Good evening. Earlier this week I received a positive COVID diagnosis. Per CDC

guidelines I've received the initial two shots and all of the boosters.

Thus far I've been blessed to experience very minimal symptoms. Because I'm

still quarantined I cannot participate in person with my colleagues. I've

asked our vice chair, Ms. Cheney, to preside over this evening's hearing

including maintaining order in the room and swearing in our witnesses. Over the

last month and a half the select committee has told a story of a president who

did everything in his power to overturn an election. He lied, he bullied, he

betrayed his oath. He tried to destroy our democratic institutions. He summoned

a mob to Washington. After war on January 6th when he knew that the

symbol mob was heavily armed and angry he commanded the mob to go to the

Capitol and he emphatically commanded the heavily armed mob to fight like

hell. For the weeks between November election and January 6th down front was a

force to be reckoned with. He shrugged off the factuality and legality correct

sole by advice of his knowledgeable and sensible advisors. Instead he recklessly

blazed a path of lawlessness and corruption. The cost to which democracy

be damned. And then he stopped. For 187 minutes on January 6th this man of

unbridled destructive energy could not be moved. Not by his age, not by his

allies, not by the violent chance of rioters or the desperate pleas of those

facing down the riot. And more tellingly, Donald Trump ignored and disregarded

the desperate pleas of his own family, including Ivanka and Don Jr. Even though

he was the only person in the world who could call off the mob, he sent to the

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