from the President’s advance team,[725] and his understanding is that this idea “wasn’t from the President.”[726] Two witnesses before the Committee, including a White House employee with national security responsibilities and Hutchinson, testified that Ornato related an account of PresidentTrump’s “irate” behavior when he was told in the Presidential SUV on January 6th that he would not be driven to the Capitol.[727] Both accounts recall Ornato doing so from his office in the White House, with another member of the Secret Service present.[728] Multiple other witness accounts indicate that the President genuinely was “irate,” “heated,” “angry,” and “insistent” in the Presidential vehicle.[729] But Ornato professed that he did not recall either communication, and that he had no knowledge at all about the President’s anger.[730]
Likewise, despite a significant and increasing volume of intelligence information in the days before January 6th showing that violence at the Capitol was indeed possible or likely, and despite other intelligence and law enforcement agencies similar conclusions,[731] Ornato claims never to have reviewed or had any knowledge of that specific information[732] He testified that he was only aware of warnings that opposing groups might “clash on the Washington Monument” and that is what he “would have brief to [Chief of Staff] Meadows.”[733] The Committee has significant concerns about the credibility of this testimony, including because it was Ornato’s responsibility to be aware of this information and convey it to decisionmakers.[734] The Committee will release Ornato’s November Transcript so the public can review his testimony on these topics.
SUMMARY: CREATION OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE; PURPOSES.
In the week after January 6th, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy initially supported legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, stating that “the President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters” and calling for creation of a “fact-finding commission.”[735] Leader McCarthy repeated his support for a bipartisan commission during a press conference on January 21: “The only way you will be able to answer these questions is through a bipartisan commission.”[736]
On February 15, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter to the House Democratic Caucus her intent to establish the type of independent commission McCarthy had supported, to “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex.”[737] A few days thereafter, Leader McCarthy provided the Speaker a wish list that mirrored “suggestions from the Co-Chairs of the 9/11 Commission” that he and House Republicans hoped would be included in the House’s legislation to establish the Commission.[738]
In particular, Leader McCarthy requested an equal ratio of Democratic and Republican nominations, equal subpoena power for the Democratic Chair and Republican Vice Chair of the Commission, and the exclusion of predetermined findings or outcomes that the Commission itself would produce. Closing his letter, Leader McCarthy quoted the 9/11 Commission Co-Chairs, writing that a “bipartisan independent investigation will earn credibility with the American public.”[739] He again repeated his confidence in achieving that goal.[740] In April 2021, Speaker Pelosi agreed to make the number of Republican and Democrat
99
