A parliamentary commission of the House of Representatives on Thursday provided the first insight into the evidence that Democrats and Republicans had collected against President Donald Trump who was voted out.
A picture of a mock gallows on the grounds of the US Capitol January 6 behind members of the House Special Committee, which is holding its first public hearing on June 9.
The American President knew he had lost the 2020 election. And Donald Trump didn’t care that his vice president could also get hurt if he tried to overturn the result of the election. Trump said on January 6, 2021, as hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, they “had the right idea” as they yelled, “Hang Mike Pence!” He, Pence, well deserved to be executed.
Those two allegations were at the center of a roughly hour-long introductory presentation — in which Congressmen Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney, a Republican, attempted to explain to a television audience — at the first of seven hearings by a House inquiry on Thursday why the storming of the Capitol was “the culmination of an attempted coup” by Trump.
Trump ignored his advisors
The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack did not provide direct evidence for these claims, which could have legal consequences for Trump. But the commission, which includes 7 Democrats and 2 Republicans, all of whom are outspoken critics of Trump, gave an insight into the dozens of hearings and hundreds of documents it has amassed over the past 17 months.
The commission painted the picture of a president who, after November 3, had been clearly told by his advisers that his opponent Joe Biden had won the election. Even his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, uttered the dictum after a presentation: “There is no there there”, which can be translated as “there is no evidence of that”.
A short excerpt from a hearing with Ivanka Trump, the older daughter of the president who was voted out, was also shown on Thursday. The 40-year-old, who officially served as an advisor to her father, said: At the end of 2020, she believed the then Attorney General William Barr, who had publicly and in direct conversation with Trump announced that it was “nonsense” (“bullshit”) claim the president lost the election due to fake votes.
The Jan. 6 House Committee shared a video of Ivanka Trump accepting the 2020 election results.
“I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he was saying” https://t.co/h2u8LnuoK0 pic.twitter.com/hzSj3QYepi
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) June 10, 2022
The committee also released a 10-minute video showing the January 6, 2021 violence and officers from the Washington Metropolitan Police and Capitol Police being brutally pushed back by Trump supporters. Shortly after 2 p.m. (local time), the first people entered the Capitol.
Cheney to party friends: “Your shame will remain”
A video snippet, probably filmed by a surveillance camera, showed the panic that broke out in the offices of the MPs. The film showed staff members of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy fleeing to safety.
McCarthy is defending the ex-president today, also because he is dependent on his political support, as he wants to be elected speaker after the next election in the fall. Addressing her Republican party friends, who currently want little to do with her, Cheney said: “The day will come when Trump will be gone. Your shame will remain.”
The film aroused strong emotions in the audience, among the assembled politicians, journalists and eyewitnesses. Some Capitol Police officers in the assembly hall cried as they watched (once again) the brutality with which Trump supporters used them. Representative Cheney said the president was directly responsible for this violence, and Trump “set the fire” with his words on January 6th.
In the next hearings, at least that is the promise, the commission now wants to prove these allegations. The next hearing is scheduled for next Monday.