Good day, everyone. I'm Andrea Mitchell here in Washington joined by Halle Jackson here and by Katie Turner in New York for our special coverage of the January 6th Committee's third public hearing.

The focus today, how then President Trump put enormous pressure on his Vice President Mike Pence in the days leading up to January 6th to ignore his legal mandate and stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's electoral college victory and how Trump's denunciation of Pence that day further inflamed the rioters even as they were raging through the Capitol hunting down the Vice President and shouting, hang Mike Pence.

In a kind of preview video released this week, you saw Committee Vice Chair Republican Liz Cheney referencing a federal judges ruling back in March that the former President probably violated federal statutes throughout that whole pressure campaign.

A campaign conceived in part by lawyer John Eastman, a character you will meet today, a big player inside that circle of election deniers working around the clock to try to keep Donald Trump in power.

And this hour, we're also going to expand that inner circle with a closer look at Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Chairman Benny Thompson saying a moment ago that it is time for the committee to hear from Thomas, quote soon, this is a change in the committee's position and it comes after New bombshell reporting from the Washington Post on the emails between Thomas and John Eastman about overturning the election.

We're also going to talk about the new focus on Congressman Barry Lautermelk and play his response to the Capitol surveillance video released by the committee showing the Georgia Republican with his quote,

guess taking pictures of a security checkpoint hallways and staircases in the lawmaker office buildings around the Capitol on the eve of the insurrection ladies, it is poised to be a big day. I do want to reiterate this news about Ginny Thompson and the change in the committee's position about Clarence Thomas's wife Ginny Thomas, excuse me, Benny Thompson saying it is time to hear from her soon and now Liz Cheney agreeing, Andrea.

So that is such a big change because the committee had been really avoiding getting involved with the wife of a Supreme Court Justice, it's unprecedented, there's never in history been anything like this, a wife of the Supreme Court Justice as politically active as she's always been, has been for decades.

In this case, those emails, first we saw the emails to Mark Meadows and now to John Eastman who was at the centerpiece of the conspiracy.

You make the point, Andrea, about the drip drip drip of what we've heard related to Ginny Thomas and the questions around her involvement and how forceful it really was.

And Katie makes the good point here that Ginny Thomas is somebody who is, this is a change of tune for the committee, right? Because initially the reporting was she's not central, she is not central to this plot that they were trying to make the case of throughout these hearings, to this attempted coup that they say Donald Trump was at the center of.

That has changed now, given these links apparently to John Eastman, I imagine we will hear more and we are going to hear more about John Eastman throughout the course of the day here.

You also have to remember why this matters to a different degree too and that is yes, she has said in his long maintained and Andrea, you will know this too from your years here in Washington covering Justice Thomas that she and her husband have separate lives, separate tracks.

They do not sort of cross professional lanes if you will, but this does raise questions bigger picture on Justice Thomas given that these January 6 cases, should he recuse himself from the court if those cases come before them? That's, that's central to all of this.

And in the key January 6 case, in that key case as to whether the committee even was legally viable, he is the only dissentor, the only dissentor in that.

And John Eastman was a former clerk of Clarence Thomas and she has stayed in close touch with the number of their clerks including John Eastman over the years.

So joining us now to sort a lot of this out and a lot more NBC senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Hake and NBC's Vaughn Hilliard, Garrett, for two you talk to the key committee member who is going to be leading the charge today after opening statements that we are expecting from Benny Thomas, Thompson, rather, and from Liz Chady.

That's right, Andrea. So today will be Pete Aguilar of California, who will be leading this hearing in much the same role that Zolaugh Green did in the last hearing.

Aguilar has steeped himself in all things Mike Pence and on the pressure campaign against Pence that began really in mid-December when Johnny spent the four mentioned attorney you were just talking about, kind of came up with this idea that Pence might have the ability to unilaterally reject the electors.

So reject the election results and as each of these court challenges the Trump campaign pursued were rejected or dismissed the pressure on Pence just went up and up and up really until the middle of the day on January 6 when Pence put out a statement saying he wouldn't reject the electors and Trump responded with a tweet calling out Pence for what he said was his lack of courage.

It was then Aguilar told me that Pence was in the most jeopardy at the really the whim of Donald Trump. Here's some of what Aguilar told me about that moment in our interview.

...