The Daily Fuckup

The House Jan. 6 committee spent its June 21 hearing on one core question: how far Donald Trump and his allies went after the 2020 vote when state officials refused to change the results. The panel’s opening statements and witness material centered on pressure applied to Arizona, Georgia and other battleground states, along with efforts to push alternate slates of electors. ([january6th-benniethompson.house.gov](https://january6th-benniethompson.house.gov/news/press-releases/transcripts-thompson-cheney-schiff-opening-statements-select-committee-hearing))

Committee leaders framed that pressure campaign as part of a wider effort to overturn the election after legal and political routes failed. In their opening statements, Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney said Trump personally drove attempts to pressure state officials and legislatures, while Rep. Adam Schiff walked through the fake-elector effort and the transmission of phony certificates to Washington. ([january6th-benniethompson.house.gov](https://january6th-benniethompson.house.gov/news/press-releases/transcripts-thompson-cheney-schiff-opening-statements-select-committee-hearing))

The hearing also featured testimony and recordings tied to Trump’s calls to state officials, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other election workers who were targeted as the pressure campaign escalated. Thompson said the committee was showing that this was not a side issue, but a central part of the push to keep Trump in power after he lost. ([january6th-benniethompson.house.gov](https://january6th-benniethompson.house.gov/news/press-releases/transcripts-thompson-cheney-schiff-opening-statements-select-committee-hearing))

Separately, on June 22, Thompson told reporters the committee would continue public hearings into July. That announcement came the day after the state-officials hearing, and it signaled that the panel was not done adding to its public record. ([pbs.org](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/capitol-riot-hearings-to-stretch-into-july-chairman-says?utm_source=openai))

The schedule mattered because it kept the committee’s June findings from looking like a one-day burst. The panel was still collecting new material, and Thompson said more hearings would follow after the House’s July 4 recess. For the committee, the message was simple: the effort to overturn the election did not end with one failed gambit, and the public case against it was still being built. ([pbs.org](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/capitol-riot-hearings-to-stretch-into-july-chairman-says?utm_source=openai))