Page:Introductory Material to the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/28

 speaker: “Fuck you, Mike Pence!”] Mike Pence has betrayed this President and he has betrayed the people of the United States and we will never, ever forget. [Cheers]

This woman cames [sic] up to the side of us and she says Pence folded. So it was kind of, like, Ok, well — in my mind I was thinking, well that’s it. You know. Well, my son-in-law looks at me and he says I want to go in.

[Q] What percentage of the crowd is going to the Capitol? [A] [Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins]: One hundred percent. It has, it has spread like wildfire that Pence has betrayed us, and everybody’s marching on the Capitol. All million of us. It’s insane.

Bring him out. Bring out Pence. Bring him out. Bring out Pence. Bring him out. Bring out Pence. Bring him out. Bring out Pence.

Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence.

Once Trump returned to the White House, he was informed almost immediately that violence and lawlessness had broken out at the Capitol among his supporters. At 2:24 p.m., President Trump applied yet further pressure to Pence (see infra []), posting a tweet accusing Vice President Mike Pence of cowardice for not using his role as President of the Senate to change the outcome of the election: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Almost immediately thereafter, the crowd around the Capitol surged, and more individuals joined the effort to confront police and break further into the building.

The sentiment expressed in President Trump's 2:24 p.m. tweet, already present in the crowd, only grew more powerful as the President’s words spread. Timothy Hale-Cusanelli – a white supremacist who expressed Nazi sympathies – heard about the tweet while in the Crypt around 2:25 p.m., and he, according to the Department of Justice, “knew what that meant.” Vice President Pence had decided not to keep President Trump in power. Other rioters described what happened next as follows:

"Once we found out Pence turned on us and that they had stolen the election, like officially, the crowd went crazy. I mean, it became a mob. We crossed the gate.

Then we heard the news on [P]ence…And lost it…So we stormed.

They’re making an announcement right now saying if Pence betrays us you better get your mind right because we’re storming that building."

Minutes after the tweet—at 2:35 p.m.—rioters continued their surge and broke a security line of the DC Metropolitan Police Department, resulting in the first fighting withdrawal in the history of the that force.