5-Minute Fix newsletter On Tuesday, the Jan. 6 committee held another hearing in which it attempted to tie Donald Trump to the most violent extremists leading the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and pressed their argument that Trump knew what he was doing and should be held responsible.  Jan. 6 defendant Stephen Ayres and and Jason Van Tatenhove, a former Oath Keepers spokesman, testify Tuesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) | Here are five takeaways from the hearing, with much on it here. 1. 'Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by arguing he is willfully blind' Did Trump know he lost the election and lied about it anyway, or was he deluded into thinking he won? The House Jan. 6 committee thinks it's the former, but either way, they're pushing for him to be punished for claiming widespread election fraud and inciting an insurrection. On Tuesday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) argued that Trump was, at the very least, "willfully blind" to the facts that his own advisers were telling him. "Willfully blind" is a legal term. As The Post's Aaron Blake has reported, "As recently as 2011, the Supreme Court has reiterated that people who choose to remain willfully blind 'are just as culpable as those who have actual knowledge.' " If the committee can't prove Trump knowingly lied to stay in power, then they will try to prove he chose to look the other way when presented with the fact that he lost the election. It suggests the committee is very much still thinking of referring Trump to the Justice Department for prosecution. 2. A throw-down fight between Trump advisers over election fraud — leading to a crucial step forward for Jan. 6 On Dec. 18, just after the electoral college confirmed Biden's win, there was a six-hour meeting Trump held at the White House that turned into a screaming match between outside Trump advisers promoting election fraud claims and White House advisers who were trying to convince the president that he lost and should concede. It ended with Trump saying he'd appoint conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell as a special counsel — White House advisers' worst nightmare. (Powell and others had proposed that Trump give her the authority to seize voting machines.) But Trump appeared to back off that in the next few days, and instead issued the tweet that the committee argues would lead to the attack. 3. What happened after Trump's 'Be there, will be wild' tweet On Dec. 19, hours after that meeting, Trump tweeted what the committee has argued was a call to arms to his supporters to overturn his election loss: "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!" He was referring to the "Stop the Steal" rally one of his supporters was organizing on the day that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence were certifying the electoral college results. In this hearing, the committee also shared evidence that Trump may have spent the next few weeks after this tweet helping plan for rally attendees to march to the Capitol — suggesting that his call to do so in his speech wasn't impromptu. The committee also shared how Trump ad-libbed some of the more violent parts of his speech on the Ellipse on the day of the attack. And the committee shared a remarkable admission of remorse from a senior Trump campaign aide after the attack: "This is about Trump pushing for uncertainly in our country, a sitting president asking for civil war," wrote former Trump campaign adviser Brad Parscale after the attack in a text message. "This week I feel guilty for helping him win." Overall, what the committee is trying to do is connect Trump to the most extreme, violent elements of the insurrection. They have argued that Trump had a direct influence on their decision to storm the Capitol, and cheered them on. The committee also recently alleged that he knew that armed protesters were coming to the rally, and encouraged them to come to the Capitol anyway. That's potentially a politically and legally perilous position for the president. 4. How did so many people become radicalized off a lie? The committee is particularly interested in unraveling the origins of this mass radicalization, which manifested in the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812. To that end, on Tuesday they invited someone who said he was swept up in all this. Stephen Ayres, who later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct related to his activities on Jan. 6, talked about how social media and particularly Trump's rhetoric led him to believe the election was stolen — and that he needed to leave his home in Ohio to attend the "Stop the Steal" rally in D.C.: "I was pretty hardcore into social media," he said. Later on in the hearing, he said of Trump: "I was hanging onto every word he was saying." The committee also heard from a former spokesman for the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers, Jason Van Tatenhove. Tatenhove, who is now a critic of the organization, said he fears the alliance between Trump and the Oath Keepers isn't done: "I do fear for this next election cycle, because who knows what that might bring — if a president that's willing to try to instill and encourage to whip up a civil war among his followers, using lies and deceit and snake oil and regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again?" 5. Did Trump engage in witness tampering? Cheney also got at more allegations of witness tampering on Trump's part. She said that after the last hearing — featuring former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson — Trump tried to call an unnamed witness ("one you haven't seen yet," Cheney said). The committee referred information about this call to the Justice Department.
Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a trial lawyer, said witness tampering is something the Justice Department usually takes very seriously. | 
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