Alexis Guilleux (in New York), edited by Laura Laplaud with AFP
modified to
7:43 a.m., June 10, 2022
“Capitol storming was the ‘culmination of a coup attempt’: a year and a half after the events of January 6, 2021 that shocked the world, a parliamentary commission of inquiry placed Donald Trump on Thursday at the center of a “plot” to keep him in power.
“Donald Trump to prevent the transfer of presidential power”
“On the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump intended to remain President of the United States. For several months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to nullify the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power”, explained the elected Republican, Liz Cheney.
The commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol, seven Democrats and two Republicans, has been working behind closed doors for a year. She heard more than 1,000 witnesses, including two children of the former president, and went through 140,000 documents to shed light on the specific actions and actions of Donald Trump before, during and after this event which shook American democracy.
That night, for two hours, she was able to present documents, testimonies from relatives of Donald Trump explaining that they tried to convince the president to abandon his theory of electoral fraud.
The night’s hearing also focused on the January 6 violence. A raging crowd in the halls of the United States Congress, elected officials crawling on the ground with gas masks… Protesters stormed the seat of Parliament this day after “encouragement” from the former president, Bennie said Thompson, the head of the commission, at the start of a series of hearings supposed to prove the existence of a deliberate campaign to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, won by Joe Biden.
Unpublished images released
To support its conclusions, the “January 6” commission broadcast unpublished and extremely violent images of this cold winter day during which thousands of supporters of Donald Trump had gathered in Washington to denounce the result of the 2020 election. Images broadcast live by many news channels continuously overnight.
These videos show a flood of people storming the headquarters of Congress, attacking police officers, calling to “hang” Vice President Mike Pence, and a protester reading tweets from Donald Trump through a megaphone in the middle of a delirious crowd. “It was in no way a tourist visit to the Capitol”, launched Bennie Thompson in allusion to those among the Republicans who brandished this argument.
“The culmination of a coup attempt”
“January 6 was the culmination of a coup attempt,” Bennie Thompson said during the nearly two-hour hearing. “Donald Trump was at the center of this plot.”
Five other meetings of this type are planned in the coming weeks. There is no doubt: the commission targets the responsibility of Donald Trump, but only the Department of Justice has the power to launch proceedings against the former president.
Donald Trump continues to praise this day
The main interested party, Donald Trump, once again praised this day on Thursday, assuring that the assault on Capitol Hill was the “greatest movement in history to make America great again”.
Whoever calls this investigation a “witch hunt” accused on his social network Truth Social, after Thursday’s hearing, the parliamentary committee of being biased and reiterated his allegations of electoral fraud.