Trump’s Jan 6 tweet ‘was a call to violence’
WASHINGTON: Members of right-wing militia groups and other supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol after a tweet from the former president was seen as a “call to arms”, an inquiry into the riot has heard.
The tweet on December 19, 2020, urging his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6 for a rally he promised would be “wild” was sent an hour after Mr Trump met at the White House with lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and former general Mike Flynn for a meeting one aide described as “unhinged”.
During its seventh televised public hearing, the house committee looking into the January 6 riot, in which at least five people died, examined the impact of the tweet.
Committee member Jamie
Raskin said Mr Trump’s “1.42am tweet electrified and galvanised his supporters, especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight”.
Members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers stormed congress on January 6 along with thousands of other Trump loyalists in an attempt to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, which Mr Trump falsely claims was marred by fraud.
Representative Stephanie
Murphy, another committee member, said the tweet “served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms, for many of president Trump’s most loyal supporters”.
The committee said two of Mr Trump’s closest backers, Flynn and political consultant Roger Stone, had connections to the Oath Keepers group.
The committee also said the march to the Capitol was planned in advance but Mr Trump decided not to announce it until the speech he made to supporters on the morning of January 6 near the White House.
“The evidence confirms that this was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy decided in advance by the president,” Ms Murphy said.
Representative Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee investigating the attack, said that the 76-year-old Trump had recently attempted to contact a committee witness.
The witness, who was not identified, did not take the call from Mr Trump and alerted their lawyer, Ms Cheney said, adding that the committee has “supplied that information to the Department of Justice”.