that day, January 6th, including you.
Who are not part of an extremist group.
I'd like to start my hair ever in. You tell the American people a
little bit about yourself.
Can you tell us about your life before January, 6th.
Yeah.
Basically nothing but a family man and a working man worked at the
company, Um, Cabinet company up in northeast Ohio for
Going on 20 years. Um
You know, family is my life.
You know, I was a supervisor there so that that took up a lot of
my other.
You know a lot of my free time.
Um, other than that, with my family, camping, playing basketball
playing games with my son.
Just what any ordinary American citizen family man would do exactly.
So the this committee has reviewed thousands of hours of surveillance
footage from January 6th.
Doing this review We identified you entering the capital as we see
in this video.
Mr Ayers. Why did you decide to come
To Washington on January 6th.
For me for me personally, you know?
I was, you know, pretty hardcore into the social media Facebook.
Twitter Instagram I followed. You know, President Trump.
All the websites, you know.
Um
Basically put out, you know.
Come to stop the steal rally, you know, and I felt like I needed
to be down here.
So So you basically learned about the rally on social media and at
some point made a decision to come to Washington? Yeah.
Um, I had some friends. I found out we're coming down. I just hopped
hopped on with them right at the tail. Then when I found out
Came down here with them.
Thank you very much. The chair recognizes this device chair Ms Cheney,
Wyoming when he questions she may have
Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ayers. When you entered the
capital last year, Did you believe that the election had been stolen?
At that time. Yeah. You know everything that I was I was seeing online.
Um, I definitely
Believe that exactly what That was the case.
And when
You heard from President Trump that the election was stolen? How
did that make you feel?
I was, You know, I was very upset.
As were most of his supporters. Um
You know, that's basically what got me to come down here.
And do you still believe the election was stolen?
Not so much now, Um, I got away from all the social media. Um, when
January 6th happen.
Basically deleted at all.
You know, I started doing my own research and everything and
For me for me it for something like that to be that
To actually for that to actually take place, And it's too big. You
know, there'll be
There's no way you keep something like that Quiet.
As big as something like that, you know.
With all of you know all the lawsuits being shot down one after another.
That that was mainly what convinced me.
Well and
That's very important. Um and and we've also talked about today and
in previous hearings, the extent to which the president himself was
told that the election hadn't been stolen.
Um, by his Justice Department by his White House counsel by his campaign,
Um what it had made a difference to you to know that President Trump
himself had no evidence of widespread fraud.
Oh, definitely, You know, um
Who knows? I may not have come come down here, then, you know
Thank you very much. Mr Chairman, I yield back
Young lady you was back chair recognizes General Woman from Florida,
Miss Murphy.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.
You know. Earlier today we showed how Donald Trump's December 19th
tweets summoned both extremist groups as well as rank and file supporters
of President Trump to come to Washington, D C average Americans.
He told them to quote be there will be wild and they came.
We showed how Mr President how President Trump repeatedly told them
Fight, fight fight.
And they marched to the Capitol.
Um, Mr Ayers. You are in that crowd at the rally and then the crowd
that marched to the Capitol.
When you arrived on the lips that morning. Were you planning on going
to the capital?
No, we didn't actually plan to go down there. Um, you know, we went
basically to see the stop the steal rally and that was it. So why
did you decide to march to the capital?
Well, basically, you know, the president
You know, he got everybody riled up. Told everybody head on down.
So we basically just following when he said
After the president's speech as you're marching down to the capital,
How did you feel?
Um, I would, you know.
I'm angry, you know, after
Everything that was
Um, basically said in the speech, you know a lot of stuff. He said
he already put out in tweets a lot. I've already seen it and heard
it before. Um so I mean, I was already worked up and
So where most of the people there
So as you started marching, did you think there was still a chance
the election would be overturned?
Yeah, that time. I did, um, you know, because everybody was kind
of like
In the hope that you know, vice President Pence was not going to
certify the election.
Um, you know, also the whole time on our way down and kept hearing
about this big reveal.
I remember I was talking about and we kind of thought Maybe that
was it so
That that hope was there.
Did you think that the president would be marching with you?
Um, yeah, I think everybody thought he was going to be coming down.
You know, he said in his speech.
You know, kind of like he's going to be there with us.
So I mean, I think I I believed it.
You're saying
Um
We know that you illegally entered the capital that afternoon and
then left the capital area later on. What? What made you decide to
leave?
Um, Basically, when President Trump put his tweet out, we literally
left right after that, come out.
Um
You know?
To me if he would have done that earlier in the day, 1 30, I, you
know
We wouldn't be in this maybe went being this bad of a situation or
something.