The Jan. 6 committee launches the first in a series of public hearings tonight, setting the stage for America to weigh the findings of its investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol and former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, and vice-chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, are expected to lead the first part of the hearing Thursday evening. The second part is expected to be led by Tim Heaphy, the committee’s chief investigative counsel.
The story of Jan. 6 began long before a mob descended on Washington, D.C. and the committee is expected to begin by explaining how the events of that day were the result of a coordinated, multi-step effort to stop the transfer of power from Trump to the true victor of the 2020 election, now-President Joe Biden.
There will be six hearings over the course of this month, and additional hearings have not been ruled out. But to kick off proceedings Thursday night, the select committee will begin with testimony from two eyewitnesses: Nick Quested, a British filmmaker who was embedded with the Proud Boys during the assault, and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards. Edwards was the first law enforcement officer injured when the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol. She suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Investigators will present new video footage and are expected to begin pulling back the curtain on evidence compiled from over 1,000 interviews and critically, those conducted with members of the Trump administration, his reelection campaign, and members of his family who had front row seats to his conduct before, during, and after the insurrection.
Before the hearing, Daily Kos interviewed Quested by phone on Wednesday night. Quested spent several weeks around Proud Boys after the 2020 election, documenting them with their permission.
Before Jan. 6, he said, he was “working on a film about why America was so divided.”
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Quested told Daily Kos that when he testifies, he will offer the committee only “his experience.”
“I’m a journalist. I saw it. I filmed it. If you don’t believe what I have to say, then I don’t know what you believe,” he said. “I’m only going to tell you what I saw.”
Quested is the owner and executive director of Goldcrest Films. He and his documentary crew were with Proud Boys during key moments on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. During the assault, Quested was in the thick of it, capturing the shocking chaos around him.
A day before, his crew captured another series of jarring moments: A meeting in an underground parking garage between Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, and Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the extremist Oath Keepers.
That video has become key evidence in the respective seditious conspiracy indictments for Tarrio and Rhodes.
When prosecutors released 22 minutes of Quested’s footage last month, they alleged that one participant at the subterranean meeting referenced the Capitol directly, and said that Tarrio appeared “antsy” because he wanted to reestablish temporarily lost communication with members of the extremist group that would be storming the Capitol in less than 24 hours. Also present at the meeting were Joshua Macias, leader of Vets for Trump, Bianca Gracia, the head of Latinos for Trump, Kellye SoRelle, an attorney for the Oath Keepers, and Amy Harris, a freelance photographer.
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By the time of the Jan. 5 garage meeting, Tarrio was extremely fresh off a warrant arrest for burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic church in Washington that December. He had been picked up at an airport in the Capitol region just 24 hours before and charged with two felony counts of possession of high-capacity magazines. Tarrio later told authorities someone purchased the magazines from him online and he arrived in D.C.—with knowledge of his outstanding warrant—to sell them.
Tarrio’s attorney recently told a federal judge the parking garage meeting was coincidental; Tarrio was looking for an attorney. Rhodes, he thought, may have a good one.
Though Quested’s crew filmed much of the meeting, there were moments when the film crew was told to step away, and audio was not captured. Quested told Daily Kos he didn’t think the remarks he was able to hear were tied to a “seditious conspiracy” at that moment, but he acknowledged there was “a chunk of the conversation” he didn’t hear.
“I heard ‘I’m going to protect my boys’ the next day, ‘I don’t think my comms are compromised, I think I’m fine.’ And then I didn’t hear a chunk of the conversation,” Quested said Wednesday night. “What the feds heard is they talked about the Capitol, but I didn’t hear it, so I can’t say I did.”
Quested said he doesn’t necessarily believe there was a shared conspiracy between Rhodes and Tarrio.
“I think there were separate plans that were in effect that acted in concert but not in collusion. I think there’s a variety of plans that crash on the steps of the Capitol. I don’t think there’s one plan, but they’re all part of it,” Quested said. “There’s no management. Trump doesn’t manage anything, he’s a chaos merchant. He’d rather have people compete for his affections than actually fucking organize it.”
The British filmmaker told Politico in April he was subpoenaed by the Department of Justice and faced questioning about his interactions with the extremist group. He felt he was “initially treated like a co-conspirator for the Proud Boys,” he said at the time. But those feelings dissolved.
Though there were parts of the conversation between Rhodes and Tarrio he admits he did not hear on Jan. 5, Quested acknowledged that “the optics are terrible,” he said.
Assessing the members of the group he met, Quested’s evaluation was frank.
On an individual basis, he said, some Proud Boys seemed “personable” enough.
“Yeah, I have different politics, and we could discuss politics. But as a group, you know, the ideology is very Trumpian. And that’s what brings them together. It’s like, I was trying to work out whether they were football hooligans or Jacobins or, brownshirts,” Quested said. “And I think there’s sort of a combination of all three.”
The Proud Boys describe themselves as a western chauvinist group. They espouse ideals that are rife with bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. The Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes them as a hate group.
During the presidential debates in September 2020, Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy and to condemn the hate group. He did not. Instead, he told them to “stand back and stand by.”
In the lead-up to Jan. 6, the Proud Boys were involved in numerous violent incidents and were a part of various Trump rallies and events supporting him. Just hours before Tarrio burned the Black Lives Matter banner in D.C. on Dec. 12 during a “Million MAGA March,” he posted a photo of himself on Parler, standing on the steps of the White House.
Bianca Gracia of Latinos for Trump was visiting the White House that day. A spokesman for the Trump White House told The Washington Post at the time that it was a public tour and that Tarrio never met with Trump.
Notably, Gracia posted a photo of Tarrio standing with Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle on Facebook in 2019.
Quested’s delivery is candid. He is unabashed about his opinions. He isn’t interested in trying to fit into any particular narrative during his testimony, he explained. But he was adamant that he believes the committee is doing important, critical work.
“I hope we can establish a real sense of the record: what actually happened, what people did it, and what people were doing, then I think the committee might be able to establish motivation. I think it would be an excellent thing for the committee to achieve,” he said.
Quested then lamented the state of discourse in the U.S.
“You can’t have a discussion. The reason America is struggling at the moment is because there’s no agreed set of facts. You know, you can’t discuss [for example] the period of slavery, or anything at the moment, because people won’t agree to a set of facts. If we can agree to a set of facts, if that’s what happens, then we can have a discussion about how to make it better,” Quested said. “I think that’s important and everything that is subsequent to that—I mean, that’s the bottom line.”
He continued:
“There has to be a record that people believe, and I don’t think the committee is a politically vengeful, vindictive body that’s here to destroy Trumpism—but they are here to bring clarity to the motivation and the actions from the election all the way to up to Jan. 6.”
In addition to Quested’s remarks Thursday night, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards is expected to share her eyewitness testimony.
Edwards told Good Morning America last fall that she watched as more than 200 rioters barreled toward her on Jan. 6, ripping up barriers as they drew near. One was thrown at her. It hit her, and when she fell to the ground, she slammed her head into concrete. She suffered a traumatic brain injury. Nearly a year after the attack, she was still dealing with lingering issues tied to that event.
Part of the presentation on Thursday is also expected to delve into the activities of Proud Boy Joseph Biggs, currently facing seditious conspiracy charges alongside Henry Tarrio.
On Jan. 6, just as the Capitol was on the cusp of being stormed, prosecutors say Biggs had an exchange with a man in the crowd, Ryan Samsel.
This was a critical moment. In video footage shot by Quested, Samsel, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, is seen speaking to Biggs. Then, after the exchange, Samsel immediately walks to a police barricade and according to an affidavit, takes “an aggressive posture” and begins confronting police.
In short order, Samsel, prosecutors say, pushed down a barricade, ultimately knocking down Officer Edwards. Edwards, identified in court records as Officer 0-1, recalled Samsel remarking to her during the exchange: “We don’t have to hurt you. Why are you standing in our way?”