US panel blames Trump for ‘coup’

Panel says assault was hardly spontaneous

Washington, June 10: A congressional panel investigating last year’s mob assault on the US Capitol laid out its case Thursday that Donald Trump and his claims of a stolen election were at the heart of what amounted to an “attempted coup” to remain in power.

In a prime-time presentation of its findings from a year-long probe, the special committee is seeking to persuade a divided country of the existence of a deep-rooted and ongoing plot — orchestrated by the former president — to overturn the result of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” the Republican vice chair of the panel, Liz Cheney, said in her opening remarks.

Minutes earlier, as he opened the panel’s first public hearing, Democratic committee chief Bennie Thompson accused Trump of being “at the center of this conspiracy.” January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup — a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6 — to overthrow the government. The violence was no accident.”

Rioters acted “at the encouragement of the president of the United States,” he added.

The panel’s carefully produced presentation made use of testimony given behind closed doors by some of Trump’s most senior and trusted advisors, including former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s son-in-law and senior aide, Jared Kushner.

The committee also aired grim footage, some of it never before seen, of the violence that engulfed the seat of government, leaving five people dead.

Thompson warned that the threat to American democracy persisted.

“The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over,” he said.

“There are those in this country who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great: devotion to the Constitution, allegiance to the rule of law, our shared journey to build a more perfect Union.”

The panel aims to demonstrate that the violence was part of a broader drive by Trump and his inner circle to illegitimately cling to power, tearing up the Constitution and more than two centuries of peaceful transitions from one administration to the next. —