The House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol wanted its first public hearing to make a splash.
With the help of a former television executive, the bipartisan group hoped to turn its findings into must-watch TV, weaving nearly a year of work into a single storyline.
"We can't sweep what happened under the rug," said Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee.
Mr Thompson delivered the opening salvo in what the New York Times dubbed the "Watergate hearings for the streaming era".
Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, took the reins from there.
She accused former president Donald Trump and his allies of attempting to pull off "a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election", culminating in the insurrection.
"Donald Trump tweeted but he did not condemn the attack, instead he justified it," Ms Cheney said.
Here's how the first hearing unfolded.
Donald Trump accused of 'a sprawling, multi-step conspiracy'
The committee has conducted thousands of hours of interviews behind closed doors over the past 11 months.
The first snippet aired featured the former US attorney-general William Barr disavowing his then boss's false claims of election fraud.
"I didn't want to be a part of it," Mr Barr said.
"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 bullshit."
Despite knowing his allegations were baseless, Mr Trump went on to file — and ultimately lose — more than 60 spurious election lawsuits.
"He lost in the courts, just as he did at the ballot box," Mr Thompson said.
"In this country, that is the end of the line. But for Donald Trump, that was only the beginning of what became a sprawling, multi-step conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election, aimed at throwing out the votes of millions of Americans."
Mr Thompson accused members of the Republican Party of trying to "whitewash" the events of January 6, rewriting history by comparing the violent mob to tourists, despite knowing President Joe Biden won the election.
Ms Cheney, who was ousted from her party's leadership for speaking out against Mr Trump, laid out what to expect from each of the hearings to come.
More than half a dozen former White House staff who were in the West Wing on the day would testify live or via pre-recorded video, she said.
They are expected to paint a picture of Mr Trump's inaction as a riot unfolded a few blocks away.
Ms Cheney said the former president watched television while ignoring pleas from his aides and family to call off his supporters who were chanting death threats directed at former vice-president Mike Pence, who was trying to certify electoral college votes.
"Maybe our supporters have the right idea," he reportedly said.
"Mike Pence deserves it."
From new videos to text messages, the committee had the receipts
The second and third hearings will cover how Mr Trump allegedly funnelled millions of dollars of campaign funds into ads spreading disinformation, while ignoring dozens of court rulings and warnings from his staff.
The public will also hear from the committee how he pressured the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and multiple state officials to meddle in the election.
The fourth hearing is expected to focus squarely on Mr Trump's demands for Mr Pence to stall the transfer of power, in a plot a federal judge called "a coup in search of a legal theory".
"What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn't just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional," Ms Cheney said.
The fifth hearing will zoom in on Mr Trump's dealings with state legislators, including further details of the call in which he told Georgia Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger "to find 11,780 votes".
The final two hearings will focus on "how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them illegally to march on the United States Capitol", Ms Cheney said.
With its prime-time broadcast slot, the intent of this hearing was always to share as much evidence about the events of January 6 with as large an audience as possible.
And in its opening statements, Ms Cheney and Mr Thompson had the receipts.
From text messages and emails to previously secret video recordings of witness testimony, the committee members had a slickly produced presentation for the audience.
A series of video clips showed several of Donald Trump's closest advisers — including his daughter Ivanka, his chief of staff Mark Meadows and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley — knew he had lost the election.
The committee finished its opening statement with a video, which was roughly 10 minutes' long, showing how the events of January 6 unfolded.
It showed how the mob breached the perimeter of the Capitol, clashing with police officers before storming the building.
Crowds of men were heard chanting "Nancy! Nancy!" as they ran into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, while others shouted: "Hang Mike Pence!"
Some of the footage had already been publicly released, but the committee hoped revisiting the violence might help debunk conspiracy theories and myths that had formed in the 17 months since the riot.
For example, Mr Trump's allies insist that Capitol police waved the insurrectionists into the building, thereby approving their presence there.
But the video shows officers engaging in hand-to-hand combat in a desperate attempt to keep them out.
Witnesses relived how Capitol was breached
Much of the focus was on far-right group the Proud Boys, which Mr Trump memorably told to "stand back and stand-by" during a presidential debate with his Democratic rival, Mr Biden.
Several of the group's members were recently charged with seditious conspiracy related to the storming of the Capitol building.
A documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the group on the day, was the first witness to testify.
He told the committee he watched the crowd transform from "protesters, to rioters, to insurrectionists".
But the most shocking testimony came from Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, who was the first to be injured by the rioters.
She suffered a traumatic brain injury after a member of the Proud Boys breached a barrier.
"I was slipping in people's blood," she told the hearing.
"Never in my wildest dream did I think as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, that I would find myself in the middle of a battle.
"I'm not combat trained. That day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat, hours of dealing with things that were way beyond anything any law enforcement officer is ever trained for."
What comes next
The next two hearings are scheduled for Tuesday, June 14, and Thursday, June 16, at midnight AEST.
A fourth will happen on Friday, June 17, at 3am AEST, with several more expected in June, running between 90 minutes and two and a half hours each.
The final instalment will also be aired at prime time, likely in September — ahead of the release of the committee's final report and November's midterm elections.
If Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives as expected, then the investigation could be shut down.
The committee's powers are limited in the sense that it can only make recommendations. It will be up to the Department of Justice, under the guidance of Attorney-General Merrick Garland, to bring criminal charges.
That means these hearings may be the committee's final chance to make its case to Mr Garland and the American people before members of the public go to the ballot box.
"The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over," Mr Thompson said.
"The world is watching what we do here."
Editor's Note: This story was amended on June 14 to reflect that Liz Cheney was removed from Republican party leadership after her ongoing criticism of Donald Trump, not because she was appointed to the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack.
