The congressional committee investigating the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill last year alleged on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump unleashed chaos with an “explosive invitation” for his supporters to come to Washington to try to block the certification of his electoral loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The committee said an incendiary tweet Trump issued in the early hours of Dec. 19, 2020, came after he ignored repeated advice from his White House advisers to accept the reality that he had lost and that there was no evidence of his loss. fraud that was sufficient to change the outcome.
After a lengthy meeting at the White House with advisers supporting his continued fight against the election outcome and others advising him to accept defeat, Trump tweeted: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election. Huge protest in DC on January 6. Be there, it will be wild!”
The committee showed video clips of some of Trump’s most ardent right-wing supporters urging their peers to gather in the nation’s capital to try to prevent Congress from ratifying Biden. had won the elections.
In one clip, broadcaster and conspiracy promoter Alex Jones could be seen haranguing his viewers: “Now he’s calling the people. Games time is over.”
Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the committee members, said Trump’s tweet “resonated widely online.”
The committee showed a video clip of Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House aide, saying the day before the Jan. 6 insurrection: “Tomorrow all hell will break loose. ‘”.
The committee played a clip of a Twitter employee, whose identity was not disclosed, who claimed that Trump’s tweet was representative of “an organized mob.”
“The leader of their cause asked them to join him,” he concluded.
In videotaped testimony, Trump’s White House lawyer, Pat Cipollone, said he agreed Trump should concede, as did Trump’s daughter Ivanka, then a White House adviser. .
Instead, Trump took the advice of two of his legal advisers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and business executive Patrick Byrne, with whom he met on the night of December 18, to keep looking for a way forward. to cling to the presidency.
extreme support
Other testimonies focused on the role they played The Proud Boysa neo-fascist group, and the Oath Keepers, another right-wing group that supports Trump’s re-election.
Five Proud Boys leaders have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the uprising on Capitol Hill and are awaiting trial later this year. The same charge has been filed against 11 Oath Keepers, three of whom have already pleaded guilty.
Trump has mocked the committee’s investigation, calling its nine members — seven Democrats and two Republicans — “political thugs.”
The question facing the investigative panel is to show what link, if any, the extremist groups specifically had with Trump, while more broadly detailing the contacts they had with their political associates as he sought to retain power by altering the official vote count state by state.
Protesters who stormed the Capitol looted congressional offices, brawled with police and blocked the certification of Biden’s victory for hours. Finally, the Capitol building, a symbol of American democracy, was cleared and Biden’s victory was certified by winning the Electoral College vote by a count of 306-232.
In the United States, presidents are effectively chosen in separate elections in each of the 50 states, not through the national popular vote. Each state’s number of electoral votes depends on its population, with the largest states having the most influence.
Since then, more than 800 of the protesters have been accused of a variety of crimes, from breaking and entering to assaulting police officers, and more than 300 have pleaded guilty or been convicted in court. Sentences range from a few weeks in prison to more than four years. The sedition charges brought against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers carry substantially longer terms.
Over the weekend, Trump said in a letter that he would allow Bannon to testify before the investigative panel. He also said the committee “allowed no due process, no cross-examination, no presence or interview of genuine Republican members or witnesses. It’s a partisan pantomime.”
Republicans initially blocked a large-scale independent investigation that would have followed the pattern of the investigation into the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
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