After a months-long hiatus, the January 6 committee returned with a promise to reveal former US president Donald Trump's "state of mind" as his supporters stormed the Capitol in 2021.
In its ninth hearing, the panel aired fresh evidence and behind-the-scenes footage, before taking the extraordinary step of voting to hear from Mr Trump.
"We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion and every American is invited to hear those answers so we can act now to protect our republic," said the committee's vice-chair Liz Cheney.
All nine committee members voted publicly to subpoena the former president to testify under oath, in an unexpected theatrical flourish.
The hearing is the last planned before the looming midterm elections in November.
The panel zoomed out from the chaos of January 6 to illustrate Mr Trump's centrality to what it called a "pre-mediated plan" to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
"Donald Trump attempted a plan that led to an attack on a pillar of our democracy," said committee chair Bennie Thompson.
"It's still hard to believe."
Here's what we learned.
Trump's election-night speech was premeditated
On election night, Mr Trump declared victory and called for the vote count to be stopped, labelling it "a fraud on the American public".
He then repeated the false claims of a stolen election against the advice of his inner circle, according to the committee.
A Trump campaign advisor, Brad Parscale, testified he recalled the plan taking shape as early as July 2020.
By October 31, long-time Trump ally Steve Bannon, since convicted for contempt of Congress, was able to lay it out in detail.
"What Trump's gonna do, is he's going to declare victory," Mr Bannon said in leaked audio.
"That doesn't mean he's the winner. He's just going to say he's the winner."
Another of Mr Trump's associates, Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress in 2019, also boasted about the plan in advance.
"I really do suspect it will still be up in the air," he said in footage given to the committee by a Danish filmmaker.
"When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine tenths of law.
'No we won, f**k you."
The public Trump vs the private Trump
The committee painted a picture of a "raging" president, who vented his frustrations at his staff as every attempt to stay in power failed.
One month after the election, the US Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging Joe Biden's victory in four battleground states.
Mr Trump was apoplectic, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
"He had said something to the effect of, 'I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don't want people to know that we lost'," she said in her deposition.
After it was revealed key text messages sent and received by agents on January 6 had been deleted, the Secret Service handed over thousands of pages internal documents.
One newly obtained email sent among agents also suggested Mr Trump was irate following the court's decision and refused to address the media as initially planned.
"Just FYI, POTUS is p**sed," the email read.
"Supreme Court denied his lawsuit. He is livid now. Probably no remarks haha."
The committee said that the evidence showed Trump was angry but not in denial.
Several aides also testified that he knew he had lost.
"'Can you believe I lost to this f***ing guy?'" Alyssa Farah, a former White House aide, claimed that Mr Trump said as he watched Mr Biden on TV.
The outgoing president even appeared to try and shore up his foreign policy achievements in his final days in office.
About a week after the election, Mr Trump sent a memo ordering his military to "withdraw all US military forces" from Somalia and Afghanistan "no later than 15 January, 2021".
Vice-President Mike Pence's National Security Adviser General Keith Kellogg said in a deposition that he was so distressed at the idea, he threatened to "do something physical" to stop it.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, testified that leaving Afghanistan would have been "catastrophic" and a "debacle" — "the same thing President Biden would go through".
While Trump ultimately abandoned the plan, Republican committee member Adam Kinzinger said the former president's moves showed he was rushing to "complete his unfinished business".
"It would have been catastrophic," Congressman Kinzinger said.
"These are the highly consequential actions of a president who knows his term will shortly end."
Secret Service emails and Nancy Pelosi's pleas
The White House was forewarned the potential for violence and weapons among the crowd gathering near the White House on the morning of January 6, according to the committee.
The panel claimed Mr Trump knew this, as he was informed by the US Secret Service, and called for the removal of magnetometers — metal detectors sometimes known as "mags".
Several thousand people had refused to enter the rally space and instead opted to watch from the lawn near the Washington Monument
"He wanted it full, and he was angry that we weren't letting people through the mags with weapons, what the Secret Service deems as weapons and are weapons," Ms Hutchinson testified.
"I overheard the president say something to the effect of, 'I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in and they can march the Capitol from here.'"
The heated exchange was not the only dispute between Mr Trump and the Secret Service that day.
Another incident, aired in a previous hearing, later occurred inside the presidential SUV, known as "the beast", when agents told the former president it was too dangerous for him leave the car to join his supporters.
The altercation was apparently so widely known that one former White House employee with national security responsibilities called it "water cooler talk in the White House complex".
Upon returning to the White House at around 1.20pm, multiple witnesses said Mr Trump was immediately told the protest had escalated into violence.
But he didn't call off agents poised to take him to the Capitol in an "off-the-record movement" until 1.55pm, according to the trove of new materials provided to the committee by the Secret Service under subpoena.
Over the next two hours and 40 minutes, witnesses said Mr Trump then watched the riot unfold from the White House dining room, refusing repeated pleas — including from Fox News presenters, family members and the top Congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy — to call off his supporters.
A lengthy never-before-seen video showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi being escorted to a secure location somewhere in the basement of the Capitol building with several other members of Congress.
Ms Pelosi asked aides what was happening.
She was stunned into silence upon learning that the members remaining in the chamber were scrambling to put on their tear gas masks as Trump supporters breached the building.
Ms Pelosi and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer then hit the phones, calling state governors, Trump aides and police for back-up.
"It's just horrendous and all at the instigation of the president of the United States," she said.
In one call she asked for the "poo-poo, literally and figuratively" to be cleaned up from the floor of the Capitol so they can resume the business of confirming Mr Biden's victory.
Meanwhile, Mr McCarthy called his boss directly, imploring Mr Trump to release a public statement calling for an end to the violence.
"He said, 'Well, Kevin, I guess they're just more upset about the theft election than you are,'" Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Butler said of the exchange she described as "chilling".
Will Trump testify?
The committee unanimously voted to subpoena Trump for documents and his testimony on the events of January 6, 2021.
"He is the one person at the centre of the story of January 6," Congressman Thompson said.
"So we want to hear from him."
The likelihood of Mr Trump testifying before the committee is unclear.
His lawyers may fight the subpoena in court, perhaps claiming executive privilege — the right of a sitting president to confidential communications.
He could also invoke the Fifth Amendment, a clause in the US Constitution that states no-one can be forced to provide incriminating statements against themselves.
The clock on this committee is also ticking.
The midterm elections are just weeks away, and if Republicans gain back control of the House of Representatives, the panel is likely to be disbanded by January.
However, there is always a chance Mr Trump may decide to speak — either behind closed doors or in a public setting.
He has long described the hearings as a "one-sided witch-hunt".
If he honoured the subpoena, he would have a chance to tell his side of the story.
As the hearing wrapped up, Mr Trump lashed out at the committee's decision to subpoena him.
"Why didn't the 'Unselect Committee' ask me to testify months ago?" he posted on the social media site Truth Social.
"Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the committee is a total 'BUST' that has only served to further divide our country which, by the way, is doing very badly. A laughing stock all over the world?"
