‘He lied, bullied, betrayed his oath’
Witnesses tell hearing Trump poured ‘gasoline on the fire’ during Capitol riot
Despite desperate pleas from aides, allies, Republican congressional leaders and even his family, Donald Trump refused to call off the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol, instead “pouring gasoline on the fire” by aggressively tweeting his false claims of a stolen election and telling the crowd of supporters in a video address how special they were.
The next day, he declared anew: “I don’t want to say the election is over.”
That was in a previously unaired outtake of a speech he was to give, shown at yesterday’s primetime hearing of the House investigating committee.
The committee documented how for some 187 minutes, from the time Trump left a rally stage sending his supporters to the Capitol to the time he appeared in the Rose Garden video, nothing could move the defeated president, who watched the violence unfold on TV.
Even a statement prepared for Trump to deliver — which said, “I am asking you to leave the Capitol Hill region NOW and go home in a peaceful way,” — could not be delivered as written, with Trump editing it to repeat his baseless claims of voter fraud that sparked the deadly assault. “So go home,” he did say, adding, “We love you. You’re very special . . . I know how you feel.”
He also had wanted to include language about pardoning the rioters, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified previously.
“President Trump didn’t fail to act,” said Adam Kinzinger, a fellow Republican but frequent Trump critic. “He chose not to act.”
Plunging into its second primetime hearing on the Capitol attack, the committee aimed to show a “minute by minute” accounting of Trump’s actions.
With the Capitol siege raging, Trump poured “gasoline on the fire” by tweeting condemnation of Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with his plan to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, former aides told the committee.
Two Trump aides resigned on the
spot. “I thought that January 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history,” said former White House aide Sarah Matthews.
“And President Trump was treating it as a celebratory occasion. So it just further cemented my decision to resign.”
The committee played audio of General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reacting with surprise to the former president’s reaction to the attack.
“You’re the commander-in-chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America. And there’s nothing? No
call? Nothing, zero?” he said.
Earlier, an irate Trump demanded to be taken to the Capitol after his supporters had stormed the building, well aware of the deadly attack, but then returned to the White House and did nothing to call off the violence, despite appeals from family and close advisers, witnesses testified.
At the Capitol, the mob was chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” testified Matt Pottinger, a deputy national security adviser for Trump, as Trump tweeted his condemnation of his vice president.
Meanwhile, recordings of Secret
Service radio transmissions revealed agents asking for messages to be relayed telling their families goodbye.
Among the witnesses testifying in a recorded video was retired District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department Sergeant Mark Robinson who told the committee that Trump was well aware of the number of weapons in the crowd of his supporters but wanted to go regardless.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, appearing virtually as he self-isolates with Covid-19, opened yesterday’s hearing saying Trump as president did “everything in his power to overturn the election”.
“He lied, he bullied, he betrayed his oath,” charged Thompson.
After months of work and weeks of hearings, Cheney said “the dam has begun to break” on revealing what happened that day.
This was probably the last hearing of the American summer, but the panel said they will resume in September as more witnesses and information emerges.
“Our investigation goes forward,” said Thompson. “There needs to be accountability.”
Ahead of the hearing, the committee released a video of four former White House aides — press secretary
Kayleigh Mcenany, security aide Keith Kellogg, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and executive assistant to the president Molly Michael — testifying that Trump was in the private dining room with the TV on as the violence unfolded.
Some Cabinet members were so alarmed they discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
While the committee cannot make criminal charges, the Justice Department is monitoring its work. No former president has ever been federally prosecuted by the Justice Department. AP