Who are the key players from North Carolina in the events of Jan. 6?

North Carolina has emerged as a state with many of the key players involved in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, that were meant to prevent the election certification of President Joe Biden.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged 21 North Carolina residents for their alleged participation in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that day.

And several well-known individuals from the state, including both politicians and lawyers, have connections in one way or another to the events of that day.

Here are their stories:

Mark Meadows

A Jan. 6 hearing in Congress hasn’t gone by without a mention of Meadows. The former 11th Congressional District representative for North Carolina stepped down from his position in Congress to become former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff beginning in March 2020.

Meadows had been a fierce defender of Trump during the former president’s first impeachment hearings.

The Jan. 6 committee wants to speak with Meadows about his actions surrounding the events on that day, but Meadows was held in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to fully cooperate with a subpoena from the committee. Meadows asserts that he cannot meet some of the demands from the committee due to the president’s executive privilege. The Justice Department chose not to act on the contempt charge.

Throughout the hearings, the public has heard about the lengths Meadows went to prove voter fraud in the 2020 election, including pressuring Georgia election officials to recount ballots and declare Trump the winner. Meadows himself would later be accused of committing voter fraud. He has not been charged.

In June, Meadows’ top aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the committee and on live television about Meadows’ actions and painted him as someone who checked out on Jan. 6 and refused to stand up to the president as the Capitol was under siege.

Hutchinson testified that Meadows asked for a presidential pardon before leaving his role in the Trump administration.

Mark Martin

Shortly after the insurrection, former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin was named as an informal advisor to Trump. The New York Times first reported that Martin helped write lawsuits to overturn Biden’s election in key states and that it was Martin who incorrectly told the president that Vice President Mike Pence had the ability to throw out any election results he viewed as fraudulent.

Martin was recently named as inaugural chair of High Point University’s new law school.

Martin was one of the first people Trump called, at 7:30 p.m., following a 7-hour gap in calls.

Cleta Mitchell

After Trump hung up from Martin, he called Mitchell.

Mitchell isn’t originally from North Carolina, but now lives in Pinehurst and has close ties to the Meadows family. She has served as an attorney for their organizations, including Right Women PAC, a super PAC run by Meadows’ wife, Debra.

Meadows, in his book, and Mitchell, in a podcast, have independently detailed their attempts to help Trump overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

The Washington Post obtained a recording of a phone call Trump made to to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to change Georgia’s election results. Mitchell was on the call, and that information coming out forced her to resign from her law firm.

Sidney Powell

Following the 2020 election, Trump created a team of lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, that challenged election results with allegations of voter fraud. The team filed lawsuits in key states Biden won across the country.

Interest in Powell, a Texas attorney who hailed from Raleigh, reignited in July as the committee examined how Powell became an informal advisor to Trump who pushed conspiracy theories in a secret meeting in December 2020. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone went to the Oval Office to break up the meeting, which Hutchinson said in a text message at the time was “unhinged.”

During the meeting, an idea arose to seize U.S. voting machines and have Powell lead an investigation into voter fraud.

Powell’s conspiracy theories went so far that Trump’s legal team distanced itself from her and said she was practicing law on her own.

Madison Cawthorn

Newly elected Rep. Madison Cawthorn spoke to the crowd gathered on the Ellipse between the White House and the Washington Monument on Jan. 6, prior to rioters breaking into the U.S. Capitol.

Cawthorn told the crowd that members of Congress were trying to silence the crowd’s voices.

“There’s a new Republican Party on the rise that will represent this country that will go and fight in Washington, D.C.,” Cawthorn told the crowd. “I’ll tell you, I see so many of my friends who are up in Congress who are about to go back to the Capitol hill and at 12 o’clock today, we will be contesting this election. But my friends, bear in mind there’s a significant portion of our party that says we should just sit idly by and sit on our hands. They have no backbone.”

Cawthorn is a Trump loyalist who has likened the former president to a father figure and has said the pair talk daily.

His reelection campaign faced a legal challenge about whether he could run based on a section of the 14th Amendment that was written to stop Confederate soldiers and supporters from running for office. The legal challenge was based on Cawthorn’s actions surrounding Jan. 6, which included allegations that he may have helped plan the insurrection. Cawthorn’s name has not been mentioned in the hearings.

The challenge became moot after a series of scandals cost him his reelection.

Sandy Smith

In the crowd on the Ellipse that day was Sandy Smith, Republican candidate for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District and a Trump supporter. Smith posted photos and videos of the rally to her Facebook page. She also posted a photo of the Capitol, but it’s unclear whether she was near the Capitol with the mob.

Smith faces Democratic nominee Don Davis in the general election this November.

Donnie Loftis

Unlike Smith, now-state Rep. Donnie Loftis admitted in a Facebook post that he was close enough to the Capitol that he not only “got gassed” three times, but he also was at the entrance when the door was breached. What’s unclear is whether Loftis entered the building.

Loftis represents Gaston County, and was nominated by the county’s Republican Party following the death of Rep. Dana Bumgardner.

Democrats staged a walkout the night of Loftis’ swearing-in to protest his participation on Jan. 6.

Voting against certification

Congress recessed to allow members to get to safety after the Capitol was breached, but returned that evening to certify Biden’s election.

Of North Carolina’s 15 members of Congress, seven Republicans voted against certification, including Cawthorn and Reps. Ted Budd, Dan Bishop, Virginia Foxx, Richard Hudson, Greg Murphy and David Rouzer.

Budd is now running for a Senate seat. He faces Democratic former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley in November.