A congressional hearing into the US Capitol attack by Donald Trump's supporters is under way.
This committee is going all out to try and nail Donald Trump. So far it has laid out the broad narrative of its case - that there was a "sophisticated seven-part plot to overthrow the election result", with President Trump at its centre.
The violent attack on the Capitol building on 6 January 2021 - a familiar scene rendered shockingly new in hitherto unpublished video screened by the committee - was just the visible part of an iceberg-sized plan to delegitimise, and reverse Joe Biden's win in the November 2020 Presidential election.
As the committee's deputy chair, Liz Cheney, put it: "Tonight and in the weeks to come you will see evidence of what motivated this violence including directly from those who participated in this attack. You will see video of them explaining what caused them to do it. You will see their posts on social media. We will show you what they have said in federal court. On this point, there is no room for debate.
"Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them - that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful president. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.
"You will also hear about plots to commit seditious conspiracy on January 6, a crime defined in our laws as conspiring to overthrow, put down or destroy by force the government of the United States or to oppose by force the authority thereof."
Saying it is one thing - proving it is quite another. Conspiracy is notoriously hard to prove. But this committee has been gathering evidence for a long time now - somewhere in more than 1,000 interviews, 100,000 documents and hundreds of hours of video, they hope there is enough.
But enough for what?
Possibly to tarnish Donald Trump so much that he will not get the nod from the Republican Party to run again in 2024 - though the party and its media partisans have been pretty steadfast in defending him and attacking the committee.
The other possible aim is to convince the Department of Justice that there is enough evidence there for it to move to indict Mr Trump on criminal charges - an altogether more serious prospect than simple mudslinging by other politicians.
The Department of Justice has already brought charges - and in some cases secured convictions - against members of two paramilitary groups - the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers - who it alleges were key to the violent events of 6 January 2021.
The video montage of the attack on the Capitol shown by the committee last night highlighted the role of named members of these two organisations in the attack as it unfolded.
Witness testimony in the committee room from documentary film maker Nick Quested detailed how the leaders of the two groups - hitherto unconnected - had met in an underground car park on 5 January. On 6 January, Quested followed and filmed the Proud Boys group as it set off for the Capitol at 10.30am - well before Donald Trump had even arrived at the main protest site to make his speech.
They marched around the Capitol building, apparently looking for weaknesses in the security presence, before settling on an attack point. The video showed how they had used the larger crowd to violently infiltrate the Capitol. Video inserts from members of the two groups said they were there because President Trump has asked them to be there.
But the former president's claim that the election had been stolen was dismissed by some of his closest aides, who also testified to the committee. It showed key clips - firstly of William Barr, the Attorney General in Trump's administration, stating that he had investigated the claims - as instructed - and reported back to Mr Trump that they were baseless.
"I had three discussions with the President that I can recall. One was on November 23. One was on December 1, and one was on December 14, that I've been through and sort of the give and take of those discussions. And in that context, I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff which I told the President was bulls**t and, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it. And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did."
Mr Barr quit the White House on 23 December 2020. But his reports were influential - one of those who believed him was Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump. The committee aired a video extract of her deposition to them.
The committee is promising much more detail on this aspect of Donald Trump’s alleged behaviour.
Separately, the Trump campaign was doing its own digging to find problems with the election - Alex Kenan was a lawyer for the campaign and had previously worked for the Trump Organization.
This is what he told the White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows in November 2020:
Kenan: I remember a call with Mr Meadows, or Mr Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything, and I remember sharing with him that we weren't finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states.
Committee: When was that conversation?
Kenan: Probably in November, mid to late November. I think it was before my child was born.
Committee: And what was Mr Meadows reaction to that information?
Kenan: I believe the words he used were 'so there's no 'there' there’.
No "there" there - the first quotable quote from the committee. But still Mr Trump persisted with his plan to call the election into doubt - a seven-part strategy according to Liz Cheney - and a key moment came in Late December 2020, when leading figures in the Trump campaign met in the white house
She said: "On December 18 2020, a group including General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and others visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military cease voting machines and potentially rerun elections.
"You will also hear that President Trump met with that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there and rushed to intervene. A little more than an hour after Ms Powell, Mr Giuliani, General Flynn and the others finally left the White House, President Trump sent the tweet on the screen now. Telling people to come to Washington on January 6, 'be there', he instructed them, 'will be wild'.
"As you will see, this was a pivotal moment. This tweet initiated a chain of events. The tweet led to the planning for what occurred on January 6, including by the Proud Boys, who ultimately led the invasion of the Capitol and the violence on that day."
The committee then played about 12 minutes of video - most previously unseen - of the violence that happened at the storming of the Capitol - police body cam footage, security cameras, and unpublished video shot by documentary maker Nick Quested.
There was in-person testimony from police officer Caroline Edwards. She was injured in the fighting, and a nearby colleague was killed. She gave a graphic account of the violence she was confronted with, likening it to a war zone. "I was slipping in other people's blood," she told the hearing.
The committee also outlined what it said was a plot to force the Department of Justice to issue a letter calling the election result into question.
This was resisted by the DoJ. But an attempt was made to install a new Attorney General to replace Bill Barr - Jeff Clarke, who may have been more amenable to the idea of sending out a letter, which the committee alleges would have given Donald Trump and his campaign the blessing of a government department when it came to casting doubt on the legitimacy and legality of the election.
More detail on this will be outlined next Wednesday.
Revealing new information about Republican congressmen, Liz Cheney said: "Jeff Clark has invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify. Representative Scott Perry, who is also involved in trying to get Clark appointed as Attorney General has refused to testify here.
"As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6 to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles and attempting to overturn the 2020 election".
A fascinating final point.
Liz Cheney was the star of the show last night. One of only two republicans on the committee, she is the daughter of Dick Cheney, vice president to George W Bush, who played a key role in the events of 9/11 and the Iraq War: solidly republican credentials.
But Donald Trump and his supporters have been trying to turn her into public enemy number one.
The former president went straight from the National Rifle Association Conference in Houston, Texas, last month to her constituency in Wyoming, to address a rally for her challenger in the Republican primaries.
He badly wants to unseat her (and by example, squash any dissent in the party).
Liz Cheney will go down fighting. She told her fellow Republican lawmakers: "Tonight I say this to my republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonour will remain".
But many of her Republican colleagues are already engaged in an intense pushback campaign to discredit the committee and its work - and stay on the right side of Donald Trump.
