January 6: The biggest takeaways from the first hearing about the Capitol attack and its ties to Trump

• The first hearing from the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot was held Thursday.
• Reps. Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney spoke most of the time, with a focus on Donald Trump.

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol held its first hearing Thursday night after overseeing hundreds of interviews, sifting through thousands of documents, and issuing dozens of subpoenas.

The committee offered an overview of its findings that then-President Donald Trump was at the heart of a multistage attempted coup to retain power, and it showcased bits of testimony from former Attorney General Bill Barr, Capitol rioters, a Capitol Police officer, a documentary filmmaker, Proud Boys, and even the president's elder daughter, Ivanka Trump.

The committee's chair, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, and its vice chair, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, presented the committee's case to show Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 presidential election and bring to light his allies who assisted him along the way.

Here are the main takeaways from the two-hour hearing:

Hearings will show Trump and his allies staged 'an attempted coup'

Thompson didn't mince his words in his introductory speech Thursday evening.

"Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, and ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy," Thompson said.

—Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) June 10, 2022

Cheney said Trump led a misinformation campaign that provoked the Jan. 6 violence

In a statement, Cheney said Trump invested millions of dollars in campaign funds to purposely spread "false information, running ads he knew were false and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and he was the true president."

"As you will see," Cheney added, "this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6."

Cheney, a Republican who has been outspokenly critical of Trump since the January 6 attack, also alleged that Trump or his allies were carrying out a multistep plan to block Joe Biden from taking office even though Biden won the Electoral College vote.

"Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power," Cheney said. "In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan."

Ivanka Trump says she 'accepted' the attorney general's opinion there was no election fraud

The committee showed a short clip of a video testimony from Ivanka Trump, part of the eight hours she spent before the committee. She was asked about Barr's assertion there was no fraud to be found to overturn the presidential election.

"It affected my perspective," she said. "I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying."

—BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 10, 2022

Several members of Congress asked for pardons

Cheney said Rep. Scott Perry, who refused to testify to the committee, directly asked for a pardon from Trump for working to install Jeff Clark as attorney general to further investigate the results of the election in a possible attempt to undermine confidence in a vote the Homeland Security Department had already called "the most secure in American history." She also said several other Republican members of Congress asked for pardons from the president.

Trump's comment at a presidential debate was said to have 'tripled' Proud Boys membership

At the first presidential debate in September 2020, Trump told the Proud Boys in a statement to "stand back and stand by." A member of the Proud Boys testified to the House committee that the president's comment effectively "tripled" the membership of the far-right group. Its former leader Enrique Tarrio also said he wished he made T-shirts of the moment.

Members of the Proud Boys stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and some are accused of coordinating to prevent the Capitol Police from sealing off the tunnels of the building.