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Adam Kinzinger
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Adam Kinzinger
Adam Kinzinger was a U.S. representative from Illinois from 2011 until 2023 and was one of two Republicans to serve on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Prior to his election to Congress, Kinzinger served in the Air Force and continues to serve as a pilot in the Air National Guard. He is the author of Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country.
The following interview was conducted by Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on Oct. 31, 2023. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Why did you want to be on the January 6 Committee?
Oh, I didn't want to be on it.I was kind of hoping that cup would pass from me, as it were.I remember hearing initially when the committee happened, and there was this rumor that Nancy Pelosi was going to put a Republican on it, I just remember thinking, please don't let it be me; I don't want to do it.And then she announced Liz Cheney, and then next you had, when Kevin [McCarthy] pulled all his members off, I knew at that point pretty much I was set, because I was the only other Republican that voted to form this committee.Then I was asked by [Rep.] Eric Swalwell and [Rep.] Jamie Raskin, and I knew at that point that morally I couldn't say no to it.So when that came to me, I had to do it.
Was the investigation, did it feel personal to you?You had been there on Jan. 6.Did it feel personal?
The investigation felt fairly personal to me, because not only had I actually been there on Jan. 6 during the attack and felt that threat, I had been a target of many of the conspiracies or the conspiracy theorists that called me a RINO and said that I was enabling, in essence, the destruction or the stealing of the election, the destruction of democracy.
So I knew that, without accountability, at least verbal accountability or written accountability, not speaking out about the Department of Justice, without that, who knew what future history would record about this?And I knew it was essential not just for vindication in terms of what I was saying, but in vindication for the country to defend the democracy.
What was the most important thing that you felt the committee needed to do?Because one thing a lot of people said was, “We saw what happened on Jan. 6.We saw what the president had said. We’d seen the tweets. We’d seen the video.”What was the point of the committee, for you?
Well, besides getting to actual accountability, and I think—today I believe that this Department of Justice investigation would not have happened without the committee.But I think the most important thing is, people got channelized on the day of Jan. 6.Now what was Jan. 6?It was an attack on the Capitol.That became the story.
I think the bigger story is not really that.Jan. 6 was a symptom.The bigger story is everything that happened prior, and even, frankly, some of the denialism that's happened after.But everything prior, you think of the former president telling the Department of Justice to just say the election was corrupt, right, and then leave the rest to us.We'll exploit that doubt you create, basically.Or nothing for 187 minutes.That's what I think was most important, was to broaden America's view from being a really bad day to a really bad problem that we have to address.And I think we were able to do that, to widen that lens.
I was going to ask you about it later, but you just mentioned it, which was the indictments.You think that what the committee did was essential to what would happen later?
I think there is no doubt in my mind that, had the committee not done what we did, certainly the Department of Justice would not be as far along in their investigation as they are and probably would not even be going after the former president.It was interesting.We felt this not just in the media, but we felt this in, I guess, I don't know, interactions with Department of Justice, which is we did our first hearing kind of in that series of hearings over the summer, and all of a sudden, there was like a gasp.You almost felt this gasp from the government, of like, “Wow, they actually have a lot of information.Wow, we didn't know that Mark Meadows was discussing X, Y and Z.”
And I think it woke them up to the idea that there actually is a connection here that has to be pursued.Initially they wanted to do some, well, like a typical case: We'll start with low level and try to work up to as high as we can get.And I think we made it very clear that this connection is much deeper than just something that kind of organically popped one day.
It's interesting.Some people have mentioned that speech that Liz Cheney gives in that summer hearing, where she outlines this “multi-part conspiracy.”When you look back at that speech now, what do you see?Is that like the moment that you're talking about, where suddenly the DOJ is paying attention?
Yeah. When I look back at Liz Cheney's speech outlining everything, I can see that and go, even for us, as other members of the committee, as we listened to that, as we were kind of putting this on the piece of presentation, these presentations together, even we were surprised to actually hear it.It's one thing to read this stuff in your committee and maybe talk about it, but when you hear it presented as eloquently as Liz Cheney did, but also just as succinctly, I think all of us were still sitting there in some way even dumbfounded at how obvious this is.
And that put on us an extra burden to say, “How do we make this message cut through?How do we ensure that people are hearing the truth here?”But I also think, if I could have been a fly on the wall in the Department of Justice during that, I would certainly probably expect everybody sat up and took notice of what she said after that.
The Leadership of Liz Cheney
So let's talk about Liz Cheney.How important was her role? What was her role on the committee?
I think everybody on the committee had a really unique role.This is what's kind of amazing, is you can point to everybody and say they brought a specific skill set to the committee that was necessary; they brought a specific theme that wouldn't have existed otherwise.Bennie Thompson, in allowing Liz to kind of take the lead in a lot of this, did something most politicians don't, which is let somebody else get credit.But Liz was essential for us being able to put together what we did.
You know, all of us had lives.We had families we had to take care of.We had other issues in Congress.Liz was very singularly focused on this.She was in almost every, if not every, witness hearing.She'd put stuff together, and I think she was the one that was really able to see the broad picture, and even present that to the other members of the committee.So, I think without her, I don't know if we would have been successful at all.
You write in the book about her demeanor being sort of “sandpapery” and say she's a little bit like her father.What do you mean [by] that?What was she like?
Well, she's a great person, but she's very, very determined.And that's a good thing, and you need that skill set in leadership.You need that particularly in this committee, at a moment when you had a bunch of like, everybody with their own ideas coming at this problem.But she was pretty, pretty determined, pretty focused.And so there would be moments kind of behind the scenes when somebody wanted to pursue one line of questioning or wanted to do something, and she would really try to get her way in doing it a different way.
And she took criticism well, so we could push back.It wasn't like, “I'm going to take my ball and go home.”But she was very determined, and very determined in a lot of the legal strategy that the case pursued as well.We had to fight a bunch of different witnesses in court.We had to try to refer people to the Department of Justice for violating their subpoenas, and she was very instrumental in kind of helping to determine what that would look like.
So yeah, sometimes she’d rub people the wrong way, but I think that was necessary in a time when you have a bunch of politicians with egos.
And I gather, from your book, she was one of the people saying, “Keep the focus on the former president.”Is that right?
Yeah, she definitely wanted to keep the focus on [Donald] Trump, and I agreed with that.Where that could run into some tension is, we also wanted to talk about the failures of law enforcement, which we ultimately did, and put some of those things out there.1But what she was concerned with, and I think it was a legitimate concern, is that that could be—and they tried to, but that could be taken by the Trumpers, for instance, a failure of law enforcement, and used as the excuse for what happened.It's the equivalent of blaming a homeowner whose home was robbed because, I don't know, he didn't barricade the front door.
So yeah, she wanted to make sure that he didn't evade any kind of blame for this, because she was convinced, as the rest of us were, that without Donald Trump, none of this would have happened.
Was it also, when she's outlining that case, … that there was a moral responsibility, but also this was a crime?Is that part of what she's saying what she's outlining that?
Yeah. I think it's very clear that she was outlining criminal actions.And obviously we're in unprecedented territory, so this is new.It's not like you can point to, you know, the <i>U.S. v. Reagan</i> or something like that, and say, “This has happened before.”This is new.And that actually is part of the reason we felt such an imperative to get this right, because once you violate some kind of standard in D.C. or laws, and that's not enforced, it continues to get violated.So I think it was important to show criminal action here.And it was important for me, as a military member, particularly, to show a violation of the oath.
One of the things I learned that frightens me a little bit is that the oath and the institutions and the guardrails of government are only as good as those who are willing to take them seriously.If you don't take your oath seriously, and to you it's a meaningless word, trust me, there are ways around doing things that don't defend the Constitution.So this was a very important moment in that, and I think we showed that Donald Trump both violated his oath, and also committed criminal activity.
You and Liz Cheney are the two Republicans on the committee.When you find yourself on that dais, or being announced with the other members, are you putting a political target on yourself, a literal target on yourself, by being those two Republicans on that committee?
I think if you look back particularly at that moment and really the whole time we had the Select Committee, there were probably two Republicans in the country that were hated the most and under the most threat, and I think it was Liz Cheney and I.… All you had to do was, frankly, look at Twitter.Look at your mail and the people that found your address and what they sent.So I think there was a physical target on us.I think, obviously, there was a political target on us.And the sad part about it is—I'm not saying that for sympathy.It's me; I chose to do this.My six-month-old at the time didn't choose to have somebody write in and say that they hope he wanders out into traffic and gets killed.My wife married me because she loves me, not because she wanted to be the target of any kind of attacks like that.And she had to take the kid out for a walk and have a police officer slowly follow her.That's no way anybody should live, particularly for trying to do the right thing in this country.
The Primetime Hearings
As you get to the period of the hearings, what were you trying to do?What was the committee trying to do as it gets towards—this is the summer hearings, the prime-time hearings.What was at stake? What were you hoping for?
Well, when we got to the summer, the one thing that we knew was, what we know is a compelling case.The information that we have is compelling.The thing we needed to do was tell that to the American people in a compelling way, because what you can't do is just sit there and dryly present information and expect people to be able to connect the dots.We had so much video, we had so much testimony, that we knew we could have other people come in and in their own words tell the American people what happened.
So for us, going into that, the imperative was yes, making sure we got it right, of course, and making sure the information was there, but telling this in a way that's compelling and that can maintain people's attention.And so that's why we brought in eventually James [Goldston], who was a former president of ABC News, and understood how to put these presentations together, and he brought in a very talented team of people that worked 100 hours a week to put this stuff together.And we presented this in a way that I think was more compelling than probably anything a government body has been able to do.
Tell me what it's like to sit on the dais that first hearing, that first prime-time hearing, what you're seeing, what's going through your mind.
So there's two really important moments, the very beginning and the very end of all the hearings, that stand out to me.At the very beginning of the series of hearings, I think that was probably the first time that I've had any focus on me from literally every camera in the United States of America, where every channel is tuned in to what we're saying, so you now feel a weight of that obviously, the history of that moment.And I recognized that, for the next 100 years, people are going to—200 years, people are going to study this moment and study this committee.And that's a pretty big weight to bear.And it also was that weight that OK, now that everybody's watching, we have to get this right.We have to be factually accurate, and we have to make sure that what we're saying is compelling.
The other moment that stood out is the very end, because we voted to adopt this report.And I realized, as I was closing my book I had with me, I realized this was my very last act as a member of Congress, and it hadn't sunk in at the beginning of that day.You know, I knew I was leaving Congress, but I didn't realize that that very moment was the last official thing I would do as a member.And I just remember closing that book, kind of wandering off the dais, taking my last peer at all the cameras that would kind of watch us closely as we left.And I went into the back, and it just kind of hit me, like, this is over.
And in a way, it was sad.It was sad because it's the end of an era in my life.It's sad because it was the end of a committee that I thought was so effective and unique.But I was also just sad because—in a way I was happy, because it was like, everybody kind of dreams of having a moment where they can make such an impact in a career, particularly a political career, and I was able to do that.And very few people in history had the opportunity, and even fewer that did, as we saw, actually carried through and did the tough thing.
You and Liz Cheney probably understand the Republican Party, their potential reaction to the committee, better than any of the other members.As you're getting going, are you concerned about how it's going to be perceived, about the people we've talked to, that say, “There were only two, and they're not real Republicans on it; it wasn't a bipartisan committee”?Were you concerned about how it was going to be perceived?
I wasn't really all that concerned, because I just knew the facts.The facts are, I think Kevin McCarthy called us “Pelosi Republicans,” which was laughable.He only did that once, because obviously it went over like a lead balloon.And I knew that—look, the fact is, we are Republicans.There is no doubt about this, and so I knew that the attacks on us and the attacks on the “legitimacy” of the committee was going to be by a certain sector of entertainment and news, the sector that needed to discredit the work of the committee.But I also knew what the truth was, and I knew that we were going to have witnesses.
I jokingly said, it was a very partisan committee.We only had Republicans testifying, frankly, against the former president of the United States.So I didn't lose a lot of sleep over it, because I frankly have been in this business long enough and watched this stuff long enough to know exactly the attacks that were coming my way.
One of the most important and interesting things I remember, at the very first hearing, the Republicans were supposed to have this, like, quick-reaction messaging thing against us, where they were going to quickly tweet out.They did it once and then never did it again, because we frankly crushed them informationally, and they had no other options.
… Was there something that stood out to you as a feeling, like this is different?
I think the moment in the first hearing where I was kind of like, OK, this is a big deal, we all—in each of the committee hearings, we had like, kind of an intermission, a halftime, where the networks talked a little bit about what happened; we went back and kind of regrouped; and then we came back out for the second half, sort of like a ballgame.And we would go back, and we would have television on and watching the news.
And to see the analysts talking about that, very stone-faced, but very like, sober and serious about what we had just presented over the last hour, that was the moment I realized that this was going to be effective and different, because what I expected was—you know, I was worried that too much had leaked out of our investigation, that we didn't have any “surprises” left.I was worried that people had these expectations that were up here, that were unmeetable.And I realized, in that first half, in just watching the reaction, that we had met that expectation and beyond, because you could just see it in the face of the people talking.
Pressure on State Officials
We talked to [Arizona House Speaker] Rusty Bowers about his testimony, about what it was like to walk into that room and to testify.From your perspective, as you’re watching him walk in—he walks in with [Georgia election official] Gabriel Sterling and [Georgia Secretary of State] Brad Raffensperger—when you see Rusty Bowers come in, what are you thinking about him in a moment like that?
It's interesting, because I see somebody like him, and I'm very proud that he's standing up, and he's going to come in and tell the truth.But there's also part of me that's really worried, because I know the pressure that's going to come down.And I'm not really worried that he's going to be hurt or lose his job.I'm worried that he's going to change his mind, because I've seen so many people that have taken the pressure, and they just couldn't handle it, and they changed their mind, or they back away, or they go over the top on some other issue to try to win back the people whose trust they lost.
That's the thing that actually I was always scared about … because to me, the threat wasn't safety and security and losing a job.The threat was the capitulation of the will and the determination to do the right thing.
So when you see him sit there and take the oath and then recount these pretty damaging conversations that he has with President Trump, with Rudy Giuliani, what do you think at that moment?
When I watch him recount these conversations and say what happened, at that moment it's just kind of like, you feel a sense of kinship.The best way to explain it is, when you're kind of alone on a Republican island, or off a Republican island like I was and Liz Cheney was, really to find anybody else that has that same level of determination or concern or willingness to speak out, it's just like an automatic brother.Really, it feels like family.And so I felt like a quick kinship in terms of this is somebody who's committed to doing the right thing.There is a remnant of Republicans left that will say this.
And I felt very proud, and very—again, it was almost like I could have fought in a war with somebody and probably felt as close to that person as I did to people like Rusty Bowers at that moment, because they were willing to just do the right thing, and that's rare.
One of the other people at that hearing, Gabriel Sterling, I think the committee uses him as much for that press conference that he gave, warning of violence, which was something, during that period, you were personally being exposed to.Why was Sterling so important and that press conference, and the story he was telling?
I think Gabe Sterling was the first to really, as far as I remember, to really come out and say, “This is going to lead to violence.”I think I was probably tweeting it and maybe saying that on a news channel or two, but he came out and had the eyes of the world and said this.And he was right.I mean, look, obviously he was right.You know, Gabe Sterling would not have been listed as some kind of a “Republican in Name Only” or some kind of a liberal Republican prior to that moment.Why is it that he was kicked off the Republican island?Not because he had some view that they didn't agree with.It was because he called out Donald Trump.
And that—I think it was an early moment that showed this is a movement based on a man alone, Donald Trump, and not on issues.And it was just important for him to show that raw emotion that was very real.What you see in his press conference is a man who is polished, presents himself very well, but that was a raw human emotional moment and true concern, and I think the world felt that.
Pressure on the Department of Justice
You led the hearing on DOJ pressure.Why did you want to lead that hearing?
This is not what I wanted to lead.The DOJ hearing actually was given to me for a good reason, and I didn't want it, because I'm not a lawyer.Law stuff bores me to death.And so, we're talking about who gets this, and the suggestion is, “Here, Kinzinger, you get the Department of Justice.”And I'm like, “You guys know I'm not a lawyer, right?Like, you understand this.”But it was brilliant, because a lawyer presenting lawyerly things would use lawyerly language and probably lose the vast majority of people that were watching.
I had to use this in toned-down language that I understood.I had to see things that outraged me not because of some commitment I have to the law that I learned in law school, but because of my raw anger as an American.When the former president says, “Hey, DOJ, just say the election was corrupt, and then leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” I looked at that and said, “OK, maybe I am the best to lead this.”
And I think also, that had to be a Republican doing it, because everybody in that scene, you know those scenes where Donald Trump is trying to get them to do this, everybody of the list of characters were Republicans, were good Republicans that stood up and did the right thing, and I think it was much more effective to have somebody like me—or Liz Cheney could have done it—than to have a Democrat that people automatically would dismiss as a partisan.
So in your non-lawyerly explanation, what was the story that you told?
The story that I told in that was a president that wanted to exploit doubt in an election and use his Department of Justice to do it.He wanted this stamped out, and then he wanted to take the rest of the Republican congressmen, as he said, “Me and the Republican congressmen,” to take that doubt and exploit it, even trying at the moment to put a new person in as attorney general that would basically do his bidding.This is a lesson for the future.There's always somebody that's willing to violate their oath to defend this guy.So think of that next time he's up for election.
So that was that.And thankfully there were good Americans, good Republicans, good officials in Department of Justice that took what they called a suicide pact.They said, “We're all going to walk if you do this.”Next time there won't be those people there.Next time there will not be that pact, and we have to remember and recognize that.I hope that's the story I told in that.
One of the things that comes through in the testimony and in the report is that they've, [acting Attorney General Jeffrey] Rosen and [acting Deputy Attorney General Richard] Donoghue, have conversations with the president.They tell him repeatedly that there's no evidence to what he's saying.How important was it to understand the president's mental state, whether he believed these things, whether he was lying?How important was that to the committee? How important was it in that hearing?
I think it's extremely important both to the committee, to the hearing and to the law, because I, again, as the not-lawyer, I can't give you the specifics on it, but if somebody doesn't necessarily, particularly when it comes to maybe a conspiracy case or something like that, if they don't necessarily think what they're doing is illegal, that will have an impact.But if you can show, as I think we effectively did, that the president at least understood that everybody was telling him that there wasn't anything to what he was saying, whether he believed it or not, I don't know.And I don't think he did believe it.But regardless, you can show that he believed this on an island in that moment.I think that was essential to showing his mindset.And if you noticed, his mindset wasn't to sit there and try to convince them otherwise.The mindset was like, “OK, I just need to ask you a little favor.Just say it was corrupt for me, and then I'm pretty good at exploiting this doubt.”And that doubt, by the way, that exists is the doubt in faith that's necessary in our election system, which is the most important thing for self-governance to survive.
And you write in your book about a video of protesters saying, “Do your job.Do your job,” to the DOJ and that you see a connection between this moment and what happens on Jan. 6.Can you explain what that video is and what it reveals to you?
Yeah. The details are just people yelling at the Department of Justice to basically go out and find corruption.Again, the narrative that had been going around was there's just systemic corruption everywhere; Department of Justice is investigating this, and they need to go—in some cases it was suggested to seize voting machines, right, and throw out and invalidate elections or run elections again.
And so people that are protesting understood that the Department of Justice could, in this case, be an ally to them.Again, looking at that in a silo and saying that's a one-off occurrence is one thing, but looking at that on the perspective of saying, the next time somebody that is a—I'll call them the equivalent of an election denier—is in office, they can surround themselves with people that will do exactly what they want, that will exactly shut down every case that they don't like, and the Department of Justice will go out and try to take over voting machines, will not follow through potentially on some of the decisions of the court.That's a frightening thing, because once that happens, again, once you lose trust in an institution, it's virtually impossible to build trust back.
Donald Trump on January 6
Based on what you learned on the committee, when Donald Trump sends out a tweet that says, like, “Jan. 6, be there. Will be wild,” does he know that this could lead to violence?Does he know where this is headed?
In my mind, I don't know if he, when that tweet went out, if he specifically knew this would lead to violence.I think he understood that this was going to be chaotic and crazy, and he wanted that.But I think, when we get closer to that day, and you start to see the mindset of knowing that some of the people out there are armed, for instance, because he's upset, wants to take the magnetometers away because they're not here to shoot him anyway, they're—you know, they're our people—I think it became very clear, particularly with the warnings he was getting from folks that this was going to be a violent moment.2
2
New York Times: What are magnetometers, or mags?
How angry he was when he couldn't go to the Capitol.He wanted to go to the Capitol, and when they said no, he was angry about that, because he knew there would at least be mild confrontations there.But the thing that goes to his mindset, more than any other, is for 187 minutes, while this combat was going on, he, for the first time in his life, he is so susceptible to peer pressure to act and speak and think of things, for the first time in his life, he resisted all pressure to act until he saw that law enforcement had turned the tide.And only when law enforcement turned the tide did he then begrudgingly try to cover his backside and look like he was against the violence in the first place.But for three hours, he was sitting there watching the news, wondering if his people would win, and he knew that all he had to do was put out a tweet that said, “Stop,” and it would be over.
So this was another hearing that I think you co-lead, the “187 minutes” hearing.Was this one you wanted to lead?Why was that one important to you?
We both— so Elaine Luria and I had decided to lead the 187-minute hearing, and frankly requested it, because we were both the veterans on the committee.3We think a key part of talking about this 187 minutes is the recognition that Trump proactively failed to follow his oath to defend the Constitution, to defend a constitutional branch of government.Well, everybody on the committee had taken one form of the oath, but Elaine and I had taken that oath twice and in two different capacities, as a member of Congress and as a military member, and I think it was important for us to just hopefully express that outrage of how there were people that are willing to die for this country, and this guy couldn't even follow through on his basic oath thing that wasn't even going to cost him his life or even put him in danger.That's why it was important for us, I think, to tell that story as who we were, because we had seen this from a different perspective.
And then how did you piece it together?Because it sounds like the diaries are missing; there's not a lot of records; people don't want to talk to you.So how do you put together a hearing like that?
We had so much information.If you would have looked at the proverbial cutting-room floor in each of these hearings, we were cutting basically half of the hearing out because we had to prioritize which is the most powerful evidence.We were able to put sometimes conjecture: If somebody said this, here is what they must have meant.We had a lot of text messages that connected dots.
And we had a lot of cooperating witnesses that would come in and say, “Hey, we have a suspicion that maybe, whatever, X, Y, Z was the case.Can you confirm or deny that?”Well, yeah, I can confirm it. I was there. I saw it.And so we really had more information than we knew what to do with.
We certainly hit a wall.There was points, you know, I wish we could have gotten more information about the role of Secret Service and some of those questions that came up at the end.But we had a time limit on us, and I think we were able, really just in the nick of time, to get enough information to put a compelling case forward.And we were able, hopefully, to hand that on a silver platter over to the Department of Justice, so they can use their, in many cases, more tools to compel people to talk, to get some of the holes filled that we weren't able to.
How did you hear about [White House aide] Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony?There's this very dramatic hearing.How did you first hear that this was going to happen?
I got a text, I believe, from Jamie Fleet, who was Pelosi's guy, asking me, “Can you be here in 48 hours?,” or something like that, because we were out for that week I think, or there was some reason.And I'll tell you what.One of my biggest annoyances in Congress is actually getting alerted to go back to D.C. when you have plans, because you're doing something else.
So I asked him, basically, “How important is this?”And he goes, “It's really important.”And I thought—at that point, I didn't need to know all the details, because too much stuff leaked out anyway, again, from the committee.And I knew this was important.But I ended up getting the conversation and finding out, of course, that it was Cassidy Hutchinson.So we all went back to D.C.We went into the SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility, pronounced “skiff”], where classified information is discussed, and she talked about the information that Cassidy had come forward with.
And again, Cassidy Hutchinson had changed her lawyers, because her other lawyer was Trump-funded, and she had felt he was encouraging her not to be truthful.4And just the information we got was obviously really compelling and filled in a lot of holes.And we thought it was important to put her in front of the American people.She's a very compelling person.She's a very honest person.And that was really the right moment, I think, to do that.But yeah, it was a surprise to me.
What was it like to watch her come out?She's relatively young. … and [at the] center of this very dramatic moment.You know what the potential costs are to her life, in a personal way, to come out and testify.What are you thinking as she walks into the room?
When Cassidy walked into the room and testified, I was fairly internally choked up, because I was really proud.I had known Cassidy just kind of, you know, what I call a couple of Kevin Bacons away.I've never really met her, but talking through a couple people.And she was a hardcore Trump loyalist.I mean, she was sold on Donald Trump. …
The most intimidating thing is all those cameras sitting one foot from her face, taking pictures of her as she's getting ready to destroy the tribe that she gets her identity from.I've been there, right? I've been in that moment.It was pretty awe-inspiring, to be quite honest with you.
And I don't get nervous in hearings and stuff like that anymore, and I didn't in any of the Jan. 6 stuff.But had I been the one sitting at that table, even with all my experience, with all those cameras taking pictures, I would have been nervous.When she started talking, and she presented herself as poised as she did and as determined as she did, and as deliberate, I was just—I was blown away at her maturity and her ability to present what she did.
You mentioned some of the things she talks about: the magnetometers, the weapons, the desire to go to the Capitol.How important was that testimony, and what did it go to?
I think her testimony was extremely important to show both the intentions and the mindset of the former president, to show kind of the inaction of somebody like a Mark Meadows, who was just scrolling his phone because he didn't know what else to do.I mean, the chief of staff to the president is supposed to be the one in there telling the president to do something, but he knew darn well that that was pointless, and it was much better to just try to stay on Trump's good side.
What she brought there was that mindset, which was missing in what we would be able to tell about the president, because we didn't have his text messages, obviously.He didn't text.We had some kind of tertiary information, but she was able to pin a lot of that together.
But the crazy thing that happened after that is, after she testified, there was a floodgate of people that agreed to testify as well.You know, Donoghue, many others that said, “OK, I'll come in and testify,” because I think two things.Number one, she would shed light on something that they could also shed light on, and also, looking at a girl with the courage to do that should put a lot of men to shame.
You talk about a photo of her hugging Liz Cheney.Would she have been testifying there without Liz Cheney?
No, she wouldn't have.I think—you know, I remember early on, I get a call from a friend who says, “Hey, Cassidy is wondering if she's going to get a subpoena.She hasn't yet.”So I actually kind of worked through that thing to make sure that she got a friendly subpoena, that she could come in and talk.But after that, I got to know her and get a little information.But Liz was just so involved in the day-to-day.And obviously, if you're somebody like Cassidy, to have a Republican there, whether it's Liz or me, is really beneficial, because there's a natural mistrust between the parties.
I think she was able to get Cassidy to a point where she was comfortable enough, where she was able to remember stuff, and frankly, where she was courageous enough to get rid of a Trump-funded lawyer.I mean, think about the fact that you're a person with no money.Now there's lawyers that are $800 an hour; you can't afford them.Trump comes along and said, “Here's one for free.”It takes a lot of courage to say, “No, I'm not going to do it.”And she ended up getting free service anyway.
When you look back, once you're on the committee, and you have full access to—or not full access, but as much access as the committee gets to understanding these events that happened, something like the pressure on [Vice President] Mike Pence, let's say, how close do you think we came?How much worse could things have been if, say, Mike Pence had made a different decision?
I think we came very, very close to a really bad day on Jan. 6.I think had Mike Pence made a different decision, automatic constitutional crisis.What do you do in that moment?We obviously have to go to the Supreme Court for an answer, and we don't know what the Supreme Court would have said.What would have happened if the ballots had been taken, stolen or burned by the insurrectionists that day, that, thankfully, a Senate clerk had the thought, the presence of mind, to grab them and remove them?Because according to the Constitution, you don't count the votes based on what was reported on the news; you count the votes that were legitimately certified and put in front of you.What if those were burned, torched or lost?You have to now go back to the state to recertify an election.Then what?What are those debates like?
What happens if some of those local election clerks that felt that pressure had actually capitulated?What happened if Brad Raffensperger would have tried to find the 11,000-whatever votes?There were so many things that almost divinely held, but they held just barely.[And] next time, people going into this with a plan and an understanding of where those weaknesses in the system are can do real damage.
Legacy of the Committee
You held the president responsible from the very beginning.But by the end of this, what has the committee learned, added to what you know, that when you look back at what happens, that you feel like you've added to the history, especially as regards to his responsibility?
I think the committee was able to really put together and learn the fact that this is something that didn't spontaneously happen on Jan. 6.It wasn't just a bunch of people that showed up ticked off, and then all of a sudden, oh, they accidentally crossed the line, and oh, no, we just let this get [ahead] of us.We were able to show the planning that occurred, the mindset that occurred prior to that, the fact that the president wasn't just kind of, as he likes to portray himself sometimes, just haplessly bumbling along the tide, and the tide was the thing that did Jan. 6, but he was just along for the ride.He had the presence of mind to know what he was doing, and he was determined to not lose an election that he had lost.
I think that's important for historical facts, for historical context.And I hope that the impact of it was to be able to just remind the American people that, while we've gotten used to democracy as being kind of an easy thing, because it's just what we were raised with, it actually is something that needs defending.And that oath that we take actually means something bigger than just some words on a paper or with your hand raised.
At the end of it all, and the risks you've taken, that Liz Cheney took, the witnesses take, the millions of people who watch, when you look at the polling of Republicans, or you talk to your own family, and you see, even though you put out all of the documents, the supporting documents, you put out the report, you do the televised hearing, that he's the presumptive nominee, that many Republicans don't believe the committee, how does it feel personally?
Well, in looking at kind of where that polling is now, and people's thoughts, particularly in the party, I certainly wish we were somewhere else with this.I certainly wish the Republican Party would have taken that moment to take the off ramp, right, to move on, to turn the page, to find something new, and they didn't.I can't own that, because I don't think we could have presented a more compelling set of facts than we did.And so that is where I believe in personal responsibility.Everybody is responsible for what they believe, what they think.All I can do is put those facts in front of them.
But the thing I know is we're still a country that elects people based on whoever gets more than 50 percent of the votes.And I know that Democrats, Independents and some Republicans believe the truth about what happened on Jan. 6 and are very, very apt to never elect a guy, or reelect a guy, that did that.And so to me, I think it's important for the defense of democracy.But it's something we can't take for granted.It's still possible he may win again.
But I feel very compelled that when my kid reads about this in the history books, when he reads about what his dad did in the history books, and he reads about what happened, he'll actually read about the truth and not some conspiracy like this was the FBI or antifa.He'll learn that this was an insurrection launched by the former president of the United States, an attempted coup, and that the former president will ultimately be held accountable for that.
Just on a personal level, if your friends, one-time friends, your family, that you can't convince them, does that not make you despondent or angry?
I've been through, with—with the inability to convince certain people, I've been through all the stages of grief on that.And you go through anger, through denial.“We can always fix this.I can't believe they would do this.I can't believe they believe this.”You go through all those stages, and finally you get to acceptance.And that's where I'm at.You know, look. If there's extended family that disown me—there is, by the way—that's on them.I don't need to expose myself to that toxicity, and I don't need to convince them of anything.That's what they own.
My co-pilot in Iraq that sent me a text telling me he was ashamed to have ever flown with me because I was telling him the truth—you know what?That's on him.That's the poison in his heart.He chooses to believe the misinformation.All I can do is accept that now and fight against it, but I've gotten past letting it bother me.But certainly it went through its stages of anger.
So where we are now, the indictments, the pending trial—trials, but we're especially interested in the federal trial, but the pending trials, does it matter?Does the criminal accountability matter?
Yes. I think the criminal accountability of Donald Trump matters.We never want to be a country that just prosecutes the last administration because we're ticked off about something they did, but we also cannot be a country that says an attempted coup is OK as long as it failed, because then the incentive to ever try something like that is huge, because if you succeed, you can just stop the investigation.It is essential in this moment that the former president face justice.I believe it's essential that he ends up in prison and we show the American people that nobody is above the law, even the former president of the United States.
And people we've talked to who say they're going to blow everything up, you're politicizing the investigations, you're injecting the Department of Justice into presidential politics—those dangers, are they real?
I think it's a very real threat.But if we don't do it because of a fear of what they're going to do or violence, you've now basically made the marker that violence threatened is OK.It's the most effective way to compel politics.And so we have to, especially in the face of threats of violence, that's when we have to push the hardest.That's when we have to double down.That's when we have to say we will not be intimidated, because if we're intimidated, God help us to be able to govern ourselves in the future.
And do you think that the system can hold?You have a whole report, a whole committee hearings, about a former president who tried to find a way around the rule of law, around the election, and now putting tremendous stress on our criminal justice system, talking about judges, about perhaps using the election as a way to get out of criminal trouble.How big are the risks?Can he take that same strategy he took with the election to the trial?
There's always risk.There's huge risks in all of this, and I think he can take any strategy to trial.He can try to convince the jury of one thing.But I still do believe that the jury system works, and I think you can take even the most MAGA person on a jury, faced with the most compelling facts, and ultimately they'll do the right thing.And so yeah, there are strains to the system.There's going to be another stress test coming in some level, whatever that is, but we can hold.It's not a guarantee.We can hold.But really, the thing that determines that is, are we going to be people that are true to the oath, true to the Constitution and true to our commitment to broader humanity, or are we going to be consumed by the anger of the daily politics?
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