Lawmakers: Trump bears some blame
Oklahoma's senators and Rep. Tom Cole say President Donald Trump played at least some part in encouraging the mobs who started a riot at the Capitol on Wednesday, leading to five death sand numerous injuries.
“He certainly bears some (responsibility),” said Cole, R-Moore. “The rhetoric was over the top and way too hot. I don't think he deliberately set out to have what happened happen. Presidents need to be calming forces, and he certainly wasn't in this case.”
House Democrats are circulating a draft of an article of impeachment that accuses Trump of inciting an insurrection, CNN reported Friday. The draft impeachment article says Trump made comments at a speech on Wednesday that “encouraged — and forseeably resulted in — imminent lawless action at the Capitol.”
Trump spoke to thousands of supporters at a“Save America Rally” in a park near the White House, telling them that the media and “radical left Democrats” had stolen the election.
“We will never give up,” Trump said. “We will never concede, it doesn't happen.”
He also said, “Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that' s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal.”
As he spoke, Congress was preparing to count the electoral votes cast in each state and the District of Columbia.
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump said.
At the end of his hourlong speech, which detailed his allegations of voter fraud and included grievances about several matters, the president said, “So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue …But we' re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don't need any of our help, we're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican, said ,“This was a fiery speech that the president made to a couple thousand people… and it was one repeating the election was stolen.
“I think that a lot of people believed it and responded in a violent way.
“These people, they were all Trump people with all the attire on and all that, but I think these were some that were just fired up. They actually believed in their hearts that the election was stolen and t hey were expressing their wrath.”
Sen. James Lank ford, a Republican, said in an interview ,“Obviously, everybody' s responsible for their own actions. The president, in some of the statements that he made when he was s peaking at noon — and he challenged people to be able to go to the Capitol in this time period — obviously created greater energy.
“But the president wasn't saying to people :` Smash windows, break into the Capitol, get into fights with police.' He wasn't saying that. People came here intentionally to be able to do this.
“This was not just an accidental mob that got whipped into a frenzy. People came here to do this. For whatever reason, whatever background, whatever their political persuasion — they came here to sow chaos. And they were well prepared for it.”
Asked whether the president did enough to try to stop the violence, Lankford said, “Obviously he put out a tweet and put out a video statement on that. It would have been better if that had been much stronger, to say the least.”
Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R- Westville, who was on the House floor during part of the siege and can be seen in photos just behind armed officers guarding a door, told the Tulsa World this week, “Some people are saying the president is responsible. Absolutely not. At the same time, we're all responsible for our actions.”
CNBC and other media outlets reported Friday that a U.S. Justice Department official said Trump is not expected tobe criminal ly charged with inciting the riot at the Capitol.