Jan. 6 hearing focuses on what Trump was doing during Capitol riot

The House select committee returned to primetime Thursday night for the latest in its series of public hearings as the panel continues to present findings stemming from its investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The hearing focused on what President Donald Trump was doing while a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol building as Congress was in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

It featured in-person testimony from Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews, former Trump aides who resigned in response to the events of Jan. 6.

It also provided intimate details of what transpired for 187 minutes after Trump's speech at the rally that preceded the assault on the Capitol — before he finally asked the rioters to leave.

In video depositions shown Thursday, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former aide Cassidy Hutchinson both testified that Ivanka Trump was among those who gathered at the White House to try to pressure her father to issue a statement to get them to disperse.

"Ivanka Trump wanted there to be a statement to condemn the rioters,” Hutchinson told the committee.

A former White House security official testified that during the siege, members of former Vice President Mike Pence's Secret Service detail were "starting to fear for their own lives" as they took cover from rioters who had breached the Capitol.

"There were calls to say goodbye to family members," the official said.

The committee also showed outtakes from a video Trump filmed at the White House on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after the riot, during which he struggled to condemn the violence and refused to say the election was over.

“I don’t want to say the election is over," Trump said in one of the outtakes shown at the hearing. "I want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, OK?”