Jan. 6 hearing live updates: Thursday’s focus is Trump’s pressure on Pence

(WASHINGTON) — The Jan. 6 committee is holding its third public hearing of the month Thursday with the focus on the pressure campaign on then-Vice President Mike Pence.

The committee says it will detail efforts from then-President Donald Trump and his allies before and on Jan. 6 to get Pence to reject electoral votes Congress was certifying — as part of what it says was a plot to overturn the presidential election.

Please check back for updates. All times Eastern:

Jun 16, 2:09 pm
Pence and adviser found that ‘history was absolutely decisive’: He couldn’t help Trump

Greg Jacob, a former adviser to Pence, said they analyzed history and constitutional text to map out the vice president’s role when it came to certifying elections.

The two then examined “every single electoral vote count that had happened in Congress” since the country’s founding, Jacob testified. They found no vice president ever claimed to have the kind of authority Trump and his attorney John Eastman claimed Pence had.

“The history was absolutely decisive and again, part of my discussion with Mr. Eastman was, ‘If you were right, don’t you think Al Gore might have liked to have known in 2000 that he had authority to just declare himself president of the United States? Did you think that the Democrat lawyers just didn’t think of this very obvious quirk that he could use to do that?’”

Jun 16, 2:15 pm
Trump, Pence haven’t spoken in a year: Sources

Trump and Pence haven’t spoken to one another since last summer, according to sources familiar with their conversations.

Pence defended Trump through a slate of controversies during their administration. But, as the House committee is highlighting at its hearings, Pence drew a line at Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the election — breaking from the president and drawing the rage of the Trump mob on Jan. 6.

When ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl interviewed Trump for his book “Betrayal,” Karl asked about the “Hang Mike Pence” chants and whether Trump had been concerned for the safety of the man he chose to be his vice president.

“Well, the people were very angry,” Trump said.

“They said, ‘hang Mike Pence,’” Karl told Trump.

“It’s common sense, Jon. It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect,” Trump said. “How can you, if you know a vote is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”

While Pence himself isn’t testifying and has not sat before the committee, a range of former Pence aides cooperated with the investigation.

Since his term ended, Pence has publicly reiterated he had no power to overturn the 2020 results. But like other conservatives, he has said “election integrity” should be a national priority.

-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders

Jun 16, 1:40 pm
Inside the hearing room

Notable faces were spotted across the hearing room as proceedings kicked off Thursday.

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Capitol Police Staff Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges and former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who testified at the committee’s first hearing last year on their experience defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, were all present.

Former Pence national security adviser Olivia Troye, who resigned from the administration in 2020, was spotted sitting next to Gonell as well as Allison Gill, a former high-level Veterans Affairs official who was secretly recording a podcast on the weekends about Robert Mueller’s investigation that attracted thousands of listeners.

A couple of members of Congress have been spotted in the back of the room including Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., sitting together. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who along with Vice Chair Liz Cheney has been ostracized by the Republican Party for speaking out against Trump, also stopped by.

-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Benjamin Siegel

Jun 16, 1:35 pm
Retired judge says Trump risked throwing country into ‘revolution’

In his testimony on Thursday, former federal judge Michael Luttig painted a dire picture of what he believed would have happened had Pence followed through with Trump’s plea to remain in power.

“That declaration of Donald Trump as the next president would have plunged America into what I believe would’ve been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America,” Luttig said, “which in my view, and I am only one man, would’ve been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.”

Luttig is one of the panel’s two live witnesses in today’s hearing. The former judge informally advised Pence on his role in affirming the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Jun 16, 1:35 pm
Clip played of Pence saying Trump was ‘wrong’

In her opening statement, Vice Chair Liz Cheney played a clip of a Pence pushing back against Trump’s claim that he had the power to overturn the 2020 election in the weeks after the Jan. 6 attack.

“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in a speech in February before The Federalist Society. “I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”

Cheney said the select committee will now reveal the details of that pressure campaign.

Jun 16, 1:10 pm
Thompson commends Pence’s ‘courage’ in rejecting Trump’s orders

The House select committee has kicked off its third of seven public hearings slated for this month.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., gaveled in the hearing just after 1 p.m.

“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done,” Thompson said in his opening remarks. “The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again. Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong. We are fortunate for Mr. Pence’s courage on Jan. 6. Our democracy came dangerously close to catastrophe. That courage put him in tremendous danger.”

Jun 16, 11:22 am
Live witnesses for Thursday

Pence himself will not appear before the committee, but his adviser Greg Jacobs — who was with the former vice president the day of the Capitol insurrection — is slated to testify. Jacobs, who is an attorney, pushed back against legal theories that Pence could single-handedly stop Joe Biden from becoming president.

Former federal judge Michael Luttig will also testify in front of lawmakers. Luttig previously told ABC News that if Pence had attempted to keep Trump in power, he would’ve “plunged the country into a constitutional crisis of the highest order.”

In addition to the live witnesses, the committee is expected to include pre-recorded video testimony from Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, and others who have been deposed behind closed doors.

Jun 16, 11:02 am
Rep. Pete Aguilar to lead hearing

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., is going to be leading this third hearing, which he said will “lay out new evidence about the pressure campaign against Vice President Pence asking him to reject the votes of millions of people.”

Former U.S. Attorney John Wood will also be questioning the witnesses on Thursday, according to committee aides. Wood was federal prosecutor during the George W. Bush administration and is now a senior investigative counsel for the House committee.

Aguilar told reporters earlier this week that through these public hearings, the committee is making the point that “Trump was at the center of a coordinated strategy to overturn the results of a free and fair election.”

Jun 16, 10:29 am
Thursday to focus on Trump pressuring Pence

The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol will convene its third public hearing of the month at 1 p.m. with members set to focus on how former President Donald Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence with “relentless effort” to intervene to help overturn the 2020 election.

“President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing and he had been told it was illegal,” Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in a video teasing Thursday’s hearing. “Despite this, President Trump plotted with a lawyer named John Eastman and others to overturn the outcome of the election on Jan. 6.”

A key component of evidence is never-before-seen photos of Pence and his family taken by an official White House photographer on Jan. 6 itself. In one — obtained by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl ahead of the hearing — second lady Karen Pence is seen hurriedly closing the curtains of the vice president’s ceremonial office at the Capitol, apparently fearful the mob outside could see where they were.

Last week, at the prime-time kickoff to this round of hearings, Cheney teased testimony to come around Trump’s awareness of rioters’ “hang Mike Pence” chants. Quoting from witness testimony, Cheney said Trump suggested as the attack was underway: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it.”

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