Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) on Sunday said the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is working to obtain videos then-President Trump made at the White House as the riot was taking place.
Thompson, the chairman of the panel, said Trump made “several videos” before releasing a one-minute clip on social media amid the riots in which he urged his supporters to disperse.
Thompson said the committee has asked the National Archives for the videos that were never posted.
“Well, you know, it’s about 187 minutes,” Thompson told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to the amount of time it took Trump to tell his supporters to leave the Capitol amid the riots.
“We have now determined he was in the White House. We’ve determined that a number of people made attempts to contact him through his chief of staff. Some of those text messages we share on our presentation of the contempt citation for Mark Meadows. We also have information, other individuals, who made calls trying to get some semblance of response out of the White House, but for that 187 minutes, nothing happened,” Thompson said.
“We do know now that several videos were made — we don’t have them yet — before the right one was released. But we requested it from the National Archives, that and all other information,” he added.
Thompson reiterated that while “the president was told, You need to say directly to your people to go home, leave the Capitol,” it ultimately took “over 187 minutes to make that simple statement.”
“Something’s wrong with that,” he added.
In the video Trump released, he told his supporters at the Capitol to “go home in peace” but continued to tout the claim that his election loss was “fraudulent.”
Thompson on Sunday said the select committee believes it is “in a good place” to start the process of drafting its report.
“We will meet and establish timeline for the production of the report because there’s some legislation that we hope to recommend with this report that Congress needs to adopt so that what occurred on Jan. 6 will never happen again,” he said.
Thompson in September said he hoped the panel would be able to complete its work by “early spring.” His signal that the panel is close to beginning the draft process comes months before the November midterm elections, when a potential GOP House takeover could jeopardize the future of the committee.