Washington: House lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection drew a portrait of then-President Donald Trump doggedly pursuing an effort to undo the 2020 election, inciting his supporters and then angrily rebuffing pleas to call off the mob storming the Capitol.
The panel opened a televised hearing Thursday with a prime-time presentation that included video testimony from then-Attorney General William Barr. In a deposition with the committee’s investigators, Barr said he told Trump there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the election outcome. Some of the claims Trump pursued publicly were “complete nonsense,” Barr said.
He said he chose to resign because Americans “can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power unsupported by specific evidence that there was fraud in the election.”
Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, said in video testimony she believed Barr’s assurances.
One of the most gripping moments came near the end of the hearing when US Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards gave her account of fighting the mob that day.
Edwards, who suffered a brain injury during the attack, provided a vivid account of trying to fend off the assault.
“I can just remember my breath catching in my throat because what I saw was just a war scene,” Edwards told the committee. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”
A series of six more hearings are planned that will focus new attention on an assault ahead of midterm congressional elections that are expected to favor Republicans. They also add new detail to a historical record Trump will have to confront if he runs for re-election in 2024.
“Our democracy remains in danger,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said. “The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. There are those in this country who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great.”
The hearings included behind-the-scenes accounts of Vice President Mike Pence desperately calling the Defense Department to ask for troops to help at the Capitol and Cabinet members in the aftermath considering using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump from office.
Republican Representative Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, said more than half a dozen former White House staff, all of whom were in the West Wing on the day of the attack, offered a portrait of Trump in their testimony as “really angry” at advisers who urged him to call off rioters.
The select committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans has pledged to connect the dots between the former president’s alleged involvement in attempts to undo the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, and the attack on the Capitol by rioters that went on for 187 minutes before Trump urged them to go home.
At least some panel members say they hope the evidence will increase pressure on the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against Trump or his allies.
House Republican leaders earlier Thursday blasted the committee as partisan and promised their own report on the riot, focused on inadequacies in security preparations for the Jan. 6 congressional session to certify the Electoral College vote and slowness in the law enforcement response to the violence.
Trump slammed the investigation in a statement saying “Jan. 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our country.”
Republicans have furiously opposed the investigation. They blocked a bipartisan commission and then withdrew from the House panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat two of House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks–Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Pelosi said some Democrats asserted the two Trump allies would hurt the probe’s integrity. Pelosi chose the panel’s two Republicans, Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger.
The House panel is trying to build interest in its findings among a public that is more focused on daily struggles with soaring gasoline and grocery prices, supply-chain problems, continuing covid outbreaks and rising crime.
During the hearing, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich tweeted that the hearing won’t change any viewers’ minds.
“This isn’t a legislative hearing, it’s a production. This circus won’t hold eyeballs, and election day is still in November.”
Committee officials said the excerpts from the witnesses’ recorded depositions are among previously unseen material the panel has gathered that provide new details on the lead-up to the attack, and the attack itself.
The Justice Department faces a high bar and legal hurdles when it comes to bringing criminal charges against Trump or anyone involved in the Jan. 6 attack and efforts to overturn the election results.
To date, the department has charged about 850 individuals for crimes associated with the Jan. 6 attack, most of whom face misdemeanors for their actions at the Capitol, such as trespassing. About 80 individuals — or less than 10%– have been sentenced to prison time.
Trump hasn’t been charged with any crimes, and as a former president enjoys special protections, such as the ability to withhold information based on claims of executive privilege. –Bloomberg
Also read: Donald Trump, 2 of his children agree to testify July 15 in New York civil probe