the former president’s claims.

“Ultimately, even Rudolph Giuliani and his legal team acknowledged that they had no definitive evidence of election fraud sufficient to change the election outcome,” the summary states, referring to Trump’s then-personal attorney.

“For example, although Giuliani repeatedly had claimed in public that Dominion voting machines stole the election, he admitted during his Select Committee deposition that ‘I do not think the machines stole the election,’” it states.

Trump’s belief that the election is stolen is no excuse, lawmakers say

Sources familiar with Trump’s legal strategy in the Justice Department probe have told CNN that his attorneys believe prosecutors face an uphill battle in proving he did not believe the election was stolen despite being told as much by senior members of his own administration.

In making its case for a Justice Department prosecution of Trump, the House committee took aim at that possible defense.

In describing why the committee believes Trump’s conduct meet the prongs of each criminal statute, the summary stresses evidence that Trump had been warned that his schemes were unlawful.

Trump raised about $250 million by crying fraud

The committee says it gathered evidence indicating that Trump “raised roughly one quarter of a billion dollars in fundraising efforts between the election and January 6th. Those solicitations persistently claimed and referred to election fraud that did not exist.”

“For example, the Trump Campaign, along with the Republican National Committee, sent millions of emails to their supporters, with messaging claiming that the election was ‘rigged,’ that their donations could stop Democrats from ‘trying to steal the election,’ and that Vice President Biden would be an ‘illegitimate president’ if he took office,’” the summary states.

Several members of Congress are being referred to the House Ethics Committee

The select committee is referring several Republican lawmakers who refused to cooperate with the investigation to the House Ethics Committee.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters at the US Capitol in Washington in November. Michael A. McCoy/Reuters

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona, could all face possible sanctions for their refusal to comply with committee subpoenas.

Concerns about witness credibility and Trump-allied attorneys

The committee raised concerns that attorneys paid by Trump’s political committee or allied groups were incentivized to protect the former president, saying, “lawyers who are receiving such payments have specific incentives to defend President Trump rather than zealously represent their own clients. The Department of Justice and the Fulton County District Attorney have been provided with certain information related to this topic.”

In one instance, a witness whose lawyer was being paid by a Trump-allied group was told she could “in certain circumstances, tell the Committee that she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them.” When the witness raised concerns with her lawyer about that approach, the lawyer said, “They don’t know what you know, [witness]. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things. So you saying ‘I don’t recall’ is an entirely acceptable response to this,” according to the report summary.

When it came to a specific issue that reflected negatively on Trump, the lawyer told his client, “No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.”

The committee notes both Trump and his allies attempted to contact witnesses ahead of their committee testimony.

“The Select Committee is aware of multiple efforts by President Trump to contact Select Committee witnesses. The Department of Justice is aware of at least one of those circumstances,” according to the summary.

Ivanka Trump and Kayleigh McEnany

The committee also, in its final report, highlighted two high-profile witnesses – Ivanka Trump and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany – as being less cooperative than others. They and others “displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or were not otherwise as frank or direct as Cipollone.”

A video of Ivanka Trump is shown on screen during the seventh hearing held by the committee on July 12. Doug Mills/The New York Times/Pool/Getty Images

In another instance, Trump had an angry conversation with Pence in which he referred to the then-vice president as “The P word,” according to a committee interview with Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, Julie Radford.

In Radford’s recollection, the name-calling was upsetting to Ivanka at the time, but when the committee asked Ivanka whether there were any “particular words” her father used in the conversation with Pence, “She answered simply: ‘No.’”

The summary states: “In several circumstances, the Committee has found that less senior White House aides had significantly better recollection of events than senior staff purported to have.”

As for McEnany, the committee called her testimony “evasive, as if she was testifying from pre-prepared talking points,” noting she was deposed early in the investigation and wasn’t as forthcoming as others from Trump’s press office.

Impropriety by Trump Justice Department officials

The report points the finger at two Trump appointees at the Justice Department who the committee believes abused their positions and acted unethically.

Clark, the former acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, is already well known for trying to weaponize the Justice Department to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. The committee raises the prospect that Clark broke the law. The Justice Department is already investigating Clark and federal agents have searched his home.

Jeffrey Clark, speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington in September 2020. Susan Walsh/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

One of the most egregious things Clark did was draft a letter for the Justice Department to send to election officials in battleground states, urging them to essentially overturn their results. The letter, crafted with help from fellow Trump appointee Ken Klukowski, falsely asserted that the department believed there were problems with the results.

“This was an intentional choice by Jeff Clark to contradict specific Department findings on election fraud, and purposely insert the Department into the Presidential election on President Trump’s behalf and risk creating or exacerbating a constitutional crisis,” the summary states.

In a new development, the panel flagged its concerns about Klukowski’s conduct.

He worked for the Trump campaign before joining the Justice Department during the final weeks of the administration. And while at the department’s civil division, he spent some of his time helping Clark with his attempts to overturn the election, “despite the fact that election-related matters are not part of the Civil portfolio,” the summary says.

Trump and others may try this again, committee warns

The summary’s section outlining the referrals makes a case for why the Justice Department’s prosecutions should extend beyond the rioters who physically breached the Capitol.

The committee says that Trump “believed then, and continues to believe now, that he is above the law, not bound by our Constitution and its explicit checks on Presidential authority.”

“If President Trump and the associates who assisted him in an effort to overturn the lawful outcome of the 2020 election are not ultimately held accountable under the law, their behavior may become a precedent and invitation to danger for future elections,” the summary says. “A failure to hold them accountable now may ultimately lead to future unlawful efforts to overturn our elections, thereby threatening the security and viability of our Republic.”

The summary revisits Trump’s infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where he begged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to nullify Biden’s victory in the state. The summary also highlights that Trump doxed the leader of the Michigan Senate by tweeting out his cell phone number after he publicly said he wouldn’t undermine the election results.

Lawmakers also highlighted the plight of former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who previously testified about the abuse they suffered when Giuliani and others in pro-Trump circles falsely accused them of rigging the results in Atlanta.

Like Freeman and Moss, other officials who faced Trump’s ire received death and rape threats and an avalanche of phone calls and emails, and some of them feared for their safety.

Pardon requests show that Trump allies knew they were in possible legal jeopardy

The evidence that Trump allies sought pardons as the administration drew to a close shows that they knew their conduct was legally problematic, the committee argues.

The summary points to previously public accounts of pardon requests from members of Congress, while providing new details of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz’s alleged attempt for a pardon, which had been discussed in the public committee testimony of ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

CNN previously reported that the McEntee testimony linked Gaetz’s pardon request to a separate DOJ probe; Hutchinson, however, said Gaetz and others asked “blanket” pardons for participants at a meeting where election-related schemes were discussed.

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies knew of threats of violence on January 6, but information didn’t get through

The summary of the report lays out how the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies were receiving information that January 6 was likely to be violent and shared that information with the White House and US Secret Service.

For example, on January 3, 2021, Department of Justice officials received an intelligence summary of plans to “occupy the Capitol” and “invade” the Capitol on January 6. According to testimony from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist predicted on a National Security Council call that the Capitol could be the target of violence.

“I’ll never forget it,” Milley said in testimony revealed by the committee.

The panel suggests former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato failed to adequately serve as the intermediary between the intelligence community and the White House when it came to security updates ahead of January 6.

“Ornato had access to intelligence that suggested violence at the Capitol on January 6th, and it was his job to inform Meadows and Trump of that. Although Ornato told us that he did not recall doing so, the Select Committee found multiple parts of Ornato’s testimony questionable,” the panel wrote.

The head of Trump’s security detail, Bobby Engel, testified to the committee that he shared critical information with Ornato as a means to convey messages to the White House.

Ornato confirmed Engel’s understanding of information sharing, but when pressed on whether he talked to Meadows about concerns of the threat landscape going into January 6 said, “I don’t recall; however, in my position I would’ve made sure he was tracking the demos, which he received a daily brief, Presidential briefing. So he most likely was getting all this in his daily brief as well.”

Hope Hicks, former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, displayed on a screen during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Dec. 19, 2022. The committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection will complete its 17-month probe with votes on recommendations for the first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president, with offenses including insurrection. Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Aides urged Trump to call for peaceful protests

Staffers close to Trump told the committee they tried to get the then-president to act preemptively to quell concerns about January 6.

Hope Hicks, Trump’s former communications director, texted spokesman Hogan Gidley as the violence was unfolding on January 6 that she had “suggested…several times” on January 4 and 5 that Trump should publicly state that January 6 remain peaceful. Hicks also testified that Herschmann advised Trump to make a preemptive public statement ahead of January 6 calling for there to be no violence that day. No such statement was ever made.

By the time of Trump’s rally on January 6, the committee says testimony it received indicates that the former president had received a security briefing and that the Secret Service mentioned that there were prohibited items being confiscated from individuals trying to attend.

Motorcade incident proves Trump’s intent to participate in overturning the election

The committee highlights Trump’s frustration with not being taken to the Capitol on January 6 as evidence that he intended to participate in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“The Committee’s principal concern was that the President actually intended to participate personally in the January 6th efforts at the Capitol, leading the attempt to overturn the election either from inside the House Chamber, from a stage outside the Capitol, or otherwise,” the summary of the report reads. “There is no question from all the evidence assembled that President Trump did have that intent.”

The report details that the panel was ultimately unable to get Ornato to corroborate a bombshell moment during the public hearings, in which Hutchinson recalled Ornato describing Trump’s altercation with the head of his security detail when he was told he would not be taken to the Capitol. The committee summary said both Hutchinson and a White House employee testified to the committee about the Ornato conversation. But “Ornato professed that he did not recall either communication, and that he had no knowledge at all about the President’s anger.”

Ultimately, the committee writes that it “has significant concerns about the credibility of this testimony” and vows to release his transcript publicly. Ornato did not recall conveying the information to Hutchinson or a White House employee with national security responsibilities, according to the report.

“The Committee is skeptical of Ornato’s account.”

The panel writes that it has obtained evidence from “several sources about a ‘furious interaction’ in the SUV.” The panel cites multiple members of the Secret Service, a member of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police and national security officials in the White House who described Trump’s behavior as “irate,” “furious,” “insistent,” “profane” and “heated.”

The driver of Trump’s motorcade on January 6 testified to the committee:

Trump’s former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump continued to push to travel to the Capitol even after he returned to the White House.

“So to the best of my recollection, I recall him being – wanting to saying that he wanted to physically walk and be a part of the march and then saying that he would ride the Beast if he needed to, ride in the Presidential limo,” McEnany said.

Another intent the committee’s report summary seeks to prove is that Trump’s call to his supporters to go the Capitol during his rally speech was pre-planned.

For example, the committee notes that January 6 rally organizer Kylie Kremer texted MyPIllow CEO Mike Lindell, “This stays only between us. … It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”

Trump refused to act as riot unfolded

The committee lays out Trump’s failure to act as the riot unfolded, noting that as he watched the riot on television, he made no calls for security assistance and resisted efforts from staffers asking him to call off his supporters.

“President Trump did not contact a single top national security official during the day. Not at the Pentagon, nor at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the F.B.I., the Capitol Police Department, or the D.C. Mayor’s office,” the committee writes. “As Vice President Pence has confirmed, President Trump didn’t even try to reach his own Vice President to make sure that Pence was safe.”

Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee he had this reaction to Trump, “You know, you’re the Commander in Chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America. And there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?”

Trump did, however, take the time to reach out to his attorney.

White House staffers, meantime, described being appalled that as the Capitol was under attack, Trump fired off a tweet criticizing Pence.

Hicks texted a colleague that night to say, “Attacking the VP? Wtf is wrong with him,” according to the committee’s summary report.

“No photographs exist of the President for the remainder of the afternoon until after 4 p.m. President Trump appears to have instructed that the White House photographer was not to take any photographs,” the committee writes, citing testimony from former White House photographer Shealah Craighead.

In the aftermath, on the evening of January 6, Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale told Katrina Pierson, one of the rally organizers, that that he felt guilty helping Trump win, the report states..

The events of the day, Parscale said, resulted from “a sitting president asking for civil war.”

GOP lawmakers called for help

The committee also highlights real-time reactions from Republican members of Congress who have since downplayed the Capitol attack or defended Trump.

Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner described House GOP leader McCarthy as “scared” as McCarthy reached out to members of Trump’s family for help during the riot.

In a text to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol Please tell the President to calm people This isn’t the way to solve anything,” according to the summary.

FILE - Violent rioters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. John Minchillo/AP

Trump’s reaction upon finding out the Capitol had been attacked: ‘Oh really?’

The committee reveals a conversation Trump had with a White House employee upon returning to the White House after his speech on January 6. Trump’s actions and conversations from when he returned to the White House to when he called off the rioters, referred to famously as the 187 minutes, continues to have huge gaps of information.

He asked the White House employee – whose identity the panel kept anonymous “to guard against the risk of retaliation” – if they had watched his rally speech on television. The White House employee responded, “Sir, they cut it off because they’re rioting down at the Capitol.”

When Trump asked what they meant, the employee repeated:

The committee says DOJ has tools to get more information

The summary acknowledges the roadblocks the House committee ran into in its investigation and says the Justice Department has the tools – such as grand jury subpoena power – to knock down those obstacles.

The summary also notes the invocations of privilege made by former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone that prevented the committee from learning details about direct conversations with Trump. But the panels appears optimistic that a recent, under-seal court victory the DOJ secured will allow prosecutors to obtain that testimony from Cipollone.

“Based on the information it has obtained, the Committee believes that Cipollone and others can provide direct testimony establishing that President Trump refused repeatedly, for multiple hours, to make a public statement directing his violent and lawless supporters to leave the Capitol,” the summary says.

More than 30 witnesses before the select committee exercised their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused, on that basis, to provide testimony. They included individuals central to the investigation, such as Eastman, Clark, Chesebro, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and others.

Tierney Sneed Sara Murray Zachary Cohen Annie Grayer Marshall Cohen

Biden in speech warns Trump and his closest followers are trying to ...

CNN —

President Joe Biden delivered his sharpest rebuke yet of Republicans and their fealty to his predecessor in an evening speech in Philadelphia on Thursday, alleging they “thrive on chaos” and warning their attempts to undermine democracy could devolve into violence.

“They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies,” Biden said in front of a red-lit Independence Hall, harnessing the historic setting to call for a reckoning on the movement led by former President Donald Trump.

It was a strident and urgent call to Americans months ahead of midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. Biden’s remarks, while billed as an official address, provided the broad contours of his election message heading into the fall.

Even as he worked to balance a dose of optimism about the country’s future – and his own string of recent accomplishments – Biden painted a dark portrait of his political opponents, saying Trump and his followers are threatening the entire American experiment. He named his predecessor within minutes of taking the stage, and suggested Americans faced an existential choice in the coming elections.

“As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” Biden said. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.”

Biden attempted to separate Trump’s most loyal followers from the Republican Party as a whole. And as he concluded, he sought to strike a more upbeat note, saying it was still within voters’ power to rein in the nation’s darkest forces.

But the heart of Biden’s address was a ringing alarm bell about what he called “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards. Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy. No right to contraception, no right to marry who you love,” he said, striking on cultural issues Democrats believe can help them win in November.

“They promote authoritarian leaders,” he went on. “They fanned the flames of political violence.”

After tearing into Republicans for what he calls “MAGA extremism” and “semi-fascism” over the past week, administration officials say Biden determined the time was right to provide a more serious, sober reckoning on what he regards as growing anti-democratic forces building across the country.

Officials insisted Biden’s message wasn’t partisan and instead targeted to an extreme wing of the GOP. Still, he called on his audience to go to the polls in November and lashed into his predecessor, backed by traditionally apolitical symbols like the United States Marine Band and two Marines who were positioned in a spot where they were on camera throughout the speech.

“We must be honest with each other and with ourselves: Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” Biden said. The Republican Party of 2022 is partly “dominated, driven and intimidated” by Trump and his acolytes, he said.

Watch President Joe Biden's full prime-time address 24:04 - Source: CNN

It’s a topic Biden has come to embrace more publicly in recent months after initially attempting to ignore the after-effects of his predecessor and focus instead on national unity. At its core, the speech represented the same overarching theme that defined the launch of his presidential campaign in 2019 as he set out to defeat Trump.

It remained a constant through high profile speeches in locations rife with historical symbolism, including Warm Springs, Georgia, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The prime-time remarks was no different, this time with the site of the nation’s revolutionary beginning as the backdrop.

A crowd of about 300 invited guests – a mix of elected officials and dignitaries, along with Democratic supporters – watched Biden speak from behind panes of bulletproof glass. It was a short distance away from where Biden formally announced his bid for the presidency in 2019, striking similar themes about the “battle for the soul of the nation.”

White House officials emphasized ahead of time that when Biden warns of the threat to democracy, he is not talking about Republicans as a whole, but those who style themselves after Trump: the “MAGA Republicans,” as the administration has deemed them.

Ahead of the speech, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said Biden was dividing the nation.

“Joe Biden is the divider-in-chief and epitomizes the current state of the Democrat Party: one of divisiveness, disgust, and hostility towards half the country,” she said in a statement.

Biden had been mulling a thematic speech about American democracy for several months, spurred in part by the revealing hearings convened by the congressional committee investigating the January 6 riot, according to an official. He has also watched with alarm as election deniers running for statewide office have been elevated by Trump and was outraged by the attempted attack on an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In his remarks, Biden said forces on the right were stoking political violence, insisting it was “inflammatory and dangerous.”

“We, the people must say this is not who we are,” he said.

Biden looks to seize the moment

While Biden underestimated when the “fever will break” when it came to the GOP’s ties to Trump, the last several weeks have brought into sharp focus that many of the campaign pledges that seemed just as unrealistic – from major bipartisan deals to substantial investments in the manufacturing, climate and health care – have, in fact, been signed into law.

The convergence of factors has created a genuine sense inside the West Wing that the political winds are changing just as Americans start to tune in ahead of the midterm elections. It has also had a dramatic effect on the White House itself, where months of intraparty warfare, a resurgent and ever-present Covid-19 pandemic and a myriad of crises many aides viewed as outside of their control appear to have finally turned their way.

Even Biden, who revels in telling the story of the doctor who called him “a congenital optimist,” wasn’t immune from a sense of gloom and occasional doom that hung over the West Wing for months.

“He could get pretty dark,” said one person who spoke regularly to Biden said of his view of things toward the end of his first year in office. “It’s not his way, but there was a period there” when Biden’s mood reflected that of the exhausted country he led.

Yet the shifting winds this summer coincided with Trump’s major re-emergence into the national spotlight. Republican politicians and candidates running entire campaigns based on false claims of fraudulent elections have only become more prevalent.

As the midterm campaign season kicks into high gear, convergence of factors created an ideal moment for Biden to lay out what has long been on his mind, officials say.

“The President felt that this was an appropriate time before the traditional campaign season begins next week to lay out what he sees at stake, not for any individual political party, but for our democracy itself,” a senior administration official said.

A rare prime-time speech shows Biden’s focus on democracy

Biden worked for several days with his speechwriters on drafts of the 20- to 30-minute address, poring over the precise language and wording. The President typically rehearses his major addresses beforehand and his schedule was clear of public events on Wednesday and Thursday as he prepared.

Biden has delivered only a smattering of speeches in prime-time over the course of his presidency, including his yearly addresses to Congress and remarks on gun violence earlier this summer. Aides said the President felt the topic was serious enough to address the nation in the evening – and ask television networks to interrupt their regular programming (though the broadcast networks declined to air the President’s remarks).

White House officials have said they want to be selective in when and where to address the issues surrounding the erosion of democracy, even though many party activists have clamored for more sustained focus on the issue. The issue itself is one that consumes much of Biden’s own thinking, those close to him say – something can spill into the public sphere during the rare moments he engages in a substantive way with reporters.

But choosing the right moment to address them on a major national scale, Biden’s team believes, will prevent the issue from becoming rote and routine for voters. Biden, officials note, has had no qualms about that strategy.

‘Semi fascism’ comment draws ire, but White House won’t back down

Biden’s newly aggressive rhetoric has drawn howls of protest from Republicans. When he accused followers of Trump of “semi-fascism” at a fundraiser last week, the response was swift.

“Horribly insulting,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican who has not aligned himself with Trump. “He’s trying to stir up controversy, he’s trying to stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election, it’s just – it’s horribly inappropriate.”

At least one Democrat in a tight reelection race also distanced herself from Biden’s remark; Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire said Biden “painted with way too broad a brush” when he uttered the comment.

While officials describe Biden’s message as urgent, it remains to be seen whether voters facing high prices and an uncertain economy will respond to his warnings about the state of democracy.

Yet recent polls have shown concerns about democracy rising among voters. An NBC poll conducted in August found “threats to democracy” rose to the No. 1 issue facing the country, surpassing “cost of living.” And a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found 67% of respondents think the nation’s democracy is in danger of collapse, a 9-point increase from January.

Unplanned – but not entirely unwelcome – for the White House has been the ongoing developments over Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a matter the White House has officially kept at arm’s length to avoid the appearance of politicization.

Still, the reminder to voters of the chaos that surrounded Trump’s presidency has been privately gratifying to some Democrats, who believe it presents a stark contrast to Biden’s way of doing business.

“It’s like the chaos was memory-holed because of the 50 million other things going on,” one Democratic official with close ties to the White House said.

Biden “will never make it about Trump alone – he views it as so much bigger than that and probably, to some degree, beneath him,” the official said. “But I think most in our party appreciate the very clear contrast now that he’s back in the headlines.”

This story has been updated with additional developments on Thursday.

Kevin Liptak Phil Mattingly Kaitlan Collins

7 takeaways from the January 6 hearing | CNN Politics

CNN —

The House select committee’s final hearing on the Capitol Hill insurrection before the midterm elections Thursday used new testimony and evidence to demonstrate how former President Donald Trump knew he had lost the election but still went forward with efforts to overturn the results, leading to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The committee’s hearing used new records obtained from the Secret Service and new deposition footage from former Trump Cabinet secretaries and White House officials to bolster the argument that Trump still remains a danger to democracy heading into the 2024 election.

Here are the takeaways from the committee’s latest January 6 hearing:

Committee votes to subpoena former President

The committee voted Thursday to subpoena Trump for documents and testimony, marking an escalation in the panel’s efforts to obtain testimony from the former President.

The committee’s leaders argued that Trump was at the center of efforts to overturn the 2020 election that led to the violence of the insurrection, and as a result they needed Trump’s testimony to tell the complete story of January 6.

“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” said Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s top Republican. “And every American is entitled to the answers, so we can act now to protect our republic.”

And select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, argued that Trump “is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6th. So we want to hear from him.”

Of course, the panel is issuing the subpoena nearing the end of recognition as a select committee, which is likely an acknowledgment that Trump is not going to comply. Should Trump object to the subpoena, it could lead to a lengthy court fight that outlives the committee.

That’s because if Republicans take back control of the House, which they’re favored to do, the January 6 committee as it’s currently constructed will cease to exist – giving the panel less than three months to issue a final report of its findings.

Still, the subpoena marks a notable escalation in taking on Trump directly. While it’s not unprecedented, congressional subpoenas to sitting or former presidents are rare. And if Trump does buck the subpoena, it would allow the committee to proclaim that it made a formal attempt to get Trump to talk to panelists, only to see him to refuse.

Panel airs new footage of congressional leaders scrambling to respond from Fort McNair

The committee aired previously unseen footage from Fort McNair, the DC-area Army base where congressional leaders took refuge during the insurrection and scrambled to respond to the unfolding crisis.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said during the hearing that the footage highlights how Trump administration officials and congressional leaders worked around Trump to put down the riot that he had incited. By showing these behind-the-scenes clips, the committee delivered on its promise to present new material from January 6 to the public.

The footage shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top officials working the phones and coordinating with Trump Cabinet members and other officials to secure the resources needed to quell the insurrection and secure the Capitol.

The footage also showed two phone calls between Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who took on an impromptu leadership role on January 6, coordinating the emergency response.

The new footage showed Schumer dressing down then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. During their heated phone call, Schumer implored Rosen to intervene directly with Trump, and tell Trump to call off the mob. During the call, Pelosi told Rosen that the pro-Trump rioters were “breaking the law… at the instigation of the President of the United States.”

During the hearing, the panel labeled the footage as showing lawmakers at an “undisclosed location.” It has been public knowledge since January 6, 2021, that senior congressional leaders from both parties took refuge at Fort McNair, while the Capitol was overrun.

CNN has obtained additional footage from Fort McNair that wasn’t shown by the committee. The exclusive footage will air on CNN on Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET, during a special edition of “Anderson Cooper 360°.” The footage shows congressional leaders, after evacuating from the Capitol, gathering at Fort McNair working the phones, trying to figure out what was going on at the overrun Capitol, and begging for help as they frantically scrambled to quell the insurrection.

Public hears from Elaine Chao interview

Elaine Chao, who resigned from her post as Trump’s secretary of Transportation a day after the insurrection, spoke in personal terms about her disgust toward the attack when she testified to the committee.

“I think the events at the Capitol, however they occurred, were shocking and it was something that, as I mentioned in my statement, that I could not put aside,” said Chao, one of the former members of Trump’s Cabinet whose recorded testimony lawmakers aired on Thursday.

“And at a particular point, the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy. I came as an immigrant to this country. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in democracy. And so I was – it was a decision that I made on my own,” she said.

CNN reported in August that Chao, who is also the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, had met with the committee. But after condemning the attack in her resignation letter in early 2021, Chao has largely stayed out of the national spotlight, with her recent comments to the committee providing fresh insight into her thinking on the deadly attack.

Hutchinson says Trump knew he lost

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, provided new testimony to the committee relaying anecdotes of Trump acknowledging he had lost the election.

Hutchinson’s testimony had been some of the most damning against Trump during the summer hearings, as she provided detailed accounts about Trump’s actions on the day of January 6.

On Thursday, the committee showed new video deposition from Hutchinson where she spoke to Meadows about Trump’s January 2021 call where he urged the Georgia secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to win.

“I remember looking at Mark, and I said ‘Mark, he can’t possibly think we’re going to pull this off. Like, that call was crazy.’ And he looked at me and just started shaking his head. And he’s like, ‘No, Cass, you know, he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying,’” Hutchinson told the committee.

Hutchinson also said that she witnessed a conversation between Meadows and Trump where he was furious the Supreme Court had rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the election result.

“The President said … something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost,’” Hutchinson said.

Committee reveals new info obtained from Secret Service

In roughly three months since the last January 6 committee hearing, the panel has obtained more than 1 million records from the Secret Service, and the panel revealed some of what they learned during Thursday’s hearing.

While there are still questions surrounding erased text messages from Secret Service agents around the insurrection, the panel obtained messages and emails showing the agency receiving warnings before January 6, 2021, about the prospect of violence, as well as real-time reports of weapons in the crowd ahead of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.

Days before January Trump’s communication adviser, Jason Miller, boasted to Meadows that he “got the base FIRED UP,” and shared a link to a pro-Trump webpage containing hundreds of threatening comments about killing lawmakers if they went ahead with certifying Joe Biden’s legitimate electoral victory, according to a new text message the panel showed Thursday.

“I got the base FIRED UP,” Miller texted Meadows on December 30, 2020, appearing to take credit for amplifying the violent rhetoric about January 6 that was circulating on the pro-Trump website The Donald dot win.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said in Thursday’s hearing that that the Secret Service received alerts of online threats made against Vice President Mike Pence ahead of the Capitol insurrection, including that Pence would be “‘a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing.’”

On January 6, one Secret Service agent texted at 12:36 p.m., according to the committee, “With so many weapons found so far; you wonder how many are unknown. Could be sporty after dark.”

Another agent responded minutes later, “No doubt. The people at the Ellipse said they are moving to the Capitol after the POTUS speech.”

Trump planned to declare victory no matter what the election results were

The committee also revealed new evidence Thursday that Trump had devised a plan, well before any votes were counted, to declare victory no matter what the election results were.

“It was a premeditated plan by the President to declare victory no matter what the actual result was,” committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren said during Thursday’s hearing. “We also interviewed Brad Parscale, President Trump’s former campaign manager. He told us he understood that President Trump planned as early as July that he would say he won the election, even if he lost,” she added.

The committee played previously unseen video from its deposition of Pence’s counsel, Greg Jacob. In the clip, Jacob describes how he and Pence’s then-chief of staff Marc Short had prepared, ahead of time, for Trump to declare victory on Election Night, regardless of the results.

After their conversation on November 3, 2020, Jacob drafted a memo to Short, which the committee said it obtained from the National Archives and presented for the first time on Thursday.

“It is essential that the Vice President not be perceived by the public as having decided questions concerning disputed electoral votes prior to the full development of all relevant facts,” the memo reads.

The committee also revealed new emails conservative legal activist Tom Fitton sent to two Trump advisers a few days before the election. One email contains a draft statement for Trump to declare victory on Election Night.

Noticeably absent

One person whose testimony was noticeably absent from Thursday’s hearing was Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Committee members interviewed Ginni Thomas last month but ultimately her testimony was not featured as part of the panel’s last hearing before the midterm election.

Despite saying for months that they wanted to hear from Thomas, members of the panel downplayed the significance of her testimony following her interview, and it was clear ahead of Thursday that she was not expected to be a central part of the hearing that was instead solely focused on Trump.

But her absence was notable considering the panel did use testimony from several other high-profile witnesses who had been interviewed since the committee’s most recent hearing earlier this summer.

And while the committee did play video from its depositions with Trump Cabinet members, the 25th Amendment was not mentioned.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Jeremy Herb Zachary Cohen Marshall Cohen Devan Cole

CNN Exclusive: New text messages reveal Fox's Hannity advising ...

Washington CNN —

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Fox’s Sean Hannity exchanged more than 80 text messages between Election Day 2020 and Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration, communications that show Hannity’s evolution from staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump’s election lies to being “fed up” with the “lunatics” hurting Trump’s cause in the days before January 6.

CNN obtained Meadows’ 2,319 text messages, which he selectively provided in December to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. While the logs show Meadows communicating with multiple Fox personalities, as well as a number of journalists from other organizations, Hannity stands out with 82 messages. The texts, including dozens of newly disclosed messages, offer a real-time window into how Hannity, a close friend of Trump, was reacting to the election and its aftermath.

'That's not OK': Bash reacts to Hannity's texts to Mark Meadows 01:43 - Source: CNN

Throughout the logs, Hannity both gives advice and asks for direction, blurring the lines between his Fox show, his radio show and the Trump White House.

On the afternoon of Election Day, Hannity texted Meadows at 1:36 p.m. to ask about turnout in North Carolina. Two hours later, Meadows responded: “Stress every vote matters. Get out and vote. On radio.”

“Yes sir,” Hannity replied. “On it. Any place in particular we need a push.”

“Pennsylvania. NC AZ,” Meadows wrote, adding: “Nevada.”

“Got it. Everywhere,” Hannity said.

The texts also show the two men debating Trump’s strategy to challenge the election, complaining about Fox, and plotting about what to do after Trump left office – including possibly working together.

“You also need to spend at least half your time doing business with us,” Hannity texted Meadows on December 12. “And I’m serious. Did u ever talk to Fox. I’ve been at war with them.”

“I agree. We can make a powerful team,” Meadows responded. “I did not talk with (Fox News CEO) Suzanne (Scott) because I got tied up with pardons but I will make sure I connect. You are a true patriot and I am so very proud of you! Your friendship means a great deal to me.”

“Feeling is mutual,” Hannity wrote back.

While Hannity did not respond to CNN’s invitation to comment on his text exchanges with Meadows, he appeared to address the matter Friday night on his Fox show.

“I’m on the Fox News channel, which is a news channel, but I don’t claim to be a journalist, I claim to be a talk show host. But I can produce thousands of hours of straight news, thousands of hours of investigative reporting,” Hannity said. “I’m upfront about who I am, I am a registered conservative. Yes, I voted for Donald Trump, I make no apologies. I give my opinion straightforward.”

Meadows and his lawyer did not respond to CNN, but according to a Friday night court filing, Meadows maintains that his texts “are devoid of any evidence that Mr. Meadows had any knowledge of, let alone any role whatsoever in, the untoward events at the Capitol.” The filing also states that the January 6 committee has used the texts Meadows has already handed over “to vilify him publicly through the media.”

Feeding the fraud conspiracies

Initially after the November 2020 election, Hannity appeared to be all in with Trump’s false election claims. On November 29, he texted Meadows saying he had his team trying to prove election fraud: “I’ve had my team digging into the numbers. There is no way Biden got these numbers. Just mathematically impossible. It’s so sad for this country they can pull this off in 2020. We need a major breakthrough, a video, something.”

Meadows responded, “You’re exactly right. Working on breakthrough.”

“Ok. Would be phenomenal,” Hannity texted back.

But several weeks later, as Trump’s team lost court challenges and the wild claims from attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell failed to materialize into anything more than false conspiracy theories, Hannity’s tone shifted.

Sean Hannity looks on as President Donald Trump holds a news conference after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, February 28, 2019. Leah Millis/Reuters

Hannity checked in with Meadows on December 22, asking him how he was doing.

“Fighting like crazy. Went to Cobb county to review process. Very tough days but I will keep fighting,” Meadows said, referring to the Trump team’s objections to votes from Cobb County, Georgia.

While Hannity never appeared to dispute Trump’s false claims about the election itself, he expressed alarm at the tactics of some of those pushing Trump’s case. Hannity responded to Meadows, “You fighting is fine. The fing lunatics is NOT fine. They are NOT helping him. I’m fed up with those people.”

By New Year’s Eve, Hannity warned about the fallout if top White House lawyers resigned in protest. Hannity also appeared to accept the fact that the election was over and the President’s best course of action was to go to Florida and engage Biden from there.

“We can’t lose the entire WH counsels office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told,” Hannity said. “After the 6 th. He should announce will lead the nationwide effort to reform voting integrity. Go to Fl and watch Joe mess up daily. Stay engaged. When he speaks people will listen.”

Prepping for a Trump interview

Hannity’s text messages to Meadows are of interest to the House select committee, which wrote to Hannity in January requesting an interview. That month, the panel released some of Hannity’s texts to Meadows showing his concern about what would happen on January 6, 2021.

After the letter was sent, Hannity’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, told CNN, “We are reviewing the committee’s letter and will respond as appropriate.”

The texts provide evidence of what many White House and Fox sources claimed during Trump’s time in office: That Hannity acted as a “shadow chief of staff” while also juggling radio and TV shows. Trump would frequently call into Hannity’s show – and Hannity appeared on stage with the President during his final 2018 campaign rally.

Supporters of President Donald Trump watch a video featuring Fox host Sean Hannity ahead of Trump's arrival to a campaign rally in Michigan on October 30, 2020. John Moore/Getty Images

While Hannity was fiercely loyal to Trump on-air, his off-air relationship was more complicated. He sometimes complained about Trump’s conduct and fretted that the President was hurting the Republican Party writ large.

See what Hannity said on his show vs. what he said privately about Jan. 6 03:13 - Source: CNN

Hannity has said he is not a journalist, and Fox does not hold him to traditional journalistic standards. He is more akin to a GOP activist and entertainer, like some of his fellow Fox hosts. In addition to Hannity, Fox’s Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo and Brian Kilmeade all sent messages to Meadows as well.

A spokesperson for Fox did not respond to a request for comment.

In one noteworthy text, Bartiromo messaged Meadows on the morning of November 29, less than an hour before she was set to conduct Trump’s first interview since Election Day. The text included questions she planned to ask Trump.

“Hi the public wants to know he will fight this. They want to hear a path to victory. & he’s in control,” Bartiromo texted at 9:21 a.m. “1Q You’ve said MANY TIMES THIS ELECTION IS RIGGED… And the facts are on your side. Let’s start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here. Then I will drill down on the fraud including the statistical impossibilities of Biden magic (federalist). Pls make sure he doesn’t go off on tangents. We want to know he is strong he is a fighter & he will win. This is no longer about him. This is about ????. I will ask him about big tech & media influencing ejection as well Toward end I’ll get to GA runoffs & then vaccines.”

Fox's Maria Bartiromo Fox News

At 10:12 a.m., Trump called into Bartiromo’s show, “Sunday Morning Futures.” Her line of questions mirrored much of what she laid out in the text message.

“Thank you for talking with us in the first interview since Election Day,” Bartiromo said. “Mr President, you’ve said many times that this election was rigged, that there was much fraud. And the facts are on your side. Let’s start there. Please go through the facts. Characterize what took place.”

The committee previously released texts from both Kilmeade and Ingraham expressing alarm over the attacks at the Capitol and its effect on Trump’s legacy. Tucker Carlson appears in only one exchange in the Meadows text logs, when he was trying to speak to Meadows while prepping for his show on November 17.

“Sorry I missed you. I was writing the show. Figured it out I think, but I appreciate it,” Carlson wrote.

The logs also show there were dozens of journalists from other organizations who texted with Meadows during this time period. In contrast to Hannity’s messages, these reporters were frequently seeking the White House chief of staff’s confirmation of breaking news or trying to secure an interview with Trump.

Meadows received texts from reporters with the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Politico, Bloomberg, NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN, among others.

‘I’m beginning to feel down’

As the returns were coming in on Election Night, Hannity pinged Meadows to share a tweet about early vote totals out of North Carolina, a state that was crucial to Trump’s reelection hopes. “Will we hold??” Hannity asked Meadows.

“We are still good,” Meadows wrote back.

A week later, Hannity checked in again to see how Meadows was “holding up.”

“I am doing well. Working around the clock. We are going to fight and win,” Meadows said.

“You really think it’s possible,” Hannity responded. “I’m beginning to feel down. To (sic) much disorganization. We need Jim to front the messaging. Someone that’s credible.”

“Arizona now down just 12813. Still ballots to count,” Meadows wrote back. “Very disorganized but I have been busting heads yesterday and today. Let NOT your heart be troubled my friend.”

Fox's Sean Hannity Fox News

Hannity and Meadows’ texts underscore the insular effects of the right-wing media echo chamber, where little if any accurate information about the election results was able to break through.

In November and early December, Hannity’s show often amplified Trump’s election lies. Guests including then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made near-nightly appearances to sow doubt about the election results and stoke support for doomed legal challenges. “We will follow the facts,” Hannity claimed on his December 2 program, one day after Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, declared there was no evidence of widespread election fraud.

But in his texts with Meadows, Hannity sounded resigned to the fact that the election was over.

“Texas case is very strong. Still a Herculean climb. Everyone knows it was stolen. Everyone,” Hannity wrote on December 8. “I vacillate between mad as hell and sad as hell. Wtf happened to our country Mark.”

Meadows responded, “So upset to see what we allowed to happen.”

“Honestly we think alike. That’s another discussion,” Hannity wrote back.

‘I’ve been at war with them all week’

The text messages also shed light on Hannity’s tensions with Fox. The Trump-aligned channel infuriated the former President by calling Arizona for Biden on Election Night.

On December 6, Meadows sent Hannity an article about then-Fox host Chris Wallace (who has since been hired by CNN) interrupting Trump’s HHS Secretary Alex Azar when Azar called Biden vice president instead of president-elect.

“Doing this to try and get ratings will not work in the long run and I am doubtful it is even a short term winning strategy,” Meadows wrote.

Hannity responded with a jab at Fox and a suggestion about what Meadows should do after leaving the White House: “I’ve been at war with them all week. We will talk wen I see u,” Hannity wrote. “Also if this doesn’t end the way we want, you me and Jay are doing 3 things together. 1- Directing legal strategies vs Biden 2- NC Real estate 3- Other business I talked to Rudy. Thx for helping him.”

Hannity expressed his frustrations again several days later, telling Meadows that he had made a campaign ad.

“I was screaming about no ads from Labor Day on,” Hannity wrote on December 8. “I made my own they never ran it. I’m not pointing fingers. I’m frustrated.”

In his book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” reporter Michael Bender reported that Hannity had scripted an ad for the Trump campaign, which then paid Fox more than $1 million to run. According to Bender, the ad ran only on one show, Hannity’s. When Bender’s book was published last year, Hannity denied writing a Trump campaign ad.

On December 11, Meadows asked Hannity to send him the phone number of Suzanne Scott, the Fox News CEO. “I can call through switchboard but that makes it a bigger deal,” Meadows said.

The next day, as Hannity pitched Meadows about working for Fox, he also offered an insightful window into how he views Trump. Hannity texted, “I truly feel sorry for our friend. He’s never had a days peace. On the other side of this, he’s exposed a very dark side of the swamp that’s far worse than I ever imagined and I am not particularly optimistic for the future.”

‘The seats are slipping away’

By mid-December, both Hannity and Meadows were concerned about the two Senate run-offs in Georgia that would decide control of the chamber in 2021. By that point, Trump had started his harsh attacks on Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for certifying the state’s election for Biden.

Hannity and Meadows also began making plans for after the Trump administration, discussing how Trump could fashion a comeback bid and how Meadows could work against the Biden administration.

“These 2 senate seats are slipping away. Kemp is a total idiot,” Hannity wrote on December 12.

Hannity argued that Trump should make the Senate race about him.

“He has to make this about him. I’ll make a deal with you, If you (elect) 2 R’s to the senate, I’ll run again in 2024,” Hannity wrote of Trump. “Make it about him. 2 of the worst candidates I’ve ever seen.”

“The seats are slipping away,” Meadows responded. “I agree that he has to give some hope for the future. Connect the future to these candidates.”

Meadows continued, “Additionally. I think we set up a group of administrative lawyers, with a communication arm that fights election laws in every state and fight Biden actions every day, starting on Jan 20. ACLU filed over 400 lawsuits against Trump administration. We need to do the same. I think I can raise around 10 million dollars to hire a team to make sure the fight continues and prepares the way for 2024.”

‘He can’t mention the election again. Ever.’

As January 6 approached, Hannity expressed his concern about what would transpire. He texted Meadows on January 5, “Im very worried about the next 48 hours. Pence pressure. WH counsel will leave.”

On January 6, after the Capitol was breached by pro-Trump rioters, Hannity was one of a number of people texting Meadows urging Trump to intervene. “Can he make a statement. I saw the tweet. Ask people to peacefully leave the capital,” Hannity texted Meadows at 3:31 p.m.

“On it,” Meadows responded.

Later that evening, after Trump had sent another tweet attacking Vice President Mike Pence, Hannity expressed more alarm to Meadows, “Wth (What the hell) is happening with VPOTUS.”

In the January 6 aftermath, Hannity sounded a glum note to Meadows as many Republicans looked to cast Trump out of the party. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell gave a floor speech on January 19 saying the mob was “provoked” by Trump, prompting Hannity to share the video with Meadows. “Well this is as bad as this can get,” Hannity texted.

Hannity spoke to Trump several days after January 6. The call did not go well, Hannity wrote in a group text to Meadows and GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. Hannity said he wanted Trump never to speak about the 2020 election again, but that Trump was unwilling, and Hannity appeared at a loss for what to do next.

“Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days. He can’t mention the election again. Ever,” Hannity wrote. “I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood. Ideas?”

Neither Meadows nor Jordan appeared to respond.

This story has been updated to include Hannity’s recent comments and Meadows’ comments in a court filing.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correctly reflect the reporting in Michael Bender’s book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” regarding an ad Hannity scripted for the Trump campaign. Bender reported that the ad ran only on one show on Fox, Hannity’s.

Jamie Gangel Jeremy Herb Elizabeth Stuart Brian Stelter

What does Putin want in Ukraine? The conflict explained | CNN

CNN —

Russia’s multi-pronged invasion of Ukraine has thrust the country into a conflict that many on the European continent had thought was one for the history books. Now the country is in the throes of war, with a humanitarian disaster unfolding.

After months of military buildup and brinkmanship on Russia’s side of the border, Ukraine’s 44 million residents woke up to an all-out conflict on Thursday. Fighting has erupted in several cities across the country, including in the capital, Kyiv, and nearly a half a million people have fled to neighboring countries, according to the United Nations.

Russia had been tightening its military grip around Ukraine since last year, amassing tens of thousands of soldiers, as well as equipment and artillery, on the country’s doorstep.

Black smoke rises from a military airport in Chuguyev near Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, on Thursday. Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Frenzied diplomatic efforts early this year failed to avert the worst-case scenario. Now those troops are engaged in combat with Ukrainians for control of the country.

The escalation in a years-long conflict between the nations has now triggered the greatest security crisis in Europe since the Cold War. Russia’s attack on the country has also sparked an intense showdown between Western powers and Moscow.

So how did we get here? The picture on the ground is shifting rapidly, but here’s a breakdown of what we know.

How did Russia invade Ukraine?

Several areas across Ukraine came under attack on Thursday morning after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the start of a “special military operation” and warned of bloodshed unless Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.

The move came after months of speculation about what Moscow’s intentions were with the troops it had massed on the Ukrainian border. At least 150,000 Russian troops encircled the country on three sides, like a sickle, according to estimates from US and Ukrainian intelligence officials.

In late 2021 and early 2022, fears heightened as satellite images revealed new Russian deployments of troops, tanks, artillery and other equipment cropping up in multiple locations, including near eastern Ukraine, Crimea and Belarus, where its forces were participating in joint drills with Moscow’s closest international ally.

Some of those forces began pouring across the border, crossing into Ukraine from the north in Belarus and to the south from Crimea, according to the Ukrainian State Border Service. Elsewhere, explosions rang out in multiple cities, including the capital Kyiv.

Missile strikes and street fighting have raged in the days since. Military aged men have been ordered to stay in Ukraine, while countless others have fled westwards towards Poland or Romania.

Russia’s larger and far better-equipped military has, faced determined resistance across the country, as ordinary Ukrainians and reservists have joined efforts to defend their families and homes, frustrating Moscow’s attempts.

That resistance has been “stiffer than expected” and Russia has had unexpected difficulties supplying its forces, two senior US officials with direct knowledge told CNN. On the battlefield, Russia is suffering heavier losses in personnel and armor and aircraft than expected. This is due in part to the fact that Ukrainian air defenses have performed better than pre-invasion US intelligence assessments had anticipated.

But US intelligence and defense officials closely tracking the Russian campaign say that Putin still holds a number of moves in reserve that could devastate the Ukrainian resistance.

The US and its allies have said they have no intention of sending troops into Ukraine, which is not a NATO member. But Ukraine has received assistance in other forms from Europe, the US and beyond, as the West united in condemnation of Putin’s move. NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg condemned the Russian attack as a “grave breach of international law, and a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security.”

And a raft of heavy sanctions have threatened to cripple Russia’s economy; Moscow has been virtually cut off from the Western financial apparatus and the value of its currency, the ruble, has tanked.

The coordinated assault came days after Putin announced that Moscow would officially recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR), in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, ordering the deployment of Russian troops there in what was widely believed to be the opening salvo to a broader military confrontation.

The territory recognized by Putin extended beyond the areas controlled by pro-Russian separatists, raising red flags about Russia’s intended creep into Ukraine.

What set the stage for the conflict?

Ukraine was a cornerstone of the Soviet Union until it voted overwhelmingly for independence in a democratic referendum in 1991, a milestone that turned out to be a death knell for the failing superpower.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO pushed eastward, bringing into the fold most of the Eastern European nations that had been in the Communist orbit. In 2004, NATO added the former Soviet Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Four years later, it declared its intention to offer membership to Ukraine some day in the distant future – crossing a red line for Russia.

Putin has seen NATO’s expansion as an existential threat, and the prospect of Ukraine joining the Western military alliance a “hostile act” – a view he invoked in a televised speech on Thursday, saying that Ukraine’s aspiration to join the military alliance was a dire threat to Russia.

In interviews and speeches, Putin has previously emphasized his view that Ukraine is part of Russia, culturally, linguistically and politically. While some of the mostly Russian-speaking population in Ukraine’s east feel the same, a more nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking population in the west has historically supported greater integration with Europe.

In early 2014, mass protests in the capital Kyiv known as Euromaidan forced out a Russia-friendly president after he refused to sign an EU association agreement. Russia responded by annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and fomenting a separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s east, which seized control of part of the Donbas region. Despite a ceasefire agreement in 2015, the two sides have not seen a stable peace, and the front line has barely moved since. Nearly 14,000 people have died in the conflict, and there are 1.5 million people internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian government.

In the eight years since, Moscow has been accused of engaging in hybrid warfare against Ukraine, using cyberattacks, economic pressure and propaganda to whip up discord. Those tactics have escalated in recent months, and in early February the State Department claimed Putin was preparing a false-flag operation to create “a pretext for an invasion.”

What does Putin want?

In a lengthy essay penned in July 2021, Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as “one people,” and suggested the West had corrupted Ukraine and yanked it out of Russia’s orbit through a “forced change of identity.”

That type of historical revisionism was on full display in Putin’s emotional and grievance-packed address to the nation last Monday announcing his decision to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, while casting doubt on Ukraine’s own sovereignty.

But Ukrainians, who in the last three decades have sought to align more closely with Western institutions like the European Union and NATO, have pushed back against the notion that they are little more than the West’s “puppet.”

In fact, Putin’s efforts to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere have been met with a backlash, with several recent polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians now favor membership of the US-led transatlantic military alliance.

In December, Putin presented the US and NATO with a list of security demands. Chief among them was a guarantee that Ukraine will never enter NATO and that the alliance rolls back its military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe – proposals that the US and its allies have repeatedly said are non-starters.

Putin indicated he was not interested in lengthy negotiations on the topic. “It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now,” he said at his annual news conference late last year. “Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep.”

High-level talks between the West and Russia wrapped in January without any breakthroughs. The standoff left Europe’s leaders to engage in a frenzy of shuttle diplomacy, exploring whether a negotiating channel established between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict in Ukraine’s east – known as the Normandy Format talks – could provide an avenue for calming the current crisis.

In a news conference with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 16, Putin repeated unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine is carrying out a “genocide” against Russian speakers in the Donbas region and called for the conflict to be resolved through the Minsk peace progress – echoing similar rhetoric that was used as a pretext for annexing Crimea.

But less than a week later, after Russia’s upper house of parliament approved the deployment of military forces outside the country on February 22, Putin told reporters that the Minsk agreements “no longer exist,” adding: “What is there to implement if we have recognized these two entities?”

The agreements, known as Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 – which were hammered out in the Belarusian capital in a bid to end a bloody in eastern Ukraine – have never been fully implemented, with key issues remaining unresolved.

Moscow and Kyiv have long been at odds over key elements of the peace deal, the second of which was inked in 2015 and lays out a plan for reintegrating the two breakaway republics into Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently stated that he did not like a single point of the Minsk accords, which require dialogue on local elections in the Russian-backed separatist regions and – although unclear in what sequence – would also restore the Ukrainian government’s control over its eastern borders. Critics say the agreement could give Moscow undue sway over Ukrainian politics.

Putin previously responded in blunt terms by saying that regardless of whether Zelensky likes the plan, it must be implemented. “Like it or don’t like it, it’s your duty, my beauty,” Putin said in a news conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelensky, a former comedian and TV star, won a 2019 election in a landslide on promises to end the war in Donbas, but little has changed. Responding to a question about Putin’s stark, undiplomatic language, Zelensky responded in Russian, saying bluntly: “We are not his.”

How has Ukraine responded?

President Zelensky previously downplayed the danger of all-out war with Russia, noting that the threat has existed for years and that Ukraine is prepared for military aggression. But on Thursday, as Russia launched an assault on his country, Zelensky made an emotional address directly to the Ukrainian people, declaring martial law in the country.

“Russia began an attack on Ukraine today. Putin began war against Ukraine, against the entire democratic world. He wants to destroy my country, our country, everything we’ve been building, everything we are living for,” Zelensky said in a video message posted on his official Facebook page.

Across the country, residents have been preparing for the worst – packing emergency evacuation kits and taking time out of their weekends to train as reservists.

Ukraine’s government insists that Moscow cannot prevent Kyiv from building closer ties with NATO, or otherwise interfere in its domestic or foreign politics. “Russia cannot stop Ukraine from getting closer with NATO and has no right to have any say in relevant discussions,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement to CNN.

Zelensky has since requested Ukraine be admitted “urgently” to the European Union, and has implored Western leaders to help boost Ukrainian forces on the ground.

Delegates from Ukraine and Russia held talks on Monday near the border of Belarus, a country which has assisted Putin’s invasion, and which Ukrainian officials fear could soon put its own boots on the ground in support of Russia.

Ukraine demanded a full Russian withdrawal in advance of those talks, but it is unclear whether the meetings will result in a Russian retreat. Zelensky downplayed the significance of the talks, which he did not attend in person. “I do not really believe in the result of this meeting, but let them try, so that no citizen of Ukraine would have any doubt that I, as president, did not try to stop the war when there was even a small chance,” he said Sunday,

People in Quezon City, Philippines, light candles in the shape of a peace sign February 28 as they protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ezra Acayan/Getty Images A woman from Ukraine takes part in an anti-war protest in Bangkok, Thailand, on February 28. Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters An anti-war protest takes place outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City on February 28. Luis Cortes/Reuters A boy holds a Ukrainian flag with a heart drawn on it as he attends a protest with his mother in Sydney on February 28. James D. Morgan/Getty Images Thousands of protesters gather in Berlin's Tiergarten park on February 27. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Lidiya Zhuravlyova, a Ukrainian performance artist, takes part in an anti-war protest in Bangkok on February 27. Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters A "Football Stands Together" message is displayed in Ukrainian colors ahead of the League Cup final between Chelsea and Liverpool on February 27 The match was played at Wembley Stadium in London. Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Silhouettes are seen through a Ukrainian flag during a demonstration in Madrid on February 27. Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket/Getty Images People gather for a demonstration in Prague, Czech Republic, on February 27. The event in Prague was particularly poignant given that many of its attendees experienced a Russian invasion firsthand. In 1968, Soviet-led armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, crushing the so-called Prague Spring democratic reform movement and restoring the totalitarian communist regime. The troops stayed in Czechoslovakia for over two decades, with the last leaving in 1991. Ondrej Deml/CTK/AP Thousands of people show solidarity with Ukraine at Dam Square in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on February 27. Cris Toala Olivare/Getty Images Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa meets with demonstrators outside Belem Palace in Lisbon, Portugal, to show his support on February 26. Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images A protester holds a sign that says "help before it's too late" during a rally in Brussels, Belgium, on February 26. Valeria Mongelli/AP New York's Empire State Building is illuminated in the colors of the Ukrainian flag on February 25. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images People gather to protest outside the Russian Consulate in Istanbul on February 25. Burak Kara/Getty Images People photograph Paris' Eiffel Tower as it is lit with Ukraine's colors on February 25. Adrienne Surprenant/AP A child holds smoke bombs at a protest in Buenos Aires on February 25. Mariana Nedelcu/Reuters A demonstrator against the invasion is led away by police in Moscow on February 24. Hundreds of protesters in Russia have been detained in anti-war protests, independent protest monitoring site OVD-Info said. Russia's Investigative Committee warned that participation in any anti-war protest was illegal. It also said that offenses could be entered on participants' criminal records which would "leave a mark on the person's future." Daniil Danchenko/NurPhoto/Getty Images Ukraine supporters march through the streets of New York with flags and signs on February 24. John Lamparski/NurPhoto/Associated Press Members of the Ukrainian community demonstrate outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles on February 24. Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images People protest in Rome on February 24. Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty Images Flinders Street Station in Melbourne is lit in yellow and blue on February 24 as public buildings were lit up in the national colors of Ukraine. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/AFP/Getty Images A demonstrator in Barcelona, Spain, cries during a protest on February 24. Pau Barrena/AFP/Getty Images People protest in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on February 24. Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images Protesters gather outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston on February 24. M. Scott Brauer/The New York Time/Redux Demonstrators rally at Times Square in New York on February 24. Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images A Ukraine supporter in Minneapolis attends a prayer service inside the St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church on February 24. Stephen Maturen/Reuters Protesters chant and gather in front of the Texas State Capitol in downtown Austin on February 24. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman/USA Today Network A vigil for Ukraine takes place in Montclair, New Jersey, on February 24. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com/USA Today Network In pictures: The world rallies in support of Ukraine Prev Next

Tensions between the two countries had been exacerbated by a deepening Ukrainian energy crisis that Kyiv believes Moscow has purposefully provoked. Ukraine views the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline – connecting Russian gas supplies directly to Germany – as a threat to its own security.

Nord Stream 2 is one of two pipelines that Russia has laid underwater in the Baltic Sea – in addition to its traditional land-based pipeline network that runs through eastern Europe, including Ukraine. Kyiv views the pipelines across Ukraine as an element of protection against invasion by Russia, since any military action could potentially disrupt the vital flow of gas to Europe.

After requests from Zelensky and the US administration, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that he would halt the certification of the pipeline following Putin’s decision to order troops into parts of eastern Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 was just one of myriad challenges facing Zelensky’s government; the former actor, who played a president on Ukrainian television, had experienced a brutal baptism of fire into real-world politics since assuming office in 2019, thanks in part to the pandemic and ongoing tensions with Russia.

But in the days since the invasion, admiration for him has soared both inside and outside Ukraine; Zelensky refused to leave the country and has instead posted frequent videos from the streets of Kyiv, where he has been encouraging his fellow countrymen to resist Russian forces.

Fact check: What's true and what's false about the invasion of Ukraine

False and misleading information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine has spread rapidly on social media since Russian forces launched a military assault in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 24.

Here’s a roundup of claims related to the Ukraine-Russia conflict analyzed by the USA TODAY Fact Check team:

Fact check:Putin's claims justifying war in Ukraine are baseless, experts say

U.S. and European relations with Russia, Ukraine

Claim: There are U.S. biolabs in Ukraine funded by the U.S. government

Our rating: False

The labs in question are owned and funded by the Ukrainian government. The social media posts misrepresent a treaty between the U.S. and Ukraine aimed at preventing biological threats, and numerous reports indicate the claim is tied to a years-long Russian disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting the U.S. Read more.

Claim: Ukraine was the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation

Our rating: False

Though foreign governments have contributed to the Clinton Foundation, Ukraine is not listed as a donor. The claims misrepresent a 2015 report on donations made between 1999 and 2014 ranked by the nationality of individual contributors, not foreign governments. The vast majority of donations from Ukrainian nationals to the Clinton Foundation in a chart that was part of that report came from one individual. Read more.

Claim: Vladimir Putin has banned the Rothschild family from entering Russia

Our rating: False

There's no evidence supporting the claim that Putin has banned the Rothschild family from entering Russia, which was first published in 2016 and has been debunked by independent fact-checking organizations. The Rothschild family's company has an office in Moscow. Read more.

Claim: President Joe Biden plans to sell Alaska to Russia

Our rating: Satire

The claim that the U.S. president plans to sell Alaska to Russia is satire. It stems from an article published by The Babylon Bee, a satire website. There is no evidence Biden plans to sell Alaska. Read more.

Claim: Sean Penn's pre-war Ukraine visit is evidence of propaganda

Our rating: Missing context

Actor Sean Penn's visit to Ukraine in November 2021 for a documentary offers no proof of political propaganda. At the time of his visit, there were already concerns that Russia might invade parts of Ukraine, and the conflict between the two countries dates back to at least 2014. Read more.

Claim: Poland is sending jets to a US air base in Germany to send to Ukraine

Our rating: Missing context

The U.S. Department of Defense said it would not advance Poland's plan to send jets to a U.S. air base in Germany so jets could be sent on to Ukraine. Polish officials announced the proposal before it was cleared by the Biden administration. Read more.

Claim: President Joe Biden said there is a 'new world order'

Our rating: Missing context

Biden did not confirm a world domination conspiracy theory when he mentioned a "new world order." He was describing international changes from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and historians say politicians have used the term for decades. Read more.

Claim: The Space Foundation stripped the honors of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

Our rating: Missing context

The Space Foundation did not revoke any awards or remove any honors from Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. A spokesperson said the nonprofit changed the name of a fundraising event this year in light of recent events to not distract from the event's purpose. Read more.

Claim: The Russian invasion of Ukraine is ‘scripted and staged’

Our rating: False

There is ample evidence the conflict in Ukraine is real. Photos and videos from correspondents on the ground have shown the extensive damage done to buildings, and the toll inflicted on civilians. A number of countries and international humanitarian organizations have responded to the conflict and confirmed the situation there. Read more.

Claim: The price of crude oil increased 513% between Joe Biden’s inauguration and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Our rating: False

Data shows crude oil prices increased by around 75% between Biden's first day in office and the day Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. Experts say different international factors are responsible for the surge in crude oil prices. Read more.

Claim: Ukraine announced it's the first country to implement the 'Great Reset' through a mobile app

Our rating: False

The Diia app, which allows Ukrainians to upload identification documents, is not connected to the World Economic Forum's Great Reset proposal. Read more.

Claim: George Soros is wanted in Russia and has been declared a 'global terrorist' in China

Our rating: False

There is no evidence Soros is wanted in Russia or that he was declared a terrorist in China. An Open Society Foundations spokesperson said the claims are false. Read more.

Claim: Biden administration is “sucking the Strategic Oil Reserve dry”

Our rating: False

The Biden administration's planned release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest on record, but the amount scheduled to be removed is one-third of the total. Read more.

Claim: Ukraine is the money laundering and child sex trafficking "capital of the world"

Our rating: False

Ukraine isn't ranked the worst in human trafficking or money laundering, experts say. Reports indicate these problems are more prominent in other countries. Read more.

Claim: Pentagon officials said Volodymyr Zelenskyy and George Soros are cousins

Our rating: False

There is no evidence Zelenskyy and Soros are cousins, and the Pentagon said it did not issue a statement claiming otherwise. Read more.

Claim: Russian forces captured a U.S. general in Mariupol, Ukraine

Our rating: False

Russian forces did not capture a U.S. general in Mariupol. NATO said its Allied Land Command leader is in Turkey, and no forces have been deployed to Ukraine. Read more.

False or misleading videos

Claim: A video shows Russian soldiers parachuting into Ukraine

Our rating: False

A viral video, recorded by a man in a military uniform, shows a handful of people with parachutes descending into an open field. But the video was posted on Instagram in 2015, nearly seven years before Russia invaded Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows a recent explosion in Ukraine

Our rating: False

A viral video shows a flash of light followed by an orange glow behind several darkened buildings, claiming its setting is Ukraine. However, the video was shared to TikTok in January and has nothing to do with the Russian invasion. Read more.

Claim: Video shows explosion in Ukraine

Our rating: False

In a video claiming to be set in Ukraine, a massive ball of fire explodes in the air. What the video actually shows is an explosion at a chemical warehouse in an industrial city in China. It was captured by an American survivor in 2015. Read more.

Claim: A video shows a Russian fighter jet in Ukraine

Our rating: False

An online video clip shows a plane falling from the sky and bursting into flames, purporting to show a Russian jet shot down by the Ukrainian military. But the footage really shows a Libyan plane shot down by rebels over Benghazi in March 2011, a decade before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Ukrainian police dropping their equipment and walking away

Our rating: Missing context

A video purports to show Odesa police abandoning their equipment and "refusing to go against its people." While the clip does show Odesa police, the footage is from a May 2014 pro-Russian demonstration. It is unrelated to the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Russian jets flying over Kyiv

Our rating: False

A video claims Russian planes can be seen flying over the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. But the video actually shows a flyover practice in Moscow ahead of the city's celebration of Victory Day and was posted in May 2020. Read more.

Claim: A video shows war between Russia and Ukraine

Our rating: False

A video claims to show war between Russia and Ukraine before the former had invaded the latter. That's not true. The video shows footage from "Arma 3," a military-style video game. At the time the footage was posted, on Feb. 20, Russia had not invaded Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A BBC News segment depicts a military escalation between Russia and NATO

Our rating: False

A video that purports to show a BBC News segment narrating the escalation of Russian and NATO combat is actually just an out-of-context dramatization made as a training video. The BBC previously debunked its association to the clip in 2018, tracing its source to a private company that identified it as fictional. The video's actor has also gone on the record to say that the clip is fictional. Read more.

Claim: A video shows a Russian tank running over a Ukrainian car

Our rating: Missing context

News organizations and an eyewitness confirmed the authenticity of a video showing an armored vehicle running over a civilian car in Ukraine. But claims that the armored vehicle shows a "Russian tank" are unproven. Military experts say the vehicle is likely a Strela-10, which is used by both Russian and Ukrainian armed forces. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Ukrainian and Russian troops face to face

Our rating: Missing context

While a video shows Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, it wasn't captured during the Russian invasion. The standoff between soldiers took place in 2014 in Crimea. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Ukrainians destroying Russian tanks with Molotov cocktails

Our rating: False

While volunteers in Ukraine have been producing Molotov cocktails, the video doesn't depict Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The footage shows Ukrainians clashing with police in 2014 during anti-government demonstrations in Kyiv's central square. Read more.

Claim: A video shows a 'huge' military convoy heading to Ukraine

Our rating: False

A video showing a train snaking its way through the countryside, pulling a long line of flatcars loaded with tanks, is not related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The footage in question shows an American railway company carrying tanks in Southern California and is at least four years old. Read more.

Claim: A video shows an explosion at the Ukraine international airport

Our rating: False

A video that shows a massive explosion engulfing the sky near a populated area shows an explosion at a Ukrainian air base in the city of Melitopol, not the non-existent "Ukraine International Airport." But numerous international airports in Ukraine have suffered Russian missile strikes. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Russian soldiers preparing nuclear weapons

Our rating: False

A video purporting to show Russian soldiers preparing nuclear missiles actually shows a British journalist jokingly placing a lighter near a decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missile. The video was taken in 2014 in Ukraine during the filming of the "Top Gear" TV show. Read more.

Claim: A video shows families fleeing a battle

Our rating: Missing context

A video clip that shows families hurrying to run behind troop lines as an explosion flings debris in the background is a 2021 Russian reenactment of a World War II battle. The video is unrelated to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Russians and Ukrainians dancing together

Our rating: Missing context

A video that shows several uniformed individuals dancing to upbeat music in a muddy field while a nearby crowd of clapping soldiers stand on honking armored vehicles is missing context. The video was first shared at least a week before Russian forces invaded Ukraine, and Crimean news reports indicate the dancing took place after a planned tactical exercise in the peninsula. USA TODAY found no evidence the soldiers are members of the Ukrainian military. Read more.

Claim: A video shows the Ukrainian Air Force shooting down a Russian jet

Our rating: False

A video of jets passing over a building and a projectile seemingly striking an object in the sky does not show the Ukrainian Air Force shooting down a Russian jet. The video is from a video game called "Digital Combat Simulator World." Read more.

Claim: Ukrainians are posting videos about 'how to drive abandoned or captured Russian military vehicles'

Our rating: Missing context

The claim that Ukrainians are posting videos about "how to drive abandoned or captured Russian military vehicles" is missing context. The video in the post was initially published a year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows 'crisis actors' pretending to be dead in Ukraine

Our rating: False

A video that shows dozens of people lying in what appear to be body bags, with one of the people moving, does not show crisis actors pretending to be dead. The video is from an Austrian climate protest that occurred weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Ukrainian soldiers saying goodbye to their wives before going to war

Our rating: Missing context

A video that shows women crying and hugging two men wearing military uniforms and black balaclavas is taken out of context. The video was shot in 2014 as soldiers prepared to fight Russia-backed rebels in the Donbas region and was used for a documentary. It has nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine, as the social media posts imply. Read more.

Claim: Video shows meeting between Vladimir Putin and South Korean president

Our rating: False

Putin and the South Korean president are not seen meeting in this viral video. The video actually shows a 2019 meeting between Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Ukrainian and Russian soldiers playing tug-of-war

Our rating: False

Footage purporting to show Ukrainian and Russian soldiers playing tug-of-war actually shows Canadian and American service members in 2012 during a joint training session in Indiana. Read more.

Claim: Video shows downed Russian fighter jet on highway

Our rating: False

A 2014 promotional Star Wars video was falsely described online as showing a downed Russian fighter jet in Kyiv. Read more.

Claim: Video shows Ukrainian soldiers killing civilians in Chechnya

Our rating: False

A video purporting to show Ukrainian soldiers killing people in Chechnya is actually a clip from the 2014 fictional film "The Search." Read more.

Claim: A video shows Putin threatening Kenya

Our rating: False

A Feb. 24 Russian state television broadcast on Putin's reasoning for a military operation in Ukraine has been inaccurately captioned online as showing Putin threatening Kenya. Read more.

Claim: Video shows South Sudan president apologizing to Putin after threat

Our rating: False

A viral video doesn't show an exchange between the president of Russia and the president of South Sudan. The subtitles are inaccurate, and one clip of the South Sudan leader is included out of context. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Russian troops making a temporary bridge

Our rating: False

A video shows part of NATO's 2017 training exercise in Lithuania, and it is unrelated to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: 'Not one raw footage video' has come out of Ukraine despite widespread internet connectivity

Our rating: False

While misleading and edited footage is spreading online, journalists and news outlets have verified plenty of raw footage from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Read more.

Claim: A video shows the destruction of Russian military aircraft and tanks

Our rating: False

A viral clip shows a popular video game, not the destruction of Russian military aircraft and tanks. Read more.

Claim: A video shows drones putting out a high-rise fire in Ukraine

Our rating: False

The footage shows a 2020 drone firefighting demonstration in China, not drones putting out a high-rise fire in Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows American soldiers parachuting into Ukraine

Our rating: False

A video purporting to show American soldiers parachuting into Ukraine was recorded in 2016 and shows a military training exercise in North Carolina. Read more.

Claim: A video shows soldiers destroying a Russian tank

Our rating: False

A viral 9-minute video shows footage from the video game Arma 3, not soldiers destroying a Russian tank with an anti-tank weapon. Read more.

Claim: Footage shows a Ukrainian boy crossing the Polish border alone

Our rating: False

A Ukrainian boy seen crossing the Polish border in a viral video wasn't traveling alone, according to the Polish Border Guard. Read more.

Claim: Video shows new graves for Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine

Our rating: False

A video purporting to show new graves for Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine dates back to at least 2021 and shows pre-drug graves in preparation for frozen soil conditions in the winter. Read more.

Claim: Ukraine's emergency wartime payment is dependent on a citizen's COVID-19 vaccination status

Our rating: False

Ukraine's government said all citizens impacted by the war are eligible for an emergency wartime payment, and there is no mention of a COVID-19 vaccine requirement. Online posts distorted a speech from Ukraine's prime minister about the relief program. Read more.

Claim: A video shows Slovak lawmakers pouring water on the Ukrainian flag

Our rating: Missing context

A video of opposition lawmakers in Slovakia pouring water on a Ukrainian flag was taken prior to the Russian invasion. Slovakia is a NATO member and has supported Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A video shows a 'dead' Ukrainian smoking a cigarette

Our rating: False

A video purporting to show a "dead" Ukrainian smoking a cigarette shows an actor smoking in a body bag for a Russian music video. Read more.

Deceptive use of images

Claim: A photo shows a Russian jet going down in flames as it invaded Ukraine

Our rating: False

The image that claims to show a Russian jet crashing in flames as it invaded Ukraine was actually taken in 1993, after two Russian fighter jets collided in mid-air while performing at an airshow in England. Read more.

Claim: An image shows a Russian plane shot down by Ukraine

Our rating: False

The photo of a plane falling from the sky was captured in August 2015 during an air show in Russia. Read more.

Claim: A photo shows Ukrainians praying in the snow 'in this phase of war danger'

Our rating: Missing context

The photo of people praying in the snow is from Ukraine, but it has circulated online since at least 2019. It does not show Ukrainians praying during recent tensions with Russia. Read more.

Claim: A photo shows an explosion in Ukraine

Our rating: False

An image of a large explosion depicts Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in May 2021, not ongoing fighting in Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A photo shows a celebration after Ukraine's president lifted a ban on proselytizing

Our rating: False

The image of thousands protesting was taken in 2017 during a celebration in Kyiv of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. USA TODAY found no evidence that Ukraine ever banned proselytizing. Read more.

Claim: An image of a woman holding a rifle shows 'life in Ukraine, now'

Our rating: False

The photo of a woman holding a rifle on a bus while checking her phone was first shared online in March 2020. A Russian social media influencer said it shows her posing with a fake weapon after a photo shoot. Read more.

Claim: Image shows Japanese ambassador to Ukraine dressed as a samurai who stayed in Kiev

Our rating: False

A photo purporting to show the Japanese ambassador to Ukraine dressed in a samurai outfit in Kyiv actually shows the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan. The image was captured prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: An image shows Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in military uniform 'alongside his people'

Our rating: Missing context

While a photo showing Zelenskyy in military garb is authentic, it wasn't captured recently amid current conflict with Russia. It was taken in early 2021 when he visited troops in eastern Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: An image shows Ukraine first lady Olena Zelenska in uniform

Our rating: False

A viral image shows a Ukrainian soldier at a military parade rehearsal in Kyiv in August 2021, not Ukraine's first lady. Some users claimed the photo shows the vice president's wife, however there is no vice president role in Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: An image of a wounded child is from the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Our rating: False

A 2018 photo of a wounded girl in a hospital after a bombing in Syria is being falsely described online as showing a wounded child from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: A photo shows children saluting Ukrainian troops

Our rating: Missing context

An image of a young boy and girl saluting Ukrainian soldiers predates Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The photo is from 2016, two years after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Read more.

Claim: A photo shows a Time magazine cover comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler

Our rating: Altered

An image depicting a supposed Time magazine cover comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler is altered. A graphic designer created the photo of Putin and Hitler and edited it to appear as if it were a real Time cover. The magazine's most recent cover shows a Russian tank, not Putin. Read more.

Claim: An image shows a Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier

Our rating: False

Viral pictures of a young girl appearing to shout and wave her fist in front of a soldier with a gun weren't taken in Ukraine. The image shows a Palestinian girl confronting an Israeli soldier in the West Bank in 2012. Read more.

Claim: Former beauty queen Anastasiia Lenna joined the Ukrainian military

Our rating: False

Viral photos purporting to show former Miss Grand Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna joining the military to defend her country actually show her posing with an airsoft gun, which she says were meant to inspire people amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Lenna clarified she has not joined the military and that she is an airsoft player. Her Instagram page shows she has been sharing airsoft game photos for years. Read more.

Claim: An image shows Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko with a machine gun

Our rating: Missing context

A photo that shows Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitscheko with a machine gun is from March 2021 when he visited a military training center. It is unrelated to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: Samuel Hyde is the 'Ghost of Kyiv'

Our rating: False

Samuel Hyde is not the so-called Ghost of Kyiv. The image in the post was altered to replace a U.S. pilot's face with Hyde's face. Hyde has been falsely linked to various mass shootings and global tragedies for years. Read more.

Claim: Russia unveiled a nuclear missile called 'Satan 2'

Our rating: Missing context

The missile was first announced in 2016 – not recently, as posts online makes it seem – and reportedly will not be in use until late 2022. None of the three images in the post show "Satan 2." Read more.

Claim: An image shows Natasha Perakov, the first Ukrainian female fighter pilot

Our rating: False

The first Ukrainian female fighter pilot is not shown in the post. The image shows a Ukrainian soldier who won a beauty contest in 2016. Ukraine's first female fighter pilot is Nadiya Savchenko. Read more.

Claim: An image shows members of Dynamo Kyiv in military attire

Our rating: False

A picture showing 25 men dressed in camouflage military attire doesn't show members of Ukrainian soccer team Dynamo Kyiv. The image shows members of Gonor, a Ukrainian nationalist group. Read more.

Claim: An image shows a captured Russian tank for sale on eBay

Our rating: False

A company spokesperson told USA TODAY the listing is fake. The sale of military items, including weapons and vehicles, is prohibited on eBay. The image of the T-72 tank in the post dates back to 2010. Read more.

Claim: Photos show Ukrainian demonstration in support of Myanmar

Our rating: Altered

Photos on social media don't show a Ukrainian demonstration for Myanmar. The original photos were taken at Ukrainian demonstrations that were unrelated to Myanmar. They were altered to include pro-Myanmar slogans and images on protest signs. Read more.

Claim: Photos show 'angel'-like cloud formations over Kyiv amid Russian siege

Our rating: False

Photos purporting to show "angel"-like cloud formations over Kyiv are at least five years old and predate the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: An image shows a Russian Su-34 aircraft shot down in Kyiv

Our rating: False

A 1944 image of a U.S. B-17 aircraft that crash-landed at an airfield in Papua New Guinea is being falsely described as showing a Russian Su-34 aircraft shot down in Kyiv. Read more.

Claim: Image shows St. Louis Arch lit up with the colors of the Ukrainian flag

Our rating: Altered

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis was not lit up with the colors of the Ukrainian flag, according to the National Park Service. A photo claiming to show otherwise has been digitally altered. Read more.

Claim: Ukraine revealed a new stamp titled 'Russian warship, go (expletive) yourself'

Our rating: True

An image showing a soldier flipping off a warship with the text "Russian warship go (expletive) yourself" is an authentic Ukrainian postage stamp. The design honors the soldiers who defended Snake Island. Read more.

Claim: A photo shows a Ukrainian farmer towing a captured Russian jet

Our rating: False

A photo shows a jet being towed by tractor through the streets of Zagreb, Croatia, in 2011, not a Ukrainian farmer towing a captured Russian jet amid the invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

The claim: Photo shows Ukrainian children hiding in a metro station after Russia's invasion

Our rating: False

A photo purporting to show Ukrainian children in a metro station after Russia's invasion shows children taking part in a practice drill at a school bomb shelter before the invasion began on Feb. 24. Read more.

The claim: The Russian attack on a Mariupol maternity hospital was staged

Our rating: False

Images of an injured pregnant woman in the aftermath of a hospital attack show a Ukrainian beauty influencer, but there's no evidence she is a "crisis actor." International health agencies and news organizations confirmed the bombing of a Mariupol maternity hospital took place on March 9. Read more.

Claim: Images show Russian-bombed Syria, and Kyiv

Our rating: False

A photo purporting to show Aleppo, Syria, is actually a 2017 image of Mosul, Iraq. The second image shows Kyiv, but it was taken one day after the start of the Russian invasion, not after weeks of bombing. Read more.

Claim: A Ukrainian artist created a mosaic of Vladimir Putin's face with bullet casings from the Ukrainian front

Our rating: Missing context

A portrait of Putin's face is authentic, but it was created by a Ukrainian artist in 2015 in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, not recently amid the invasion. Read more.

Claim: Photo shows child whose parents died in the war in Ukraine

Our rating: False

A photo purporting to show a child whose parents died in the war in Ukraine originated from a 2015 music video. Read more.

Claim: Photo shows Ukrainian tractor towing Russian rocket

Our rating: Altered

A photo claiming to show a Ukrainian tractor towing a Russian rocket was altered using a 2018 image of a Soyuz rocket being pulled by a train. Read more.

Claim: Photo shows a young girl preparing to fight in Ukraine

Our rating: False

A photo of a young girl holding a gun does not show her preparing for war in Ukraine. The girl's father said it was staged and taken before the Russian invasion. Read more.

Claim: Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko auctioned his Olympic medal to help Ukrainian children

Our rating: Missing context

Klitschko auctioned his Olympic medal to help Ukrainian children at a charity event in 2012, a decade before the Russian invasion. Read more.

Claim: The Ukrainian army uses cats to identify sniper laser sights

Our rating: False

An image purporting to show a Ukrainian soldier holding a military cat has circulated online since at least 2018, and the poster who initiated this claim has said it was fabricated. Read more.

Claim: Russian Consulate in Montreal is now located on 'Avenue Zelensky'

Our rating: False

City officials said the address of the Russian Consulate in Montreal has not changed. The street remains listed as Avenue de Musée, not "Avenue Zelensky." Read more.

Use of fake or misleading media reports

Claim: CNN reported the death of 'Bernie Gores' in both Afghanistan and Ukraine

Our rating: False

A post claiming CNN reported the same man was both executed by the Taliban in 2021 and killed by Ukrainian separatists in February is false. The tweets pictured in social media posts appear to have come from unverified accounts that have been suspended. CNN denied posting the tweets. Read more.

Claim: Russia deployed nuclear weapons 'in America's backyard,' CNN reported

Our rating: Missing context

A CNN news clip featuring correspondent Brian Todd and a chyron that asserts Putin is "making military moves in America's backyard" was shared out of context. The video was recorded and originally posted online in 2018, when two Russian bombers arrived in Venezuela to carry out military exercises over the Caribbean. The video has nothing to do with the current invasion of Ukraine. Read more.

Claim: An image shows a CNN chyron that reads, 'Ocasio-Cortez says she feared being raped during Ukraine invasion'

Our rating: Altered

An image that claims to show a CNN chyron that reads, "Ocasio-Cortez says she feared being raped during Ukraine invasion" is fake. It was superimposed on an image of Ocasio-Cortez from an interview with CNN in August 2021. Read more.

Claim: CNN tweeted a story about a former teacher dubbed the 'Kharkiv Kid Finder'

Our rating: False

CNN did not tweet a story about a former teacher dubbed the "Kharkiv Kid Finder" in Ukraine. A spokesperson for the network said the tweet is fabricated. Read more.

Claim: A protest during a Russian news broadcast was staged because 'there are no live on-air television broadcasts in Russia'

Our rating: False

Russian media experts say news is broadcast live in the country, and there is no evidence a producer's antiwar protest during a Russian news broadcast was fake. Read more.

Claim: George Soros said on CNN he helped overthrow the former Ukrainian president

Our rating: False

There is no evidence that American billionaire George Soros said he helped overthrow the former Ukrainian president. CNN and the Soros' foundation said the claim is false, and the 2014 CNN transcript of Soros' interview includes no such statement. Read more.

Claim: CNN sent tweet with picture of Serbian building, claimed it was bombed hotel in Ukraine

Our rating: Altered

An image purporting to show a CNN tweet identifying a Serbian building as a bombed Ukrainian hotel is altered. The formatting suggests a lack of authenticity, and a CNN spokesperson said it's fabricated. Read more.

Claim: Canadian sniper 'Wali' was killed by Russian forces in Ukraine

Our rating: False

A Canadian sniper nicknamed 'Wali' was not killed in Ukraine. He has confirmed to numerous news outlets in video interviews that he is still alive. Read more.

Claim: A Ukrainian plane tore off a road sign while flying low to avoid Russian radar

Our rating: False

An image showing a Ukrainian military plane that tore off a road sign was captured in August 2020, not amid the Russian invasion. Read more.

Claim: Tucker Carlson suggested photos of bodies in Bucha, Ukraine, could have been staged

Our rating: False

Tucker Carlson didn't suggest photos of bodies in Bucha were staged. He denied the quote and the author of the tweet acknowledged it was fabricated. Read more.

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