The assault on the Capitol was “the culmination of an attempted coup”said Bennie Thompson, head of the parliamentary inquiry into the assault on the Capitol, presenting, Thursday, June 9, his first conclusions on the role of Donald Trump in the attack of January 6, 2021. American democracy, which has trembled during the attack on Congress by supporters of Donald Trump, is still ” in danger “alerted the elected Democrat of Mississippi.
That day, protesters stormed the headquarters of the US Congress after ” encouragement “ of the former president, assured Bennie Thompson. “Our democracy is still in danger. The plot to counter the will of the people is not over”, said the chosen one. After almost a year of investigation, the so-called commission “January 6” reveals how the chaos of this day “was the product of a coordinated campaign to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden”.
The role of Donald Trump under the magnifying glass
For nearly a year, this group of elected officials, seven Democrats and two Republicans, has heard more than 1,000 witnesses, including two children of the former president, and gone through 140,000 documents to shed light on the actions of Donald Trump before, during and after this event that rocked American democracy. Text messages, draft decrees and tweets from the former president in support, a series of lawyers and witnesses present the different scenarios envisaged by the former president and his entourage to change the course of the 2020 presidential election, until the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “President Trump called the crowd, assembled the crowd and lit the fuse for this attack”asserted Liz Cheney, one of the few elected Republicans who agreed to sit on this commission.
The nine members of the commission presented testimony or public comments from key figures in the Trump administration, including the former president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, the former Vice President Mike Pence and former Federal Justice Minister William Barr. In his testimony, shown on video, William Barr described as ” bullshit “ the accusations of electoral fraud made by Donald Trump and convinced the daughter of the former tenant of the White House. “I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying.”Ivanka Trump said in testimony broadcast during the hearing.
Bennie Thomspon is formal: “Donald Trump was at the center of this plot”. Among the outstanding testimonies of this first hearing: that of the Capitol police officer, Caroline Edwards: “the first member of law enforcement to be injured by the rioters” on January 6, who evoked, moved, a ” war zone “.
Many Americans will discover ” for the first time “ what really happened on January 6, President Joe Biden said Thursday, June 9. The commission’s revelations are broadcast live on many news channels continuously, but shunned by the most conservative media such as Fox News, a new illustration of the deep political fault line that has divided the United States since this attack.
A commission of inquiry launched by the Republicans
Because a year and a half after the assault on the Capitol, millions of supporters of Donald Trump remain firmly convinced that the 2020 election was marred by fraud. And this, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The main interested party, Donald Trump, once again praised this day Thursday, assuring that the assault on the Capitol was the “greatest movement in history to make America great again”. Supporters of the House Committee say its work is essential to ensuring that one of the darkest episodes in American history is never repeated.
But the majority of Republicans reject its work, with the leader of the conservatives in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, denouncing the commission “the most political and least legitimate in the history of the United States”. His party has already promised to bury the work of this commission if it were to take control of the Chamber during the mid-term legislative elections in November.