Congressional hearings into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have concluded for the summer after weeks of testimony. Among the key witnesses to appear before the committee was J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge and renowned conservative lawyer who advised then-Vice President Mike Pence's team in the lead-up to Jan. 6.
On a special edition of The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast, listen to excerpts from an extensive interview with Luttig, as well as with U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of only two Republicans on the House select committee investigating Jan. 6.
In the podcast episode, Luttig describes the process that led to his now-famous tweets imploring Pence not to buckle to former President Donald Trump's pressure to block certification of the 2020 election results.
And Kinzinger discusses "defining" decisions by key Republican figures, as Trump challenged the results of the November 2020 election — including what Kinzinger said was a choice by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to wait to "go after the president's conspiracies" until after the Georgia runoff elections on Jan. 5.
"I think that led to a lot of what otherwise would be kind of influential senators, at least countering the voice of Donald Trump, being silent," Kinzinger told FRONTLINE's Mike Wiser. "And silence is complicity."
