Donald Trump paved the way for “anarchy and corruption” and should be held accountable for the January 6, 2021 attack, Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional investigative committee, said on Thursday.
Thompson declared that the former Republican president was “trying to destroy our democratic institutions” at a hearing that concluded a series of public presentations of the committee’s work.
“He paved the way for anarchy and corruption,” added the Democratic congressman, who was sick of Covid-19 and attended the videoconference hearing.
According to Thompson, everyone responsible for the attack, including the White House, will have to “account for their actions before the courts”. “This will have serious consequences, otherwise I fear that our democracy will not recover,” he said.
Summing up the day of January 6, 2021, two members of the commission lived “minute by minute” with Donald Trump, whom they accused of “not fulfilling his duty” and “doing nothing” as the US commander-in-chief. to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.
It was the former president who called his supporters to Washington on the day that Congressmen endorsed his rival, Democrat Joe Biden, in the presidential election.
At noon, making a fiery speech in the heart of the capital, Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” against alleged “mass election fraud”. He then returned to the White House as the mob launched an attack on the temple of American democracy.
Trump took more than three hours to ask his supporters to leave Capitol Hill. “I understand your pain,” the then-president of the United States said in a video posted on Twitter. “But now you have to go home.”
“Refused to act”
Thursday’s hearing of the House committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans who were disliked by their parties, will detail what happened between those two speeches.
Democratic congressman Elaine Luria watched the attack on television as Donald Trump, who had settled into the White House’s private dining room, “begged him to intervene” with his “close aides and family”.
But President Trump refused to act out of his selfish desire to stay in power.”
Republican Liz Cheney accused Trump of “not once picking up the phone to order his administration” to assist the police.
more testimonies
Matthew Pottinger, who served on the National Security Council, and Sarah Matthews, former White House Deputy Press Secretary, were called in as witnesses to report what happened behind the scenes that day. Both resigned after January 6.
The committee is also expected to show sweeping footage of the testimony of former White House legal counsel Pat Cipollone, who recently announced that Trump must admit defeat at the polls.
The hearing is also expected to address efforts by Donald Trump’s aides to get Republicans to condemn the violence on Capitol Hill on video.
The public session is the eighth broadcast in six weeks and the second in prime time nationwide. The previous ones focused, among other things, on the role of the far right in the attack or pressure on election agents by Donald Trump and his collaborators.
Last week, the committee examined the impact of a tweet Trump sent in December.
The far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, as well as other Trump supporters, interpreted the message as a “call to arms”, according to lawmakers.
More than 850 people were arrested in the attack on Congress that killed five people and injured 140 police officers.
With few hints that he plans to run for president again in 2024, the 76-year-old Trump is facing an impeachment lawsuit accused by the lower house of inciting the uprising. Tycoon was acquitted by the Senate.
The committee is expected to present a report to Congress with its findings in the coming months.
The commission could leave it to Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether Trump or others should be prosecuted for trying to distort the 2020 election results by making criminal recommendations to the Justice Department.
source: Noticias
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