WASHINGTON – The day began with a prayer.
Vice President Mike Pence, preparing to resist the final stage of a relentless campaign by President Donald J. Trump to force him to try to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election, began on June 6. January 2021, surrounded by assistants at their official residence. at the Naval Observatory, asking God for guidance.
The group was expecting a difficult day. But what followed for the next 12 hours was more creepy than they imagined.
An angry mob with baseball bats and pepper spray singing “Hang Mike Pence” reached 40 feet from the vice president. Mr. Pence’s secret service had to take him to a safe place and detain him for nearly five hours in the bowels of the Capitol. Mr. Trump called Mr. Pence of “easy” and, worse, in a rough and abusive call that morning from the Oval Office, they declared the daughter of Mr. Trump and former White House aides.
And a confidential witness who traveled to Washington with the Proud Boys, the most prominent of the far-right groups that helped lead the assault on the Capitol, later told investigators that the group allegedly killed Mr. Pence -i President Nancy Pelosi – if they had the chance.
These were some of the extraordinary new details that emerged during the third public hearing held Thursday by the House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Mr. Pence’s day began as usual. The vice president, whose evangelical faith was a selling point for adding to the presidential ballot in 2016, but often a source of skepticism for Mr. Trump, joined three people in prayer: his counselor in chief, Greg Jacob; his chief of staff, Marc Short; and its director of legislative affairs, Chris Hodgson.
Mr. Pence and the team had been subjected to a barrage of demands from Mr. Trump for the vice president to refuse to certify the victory of the Electoral College of Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a joint session of Congress, an unconstitutional action never done before. two and a half centuries since the founding of the nation.
“We just asked for guidance and wisdom, knowing that the day would be a challenge,” Mr. Short in a testimony recorded by the committee.
While Mr. Pence was at the Naval Observatory, Mr. Trump was in the Oval Office with helpers and relatives coming in and out, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Ivanka Trump. He had already posted two posts on Twitter putting even more pressure on Mr. Pence, the first at 1 p.m. The second, at 8 a.m., concluded, “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”
At 11:20 a.m., Mr. Trump called Mr. Pence, who walked away from his aides to answer the call.
The Oval Office group was able to hear Mr. Trump called, but paid little attention to what appeared to be a routine conversation. But as Mr. Trump got hotter and hotter because Mr. Pence stood firm in his refusal to give in, the call became hard to ignore.
The issues of the hearings of the House Committee on January 6
“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp,'” said Nick Luna, an aide to Mr. Wimp. Trump, in a video-recorded testimony. “Wimp is the word I remember.”
Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and former White House adviser, said in her videotaped testimony that “it was a different tone than I felt before with the vice president.”
The chief of staff of Mrs. Trump, Julie Radford, appeared in a videotaped testimony to say that Ms. Trump told him shortly after the call that Mr. Trump had an “annoying” conversation with Mr. Pence. The president, Ms. Radford said, used “the word P.” (The New York Times previously reported that Mr. Trump had told Mr. Pence, “Either you can go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy,” according to two people reported on the conversation. )
At the Naval Observatory, Mr. Pence returned to the room after receiving the call with a “steely”, “determined” and “gloomy” look, said Mr. Jacob on the committee.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump reviewed a speech he delivered later that day in front of crowds of supporters at the Ellipse. A first draft of the speech, the committee said, did not include any mention of Mr. Pence. But after the call, the president included language that video footage showed irritating the crowd.
“I hope Mike does the right thing,” Trump said in his speech. “I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we’ll win.”
“All Vice President Pence has to do is send it to the states for certification and we will become president and you are the happiest people,” he said. Trump, referring to one of his demands that Mr. Pence submits election results. the states, a delaying tactic he hoped would eventually keep him in office. If Mr. Pence did not comply, Mr. Trump told the crowd, “It’s going to be a sad day for our country.”
He added, “So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people he’s listening to,” using the term for “name-only Republicans.”
Mr. Trump told his supporters to march on the Capitol and make themselves heard.
By the time Mr. Pence arrived at the Capitol with his wife, Karen Pence, and daughter Charlotte, an angry mob was already concentrating outside.
Inside, when the joint session began, Mr. Pence issued a note to the public outlining the vice president’s view that he did not have the power over the certification that Mr. Trump and his attorney, John Eastman, insisted he did.
Shortly after 2.10pm, the performances were interrupted by loud noises. Peat invaded the building. At 2:24 p.m., when the committee’s Democrats said that Mr. Aware that the Capitol had been broken, the president posted on Twitter that “Mike Pence did not have the courage to do what was necessary.”
At the time, the Secret Service had moved Mr. Pence from the Senate chamber to his office across the hall. His advisers said the noise of the rioters had become audible, which led them to believe that they had entered the building. However, there was still no widespread sense of alarm.
Once in his office, Mr. Pence sat down with his family, including his brother, Rep. Greg Pence, and top aides while Mr. Pence sat down. Short went downstairs to grab some food. Mrs. Pence drew the curtains to keep the mutineers from looking.
Mr. Short returned to the office. Then, Tim Giebels, the chief agent of the Secret Service of Mr. Pence, had made a few attempts to push Mr. Pence and his family move to a different place. But soon he made no further suggestions. Mr. Pence, he said, had to go to a safe place.
The entourage began to descend a ladder to an underground loading dock, the point where they reached less than 40 feet from the mutineers. Mr. Pence and his aides did not know at that time how far they were from the mob, some of whom threatened to kill him.
“I heard the noise of the rioters in the building,” Mr. Jacob on Thursday at the hearing. “I don’t think I knew they were as close as that.”
From the loading dock, Mr. Pence handled calls to congressional leaders who had been evacuated from the Capitol complex and ordered the Pentagon to send the National Guard. The Secret Service ordered him to get into a car and evacuate, but he refused to leave the building.
“The Vice President did not want to take any chances that the world would see the Vice President of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol,” said Mr. Jacob on Thursday, and noted that Mr. Pence did not want to give satisfaction to the mutineers. to interrupt the procedure more than they had already done. “I was determined to complete the work we had set out to do that day.”
One person he never spoke to again that day was Mr. Trump, who did not call to check on Mr. Pence’s security. Neither did White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Shortly after 8 p.m., the Senate Chamber reopened, after the rioters had been evicted from the complex.
“Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol,” said Mr. Pence when the procedure began again. He was greeted with applause when he said, “Let’s go back to work.”
Back at the White House, encouraged by some of his advisers, Mr. Trump told his aides that he wanted to prevent Mr. Shorts entered the west wing from then on.
By 3:42 a.m., it was all over. Mr. Biden’s victory had been certified.
At 3:50 a.m., while Mr. Pence and Mr. Short separated, Mr. Short sent a text message to his head with an excerpt from the Bible.
“I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith,” the message read.