The House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan 6 are having hearings, issuing subpoenas and doing some questioning behind closed doors.
Writing about his experience Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) recalled the shouting matches that broke out as the Capitol came under siege. He noted how everyone began to put on their plastic masks and that Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) had to tell folks to breathe slowly because the fan didn't circulate air quickly enough to ensure people hyperventilating wouldn't pass out.
"This is because of you!" Schiff said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) yelled from the gallery at Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who was speaking when the chamber was stopped.
"Shut up!" the GOP members shot back.
"Call Trump, tell him to call off his revolutionary guards," Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) yelled.
"Phillips wasn't wrong," wrote Schiff. The attack was caused by what has become known as "the big lie," he said, the belief by Republicans that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election and was entitled to the White House. Despite exhaustive efforts, Republicans haven't been able to provide evidence to back up any of their allegations.
"Because of the pandemic, Phillips, Cohen, and other members had been required to wait in the gallery before their chance to speak, and they were the most exposed," Schiff explained. "Down on the House floor, we could barricade ourselves in, but upstairs there are multiple doors to the gallery and little to prevent the rioters from entering."
Some members were crying, afraid for their lives, hiding in the front row. There's a notorious photo of Rep. Jason Crow (D-WI), an Army Ranger, reached to hold the member's hand.
Just a "normal tourist visit" Representative Jason Crow comforting Representative Susan Wild in the House chamber o… https://t.co/XLDKuMWi7K— Susan Alvarez (@Susan Alvarez) 1631889354.0
Members congress shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol… https://t.co/Q52v9xiNwk— Andrew Harnik (@Andrew Harnik) 1609966159.0
Schiff recalled people screaming to lock doors and officers not knowing which. Police found a route out to get everyone to safety and Schiff said he stayed behind to let others go ahead. His young staffer was concerned and asked why he wasn't leaving. He wasn't panicked, but that's when the loud "thud" sounds came against the doors.
"You need to get out!" Schiff recalled a police officer shouting. "Move!"
"You can't let them see you," he said that a Republican member said to me.
"He's right," another Republican member said. "I know these people, I can talk to them, I can talk my way through them. You're in a whole different category."
He said that in the moment he was "oddly touched" by the Republican members with concern. But he'd been getting death threats for years
"That feeling soon gave way to another: If these Republican members hadn't joined the president in falsely attacking me for four years, I wouldn't need to be worried about my security, none of us would. I kept that thought to myself."
He remembered one Republican who grabbed a wooden post with hand sanitizer on it to use as a weapon.
"Are you that worried?" Schiff asked him. The member confessed he was, noting, "I think I just heard gunshots."
"I was just elected. I replaced John Ratcliffe. I'm Pat Fallon."
Schiff promised the new member it wasn't always like that.
He went on to write that he remembered when he knew Republicans accepted Trump's guilt in the Jan. 6 attack but made the decision that they wouldn't do anything about it.
He said that during the Senate trial members would walk past him or speak directly to him, but the intelligence from Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) staffers revealed questions they were getting. He explained that for years Republicans would confide in him and other Democrats about the "misgivings" they had about Trump. They were people who would go on Fox News and bash Schiff while saying the opposite in private. Some even told him to keep doing what he was doing with his investigation.
"And it became clear that many Republicans felt someone needed to do it, someone needed to put a stop to it all, even if they couldn't, or wouldn't," he wrote.
And the question wasn't so much "Why should he be removed?" as "Why should I be the one to remove him? Why should I risk my seat, my position of power and influence, my career and future? Why should I?"
He had to figure out how to convince Republicans not that they should convict Trump but why they should risk their own seats to remove a president who was already gone. In the end, they weren't willing to do it.
