new York 187 minutes of inactivity. This is the picture of Donald Trump’s reaction to the attack on the Capitol during the transfer of power to Joe Biden a year and a half ago, which a corresponding congressional committee of inquiry is now painting. While the mob he fueled takes over the seat of the American Parliament, secret service employees fear for their lives and his advisors urge him to condemn the violence, the outgoing US President sits in his private dining room and watches Fox News.
The only calls Trump is making at the time are to a few senators. He calls on them to delay the vote to ratify the elections.
This is the result of various testimonies, telephone calls, text messages and radio messages that the investigative committee showed on Thursday evening at eight o’clock prime time on the American East Coast. The members of the committee focused primarily on the question of what Trump did in the roughly three hours after his address and the end of the attack on the Capitol.
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson called for serious consequences for Trump and his helpers in view of the findings. “Unless accountability is taken for January 6th, for every part of this plan, I fear we will not overcome the ongoing threat to our democracy.”
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There is no doubt that Trump oversaw and led a coordinated effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “There can be no doubt that he ordered a mob – a mob he knew to be heavily armed, violent and angry – to march on the Capitol and try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” he said.
“He has lied. He bullied. He betrayed his oath. He tried to destroy our democratic institutions.” Thompson announced that the committee’s investigation would continue.
It was the last hearing before the summer break and could have been the end. But the investigative committee announced that it was planning further hearings with new witnesses in September. This brings the hearings and the final report closer to the important midterm elections in November.
The Committee itself cannot initiate criminal proceedings. That decision rests with the Ministry of Justice. But he could sway voters’ minds.
Republicans mostly stick with Trump
As many as six out of 10 Americans are interested in hearings, the majority of them Democrats and independents, according to a new poll by NPR-PBS. 57 percent of respondents said Trump was largely to blame for the attack on the Capitol. This is four percent more than in the previous survey in December. But only half of those polled think Trump should be criminally charged. It’s only 10 percent of Republicans.
As the committee showed, the security guards of Trump’s deputy at the time, Mike Pence, feared for their lives. Secret Service bodyguards radioed to say goodbye to their families, a defaced White House security official said.
Video of the events — accompanied by the simultaneous radio messages — shows the agents looking for an escape route to get the vice president to safety. The demonstrators had chanted “hang Mike Pence” beforehand. Trump also incited her against his deputy via Twitter because he wanted to recognize the election.
Trump waited for protests
Sarah Matthews, the Republican’s deputy press secretary at the time, said Trump could have reached out directly to his supporters during the violent protests. “If the president had wanted to make a statement and address the American people, he could have been on camera almost immediately,” said Matthews, who tendered her resignation that night.
Matthews said he followed the events with a colleague. “We both recognized that the situation was escalating, and it was escalating very quickly, and that the President should have been there immediately to tell these people to go home and to condemn the violence that we were seeing,” she said. Both had turned to their superiors.
Especially with his tweet against Pence as a traitor, Trump poured “oil on the fire”. “It was evident that the situation in the Capitol was violent and rapidly escalating,” Matthews said. The tweet was the last thing it needed at that moment.
>> Read here: Capitol Committee: March to the Capitol was Trump’s strategy
Then-Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger also said the tweet was the opposite of de-escalation. “That was the moment I decided to resign. This was supposed to be my last day in the White House. I just didn’t want to be associated with what was happening in the Capitol.”
On January 6, 2001, Trump supporters stormed the seat of parliament in Washington. Congress met there to formally confirm the election victory of Trump’s democratic challenger Joe Biden. The violent crowd wanted to prevent that. At that time, Pence chaired the congress session in his role as Vice President – legally a purely ceremonial task. Trump had previously openly called on his deputy to block the procedure in order to subsequently help him win the election.
There is no doubt that Trump oversaw and led a coordinated effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Thompson said. He was connected via video on Thursday because of a corona infection. “There can be no doubt that he ordered a mob – a mob he knew to be heavily armed, violent and angry – to march on the Capitol and try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Thompson said .
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