- I'm Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6,
2021, committee.
I was born, raised, and still live in Bolton, Mississippi,
a town with a population of 521,
which is midway between Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi,
and the Mississippi River.
I'm from a part of the country
where people justified the actions of slavery,
the Ku Klux Klan, and lynching.
I'm reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today
try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists
on January 6, 2021.
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.
- And I've 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 this stuff,
which I told the president was [bleep]
-You will 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."
- I remember a call with Mr Meadows
where Mr Meadows was asking me what I was finding
and if I was finding anything.
And I remember sharing with him that we weren't finding anything
that would be sufficient to change the results
in any of the key states.
- And what was Mr. Meadows'
reaction to that information?
- I believe the words he used were
"so there's no there there."
- This is the president's daughter,
commenting on Bill Barr's statement that the department
found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.
- It affected my perspective.
I respect Attorney General Barr,
so I accepted what he was saying.
- As you will hear on Monday,
the president had every right to litigate his campaign claims,
but he ultimately lost more than 60 cases in state
and federal courts.
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.
- Without objection, I include in the record
a video presentation of the violence of January 6th.
[indistinct shouting]
-They were peaceful people.
These were great people.
The crowd was unbelievable.
And I mentioned the word "love."
The love -- The love in the air --
I've never seen anything like it.
[indistinct shouting]
-What I saw was just a war scene.
It was something like I had seen out of the movies.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
There were officers on the ground.
You know, they were bleeding.
They were throwing up.
They were -- You know, they had --
I mean, I saw friends with blood all on their faces.
I was slipping in people's blood.
You know, I was catching people as they fell.
You know, I was -- It was carnage, it was chaos.
- This next week, we're going to examine the lies
that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol
to try to stop the transfer of power.
We're going to take a close look at the first part
of Trump's attack.