Members of the Democratic-led House select committee said Trump continued his lobbying campaign even knowing a violent mob of his supporters was threatening Capitol Hill as Pence and lawmakers met to formally certify the President Joe Biden’s victory.
The nine-member committee has used the first three of at least six public hearings this month to show that Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat amount to illegal conduct, beyond the norm in politics.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, but has insisted on his false accusations that he lost the election solely because of widespread fraud that benefited Democrat Biden.
Trump and his supporters — including many congressional Republicans — say the commission investigating the Jan. 6 assault is a political witch hunt.
The certification vote on January 6 had focused the attention of Trump, who saw it as his last chance to retain the presidency despite losing at the polls.
Marc Short, who was the vice president’s chief of staff, said in videotaped testimony that Pence told Trump “many times” that he did not have the power to stop congressional vote certification, as the Republican president intended.
Gregory Jacob, Pence’s attorney, said that the main proponent of that theory, attorney John Eastman, admitted to the president two days before the attack that his plan to have Pence stop the proceedings would violate the law.
Eastman had argued that Pence could reject the results from certain states if he felt they were illegitimate, giving Republicans the opportunity to declare Trump the winner despite the actual vote count.
Aides to Pence told the committee that such an idea had no legal basis.
“It’s impressive that these arguments were conceived, let alone considered, by the president of the United States,” said former US Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, an informal adviser to Pence.
Trump is expected to run for president again in 2024. Committee members and witnesses have warned that he would not accept defeat, regardless of the actual outcome.
“Today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are still a clear and present danger to American democracy,” Luttig said.
The committee showed an email Eastman sent to Trump’s attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, asking for a presidential pardon. Eastman never received one.
Assault on the Capitol
Photo: Reuters
Hang Mike Pence
The audience showed several chilling clips of some of the thousands of Trump supporters who marched on Capitol Hill after a rally in which the president repeatedly criticized Pence, chanting that he should be hanged.
Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m., as the attack was taking place, that Pence did not have the “gut” to stop the recount.
“It felt like I was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that,” Sarah Matthews, a Trump White House staffer, said in video testimony.
Representative Pete Aguilar said a witness had told the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that the Proud Boys, one of the right-wing groups that participated in the attack on Capitol Hill, said they would have killed Pence if they could have gotten to him. .
Committee members said Trump’s anti-Pence comments incited the crowd.
The attack on the Capitol delayed the certification of the elections for several hours, left more than 140 police officers injured and caused several deaths.
Source: Ambito
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