The videos of January 6, 2021 testify to the violence carried out on behalf of the former president: beating policemen with iron bars, an officer crushed against a door frame screaming in pain, assailants dressed in combat clothing chanting “Cuelguen a Mike Pence” while the vice president fled, a woman shot dead in the corridors of Congress …
The Americans were stunned. A year later, this attempt to prevent Joe Biden took office after his victory in the November 2020 elections continues to raise many questions.
Was it a demonstration that degenerated into riots? Or an uprising and a coup attempt planned by Donald Trump?
“Not even during the Civil War did the insurgents violate our Capitol, the citadel of our democracy,” Biden said in July. “It was not dissent. It was disorder. It caused an existential crisis and a test to see if our democracy could survive,” he added.
Today more than 700 people have been charged for having attacked policemen, entered the Congress and looted its corridors.
Research has shown that Trump and his allies made a concerted effort to prevent Pence’s session of Congress from certifying Biden that day. as the winner of the November 2020 presidential election.
The question is: is there a link between these two events?
A special committee of the House of Representatives investigates it, but the further it goes, the more complicated it becomes. If you found evidence that Trump, defeated in the election, incited the assault or conspired to illegally retain power, should you risk increased tensions seeking criminal prosecution of the former president, something unprecedented in US history?
On the occasion of the first anniversary of the assault, Trump, who maintains some control in the Republican Party, announced a press conference in Florida for that day, during which he is likely to repeat that his elections were stolen.
Despite no evidence to prove it, polls show that about two-thirds of Republican voters believe him.
And almost all Republican congressmen, well aware of Donald Trump’s political power, seem to support him.
Because the party wants to regain power in the midterm legislative elections and in the presidential elections of 2024, to which Trump could run again.
It is known how the events prior to January 6 unfolded.
Assault on the Capitol
Photo: Reuters
Months before the elections, Trump was already saying that the elections would be fraudulent and that he would not accept a defeat.
When Biden’s victory was a fact, Trump refused to acknowledge it. For six weeks, he and his followers tried to reverse the result of the vote count in key states through lawsuits and pressure on local leaders.
When all these attempts failed, they focused on January 6. That day, Vice President Mike Pence had to convene both houses of Congress to certify Biden’s victory.
“Big protest in DC on January 6,” Trump tweeted. “Be there, it will be wild!”
At the same time, pressure was mounting on Pence to stop the certification of results, based on questionable legal justifications circulated by Trump allies, his chief of staff. Mark Meadows and some Republican congressmen.
All these elements came together on January 6.
As Congress prepared to meet, Trump told supporters at a rally outside the White House that the elections were “fraudulent” and vowed never to back down.
Pence was the key, he said. “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.”
Trump had asked his supporters to go to Congress and “fight like hell.”
Thousands of people made their way to the Capitol. Among them were members of far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, many of them in combat clothing and helmets.
At a nearby hotel, Donald Trump’s allies had a “crisis cell” that was supposed to serve as a link between the protesters and the Oval Office and Republican congressmen.
The storming paralyzed the Capitol and temporarily halted the certification of the election results.
Faced with the chaos, some congressmen fled. Five people were killed and dozens more were injured. It took police and federal reinforcements more than six hours to regain control of the place.
Finally, in the early hours of January 7, Mike Pence certified the results, thus formalizing Joe Biden’s victory.
Some believed that impeachment proceedings against Trump would soon be launched and that after Biden’s inauguration on January 20 the event would be relegated to the annals of history.
But Trump was still very present. He even consolidated his power within the party, rejecting all criticism and promising that he would return.
The committee, which has so far questioned nearly 300 people, must finish its work before the midterm elections in November 2022 because Republicans could regain control of the House and end the investigation.
In December Liz Cheney, a member of the commission and one of the few Republicans backing the investigation, clearly said that Trump is in the spotlight.
“Never in the history of our country has a parliamentary investigation into the actions of a former president been so justified,” he said. “We cannot give in to President Trump’s attempts to hide what happened.”
For William Galston, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution, “January 6 was the harbinger of a clear and present danger.”
“The attempt to invalidate the results of democratic elections has failed” but “will it be like this in three years? It is not so clear,” he says. “Because the people who were determined to invalidate the effects of the 2020 elections have learned a lot.”
Source From: Ambito
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