The House committee is to submit a report to Congress this fall with its findings.
Washington:
The House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol on Thursday imposed a serious, prime-time indictment on Donald Trump’s refusal to stop or condemn the violence and insisted he be held accountable for the president’s blatant dereliction of duty. should be held.
Committee chairman Benny Thompson, speaking at the televised finale of a series of public hearings, said Trump had “recklessly paved the way for chaos and corruption” as he sought to reverse the results of the 2020 US election.
The Mississippi congressman, while addressing the committee virtually saying he had COVID-19, said there must be “accountability” for the attack on democracy.
During the two-and-a-half-hour hearing, lawmakers presented testimony from White House aides who said Trump watched the Capitol attack on television and ignored his repeated pleas to ask his supporters to leave. .
Adam Kizinger, one of the two Republicans on the panel, said “from the comfort of his dining room he watched on TV as the attack escalated.”
“He sent out tweets that went awry,” Kizinger said. “For three hours he refused to withdraw the attack.”
“Donald Trump’s conduct on January 6 was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete disregard of his duty to our nation,” Kizinger said. “It’s a stain on our history.”
Thompson said Trump “did everything in his power to reverse the election – he lied, he threatened, he betrayed his oath.
“They tried to destroy our democratic institutions,” he said. “There needs to be accountability. Accountability under the law, accountability to the American people … all the way to the Oval Office.”
With Trump considering another White House run in 2024, Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney said, “Every American should consider: ‘Will a president who has made the choices made by Donald Trump during the January 6 violence? ready to choose, he can be relied upon in any position at any time. Right again in our great nation?'”
Lawmakers provided a minute-by-minute description of Trump’s actions as he delivered a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House, claiming the November 2020 election was stolen and extending that time. When he finally told the rioters that they were “very special” but should go home.
The outtake was played out the next day by a message taped by Trump, in which he refused to live on a teleprompter with a written script. “I don’t want to say the election is over,” he said, dismissing that phrase from the script.
‘One of the darkest days’
Two former White House officials — White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, who served on the National Security Council — testified on January 6 about their decision to resign.
Matthews said it was “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history” and that “President Trump was looking at it as a festive occasion.”
“His refusal to act that day and call back the crowd and his refusal to condemn the violence was unforgivable,” she said.
Pottinger said a tweet sent by Trump to attack Vice President Mike Pence for rejecting Trump’s demand to block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory was “adding fuel to the fire.”
“That was the moment I decided I was going to resign,” he said.
Thursday’s prime-time hearing was the eighth and final hearing in the series. Committee members said further hearings would take place in September.
Previous committee hearings focused on Trump’s attempt to get election officials into the swing by saying Biden had won and putting pressure on Pence.
The committee also examined the impact of a tweet sent by Trump in December urging his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6.
Lawmakers said members of right-wing militia groups the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other Trump supporters saw the president’s tweet as a “call to arms.”
More than 850 people have been arrested in connection with the attack on the Congress, in which at least five people were killed and 140 police officers were injured.
Trump, 76, was impeached for a historic second time by the House after the Capitol riots, but was acquitted by the Senate, where only a handful of Republicans voted to convict him.
The House committee is to submit a report to Congress this fall with its findings.
The committee could issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department, leaving Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether Trump or others should be prosecuted for attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election.
Garland said Wednesday that the January 6 investigation is the “most important” investigation ever conducted by the Justice Department and stressed that “no one is above the law in this country.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)