Donald Trump long plotted to assert he won the 2020 presidential election even if he clearly lost—an impending disaster for the nation’s democracy that was known by his campaign staff and some White House aides, the Jan. 6 Committee revealed on Thursday.
“We had an election today—and I won,” read a draft Trump victory speech that was emailed by staffers a week before the November election, one that claimed some imaginary “Election Day deadline” in an attempt to prevent counting mail-in ballots that might lean left.
“The ballots counted by the Election Day deadline show the American people have bestowed on me the great honor of reelection to president of the United States,” read the draft letter, which was among the Trump administration records the committee obtained from the National Archives.
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When his loss seemed undeniable, Trump privately acknowledged his defeat to staff—and took an unprecedented step to immediately pull out all U.S troops from Afghanistan and Somalia. The committee played videos of White House aides attesting to Trump’s private conversations and revealed the existence of a presidential memo ordering a chaotic and speedy troop withdrawal.
“I hereby direct you to withdraw all U.S. military forces from the Federal Republic of Somalia no later than 31 December 2020; and from the Isalmic Republic of Afghanistan no later than 15 January 2021,” read a memo that was authored by White House personnel director John McEntee and signed by Trump.
Kash Patel, a MAGA loyalist lawyer who had worked his way into the intelligence agencies and the military, delivered it to General Mark A. Milley, recalled the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Milley testified before the committee in a previously taped deposition that he was horrified by the strategy.
“It is odd. It is non-standard. It is potentially dangerous. I thought it was militarily not feasible… or wise,” Milley said.
The Jan. 6 Committee on Thursday kicked off its final public meeting before the midterms—potentially its final hearing entirely—with a simple message: Trump betrayed the country he led.
“Donald Trump knew he lost,” Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said at the top of the hearing. “Despite this knowledge, Donald Trump went to court to contest this election and he lost in court. Trump continued to pull out all the stops in his attempt to stay in power.”
“In a staggering betrayal of his oath,” Thompson added, “Donald Trump attempted a plan that led to an attack on a pillar of our democracy.”
Thompson noted it was mostly Republicans who testified to the committee—”not all of these witnesses were thrilled to talk to us, some of them put up quite the fight”—but ultimately, he said, the truth the committee sought transcended politics.
This hearing is expected to be something of a prologue: no witnesses, some new evidence, and an overall summary of what congressional investigators have discovered about former President Trump’s desperate plot to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. Thompson also noted the meeting was technically a markup, so that the panel could potentially vote on matters at the end of the proceedings.
The bipartisan committee—made up of seven Democrats and two of the only Republicans who broke with their party’s increasing devotion to the MAGA movement—is hoping to leave Americans with a lasting impression that the nation’s democracy was on the brink of disaster during the attack on the U.S. Capitol building last year.
Co-Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said the Justice Department has been busy at work with evidence already gathered by congressional investigators and said the committee could still decide to refer specific criminal cases to prosecutors. But she stressed that the political panel isn’t in a position to pursue criminal charges on its own.
“Our role is not to make decisions regarding prosecutions,” she said from the dias.
She added that the “central cause” of Jan. 6th was one man: “Donald Trump.” And she noted that even as he repeated lies about a stolen election and “incited his supporters to further violence,” Trump remained “better informed about the absence of widespread election than almost any other American.”
“His own Justice Department appointees… told him point blank they were false,” Cheney said. “Donald Trump knew the courts had ruled against him, he had all this information, but still he made the conscious choice to claim fraudulently that the election was stolen.”
The committee also reviewed how Trump was unmoved by the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the election. It played a video of a deposition of Trump’s own appointed head of the Justice Department, former Attorney General Bill Barr, who explained the futile effort.
“There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were,” Barr said, remembering how he’d specifically told the president that certain conspiracy theories were demonstrably false—like the one claiming that there were vote dumps of absentee ballots that far exceeded the number of voters.
“You had more votes than you had voters!” Trump told followers days later, undeterred.
“Donald Trump maliciously repeated this nonsense to a wide audience. His intent was to deceive,” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) said on Thursday.
Thompson said the committee would present new evidence about the role of the Secret Service on that day, providing a better picture of what the White House’s entrusted security force observed shortly after Trump told an angry crowd to march on the Capitol. The committee is also expected to explore Trump’s state of mind, a key detail that could prove decisive in any future decision whether or not to prosecute him for his actions—or inaction— that day by the Department of Justice.
The committee continues to work on a sweeping final report in the style of previous investigations, like the massive report that resulted from the work of the 9/11 Commission and the Church Committee.
So far, the most damning evidence presented by the panel appears to be the assertion that Trump himself knew that the enraged MAGA loyalists he spoke to at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 were actually armed with semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump actually ordered that security staff take away metal-detecting magnetometers that would have identified the armed rioters.
“I don't fucking care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags away,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson.
Emails obtained by the committee showed how federal law enforcement had been warned about the impending violence. One warning came from a tipster on the night of Dec. 26, 2020, telling the Secret Service, “They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped… their plan is to literally kill people. Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.”
Meanwhile, an “intelligence summary” notified law enforcement about “calls to occupy federal buildings” by people who were planning to “arm themselves and to engage in political violence at the event” by “intimidating Congress and invading the Capitol building”
Despite the depth and reach of its ongoing investigation, some on the committee noted that its investigators have not yet received text messages they requested from Secret Service agents’ phones that day. However, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) indicated the committee had obtained more than one million records from the Secret Service. And Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) noted that the committee will continue to interview witnesses with direct knowledge of the events that day.
The committee on Thursday also played never-before-seen video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer while they were in hiding from the rioters and placing phone calls to Vice President Mike Pence, then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and a neighboring state’s governor. They asked for soldiers to intervene—and pleaded for them to have Trump to call off his loyalist mob.
Cheney issued a chilling warning, saying the committee’s work had unearthed a troubling reality: future presidents with an authoritarian bent now have a blueprint for staying in power.
“Our institutions only hold when men and women of good faith make them hold, regardless of political cost,” she said, noting that a future tyrant now knows to only appoint loyalists who won’t secretly get in their way.
“What happens when the president disregards the court’s rulings as illegitimate? When he disregards the rule of law? That, my fellow citizens, breaks the Republic,” she said. “Without accountability it all becomes normal and will reoccur.”
