06/10/22 06/10/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> january 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt shortly after january 6 to overthrow the government. violence was no accident. it represents trump's last

stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power. amy: and its first public hearing, the house select committee investigating the january 6 insurrection accuses donald trump of staging and attempted coup with the help of his allies in governments and two far-right groups, the proud boys and the oath keepers. we will hear excerpts from the hearing, including a message from the committee vice chair liz cheney to her fellow republicans. >> tonight i say this to my republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible, there will come a day would donald trump is gone but your dishonor will remain. amy: and we will hear newly released video testimony from donald trump's daughter and former attorney general william barr challenging trump's claims of election fraud. >> i told the president it was --

i did not want to be a part of it. >> your perspective when attorney general barr made that? >> i respect attorney general barr so i accepted what he said. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the house committee investigating the january 6 insurrection said thursday donald trump was at the center of a violent conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. in a primetime hearing, the committee revealed trump's own attorney general, william barr, as well as trump's daughter ivanka, thought there was no basis for trump's claims of election fraud. committee chair bennie thompson said january 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup

by donald trump who supported the mob chants of "hang mike pence." he compared the january 6 insurrection to the ransacking of washington, d.c., by british forces more than two centuries ago. >> but unlike in 1814, it was domestic enemies of the constitution who stormed the capitol and occupied the capitol, who sought to thwart the will of the people to stop the transfer of power. and so they did at the encouragement of the presiden of the unite states. the president of the united states trying to stop the transfer of power, a president that had -- a precedent that had stood for 220 years. amy: committee co-chair liz cheney, one of just two republicans on the panel, revealed multiple republican lawmakers sought pardons from trump after january 6.

after the headlines, we will spend the rest of the hour airing excerpts from thursday's historic hearing. in michigan, the fbi arrested republican gubernatorial candidate ryan kelley at his home thursday morning over his role in the january 6 assault on the capitol. kelley faces charges including engaging in acts of physical violence, knowingly entering restricted grounds, property destruction, and disorderly conduct. he's among some 840 people charged over the insurrection so far. in maryland, an employee opened fire on his co-workers at a manufacturing plant in rural waington county thursday, killing three people and critically injuring a fourth person. maryland state police say the 42-year-old suspect then fled the scene but was later tracked down, wounded, and arrested after an exchange of gunfire that left a state trooper injured. according to the gun violence archive, there have been over 270 mass shootings across the

united states so far this year. in texas, the chief of police for the uvalde school district is defending officers against charges they failed to act as an 18-year-old gunman slaughtered 19 fourth graders and their two teachers in may. pete arredondo told the texas tribune he spent more than an hour in the hallway of robb elementa school calling for tactical gear, sniper, and keys to get inside the locked classroom where the shooter was. meanwhile, "the new york times" reports uvalde please delete entering the school even as they became aware that some children urgently needed medical treatment. "the new york times" reports one hour and 17 minutes passed before police finally entered the classroom. by then, 60 officers had assembled on the scene, body cam footage reveals one officer said "people are going to ask why we are taking so long." ukrainian president volodymyr

zelenskyy is asking the united states and other allies for the rapid delivery of more heavy weaponry saying it is critical to the fight against russia's advance in the eastern donbas region. ukraine's military claimed soldiers continued to hold ground in the industrial part of severodonetsk. meanwhile, a court in russian control of eastern ukraine has sentenced two britons and a moroccan a death, accusing them of being mercenaries for ukraine's army stop in brazil, blood has been found in a boat belonging to a suspect in the disappearance of british journalist dom phillips and the brazilian researcher bruno araújo pereira. investigators say they're sampling the blood to see if it came from one or both of the two men. the pair were reported missing on sunday while working on a book project about conrvation efforts in remote part of the amazon that has become a haven

for illegal mining, fishing, and international drug trafficking. dom phillips' wife alessandra sampaio appealed in an emotional video for brazilian authorities to intensify search efforts. >> why is it happening? i just don't want them to suffer. they are in the jungle. there's a lot of cruelty. i am heartbroken. amy: the palestinian ministry of foreign affairs has handed over the results of its probe into the killing of journalist shireen abu akleh to the international criminal court. separate investigations by al jazeera, the associated press and cnn have all concluded that it was israeli forces that shot and killed abu akleh on may 11 as she covered an israeli raid on the jenin refugee camp in the west bank. this week, secretary of state antony blinken was confronted by a journalist over the biden administration's continued

support for israel and saudi arabia after the killing of journalists, including jamal khashoggi and shireen abu akleh. >> what is or not accountability in saudi arabia for murdering journalists? it is one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. >> i deplore the loss of shi reen. she was a remarkable journalist and american citizen, as you'll know. we are determined to follow the fact think it the truth of what happened. >> [indiscernible] >> they have not yet been established. we are looking for an independent, credible investigation. amy: blinken was questioned by journalist abby martin. following blinken's remarks, the biden administration said on thursday that israel should lead the investigation into abu akleh's killing. the u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin has met with china's minister of national defense. their pair had a brief meeting

scheduled on the sidelines of the shangri-la dialogue, a gathering of world leaders and military officials in singapore. the meeting comes amid tensions between the u.s. and china over taiwan and north korea, and as the biden administration presses ahead with plans to arm australia with nuclear-powered submarines. the united nations' nuclear watchdog warns iran has begun removing surveillance cameras from nuclear sites, setting back efforts to revive the 2015 iran nuclear deal. rafael grossi, the head of the international atomic energy agency, saidhursday thmove coulleave inspectors unable to detect whether iran is producing weapons-grade uraniu >> what we are seeing is because of the decision that has been announced is a decrease of divisility that the agency is going to have about what is happening. this is something i deplore. amy: grossi called on iran to

reverse what he said would be a fatal blow to talks aimed at restoring a deal to allow iran to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes in exchange for relief from sanctions. former president trump withdrew the u.s. frothe iran nuclear deal in 2018. iran insists that any new deal must include sanctions relief and a commitment that the u.s. will not renege on its agreement a second time. a warning to our audience, our next stories contain graphic images and descriptions of police violence. in michigan, the grand rapids police officer who killed patrick lyoya has been charged with murder. kent county prosecutor christopher becker announced the charges on thursday, more than two months after officer christopher schurr shot lyoya, a 26-year-old congolese refugee, in the back of the head during a traffic stop. >> this investigation based on everything he has provided to me, i made the decision to charge christopher schurr with one kind of second-degree murder . second-degree murder is a felony

offense, punishable by up to life in prison. with the possibility of parole. amy: video of lyoya's killing shows officer schurr wrestled him to the ground, kicked and hit him, attempted to electrocute him with a taser, and pinned him on his stomach before pulling his pistol and firing a single round into lyoya's head at close range. after the indictment was announced, the grand rapids police chief recommended that officer christopher schurr be fired. the justice department has opened a civil rights investigation into abuses by the louisiana state police after a series of violent arrests of black men. the probe is focused on white officers with state police troop f -- a notorious unit in northeastern louisiana whose officers have mislabeled body-camera videos, turned off their cameras during arrests, and otherwise worked to hide evidence from investigators. in 2019, ronald greene, a black man, died in the custody of

troop f officers who repeatedly choked and beat him and electrocuted him with a stun gun. another black man targeted by the white officers was punched, stunned, and hoisted to his feet by his hair braids, another was beaten after he was handcuffed, and yet another was slammed 18 times with a flashlight. "the wall street journal" reports abbott laboratories was alerted to problems at one of its infant formula plants months earlier than previously known. "the journal" reports an abbott employee filed a complaint of failing equipment in need of repair and potentially unsafe formula back in february 2021. that's a full eight months before another complaint was filed by the same person last october, and a full year before the plant was shut down in february 2022. abbott recently restarted production of some of its infant formulas at its sturgis, michigan, plant. and the massachusetts state legislature voted thursday to override republican governor charlie baker's veto of a bill allowing undocumented people to

obtain driver's licenses. beginning in july 2023, anyone showing a foreign passport or consular identification document and another form of id can apply for a motor vehicle license in massachusetts. 16 other states and the district of columbia already have similar laws on the books. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. the house committee investigating the january 6 insurrection has accused donald trump of staging an attempted coup to overthrow the will of the american people by trying to overturn the 2020 election. in its first hearing, this one in prime time, the house committee revealed trump's own attorney general, william barr, as well as trump's daughter ivanka, thought there was no basis for trump's claims of election fraud. the committee also reveal

multiple republican lawmakers who backed trump's attempted coup, including representative scott perry pennsylvania, sought presidential pardons after the january 6 insurrection. new details also emerged about how two far-right groups, the proud boys and the oath keepers, led the insurrection at the capitol heeding a call from trump for wild protests on january 6. today we will spend the hour airing excerpts from the historic hearing. this is how the hearing began. >> i am bennie thompson, chairman of the january 6, 2021 committee. i was born, raised, and still live in fulton, mississippi, a town with a population of 521 -- which is midway between jackson and vicksburg, mississippi, and the mississippi river. i am front may part of the country where people justified

the actions of slavery, ku klux klan, and lynching. i'm reminded of that dark history and i hear voices today try to justify the actions of the insurrectionists on january 6, 2021. amy: january 6 committee chair bennie thompson is thenly happen american in mississippi's congressional delegation. his distri includes most of jackson and the only majority black district in the state. he went on to talk in detail about what he described as trump's attempted coup. >> donald trump lost the presidential election in 2020. the american people voted him out of office. it was not because of a rigged system. it was not because of voter fraud. don't believe me? hear what his former attorney

general had to say about it. i warned those watching that this contains strong language. >> i have had three discussions with the president that i can recall. one was on november 23. one was on december 14 and i have been through sort of the give-and-take of those discussions and in that context, i made it clear i did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out the stuff, which i told the president was [expletive] i didn't want to be a part of it and that is one of the reasons that wanted to me deciding to leave when i did. i observed -- i think it was december 1 -- you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, and supported

by specific evidence, the election -- that there was fraud in the election. >> bill barr on election day 2020, he was the attorney general of the united states. the top law enforcement official in the country. telling the president exactly what he thought about claims of a stolen election. donald trump had his days in court to challenge the result. he was within his rights to seek those judgments. united states law buying the law -- he lost in the courts just as he did in the ballot box. in this country, that is the end of the line. but for donald trump, that was only the beginning of what became a sprawling, multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election, and at throwing out the votes of

millions of americans, your votes, your voice and our democracy, and replacing the will of the american people with his will to remain in power after his term ended. donald trump was at the center of this conspiracy and ultimately donald trump, the president of the united states, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the constitution to march down to the capitol and subvert american democracy. any legal jargon you hear about seditious conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the united states, boils down to this -- january 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup. a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after january 6,

to overthrow the government. the violence was no accident. it represent trump's last stand, most desperate chance to hold the transfer of power. amy: bennie thompson last night at the hearing. when we come back, you will hear from vice chair liz cheney, one of two republicans on the committee. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we continue our coverage of the first house select january 6 committee hearing, we turn now to the committee's vice chair liz cheney, one of two republicans who agreed to join the committee. >> mr. chairman, as 6:01 p.m. january 6, after he spent hours watching a violent mob procedure, attack, innovate our capitol, donald trump tweeted that he did not condemn the attack and instead he justified it. these are the things and events that happened come he said, when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. as you will see and the hearings to come, president trump

believes his supporters at the capital "were doing what they should be doing." this is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave. over a series of hearings in the coming weeks, you will hear testimony live and on video from more tn half a dozen former white house staff the trump administration, all of whom were in the west wing of the white house on january 6. you will hear testimony that "there president did not really want to put anything out call enough the riot or ask his supporters to leave." you hear that president trump was yelling and "really angry at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more." and aware of the rioters chants to hang mike pence, the president responded with this sentiment, "maybe our supporters have the right idea."

." "mike pence deserves it." amy: liz cheney described donald trump seven part plan to overturn the election. >> on the morning of january 6, president donald trump's intention was to remain president of the united states despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power. over multiple months, donald trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. in hearings, you'll see evidence of each element of this plan. in our second hearing, you will see that donald trump and his advisors knew that he had in fact lost the election, but despite this, president trump

engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the u.s. population that fraud had stolen the election from him. this was not true. jason miller was a senior trump campaign spokesman. in this clip, miller describes a call between the trump campaign's internal data expert and president trump a few days after the 2020 election. >> i was in the oval office and at some point in the conversation, delete data person was brought on -- delete data person was brought on and he delivered to the president in what terms that he was going to lose close and that was based on matt and the data teams assessment of the sort of county by county state-by-state results

as reported? >> correct. >> alex cannon previously worked for the trump organization. one of his responsibilities was to assess allegations of election fraud in november 2020. here is one sample of his testimony discussing what he told white house chief of staff mark meadows. >> i remember a call with mr. meadows where mr. meadows is asking me what i was finding and if i was finding anything. i remember sharing with him that we were not finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states. >> when was that conversation? >> probably mid-to-late

november. it was before my child was born. >> what was mr. meadows reaction to that information? >> i believe the words to used is so there was no there there. >> there is no there there. matt morgan gave similar testimony. he explained that all of the fraud allegations and the campaigns other election arguments taken together and viewed in the best possible light president trump but still not change the outcome of the election. president trump's attorney general bill barr also told donald trump his election claims were wrong. >> repeatedly told the president in no uncertain terms that i did not see evidence of fraud and -- that would have affected the outcome of the election.

frankly, a year and half later, i've not seen anything to change my mind on that. >> attorney general barr also told president trump that his allegations about dominion voting machines were groundless. >> i saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people of members of the public that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes did not count in these machines, controlled by somebody else, were actually determining it -- which was complete nonsense. it was being laid out there. i told him it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that. it was a grave disservice to the country. >> a president trump persisted, repeating the false dominion

allegations in public at least a dozen more times, even after his attorney general told him they were "complete nonsense." after barr's resignation, the acting attorney general replaced them, jeff rosen, the acting deputy richard donoghue, told president trump over and over again that the evidence did not support allegations he was making in public. many of president trump's white house staff also recognized the evidence did not support the claims president trump was making. this is the president's daughter commenting on bill barr's statement the department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election. >> how did that affect your perspective about the election when attorney general barr made that statement? >> it affected my perspective. i respect attorney general barr.

so i accepted what he was saying. amy: that was ivanka trump, trump's daughter and advisor, who spent hours alone with donald trump on that january 6 afternoon during the riot. she also testified before the committee for about eight hours. during the hearing on thursday evening, vice chair liz cheney also featured video testimony from donald trump's advisor and son-in-law jared kushner. >> the white house staff knew that president trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. they knew the president needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. they knew that president donald trump was too dangerous to be left alone. at least until he left office on january 20. these are important facts for congress and america people to understand fully. when a president fails to take

the steps necessary to preserve our union, or worse, causes a constitutional crisis, we're at a moment of maximum danger for our republic. senator whitehouse took responsible steps to try to prevent january 6. others egge the presidentd on. others who could have acted refused to do so. in this case, the white house counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity that he threatened to resign multiple times. that is exceedingly rare and exceedingly serious. it requires immediate attention, especially when the entire team threatens to resign. however, in the trump white house, it was not exceedingly rare and it was not treated seriously. this is a clip of jared kushner addressing multiple threats i white house counsel pat cipollone and his team of lawyers to resign in the weeks

before january 6. >> are you aware instances where pat cipollone threatened to resign? >> like i said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done and i know he was always -- him and the team were always sane,, we're going to resign, we're not going to be here if this or that happens. i kind of took it as just being -- to be whining. >> whining. there's a reason why people serving our government take an oath to the constitution. this our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. people in positions of public trust are duty-bound to defend it, to step forward when action is required. in our country, we do not swear an oath to an individual or political party, we take our oath to defend the united states constitution. and that oath must mean something.

tonight, i say this to my republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. there will come a day when donald trump is gone but your dishonor will remain. amy: that is wyoming republican congressmember liz cheney, vice chair of the house select committee investigating the january 6 insurrection. she is also the daughter of former vice president dick cheney. during the hearing, and extended clip was aired documenting minute by minute what happened on january 6. it began at 10:00 a.m. went members of the proud boys gathered on the national mall in washington. >> be advised, probably about 4000 crowd was watching eastbound in this 400 block of

cash on them all toward the united states capitol. >> i'm not allowed to say what is going to happen today because everyone is just going to have to watch for themselves. but it is going to happen. something is going to happen. >> whose street? our street! amy: proud boys marched by the monument for the capitol. >> [expletive] these are our streets1 amy: crowd was stopped for a photo on the side of the capitol. ," if mike pence does the right thing, we win the election. all vice president pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become

president and you are the happiest people. mike pence is going to have to come through for us. and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country. because you will never, ever take back our country with weakness. you have to show strength and you have to be strong. >> usa! usa! >> i does look like we will have an ad hoc march stepping off your. there's a crowd surging east. >> we want trump! amy: joe biggs, now in jail awaiting trial. pres. trump: i hope you're going to stand up for the good of our constitution and for the good of our country. if not, i'm going to be very disappointed in you.

>> usa! amy: 1254 time, first breach of the capitol grounds. >> we need backup! >> madame speaker, the vice president, and the united states senate, joint session of congress begins.

>> this is now a riot. >> declaring a riot. >> be advised, trying to breach the capitol. >> hold the line! hold the line! hold the line! >> we are trying to make our way through all of this.

amy: breaches window on upper west terrace of the capitol building. >> we have a breach of the capital. breach of the capitol! >> be advised they are requesting additional resources as they broke in the window and trying to kick it in. amy: joe biggs enters the capitol. >> without objection, recessed pursuant to clause 12 the of roll 1. amy: outside.

amy: there is a hangman's noose outside. >> house members -- amy: leader mccarthy. amy: police are being attacked outside.

>> we have lost the line. we have lost the line. all pd fall back. amy: inside, the crowd chants "nancy." >> be advise the capitol police are moving resources inside. there are officers hurt. amy: oath keepers our approach central east door. it is 2:38 p.m. oath keepers enter building. >> with doors barricaded, people

caught in the hallways who have no way out. >> officers still remain on the house floor. prepared to evacuate. copy. >> it is up to us people now, the american people. >> what are you ready to do? >> whatever it i will lay down my life. that is why we showed up today.

pres. trump: there were peaceful people. the crowd was unbelievable. i mention the word love. the love in the air, i've never seen anything like it. amy: that was a video of the january 6 insurrection aired during thursday's house select committee, the first of a series of public hearings. the next is monday morning. when we come back, more exurbs, including capitol police officer caroline edwards describing her experience. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we continue our coverage of thursday's house january 6 historic hearing, we turn to the british film maker who was embedded with the proud boys on january 6. he was the first have two live witnesses. >> as stated in 2020, was working on a documentary. as part of that documentary, i filmed several rallies in

washington, d.c., december 11 and 12. i learned there would be a rally on them all on january 6. my three colleagues and i came down to document the rally. according to the permit of the event, there is going to be a rally at the ellipse. we arrived at the mall and observed a large contingent of crowd was marching toward the capitol. we filmed them and almost immediately, i was separated from my colleagues. i documented the crowd turn from protesters to rioters to insurrectionists. i was surprised at the size of the group come the anger, and the profanity. for anyone who did not understand how violent that event was, i saw it, documented it, and experienced it. i heard incredibly aggressive chanting and i shared that footage with the authorities. i am here today pursuant to a house subpoena. thank you so much. >> thank you.

the select committee has conducted extensive investigative work to understand what led the proud boys and other rioters to the capitol on january 6. we have obtained substantial evidence showing the president's december 19 tweet calling his followers to washington, d.c., on january 6 energized individuals from the proud boys and other extremist groups. i would like to play every video highlighting some of this evidence. >> my name is marcus, investigative counsel for the select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol. pres. trump: gave me a name. >> why proud boys? pres. trump: stand back and stand by. >> after he made this comment, the chairman of their proud boys

said on parler, standing by, sir. during our investigation, we learn this comment in a presidential debate led to an increase in membership of the proud boys. >> would you say member numbers increased after the comet? >> exponentially. i was a triple, probably. >> did you ever dispel any stand back and stand by merchandis >> one of the vendors beat meo it. i wish i would have. i wish i would have made the stand back on a standby shir >> december 19, president trump tweeted about the january 6 rally and told attendees, be there, it will be wild. many witnesses were interviewed were inspired by the president's ca and came to d. for january 6. the extremists took a step further and viewed this tweet as a call to arms. a day later, the department of justice describes how the proud boys created a chat called the ministry of self-defense leadership chat.

the proud boys established a command structure in anticipation of coming back to d.c. on january 6. the department of justice describes stir tario coming in contact with the 1776 returns which describes individuals occupying key buildings around the united states capitol. the oath keepers are another group that the committee investigated. >> a you better get yourss to d.c. this saturday. it is either president trump is strengthened to do what you must do or we wind up in a bloody fight. we all know that. the flight is coming. >> the oath keepers began to plant to block. according to the department of justice, steward rhodes, the oath keepers leader, said to his followers that we are not going to get out of the civil war. in response to the tweet in december by trump, the oath keepers focused on january 6 and washington, d.c.. one member,

the president put on social media the president called us to the capitol and wants us to make it wild. the goal was fothe oath keepers to be calleto duty so they can keep the president empower all the president trump had just lost the election. the committee learned the oath keepers set up quick reaction outside the city of virginia where they stored arms. the goal of these quick reaction forces was to be on standby just in case president trump and vote the insurrection act. >> to the oath keepers provide weapons to members? >> i'm going to decline to answer that on increment grounds, due process grounds. >> and footage obtained, we learned on the night of january 5 tarrio and stewart rhodes met in a garage and washington, d.c. >> there's mutual respect. we are fighting the same fight. >> the committee learned the oath keepers went into the capitol to the east doors and

two stack formations. the doj alleges one of the stats went into th capitol looking for speaker pelosi -- although they never found her. mr. tarrio took credit and documents obtained by the department of justice, mr. tarrio said in an encrypted chat, make no mistake, we did this. later on that evening, mr. tarrio even posted a video which seemed to resemble him in front of the capitol with a black cape in the title was "premonition." the evidee developed for the select committee and department of justice highlights how each group participated on the attack on the capitol on january 6. >> the investigation revealed it was individuals associated with the proud boys instigated the initial breach at the peace circle at 1253 time p.m. within 10 minutes, rioters had filled the lower left -- west closet. by 2:00, writers had reached the doors on the west and east

plazas. by 2013, they have broken into the senate when door and got inside. a series of breaches followed. at 220, rioters breached the east side doors. on they template traded the capitol, they moved to the crypt , the rotunda, the hallways to the house chambers, and even inside the senate chambers. >> individuals associated with two violent extremist groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the january 6 attack.

one is the oath keepers. they are group of armed antigovernment extremists. the other group is the proud boys. they promote white supmacist beliefs d have engaged in violence with people they view as their political enemies. embers of both groups have already pled guilty to crimes associated with the january 6 attack. as part of the documentary, you have been filming, you gave access to the proud boys and their leader henrique tarrio. your crew filmed them in washington, d.c., on the evening of january 5 and then on january 6. on january 5, the night before the attack, you are with the head of the proud boys mr. tarr io in washington, d.c. what happened?

>> we picked up mr. tarrio from jail. he had been arrested for carrying some magazines, some extra capacity magazines and he took responsibility for the burning of the black lives matter flag that was stolen from the church on december 12. we were attempting to get an interview with mr. tarrio. we had no idea of any of the events that were going to subsequently happen. we drove him to pick up his bags from the property department of the police, which is just south of the mall. we picked up his bags and went to get some other bags from the phoenix hotel. we encountered mr. stuart rhodes from the oath keepers.

by the time had gone to park the car, my colleague was thank who had got into the car with mr. tarrio that they had moved to a location around the corner from the parking garage of the hall of legends, i believe. so we quickly drove over there. we drove down into the parking garage and filmed the scene of mr. tarrio and mr.rhodes and certain other individuals in that garage. >> so what you're saying is you filmed the meeting between mr. tarrio and oath keepers leader stuart rhodes? >> indeed. >> you could not hear what was said but and cording the indictment of mr. tarrio, a participant reference the capitol. amy: house january 6 committee chair bennie thompson

questioning british filemaker nick quested who was embedded with the proud boys on january 6 . the other witness who testified live during thursday's primetime hearing was capitol police officer caroline edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as she tried to hold the line outside the capital. she was with officer brian sicknick who she set appeared to have been sprayed in the face, was extremely pale, who then died the next day. edwards testified the pro-trump mob included proud boys leader joseph biggs, who is now facing federal seditious conspiracy charges. at the hearing, number of police officers and sicknick's fiancé sat behind caroline edwards as she testified. >> the tables started turning. what is now the arizona group, the crowd with orange pads, they came up chanting "f-u-c-k-

antifa." once they joined that group, joseph biggs rhetoric turned to the capitol police. he started asking us questions like you did not miss a paycheck during the pandemic commissioning stuff about our pay scale was mentioned, started turning the tables on us. i have worked -- i can conservatively say probably hundreds of civil disturbance events. i know when i am being turned into a villain and that is when i turned to my sergeant and i stated the understatement of the century, i said, "sarge, i think you're going to need a few more people down here."

so after that, i thank god they started conferring. they went a little silent. they started conferring among each other. i saw the person now identified as ryan. he put his arm around joseph biggs and they were talking and then they started approaching the first barricades. they ripped the first barricades down and they approached our bike racks. at that time, we started holding on, grabbing the bike racks. there were not many of us, so i grabbed the middle between two different bike racks. i wasn't under any pretense i could hold it for very long, but i just wanted to make sure we

could get more people down and get our cdu units time to answer the call. so we started grappling over the bike racks. i felt the bike rack come on top of my head and i was pushed backwards. my foot caught the steer behind me and my chin the handrail and at that point i blacked out but the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me. >> and your knocked unconscious, officer edwards? >> yes, ma'am. >> but when you regained consciousness, people with the injury, you return to duty. is that right? >> yes ma'am. at that time, adrenaline kicked in. i ran toward the west front and i tried to hold the line at the senate steps.

at the lower west terrace. more people kept coming at us. it just seemed like more and more people started coming onto the west front. they started overpowering us. that was right about when mpd's officers showed up. there bike officers pushed the crowd back and allowed our cdu units as well as theirs to form that line that you see, that very thin line between us and the protesters or the rioters at that time. i fell behind that line. for a while, i started decontaminating people who had gotten sprayed.

and treating people medically who needed it. when i fell behind that line and i saw -- i can just remember my breath catching in my throat because what i saw was just a war scene. it was something like i had seen out of the movies. i could not believe my eyes. there were officers on the ground, you know, they were bleeding. they were throwing up. i mean, i saw friends with blood all over their faces. i was slipping in people's blood. i was catching people as they

fell. it was carnage. it was chaos. i can't even describe what i saw. amy: capitol police officer caroline edwards who suffered a traumatic brain injury on january 6. she was questioned by republican congressmember vice chair liz cheney. that does it for today's show. and a recap of the first public hearing of the u.s. house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol. the committee holds its next hearing monday morning. we will livestream it at 10:00 a.m. eastern at democracynow.org . on monday on democracy now!, we will speak with democracy now! j

cohostuan gonzalez about his duly updated edition of the landmark book "harvest of empire: a history of latinos in america." democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013.