According to the investigations, the former president had a “premeditated plan” to declare himself the winner of the elections in which Joe Biden took the victory. At the same time, the Supreme Court rejected a request made by the former president for an independent entity to investigate the documents that were seized in early August at his residence in Mar-A-Lago.
A committee of the United States House of Representatives, in charge for more than a year of investigating the assault on the Capitol that occurred on January 6, 2021, voted unanimously this Thursday in favor of summoning Trump to testify about what happened. on that date, with nine votes in favor and none against.
The subpoena seeks Trump to testify to interrogations formulated by legislators under oath, the date will be decided by the committee, but it will have to be before January 3, 2023, the day the new Congress is installed.
According to the House, the then president of the United States and his closest circle had a plan months before the 2020 elections to reject the results and declare themselves victorious.
During the ninth public hearing held in Washington, lawmakers released evidence, including testimony from former officials and emails, showing that Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in which his rival Joe Biden won.
“Trump had a premeditated plan to declare the election fraudulent and stolen, even before the election results were known,” said Liz Cheney, a congresswoman from Trump’s party.
“Our nation cannot just punish the foot soldiers who stormed the Capitol. Those who plotted to overturn the election and brought us to the point of violence must also be held accountable.”
Despite not having finished the vote count, Trump declared his victory in the presidential election between the night of November 4 and the early morning of November 5. According to the legislators of the committee, this would have been a premeditated strategy to later denounce electoral fraud by the Republican candidate.
Trump’s announcement caused the anger of hundreds of his followers and extremist groups, who decided to protest outside the Capitol on January 6, 2020 and then break into the government building, leaving 5 dead and 140 wounded agents. while ratifying the victory of the current president.
Evidence implicating Trump
The committee managed to obtain emails from October 31, in which it is verified that Tom Fitton, a political adviser to Trump, sent his team a draft of a speech for the then president to announce his supposed victory and reject votes by mail. , which were implemented due to the pandemic.
Lawmakers also released statements from Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, two former White House strategists close to Trump, detailing the plan to overturn the election.
“He’s going to declare victory, that doesn’t mean he’s the winner, but he’s going to say it if Biden is winning. Trump is going to do something very crazy,” Bannon said, according to an audio recording presented at the hearing, dated March 3. October 2020.
The Select Committee has laid out the multi-part plan led by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election.
Today, the committee will present new testimony, never-before-seen footage, and more details about the ongoing threat to American democracy. https://t.co/qD4vVAtBqn
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) October 13, 2022
The committee could announce the conclusion of its investigation or announce a new hearing and is still expected to present a final report by the end of the year.
The creation of the committee was promoted by the Democratic party and two members of the Republican: Liz Cheney, who serves as vice president, and Adam Kinzinger.
Trump’s rejection of the investigations
The former US president lashed out at the legislative committee, calling it a “total failure.” Through several messages through his social network Truth Social, he accused the House committee of not optimally investigating “massive electoral fraud.”
The former president also said that legislators do not have enough evidence to charge him and that it would be a plot against him. Despite the criticism, Trump did not indicate whether he will attend the subpoena to be issued by the committee.
Trump questioned the committee because he was not asked to testify months ago and has waited until now, “in the last moments of his last meeting”, he also said that his trial has served to divide the country, “which by the way is doing very badly – the laughingstock of the whole world?” he added.
According to the former president, who was in power between 2017 and 2021, the assault on the Capitol was motivated by the feelings that the “electoral fraud” that he denounced produced.
The former president did not get the support he expected for his Mar-A-Lago investigation
This same Thursday, the United States Supreme Court rejected an emergency request made by Donald Trump to intervene in the case of the documents that the FBI seized at his Mar-A-Lago residence in Florida. This is another of the controversies surrounding the former president.
The highest judicial instance of the United States rejected the proposal that an independent third party review the more than 11,000 classified documents, which were seized by the FBI at the former president’s residence in Florida on August 8.
Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to deny Trump’s request, considering that the seized documents were “extraordinarily sensitive.” According to the law of that country, every president has the obligation to deliver his working documents to the National Archives.
However, the FBI said Trump took 15 boxes of letters, mail and documents to his home in Mar-A-Lago, where documents as important as correspondence sent to him by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during bilateral melting.
At the end of September, three judges from the 11th circuit in Georgia determined that the Department of Justice can access all documents, including classified ones, in a blow to a federal judge from Florida, who had supported Trump’s request.
The two new announcements this Thursday against Trump occur less than a month before the mid-term elections, which will determine the political map of the Congress and the Senate of that country, which is currently in the hands of the Democrats.
With EFE, AP and local media
