January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot
that led to ‘attempted coup’
House panel makes case in primetime broadcast
featuring eyewitnesses and video clips of Trump aides and family members
Lauren
Gambino in Washington
@laurenegambino
Fri 10 Jun
2022 00.04 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/09/trump-january-6-hearings-capitol-attack
The House
select committee investigating the deadly January 6 assault on the US Capitol
in 2021 said Donald Trump was at the center of a sprawling conspiracy to
overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that culminated in an
“attempted coup”.
With a
shocking new accounting of the worst attack on the halls of Congress in more
than two centuries, the committee outlined in gripping detail over the course
of two hours on Thursday night the grave threat posed to American democracy
then and now by the former president’s actions.
“The American
people deserve answers,” said Congressman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi
Democrat and chairman of the committee. “So tonight, and over the next few
weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day.
Thompson,
the committee’s chair, and congresswoman Liz Cheney, a Republican of Wyoming
and its vice-chair, laid out what they described as the “unconstitutional”
misconduct of a former president who continues to peddle the lie that the
election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him – a lie, they argue,
that he knows to be false.
“All
Americans should keep in mind this fact,” Cheney said during the primetime
proceedings, “on the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump’s intention
was to remain president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the
2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish
power.”
Their
presentation featured never-before-seen video from the attack by extremist
supporters of Trump who stormed the US Capitol to try to stop Congress from
certifying Biden’s win.
In a
cinematic display meant to grip a weary public, the panel weaved footage of the
violence together with live testimony and videotaped depositions from some of
Trump’s closest allies and family members.
These
included the former attorney general, William Barr, Donald Trump’s daughter and
White House adviser, Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner,
and a longtime aide and spokesman, Jason Miller. The effect was cinematic and
piercing.
The first
of six public hearings offered revelations on what Thompson described as a
“sprawling, multi-step conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential
election”.
Members of
the audience gasped when Cheney said that Trump, after being informed the mob
was calling for his vice-president, Mike Pence, to be hanged, told aides that
perhaps Pence “deserved” it.
Trump was
furious that Pence, presiding over a joint session of Congress in what is
typically a ceremonial role, refused to reject the certification of Biden’s
victory, as Trump publicly and privately pressured him to do.
The
committee showed a clip of Barr saying he “repeatedly” told Trump “in no
uncertain terms” that he had lost the election and the claims of it being
“stolen” because of widespread voting fraud were “bullshit”.
In another
interview, Ivanka Trump said she “accepted” Barr’s determination that the
presidential election had been fair.
Cheney also
announced that multiple House Republicans sought pardons from Trump for their
involvement in the insurrection, including congressman Scott Perry of
Pennsylvania, who declined a request to testify before the committee. Perry’s
office denied the allegation.
The evening
presentation also included eyewitness testimony from Nick Quested, a British
documentary film-maker who was embedded with the far right Proud Boys group
that led the storming of the Capitol. Footage he filmed helped chronicle the
Proud Boys’ involvement in planning the assault.
The panel
also heard from Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who described in
harrowing detail how she was assaulted by the mob, some armed with bats, clubs
and bear spray. Edwards said she was knocked unconscious on the steps and after
she came to, she ran to help overwhelmed officers trying to stop
insurrectionists breaking into the Senate.
The scene
was like a “war zone” she said, and she was slipping on her fellow officers’
blood. “It was carnage. It was chaos,” she said.
Drawing on
the findings of their nearly year-long investigation, which includes more than
100 subpoenas, 1,000 interviews and 100,000 documents, the select committee
will attempt to establish a comprehensive sequence of events that built to the
cold January day when Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” to
save the country – and his presidency.
The attack,
which played out in real-time on national television, left more than 100 police
officers injured, as they clashed with a pro-Trump mob. Nine people lost their
lives in connection with the riot, including a woman who was fatally shot by
a Capitol police officer as she attempted to breach the House chamber.
Convincing
a deeply polarized American public that the Capitol riot was not a spontaneous
act of violence but the culmination of a months-long plot by Trump and his
allies to undermine the results of a free and fair election is no easy task for
the committee.
Thompson
argued that American democracy “remains in danger” as many Republicans at local
and national level continue to boost the myth that the 2020 election was stolen
from Trump and use it in their own election campaigns.
“The
conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over,” Thompson said..
“January
6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of
constitutional democracy at risk,” he added. “The world is watching what we do
here.”
The select
committee is composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans.
Speaking
from the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles before the hearing on Wednesday,
Biden said the assault on the Capitol was a “clear and flagrant violation of
the constitution”.
“A lot of
Americans are going to see for the first time some of the details,” he said.
Meanwhile,
an unrepentant Trump posted on his own Truth Social social media platform that:
“January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in
the history of our country to Make America Great Again.”
Hundreds
have been charged in connection with the events of January 6, including some
with seditious conspiracy.
The
hearings will resume next week.
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