CAPITOL VIOLENCE ‘horrified’ Trump, lawyers say.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was “horrified” when violence broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, as a joint session of Congress convened to confirm that he lost the election, according to his defense attorneys.
Trump tweeted calls for peace “upon hearing of the reports of violence” and took “immediate steps” to mobilize resources to counter the rioters storming the building, his lawyers argued in a brief filed Monday in advance of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. It is “absolutely not true,” they wrote, that Trump failed to act swiftly to quell the riot.
But that conflicts with the timeline of events on the day of the Capitol riot, as well as accounts of multiple people in contact with the president that day, who have said Trump was initially pleased to see a halt in the counting of the electoral college votes.
“It took him awhile to appreciate the gravity of the situation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview two days after the riot. “The president saw these people as allies in his journey and sympathetic to the idea that the election was stolen.”
That same day, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., told conservative radio broadcaster Hugh Hewitt that it was “not an open question” as to whether Trump had been “derelict in his duty,” saying there had been a delay in the deployment of the National Guard to help the Capitol Police repel rioters.
“As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building,” he said, indicating that he had learned of Trump’s reaction from “senior White House officials.”
For many White House aides, lawmakers and others who had been ensconced in the Capitol, Trump’s actions after the riots began were particularly offensive — even more objectionable, some said, than what he did to incite the crowd.
“President Trump did not take swift action to stop the violence,” the nine House impeachment managers wrote in their opening brief submitted last week, adding: “This dereliction of President Trump’s responsibility for the events of January 6 is unmistakable.”
At the White House on Jan. 6, Trump’s aides began fielding panicked calls from members of Congress. They begged him to tell the crowd to stand down.
Graham reached out to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who had gone to the Oval Office as the riot began, to implore her for help, he said in the interview last month.
“They were all trying to get him to speak out, to tell everyone to leave,” Graham said of the aides huddled with Trump that day. The senator said he did not know why it took so long to get the president to respond.
At some point, White
House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was persuaded by staff to attempt to intervene with the president.
At 2:38 p.m. — more than 90 minutes after the siege had begun — Trump tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
A little after 3 p.m., acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller authorized full activation of all 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard after urgent requests from the Capitol Police.
While Trump’s defense attorneys claim he and the White House “took immediate steps to coordinate with authorities,” the president played no known role in organizing reinforcements that day.
Among those who reached out to Trump that afternoon was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., a close Trump ally, who later told allies he found Trump watching events on television and distracted.
Concerned his request for the president to intervene had not gotten through, McCarthy followed up with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and asked him to get Trump to urge the rioters to go home.
At 3:13 p.m., a little more than a half-hour after his first tweet, Trump tweeted again. This time he wrote more forcefully: “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order — respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”
Trump did not make contact with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R.-Ky., then the Senate majority leader, who was in constant communication with Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., aides said, along with military and law enforcement officials. Trump did not participate in any of the group calls.
At 4:17 p.m., more than an hour after his last public comment and as police continued to wage hand-to-hand combat with rioters trying to press into the building, Trump posted a video to Twitter in which he told crowd directly, “You have to go home.”
But he also expressed sympathy for them and their cause. Trump insisted the election had been fraudulent, adding, “There’s never been a time like this when such a thing happened when they could take it away from all of us.”
“Go home. We love you. You’re very special,” he said.
As a curfew called by Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser fell over the city at 6 p.m., Trump tweeted again.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he wrote.
“Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”