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Bennie Thompson
Bennie Thompson served as the chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Thompson has represented Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representative since 1993.
The following interview was conducted by Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on Oct. 24, 2023. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Why Create the January 6 Committee
Why did you want to be involved in the January 6 Committee?Why did you want to chair it?
Well, stepping back a little further, ranking member [Rep. John] Katko and myself wanted to start a nonpartisan, unbiased effort on behalf of the House patterned after the 9/11 Committee, so we offered legislation that would have a committee of nine members of Congress, but more importantly, it would be an even number, and that number would give credibility to the effort to look into what happened during 9/11 [sic].Unfortunately, we moved forward on it, but we did not get the cooperation necessary with the Republican leadership.We passed it in the House; the Senate turned it down.So ultimately, we all were back to square one.
Leader [Nancy] Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi at that time, looked at it and said, “Jan. 6 was too important of an event for us not to do the oversight or investigation necessary to see what happened.”So we looked at it, came back with a proposal to form a select committee, which we have as members of Congress the right to do.We passed it.We actually wanted to include Republicans on the committee but what happened, the Republicans that were selected by the leadership of the Republicans at that time, they all were of the opinion that Jan. 6, if you please, was just an equivalent of a congressional tour and that the election itself was basically null and void, because the individuals appointed voted against the confirmation of the election.
So Speaker Pelosi said, “We can have some of your people on there, but some of them have already publicly said their opinion as to what went on, and that would not be the case.”She then appointed [Rep.] Liz Cheney and [Rep.] Adam Kinzinger to the committee as Republicans, but also made it clear that she was open to other people who didn't have such a narrow focus on the investigation.
And ultimately, Leader [Kevin] McCarthy took all of the Republicans off the committee, and the only two left were Cheney and Kinzinger.So that's where we are, and that's how we got formed.Ultimately, I’ve chaired or been the ranking member of Homeland Security since 9/11, and Speaker Pelosi said, “You have the focus on domestic terrorism like no other.You've been here since 9/11, and since the committee was created.You should chair it.”I didn't actively seek it, more or less.I think she looked at, again, my legislative record and said, “You're the person for the chore, for the job,” and that's what I did.
You've written, and in the statements you made at the opening hearing, that it was also personal for you, that you'd seen your dad during Jim Crow not being able to vote.Can you help me understand how your past brought something to this investigation?
Well, you know, you're the sum total of your experiences, for the most part.For Bennie Thompson's experience, living and growing up in the South, where the right to vote was hard fought for African Americans, the fact that government resisted in the South, with every fiber in its being, to keep my family and people like my family from just casting a vote, and so my opening statement, more or less, chronicled my family's experience, my father never having the right to cast a vote before he died, my mother teaching him how to sign his name, because Black boys weren't allowed to go to school; the Klan was prevalent in all the communities that I'm familiar with, intimidating any act of what was called civil disobedience, which more or less was encouraging people to vote.
And so, it was that backdrop that I thought it ironic that somebody who lived a part of their life in the section of the country that denied inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to a group of people to now chair the January 6 Committee, which is, in my estimation, one of the most historic committees to come forth, given the importance of what happened on Jan. 6, and for an African American from the South, who didn't leave the South, but who's fought hard for civil rights and equal opportunity for all, to now chair the committee.
You've talked about seeing the Confederate flag in the Capitol on Jan. 6.Did you see a connection between what you had grown up with in that moment and the right to vote?
Well, one of the symbols of Southern resistance to voting rights and equal opportunity was the Confederate battle flag, and to see that flag being waved by many of the protesters brought back those memories that there are people who, for whatever reason, see the election of Joe Biden as an affront to that way of life and that in order to protest it, they came to Washington at what we've later learned was the president's invitation and ultimately wanted to show their identification with that flag.1
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I was instrumental in another juncture of getting the Mississippi flag taken down in the Hall of Flags because of that Confederate battle symbol in the upper right-hand corner of that flag.So incidentally—coincidentally, the House Administration Committee took all the flags down, didn't just take the Mississippi flag down, but they said, “Well, we'll just take them all down.”Well, I just wanted to take the Mississippi flag down because of that Confederate battle symbol, but they couldn't find the splint to say, “You're right.That flag is objectionable, and it should be taken down.”But the voters of Mississippi, as you know, voted to change the flag.So we were fortunate to get that battle symbol flag taken down.But to see the individuals waving that flag brought back some of the darkest days of my life, and the South in general.
What would you say was the point of the committee?Because there [were] a lot of questions, as you know, about the committee, about, “We saw Jan. 6.We saw it happen.We saw the president's tweets.We saw his speech.”What did you set out to add to events that seemed so public when you started?
Well, I think the charge for the committee was to look at the facts and circumstances that brought about Jan. 6 and make recommendations to the Congress as to how we could prevent that type situation ever happening again.So we looked at it with the broadest possible view, from the committee's perspective, and did just that.We took all of the video we could identify with.We subpoenaed witnesses to come before the committee.We talked to anyone who wanted to talk to us and to try to get, if you please, to the bottom of what actually occurred.
We spent almost two years in collecting that evidence.It was, as we collected that evidence, it became clear to the committee that we had a serious problem in this country that was developing around misinformation, around certain individuals promoting actually just patently wrong information.And so, in circumstances, if you repeat a lie long enough and often enough, in the eyes and ears of so many people, it becomes the truth.Otherwise, why am I hearing it so much?
And so our committee set out to make sure that we would only deal with the facts.In our hearings we presented, we would always invite anyone with opposing views to come, offer themselves as witnesses to the committee, but they'd have to do it under oath.And because we were a congressional committee, you couldn't come and lie to us and not be charged with perjury.So we had no takers to come and offer themselves as opposing witnesses to what we did as a committee.
How important was it that Liz Cheney was the vice chair of the committee, of who she was as a Republican, as [former Vice President] Dick Cheney's daughter?How important was her role?
Well, I think it was important.I chose Liz Cheney as my vice chair.I didn't want the noise that I was hearing to take root that it was a partisan witch hunt, and so I felt no better person to minimize that chatter than somebody who I had never really spoken to in Congress, who I knew her daddy; I knew his philosophy; I knew her philosophy.So you take an African American liberal and a white female conservative to lead this committee, you could take some of the opposition away so that people who just wanted to find out what happened wouldn't buy into this notion that it was a partisan witch hunt.So we chose Congresswoman Cheney.From all indications, she did a stellar job as vice chair.We didn't always agree, but the notion is that it's a committee, and there's a process that we went through.At the end of the day, all the members of the committee voted in support of the report that ultimately the committee produced.
But you said you hadn't spoken to her.Was there anything, when you worked with her, about her that surprised you?
You know, I think the thing that surprised me the most was her commitment to making sure that, not just getting to the truth but making sure that it left no room for the opposition to find fault.They might not like what we present, but they can't say we were wrong in what we presented.And so her tenue in terms of making sure that we got all the information, and the fact that she had Republican credibility in the broader sense, a lot of the witnesses that we were able to bring to the committee came because of Liz Cheney's presence.Some of them she knew; a lot of them knew of her.And so, as you know, a majority of the witnesses that came before our committee identified with the Republican Party, so a lot of that partisan witch hunt was mitigated substantially with her involvement on the committee.
The Televised Hearings
Can you tell me about the hearings?Because one thing everybody has told us is that these hearings are not like other congressional hearings.They're not orchestrated the same way.How did they come together?What were you trying to do with the televised hearings?Why were they so different from other hearings?
Well, we wanted to tell a story that the general public could understand.You know, for the most part, most congressional hearings, with few exceptions, are about as boring as you can get.So what we wanted to do is to make the hearings informative, but also wanted the public to understand the gravity of the situation we as a country had been faced with because of Jan. 6.
So given the fact that Speaker Pelosi provided resources for us to bring attorneys, researchers, production capability to our hearings beyond what we had internally, it gave us an opportunity to tell our story.And in telling the story, we were able to fan it out, so to speak, so that in producing the beginning, it became, for those individuals who followed the hearings, at the end they’d say, “I can't wait until the next hearing.”And so I think that was the production expertise that members of Congress and regular staff didn't have, because we couldn't see in the eyes of the public what they needed to see in order to tell the story.
And I think, given the numbers that our hearings produced, I think we accomplished the fact that people looked at them.People made an effort to comment.Our social media presence was real.And a lot of the opposition, it didn't go away, but it didn't address the facts and circumstances our hearings produced.
And again, our charge was to do just that.And that's what we did as a committee, is present it in the eyes of the public so that they would understand.And I'm so glad that we were able to find witnesses who found themselves and the strength necessary to come publicly, either in the hearings or in the depositions, to give testimony that otherwise most hearings wouldn't have been able to garner.
What was it like?As you said, tens of millions of people watched that first hearing.It's on prime-time television.The expectations have been high.As you know, a lot of people were saying, “What was the committee finding?”You had been sort of quiet for a number of months.What was it like to gavel in that opening that hearing?What was the room like?What were you thinking as you convened it?
Well, it was like, what in the world have we gotten ourselves into?We decided that we would interview those law enforcement personnel who had been basically defending the Capitol on that day.What was their day like? What was their night like?How has it impacted themselves since that time?I think the testimony of those four witnesses was riveting in terms of how they told individually their experience of that day.And to see them in uniform I think had a real impact on the public, saying that here are people who are sworn to protect the Capitol, come to work on that day to do just that, and they're assaulted.And in the back of their minds, I think a lot of people, they said, “This was a bad day,” because, you know, some of our colleagues had tried to minimize what occurred on Jan. 6, and so when we produced the hearing and the never-before-seen footage of some of the things that occurred, I think people got then, got the point that this really did happen, and what I saw with my own eyes did occur, and we need to get to the bottom of it.So that gave the credibility of the committee that was needed in the beginning for us to then start moving to doing and talking to other witnesses.And to be honest with you, we got better cooperation from a lot of our witnesses after that first hearing, because the impact, we believe, of those officers' testimony really went to the heart and soul of who we are as Americans.It's not you're a Democrat or Republican; you're an American.We can differ, but we don't act like we did on Jan. 6 just because my candidate didn't win.So from that, we were able to garner significant support from Republicans and Democrats to do our work.
In the hearings in the spring and summer, you started laying out what Liz Cheney calls a “multi-part” or “seven-part” conspiracy.You in your opening statement talk about Jan. 6 was a culmination of an attempted coup to overthrow the government; the violence was no accident.What were you outlining over those series of hearings?Was that the indictment we see today?Were you outlining crimes by the former president?
Well, we had to make our case, and we had to make our case to the public.We had volumes of evidence, but if we didn't tell it in our hearings where the public could digest it, then that aspect of our work would be for naught.So we spent a good bit of time with the depositions, with the interviews of witnesses.We chased people all over the world, to be honest with you, to make sure that we got every bit of evidence as a committee we could so that when we produced a hearing, it would be factual, irrefutable in terms of correctness, and the fact that even the opposition would be minimal to the hearing.
So we did that.We told the story as it related to individuals.We brought new players to the story that heretofore people didn't know much about.And a lot of it's playing out in various courtrooms now.But we set the [precedent] in our committee hearings that there were a lot of people involved in what happened on Jan. 6, and some of the people you know, some you don't know.And again, the volume of witnesses was huge, but we had to reduce that volume to something that was manageable for the public. ...
I think the first video in the spring, when you're playing the depositions that you play during your opening statement, is the former Attorney General Bill Barr saying what he had told the president: All these claims were BS.When that video clip plays, and I think it's the first time you're using these depositions, do you know that it's working?How impactful was that clip to see Bill Barr on the screen?
Well, you know, this is the attorney general of the United States of America saying basically all those claims that the election was stolen was BS; that they've looked at it, high and low, and they have found no measurable outcomes that would have changed the election.But he didn't—his position had fallen on deaf ears.But for him, under oath, to come forward and say that, I think it was very powerful.I mean, this is the top lawyer in the Trump administration saying, “I found no fault.”
For those who say there was fault, they looked at every allegation, every community, and there was no creditable harm that could have changed the outcome of the election.So I think that was—that was powerful.And this was from somebody who had defended the president in a lot of circumstances as attorney general.But I think he understood the principles of democracy and truth, and that transcends partisanship and politics.And I think his testimony set the precedent for the rest of the hearings.
One of the things you lay out in one of the hearings and in the chapter in the report is this idea of the “Big Lie.”In a lot of it, the committee's focus seems to be on showing, as you say in the opening statement, that Donald Trump lost and knew that he lost.How important was it to prove not just that the election wasn't rigged but that Donald Trump, in the committee's view, knew that he had lost?
Well, I think, you know, you have winners and losers in any election.And you can go to court; you can ask for recounts; you can do all that.But at the end of the day, when none of those things succeed, then the only thing you can rely on is a lie, and that lie was those individuals who told the president exactly what he wanted to hear, and it was our hearing that started focusing on some of those people who told him what he wanted to hear.
But we also focused on the people who worked for him, who told him the truth.There's a term in the South that says, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”And so what we had going was the professionals in the administration saying, “We've looked at this, and there is no truth to the fact that the election was stolen.”But then we had what we commonly call the “clown car” of all these other folks, from salesmen to God knows who, showing up at the White House as if they were experts on election law.And then we had others who created theories that we don't have to follow the law; we can just invent other individuals who can purport to be legitimate electors and challenge the whole election.Well, that's preposterous, and that was part of the Big Lie that the Trump administration bought into, simply because they were telling him what he wanted to hear.
The facts didn't matter.And so it was the committee's responsibility to show, in no uncertain terms, that the individuals, no matter whether they're the attorney general, the White House counsel, other individuals, that they had told the president and his senior people around him that there's no truth in the fact when people say the election was lost; there's no truth.
But there are other people out here who have no real standing in the community who are saying otherwise, and when you believe those individuals over people who's taken an oath, either as lawyers or as members of the executive branch, to support the Constitution of the United States, when you choose not to believe those individuals and believe just a ragtag bunch of people who just show up just because “they support that administration,” that's not—that's not what you want to follow.Our committee's job was to make sure that we made it clear that the Big Lie was, in fact, just that.
Pressure on State and Local Officials
In the report, you tell the story of lots of pressure on local officials, on state officials.And in the hearings, you sort of have to distill it, and one of the people you used to do that is [Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives] Rusty Bowers.Why did you choose his story?What was it about Rusty Bowers' testimony that struck you as important or powerful?
Well, here's the Republican speaker of Arizona legislature and a very powerful person who's been asked to break the law, and he refused to do it.He said, “I'm not going to do that now,” and agreed to be a witness.He came before the committee, told the truth.But more importantly, he shared his personal story about the threats on him, his family, how people staked out his house.And as you know, ultimately he lost his election because of that.But he, too, like Liz Cheney, put country over party, and I think that began to show how our committee was in fact not a partisan witch hunt, but we're just trying to get to the facts.
And so, after that, we started showing the electors who were selected to represent certain states.John Eastman and some others concocted this idea that they could create their own group of electors and submit the statements here to Washington that they would in fact be the legitimate electors in that.That was, you know, that's part of that Big Lie.But it manifested itself in intimidating people, you know, people in Michigan, people in Georgia, all those states where the submissions were produced.But again, it had no fact in law to start with.
And so who are you going to believe?The people sworn to do this for a living, in the administration, or people outside the administration, who are just dreaming up that machines were orchestrated by people and influenced by people overseas?It almost became—well, it was unbelievable, but some of the rationales being put forward by some people who have already pled guilty in some of the cases that it was all a lie, you know.You hold the press conferences, you make all these allegations, and ultimately your first real day in court, you plead guilty to exactly what you were holding press conferences, saying that it did happen.So that's, again, part of that Big Lie.
And [there are] other individuals who were part and parcel are also pleading guilty in courts of law.So I think so much of our work as a committee in Congress is now playing itself out in courts of law around the country.
You mentioned the impact on Rusty Bowers.The committee also has the testimony of [Georgia election workers] Shaye Moss and the deposition of Ruby Freeman.How impactful was that for you, and did their testimony remind you of some of those things you brought from your childhood?
Oh, yes.Look, look, I have—I’ve been elected to public office for over 50 years.In most instances, I was the first person of color to run for the particular office that I won.I always had to have good people working the polls.I had to have people who understood the law.But more importantly, they were great patriots.They just wanted to make sure that elections were run fair—run fair in my respective community.
So, what I saw in those two ladies were people who took pride in running elections fair and square, just like the book calls for.And so when the president started going after them as some cabal of people who steal elections, it was horrible.They were just a mother and a daughter doing their civic duty, and for them to be actually pointed out by the president of the United States, that's horrible.
… Our team of people talked to them, and we said, “You know, this is exactly what the public needs to see,” because in all our communities, there are a group of people who pride themselves on running fair elections.Most of them are either retired, or they just do it as a civic duty.They don't make a lot of money, but they pride themselves on being able to conduct free, open and fair elections.
So for those two ladies to be singled out as part of some conspiracy to take the election from the Trump administration was horrible.And we had been able to have them as a witness for our committee; I think it was very powerful.People say, “You know, I know somebody just like those two ladies in my community who work elections, and they're just everyday people.”
The unfortunate thing that has continuing ramifications for what occurred with those two ladies is so many people have just decided it’s just not worth it, not going to work elections anymore.So now we'll see in the not too distant future what the displacement of all these people will bring on the next election. …
Pressure on Mike Pence
The committee lays out a lot of pressure on different officials, from the Justice Department, culminating with the vice president, with the attempt to get him to intervene on Jan. 6.You wrote in the foreword to the report that you were frightened about the peril to democracy as you look back on these events.How close did we come?How close did we come in a moment with the president pressuring [Mike] Pence or over these events?
Let me tell you, I'm still concerned that that mindset of people thinking that the election was stolen is still out there.We're about to elect a person to the third highest position in government in the House of Representatives, and a majority of those people being considered are election deniers.That means that so much of what the vice president resisted and some others is still prevalent in this day and time.But Vice President Pence followed the Constitution.It specifically prescribes that his—I mean, he's basically ceremonial in terms of what occurred, but they tried to say, “You can stop this. You can do that.”He can't do it.
So I think that his resistance to the pressure is part of the reason that the president took out after him in his speech just before the march.And the fact that those individuals who did break into the Capitol wanted to hang Mike Pence, all that was part of the rancor that developed around him not doing the bidding of former President Trump.We looked at a lot of what the vice president was doing during the insurrection here at the Capitol, and it was obvious that he came perilously close to getting hurt.And the fact that, to his credit, he did not take the Secret Service advice and leave the Capitol—he stayed; he provided direction to what was going on.And I think he offered the stability at the moment that the president refused to do.
The Legacy of the Committee
When you hear about the federal indictment, how important is that?The committee had made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice.When you hear—this is the federal Jan. 6 indictment.When you hear news of that and you read it, how important is it?Do you see the work you have done reflected in that?
Yes, but on two fronts.To be honest with you, and this is Bennie Thompson's opinion, had it not been for the work of the committee and how we presented that work to the public, I'm convinced it offered significant pressure on the Department of Justice that they're going to have to do something; that had not the committee been formed or the House looked at Jan. 6, I'm not certain that the Department of Justice really would have done anything in terms of looking at it, prosecutions, special counsel, all that.I just think all what we see now is a byproduct of the work of the January Select Committee.
And how important is an indictment?How important is criminal responsibility?
Well, no question.Nobody's above the law, not even a former president.And the fact that a lot of the evidence that we uncovered is now in the hands of either the attorney general or the district attorney in Georgia, we did a lot of their background investigation for them.But we were not a criminal body.We were an oversight investigative body, but we reserved the right to share our work product with any group that wanted it.As you know, in the middle of our work, DOJ asked us for the information, and we said, “Well, we're not through.Once we complete our work, we'll be happy to give it to you,” because we felt that our job was to get to the facts and circumstances, and to involve anything else in that body of work would not be in the best interest of our charge.
And so we kept plodding along, doing what was required.And ultimately we shared everything that the department has asked us to share with them.And for that matter, if the public is interested in our work, it's available for the public to read, all 850-plus pages and God knows how many attachments that go with it.But I think in that work, you will find clearly that not only was the past administration one of the main causes for what occurred on Jan. 6, but it was the people that he relied on to foster that lie are now having their day in court as criminals, and the people whose professional advice he didn't rely on are going about their everyday life as citizens of the United States.
And as you said, you did all of this work.You lay out all of the evidence.You have all of the attachments of the depositions.You have the public hearings.You've got the report.And millions of people watch it.And yet, as you say, a majority of the candidates for speaker voted against certifying the election.The former president is now the leading nominee of the Republican Party.You can look at the polls in the Republican Party and see the needle hasn't moved very much.How do you feel about that, after all of the work you've done on this, after seeing how close you feel we came, to seeing the state of public opinion of the Republican Party today?
Well, I think we told our story.I'm convinced in that.But I'm also of the opinion that democracy is fragile and that unless those of us who believe in this democracy continue to practice it and preserve it, that what occurred on Jan. 6 could very well happen again.When the person who fostered Jan. 6 is the leading candidate for a party running for president of the United States, that tells you that there's a lot of confusion, a lot of misinformation being circulated.And unfortunately, in America, one has opinions.Whether they're right or wrong, it just, in this instance, I think there are so many people who have been fooled by partisan politics that they have not viewed the facts as we presented them.
But again, people have choices.I'm convinced that the work of our committee, long term, will be viewed as one of the hallmarks of this great institution or experiment called democracy. …
My last question: When you studied this very perilous moment in American history, and now here we are, facing another election, facing a president who's been indicted, who's attacking the court system with the Republican Party, has the peril passed?Are we still in a perilous moment?
Oh, absolutely.Democracy is still an experiment.It can go good or bad when somebody can have 90-plus charges against him and lead one of the major political parties is to say that we are challenged as a country.But I'm a firm believer that even in the worst of times, in situations like this, the people will prevail.I think it's incumbent upon all of us to put the story out where people can interpret for themselves what actually went on.
And that was part of what we did as a committee, is to put the facts before the public, and then we were convinced that once those facts were presented to the public, they'd make up their own mind.So I still run up on people that I don't know who thank me for the work of the committee.Every now and then, I run up on somebody who's not so happy, but I'm so thankful that I run up on more who are happy for the work of the committee.
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