While rioters smashed through police lines at the Capitol, Donald Trump asked aides for a list of senators to call as he continued to pursue paths to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

“He wanted a list of senators,” former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in recorded testimony, aired by the Jan. 6 select committee at a public hearing Thursday night.

McEnany didn’t identify which senators Trump called, but one of them was Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who has previously described receiving a call from the then-president just as he and Pence were being evacuated, as the mob encroached on the Senate chamber.

The new evidence underscored Trump’s fixation on seizing a second term and disrupting the transfer of power, even as his vice president and Congress were fleeing from violent rioters. The committee aired audio from Pence’s Secret Service detail making rapid-fire decisions about the proper route through the Capitol to avoid confronting the mob.

“We may lose the ability to leave,” one agent warned moments before Pence was ushered to an underground loading dock, where he remained for the remainder of the riot.

The evidence was the centerpiece of the committee’s case that Trump didn’t just sit on his hands during the riot, he welcomed the chaos and sought to use it to further his goal to cling to power and prevent Joe Biden from taking office.

“President Trump did not fail to act … he chose not to act,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), at Thursday’s hearing, the eighth in the committee’s recent series.

The panel added new details to the timeline of Trump's actions, painting a picture of a president who sat idly in the Oval Office, watching on TV as pro-Trump rioters battered their way through police lines and into the Capitol. While Trump's public silence during much of the violence is already well-known, the panel argues that the new evidence it is revealing about what happened inside the West Wing will show he purposely didn’t intervene in the chaos until it was clear the mob had failed to stop the certification of Joe Biden's election.

"Donald Trump ignored and disregarded the desperate pleas of his own family, including Ivanka and Don Jr." said Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), referring to the former president's children. "He could not be moved."

The hearing focused intensely on the now-famous “187 minutes” — the period of time between when Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol, 1:10 p.m., and when Trump haltingly told them to depart, at 4:17 p.m.

The committee showed new testimony from Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, including his recollection of discussions with colleagues about the mob’s chants of “hang Mike Pence.” Though Cipollone relied on executive privilege to decline to discuss whether he raised concerns about this directly with Trump, White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said she overheard Cipollone discussing the matter with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. She recalled overhearing Meadows say Trump thought Pence deserved it.

One of the committee’s live witnesses, former press aide Sarah Matthews, described how easily the press team could have arranged for Trump to make an address to the White House press corps quickly: “He could have been on camera almost instantly.” But the order never came, she said.

The hearing also emphasized the role of Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet, in which he angrily attacked Mike Pence for his refusal to attempt to block the transfer of power. The committee showed testimony from Trump White House aides uniformly expressing disappointment and frustration at Trump’s broadside against Pence, which also rippled through the mob itself, with rioters amplifying it and using it to urge others to enter the Capitol.

“My reaction is that it’s a terrible tweet,” Cipollone told the select committee. “I disagreed with the sentiment.”

"The scenes at the U.S. Capitol were only getting worse at that point," said former White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere. “This was not going to help that.”

Thursday night’s hearing is closing the latest chapter of the select panel’s investigation, but investigators vowed to keep going. Its probe has opened up extraordinary new avenues of inquiry — from Secret Service agents’ deletion of text messages in the days surrounding Jan. 6 to the legal concerns about Trump’s plans that day from his own White House counsel’s office.

“We anticipate further testimony” from the Secret Service, said Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), one of two lawmakers leading Thursday’s hearing.

Thompson said the committee would reconvene in September to continue presenting evidence to the American people about a "coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn an election overseen and directed by Donald Trump."

"There needs to be accountability, accountability under the law, accountability to the American people," Thompson said. "If there's no accountability for January 6, for every part of this scheme, I fear we will not overcome the growing threat to our democracy."

The hearing’s two witnesses are former Trump White House aides, Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger. But select panel members also featured extensive video clips from witnesses interviews, highlighting the vast network of Trump allies who tried to facilitate his plans.

By all accounts, witnesses are coming forward at a steady clip, offering new insights about the multiple facets of Trump’s plan, which grew increasingly desperate as Jan. 6 approached. Some of them were featured in Thursday’s hearing, including Cipollone, who testified privately to the committee earlier this month.

The committee emphasized that while Trump was continuing to lean on senators and allies to aid his quest to remain in power, he never called security agencies to send aid to the Capitol.

He also fielded pleas for help from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has told allies he rejected Trump’s contention that the violent mob was a left-wing assault masquerading as Trump supporters. Trump then replied the mob must have cared more about the election than McCarthy did, according to Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who has publicly recounted a conversation she had with McCarthy where he described the phone call.

The panel is likely to turn the lens on the post-Jan. 6 period in the White House, when a still defiant Trump continued to consider ways to overturn the election. That aspect of the investigation has been largely overlooked, but the committee has eyed Trump’s actions in those closing days as he fended off talk about removing him from office, both through impeachment and the 25th amendment. Trump still huddled with fringe advisers, like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who was seen in late January carrying papers that referenced invoking the Insurrection Act, part of a plan that Trump considered to seize voting machines from various states.

The committee has also shown that Trump’s outside lawyers continued to strategize about potential legal actions that might undo the results of the election, and Fox News host Sean Hannity texted with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) about trying to usher Trump out of office without further resistance.

Meadows’ role was a focus Thursday as well. Aides have testified about his communications with Trump during the riot. A top Meadows adviser, Cassidy Hutchinson, told the committee that Meadows emerged from a conversation with Trump on Jan. 6 and indicated that Trump had expressed support for an ominous sentiment chanted by rioters at the Capitol: “Hang Mike Pence.”

Jeanne Shaheen offered to campaign for her. Angus King directed money to her. And Mark Warner’s open to endorsing her whenever it helps most.

No, she’s not a Democrat. She’s Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

“I don’t want to get Lisa in trouble … Lisa is one of my very favorite Republicans, and if the Republican Party were comprised of center-right people like her, the country would be much better off,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “She’s a friend. And I think it would be a loss for Alaska if she were no longer serving in the Senate.”

One thing keeping Schatz from endorsing her officially? His state party “calls for the expulsion of anybody who does that sort of thing.”

As Murkowski tries to fend off a challenge from Donald Trump-backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka, the centrist is appealing to a broad home-state coalition that contains many left-leaning Democrats and independents. Murkowski’s Senate Democratic fan club reflects the same crossover clout that helped her quash a tea-party rival 12 years ago — and the fact that many conservatives will support Tshibaka anyway.

Alaska’s new election rules installed an open, top-four primary and a ranked-choice general election runoff, allowing Murkowski to ignore appeals to her party’s right flank and embrace her elevated status among Democrats for her bipartisan positions. And rather than rebuff support across the aisle, Murkowski is hoping for as much of it as possible.

In an interview, she said of Democrats: “I hope they’re going to have my back. Just as I hope the Republicans would have my back.” As she sees it, Democratic support only proves her theory of the case in Alaska’s new Wild West elections system.

It wouldn’t be the first time she prevailed against intra-party haters: In 2010 she won her second term as a write-in by famously running ads that taught voters how to spell “Murkowski.”

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin was the first Democrat to endorse her, traveled to Alaska for an event with her this spring and vowed this week to do “whatever I can to help Lisa Murkowski” avoid a loss that would be a “very sad day for America.” And now other Democrats are responding to Murkowski’s wish for across-the-aisle support with enthusiasm.

“She's an overall badass. The Senate needs more leaders like Lisa, and I'm proud to support her,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who worked closely with Murkowski on last year’s new infrastructure law.

King, an independent Mainer who caucuses with Democrats, endorsed Republicans in the past: In 2014 he backed former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). But he’s usually closely aligned with Democrats on the Senate floor, and this cycle his leadership PAC has mostly given to endangered Democrats like Maine Rep. Jared Golden, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan.

So King's $5,000 leadership PAC check to Murkowski stands out.

“She has the highest integrity quotient that I’ve seen,” King said in an interview. "If you’re of a persuasion that nothing should get done, she’s not your person."

Murkowski’s vote to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial is what officially spurred the former president's endorsement of Tshibaka, even prompting a recent Trump rally in Alaska against the incumbent. But Murkowski was always a thorn in the side of Trumpism: She voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act, did not back Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and has proven pivotal to pushing through President Joe Biden’s bipartisan legislative agenda.

Those qualities nearly sank Murkowski in 2010, when she lost a primary but won her write-in campaign.

“She’s never won the easy way,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who added that Murkowski’s centrist and left-leaning coalition “wouldn’t work in other parts of the country but I think it works for her.”

Her path to reelection is eased by her state’s new election rules, but the race is still shaping up to be a nail-biter. It’s not out of the question that Murkowski could lose. The latest poll showed her trailing Tshibaka in every round of voting until the last one, when she picked up almost all of Democrat Patricia Chesbro’s voters.

Murkowski would then win a final head-to-head ranked choice match-up 52-48, according to the Alaska Survey Research poll.

“As long as I’m winning,” Murkowski said of a potential close shave like the one depicted by the poll. She described her coalition as “broad ... my supporters have always been kind of the cross-the-board Alaskan: Republican, Democrat, independent, not affiliated.”

Chesbro is running way behind both Murkowski and Tshibaka, and national Democratic leaders are barely trying to contest the race. That gives Senate Democrats the ability to lavish the incumbent with praise — and many hope it might help Murkowski in the end since she's far more aligned with them than Tshibaka would be.

Of course, Murkowski isn’t with the Democrats on everything: She listened to their arguments on last year's $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill but rejected it and she voted against a Democrat-backed proposal expanding abortion access, despite supporting the codification of Roe v. Wade.

But the Alaskan has given Democrats a valuable GOP vote for gun safety legislation and infrastructure. She's even worked with Democrats on voting rights legislation and backed some progressive Biden nominees, like Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“I hope she’s going to come back,” Shaheen said. “I told her I’d be happy to campaign for her, if she thought that helped.”

Such Democratic praise still might alienate some Republicans in the state who potentially have to choose between Tshibaka and Murkowski as their top choice in November. In a statement for this story, Tshibaka said “not one of these liberals has Alaska’s best interests at heart, yet these are Lisa Murkowski’s cronies.”

“In Alaska, she says she is looking out for us, but in D.C. she turns her back on us, and she votes and parties with liberals,” Tshibaka added.

Officially the National Republican Senatorial Committee is backing Murkowski, the only GOP incumbent who backed Trump’s impeachment conviction and is facing voters this fall. The Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund also reserved $7 million in fall ads on her behalf.

But some Senate conservatives aren’t rushing to her side. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he’s staying neutral, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) stopped short of officially backing her campaign: “I wish her the best. I’m not against her. I basically just focus on Missouri.”

That’s not what you’re going to hear from most Democrats. To them, a Murkowski loss to Tshibaka is unthinkable. It would harm their prospects of working across the aisle and, frankly, deprive many Democrats of a close friend.

“Sen. Murkowski stands up for Alaska,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who works closely with Murkowski on bilateral relations between the two Pacific states. “And that’s what Alaska needs.”

House Republicans gave Ukraine-born Rep. Victoria Spartz a coveted platform to speak out against Russia’s war. They’re coming to regret that.

Spartz (R-Ind.), who has traveled to Ukraine a half-dozen times since the war began and spoken passionately about the conflict, shocked lawmakers in both parties recently with her intense criticisms of the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his confidants. She drew a rare rebuke last weekend from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, which accused her of “trying to earn extra political capital on baseless speculation.”

Inside the House GOP Conference, there’s a widespread fear that her posture is damaging U.S.-Ukraine relations at the worst possible time — and that she’s being played by forces that aim to weaken the Western alliance. GOP national-security hawks also worry that the MAGA wing of their party, where there’s already resistance to supporting Ukraine, will point to Spartz’s comments as justification.

They're concerned that Spartz's public break from Zelenskyy — and her corruption accusations about his closest aides — could portend future cracks in U.S. support for Ukraine, especially as the midterm elections approach.

“Her naiveness is hurting our own people,” said a GOP lawmaker who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, granted anonymity to speak candidly about a colleague. “It is not helpful to what we’re trying to do and I’m not sure her facts are accurate … We have vetted these guys.” The Republican warned that Spartz’s comments could “hurt” the war effort.

Asked for comment on Spartz’s remarks, one senior House Republican who was granted anonymity for the same reason offered a blunt reply: “What the fuck.”

A third House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly about Spartz said she has a reputation for elbowing her way into briefings and meetings for committees she doesn't belong to, like the Foreign Affairs panel, where multiple members have tried to address her comments behind closed doors.

The Biden administration is even getting involved — another sign of growing worries that Spartz’s comments may damage cohesion among the Western coalition in defense of Kyiv. A Foreign Affairs Committee aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. intelligence community is planning to brief Spartz about her claims in a classified setting Friday morning.

While Zelenskyy’s political opponents have openly cheered Spartz, domestic political squabbles are largely getting sidelined while the country fights for its survival. Western nations’ longstanding concerns about corruption in Ukraine, an element of former President Donald Trump's first impeachment, have also been shelved in the interest of fostering both domestic and international unity against Russia’s invasion.

Spartz is dredging up old dirt on Zelenskyy and his advisers at a time when Ukraine’s future as an independent nation may depend on allying with him, her detractors say.

“I don’t share her criticisms,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has worked with Spartz on Ukraine-related legislation. “I believe that the Zelenskyy government and the Ukrainian people have risen to the moment. It is in our national security interest to stand with the Ukrainian people and their elected leadership.”

In statements and interviews, Spartz has pushed for better oversight of the U.S. weaponry flowing into Ukraine — an issue that has attracted bipartisan scrutiny.

But she has also accused Zelenskyy of “playing politics” and not “understanding” the seriousness of the conflict. And she has launched a crusade against his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, accusing the president's top aide of being in the pocket of Russia.

In the process of speaking out, she's raised years-old allegations, many of which Zelenskyy’s political foes have lobbed in the past without factual basis. She has said publicly that she believes Yermak should be fired for inhibiting the war effort — even as others say Spartz’s own actions are undeniably impeding it.

Spartz declined to answer questions on the record for this story, but her office provided a written statement to POLITICO that defends her criticisms of the Zelenskyy government. (She has previously put the onus on Yermak and others to prove her wrong.)

And she’s showing no sign of regret.

“Growing up in Ukraine and visiting six times since the war started, I have a comprehensive understanding of the situation on the ground,” Spartz said. “The stakes are too high to be reactive without deliberation — as intended for our institution.”

As she goes after Zelenskyy’s top aides, the first-term Republican has previously generated headlines for her poor staff retention rate. Current and former aides described to POLITICO a hostile work environment in which Spartz repeatedly berates her staffers.

The 43-year-old's Zelenskyy-gadfly persona this summer marks a sharp turnaround from her message on March 1, when she made an impassioned and tearful plea for the Biden administration to respond more forcefully to the crisis unfolding in her motherland. As Spartz described the struggle of some family members to survive bloody Russian assaults, House GOP leaders and dozens of rank-and-file members stood behind her, dressed in blue and yellow to match Ukraine’s flag, nodding in agreement.

Four-plus months later, there are far fewer signals in the conference that she is an authoritative voice on the matter. Spartz's latest posture is privately befuddling many of her colleagues, though none of them want to publicly rebuke a colleague over Ukraine — particularly given her personal ties to the situation — as the Russian attack itself becomes more politically thorny within the GOP.

Spartz has some defenders among House Republicans, but many of them sidestepped her remarks to argue generally that she is well-intentioned and passionate about the issue.

“Victoria has been a strong advocate of getting the people of Ukraine the tools they need to push back against Putin,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said during a press conference this week. “She’s very passionate about this. And at the end of the day, I know from all the conversations I’ve had with her that her heart and soul is tied to helping the people of Ukraine push back Putin’s military assault on that country.”

Spartz has refused to name the sources for her claims of improper behavior by Yermak and Zelenskyy's government. Meanwhile, they continue to prompt significant pushback not only from Ukrainian officials, but from Americans like former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who is working directly with Yermak on sanctions policy.

“Yermak most certainly does not strike me as being pro-Russian. He is stridently anti-Putin and his barbaric regime,” McFaul said in an interview. “If so, why would he be encouraging our group to think of new and creative ways to sanction Russians? And why then would the Russian government sanction many members of our working group, including even my research assistant?”

Christopher Miller contributed to this report.