Cheney's opening statement in Jan. 6 hearing today

"The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, Donald Trump."

She noted that today's hearing would focus on Trump's state of mind and motivation. Trump had a pre-meditated plan to declare the election was stolen long before the vote was counted. He ignored the evidence of most all of his advisers that he lost the election and that there was no election fraud yet he repeatedly continued to lie about both and stoke fear, hate and violence in his followers. And he intentionally incited the riot on the Capitol knowing that the crowd was armed and after having several intelligence reports beforehand of their violent intentions. Trump took sick pleasure in the Capitol riot and refused to issue a statement for hours disbanding the crowd while ignoring repeated pleas from his advisers. He knew exactly what he was doing every step of the way but thought he was above the law.

The purpose of the Committee is to prevent this from ever happening again. And that threat continues and it may well succeed next time if Trump is not indicted and prosecuted for these crimes. The Committee has laid out more than enough evidence to put him and his co-conspirators behind bars for the rest of their lives. Now it's up to the Justice Department to do their duty for we the people and the Constitution.