Lawmakers have accused Donald Trump of inciting a mob of followers to attack the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a last-ditch effort to stay in power sparked by a chaotic meeting with some of his most staunch supporters. .
The House Committee also produced evidence that aides and outside agitators knew before the riots that Trump would urge thousands of his supporters to march to the Capitol that day.
The panel’s seven Democrats and two Republicans have used the hearings to build a case that Trump’s attempts to undo his defeat in the 2020 election constitute illegal behavior far beyond normal politics.
As the three-hour hearing ended Tuesday, Republican Representative Liz Cheney said Trump had attempted to call a potential committee witness, raising the possibility that he was illegally trying to influence the testimony.
In video testimony shown during the hearing, witnesses described a loud overnight six-hour meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, where Trump ignored White House staffers urging him to concede the November 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Instead, Trump sided with outside advisers who urged him to press ahead with his baseless allegations of voter fraud.
Committee members said Trump was ultimately responsible for the chaos that followed.
“President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. … He is responsible for his own actions and his own choices,” said Cheney, the commission’s vice chair.
Committee members said Trump instigated the riots through his refusal to admit he lost the election and through comments such as his December 19, 2020 Twitter post, shortly after the meeting, in which supporters flocked to Washington for a ” great protest,” and said, “Be there, it will be wild.”
Trump, a Republican who has hinted that he will seek the White House again in 2024, has denied wrongdoing and has falsely claimed that he lost only because of widespread fraud that took advantage of Biden, a Democrat.
‘NOT ENOUGH’
The committee played recorded testimony from White House employees describing the angry Dec. 18 meeting where a handful of outside Trump advisers, including his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell and Patrick Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com, called him. encouraged to fight the election results.
“I don’t think any of these people gave the president any good advice. I didn’t understand how they got in,” Pat Cipollone, former Trump White House counsel, said in a video testimonial.
Representative Jamie Raskin, a member of the Democratic committee, showed a text from White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who gave explosive testimony last month, saying of the meeting: “The West Wing has gone unhinged.”
Giuliani, who was escorted from the White House grounds, said in a video testimonial that his argument had been: “You’re not strong enough. Or maybe I’ll say it differently: You’re a bunch of sissies, excuse the expression. I’m I’m pretty sure the word has been used.”
The attack on the Capitol, after a speech Trump gave at a rally outside the White House, delayed the certification of Biden’s election for hours, injured more than 140 police officers and resulted in several deaths.
‘A MOB WAS ORGANIZED’
The committee presented evidence it said showed that Trump’s call for his supporters to march to the Capitol was not spontaneous, but planned in advance.
The panel showed an unsent Twitter message about the rally, with a stamp saying Trump saw it: “Please arrive early, crowds are expected. Then march to the Capitol. Stop the Steal!”
The committee also played an audio testimonial from a former Twitter employee describing his fear following Trump’s December tweet and his deep concern on Jan. 5 about the possibility of violence on Jan. 6.
“It felt like a gang was being organized and they were gathering their weapons and their logic and their reasoning why they were willing to fight,” the Twitter employee said in a disguised voice.
About 800 people have been accused of participating in the Capitol riots, with about 250 IOUs to date.
The hearing also looked at links between right-wing militant groups, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and the QAnon internet conspiracy movement, to Trump and his allies. Many Oath Keepers and Proud Boys took part in the January 6 attack.
Two witnesses testified in the courtroom — Stephen Ayres, who has pleaded guilty to a federal charge for participating in the Capitol attack, and Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers.
Ayres said he joined the march because he believed Trump, and that he had since lost his job, sold his house and no longer believes Trump’s “big lie” that the election was stolen. “It changed my life, you know, certainly not for the better.”
Trump and his supporters — including many Republicans in Congress — dismiss the Jan. 6 panel as a political witch hunt, but the panel’s supporters say it’s a necessary investigation into a violent threat to democracy.