Nothing has been entered in the official diary, there is no record of telephone calls, while there is only one official photograph, that of Donald Trump in a coat returning to the White House . Otherwise, it’s a 187-minute blackout, during that endless afternoon of riots on January 6, 2021, when American democracy faltered. After finishing his speech at 1:10 p.m. and inviting his supporters to march on Capitol Hill, the presidential-beaten US president stayed in his dining room, next to the Oval Office, watching the conservative Fox TV station. News. And it took until 4:17 p.m. for him to finally urge the mob that was ransacking the congressional premises to go home.
The House of Inquiry into the attack on the Capitol tried to piece together the thread of events, during its last public session before the summer break, which was broadcast on major American channels from 8 p.m., Thursday, July 21 , with the notable exception of Fox News, which focused on Covid-19 contracted by President Joe Biden. The evening was listened to like a thriller, with a mise-en-abîme of the events filmed at the Capitol and tweets from Donald Trump who refused to intervene.
During his speech, in the middle of this day of January 6, Donald Trump promises to walk with his supporters towards Congress. “We’re going to the Capitol… We’re going to try to give our Republicans — the weaker ones, because the stronger ones don’t need our help — we’re going to try to give them the kind of pride and boldness that they have.” need to take back our country” says Mr. Trump, who wants to prevent the certification of the election of his rival Joe Biden.
Part of the crowd is armed, some are in the trees, and Donald Trump’s driver, Mark Robinson, will wait more than three quarters of an hour for a green light from the secret services to drive the president there. This green light will never come and will cause a heated altercation. “I don’t know if you want to use the word ‘insurrection’, ‘coup’, whatever. We all knew it would go from a normal democratic public event to something else”said a White House security adviser on condition of anonymity.
Panic among Donald Trump’s advisers
As a result, from 1:25 p.m., Donald Trump finds himself alone in his dining room, watching Fox News live. He sends his official photographer back and witnesses the first attacks on the Capitol live. The chair is doing nothing because he doesn’t want to do anything, as committee members explain. The crowd is in the process of achieving what it has failed to obtain for weeks through legal and political means: to prevent the certification of the election by the two chambers of Congress meeting on Capitol Hill.
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