Prominent members of the Proud Boys were in touch with Infowars host Alex Jones during the Jan. 6 attack and in the days following it, the report said.

Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was indicted on seditious conspiracy charges related to attack, texted with Jones three times and Jones’ Infowars co-host, Owen Shroyer, five times during the Jan. 6 riots, according to records from Tarrio’s phone, the report said.

Another Proud Boys leader, Ethan Nordean, exchanged 23 texts with Shroyer on Jan. 4 and Jan. 5, Nordean’s phone records showed. The two also spoke by phone both days. 

The information reveals a previously unknown level of communication among Jones, Shroyer and prominent members of the Proud Boys.

Former Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department were publicly silent for weeks after the 2020 election as Donald Trump spread lies about fraudulent results. It wasn't until December that Barr finally publicly acknowledged reality: that there was no evidence of mass fraud.

But in the Jan. 6 committee report, Barr is held out as somewhat of a hero. The report states that Barr and the Justice Department were "forced to knock down one lie after another" and that the Justice Department was "trying to contain the president’s conspiracy-mongering." While Barr privately pushed back against the Trump's conspiracy theories, the Justice Department refused for weeks to publicly acknowledge that there was no evidence of mass voter fraud, as Trump claimed again and again.

The House Jan. 6 committee on Thursday unveiled its formal report on its historic 18-month investigation into the deadly attack on the Capitol and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The more-than-800-page report comes days after a final committee meeting at which its members — seven Democrats and two Republicans — voted to recommend that the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against Trump as he makes another bid for the White House in 2024.

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Former White House press official Sarah Matthews recalled having a crisis of conscience on Jan. 6, when she found herself — in an off-the-record discussion with a journalist — trying to defend Trump's declaration that the Jan. 6 rioters were "very special."

Trump told Jan. 6 demonstrators at the Capitol in a Twitter video that he loved them but that they should go home.

"I can recall texting some reporters back, especially after the video," she said in a transcript of her testimony. "And I remember a specific reporter asking me about that line and trying to defend it off the record. And I was just — I remember thinking to myself: 'What are you doing? Like, this is indefensible.'"

Matthews decided to resign shortly thereafter and called the video a final straw.

"I think when that video was tweeted out, that was kind of the breaking point for me, because it felt, in my role as a spokesperson, indefensible," she said.

Cassidy Hutchinson sped out of Washington in the wee hours of the morning while Googling “Watergate” on her phone, frantically looking for some kind of guidance about how to be a whistleblower.

Until that moment, Cassidy, the former Donald Trump White House aide who would go on to be the star witness before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, had remained “loyal” and “in the family,” as Trumpworld insiders kept reminding her, according to transcripts of her testimony released Thursday.

She didn’t even know who was paying her own lawyer, but he made it clear that her job was to “protect the president.” And he kept dangling job opportunities and promising she would be “taken care of” if she did her part, she ultimately told the committee.

But the night before she fled for her parents’ house in New Jersey, Hutchinson said, she “had a mental breakdown” as the moral crisis she had been grappling with came to a head, pushing her to make a decision that would change the course of the investigation into the 2021 attack on the Capitol. Never-before-seen transcripts of her interviews with investigators released Thursday offer a fresh portrait of a young, desperate woman torn between her conscience and some of the most powerful men in America.

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Former deputy White House counsel Stefan Passantino defended himself against allegations by Cassidy Hutchinson in testimony released Thursday by the House Jan. 6 committee.

In a statement, Passantino insisted he had been ethical in his former representation of Hutchinson, who drew national attention when she delivered bombshell testimony at a public hearing for the Jan. 6 panel in June.

“As with all my clients during my 30 years of practice, I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me," Passantino said. "I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her. It is not uncommon for clients to change lawyers because their interests or strategies change. It is also not uncommon for a third-party, including a political committee, to cover a client’s fees at the client’s request. External communications made on Ms. Hutchinson’s behalf while I was her counsel were made with her express authorization. "

Hutchinson said Passantino instructed her to limit the information she shared with the Jan. 6 committee after she recounted the story to him about an incident in Trump's vehicle during the riot that reflected unfavorably on the former president. She also said Passantino dangled job prospects to keep her “in the family.” 

In his statement, Passantino said that the panel failed to reach out to him to "get the facts" and that he would take a leave of absence from the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP while he continues as a partner at the political law firm Elections LLC, which, according to his LinkedIn page, he founded in 2019.

The House Jan. 6 committee released five more transcripts of its closed-door interviews with witnesses.

They include interviews with Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; former Trump supporter and Jan. 6 defendant Stephen Ayres (in two parts); former Defense Secretary Mark Esper; former Justice Department official Ken Klukowski; and former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews.

The committee, which had vowed to make transcripts of material gathered throughout its investigation publicly available, on Wednesday evening released 34 transcripts of witness testimony, which can now be found on its website.

The most recent transcript release comes after the committee earlier in the day made records from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony public.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns public — potentially ending years of speculation about what they might reveal about his business dealings and personal wealth.

The panel voted along party lines to make the returns available. The information was expected to be available as soon as Thursday — the day the House Jan. 6 committee is set to issue its final report on the riot. But committee chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., said late Thursday that staffers were still redacting sensitive personal information from the returns and that they most likely wouldn't be ready for the "next couple of days."

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said Tuesday the redactions would take some time.

“The actual returns themselves will also be transmitted to the full House and become public, but I was told it will take a few days to a week in order to redact some info that needs to be redacted,” Boyle said.

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