“He (Trump) was trying to destroy our democratic institutions,” the problem panel chair said.
Washington:
President Donald Trump “paved a path of “lawlessness and corruption” as he tried to undo the results of the 2020 US election, the chairman of the House committee investigating last year’s attack on the Capitol, said Thursday.
Bennie Thompson, speaking during the televised primetime finale of a series of public hearings about the attack, said there must be “responsibility” for what he called an attack on democracy.
“Over the past month and a half, the select committee has been telling a story about a president who went out of his way to undo an election,” Thompson said. “He lied, he bullied, he betrayed his oath.
“He sought to destroy our democratic institutions,” Thompson said, and “recklessly paved a path of lawlessness and corruption.”
“There must be accountability,” he said, “all the way to the Oval Office.”
The panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the violent January 6, 2021 uprising, is holding its eighth public hearing on the Capitol attack. Thompson, who has Covid, addressed the session remotely.
Lawmakers are investigating Trump’s actions on the day, starting with a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House in which he claimed the November 2020 election had been stolen and stretched to the point when he finally told the rioters that they were “very special” but had to go home.
Adam Kinzinger, a Republican committee member, has released snippets of testimony from several White House employees on Twitter who said the president spent nearly three hours watching the attack on television in a private dining room.
“Obviously the president has failed in his duty,” Kinzinger said.
The panel has subpoenaed numerous advisers and aides to Trump to determine whether he or his associates played a role in planning or encouraging his supporters’ bid to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
The prime-time hearing is the eighth and final in this series. The committee members said there would be further hearings in September.
The commission’s inaugural hearing also took place in prime time, where the television audience is greatest.
Two witnesses are to testify live on Thursday: former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, who served on the National Security Council.
Matthews and Pottinger both resigned on January 6 when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
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Previous committee hearings have focused on Trump’s attempt to influence election officials in swing states that Biden narrowly won and put pressure on Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electoral college results.
At its seventh hearing last week, the committee examined the impact of a tweet Trump sent on December 19, 2020, urging his supporters to come to the nation’s capital on January 6 for a rally he promised would “go wild.” would be.
Members of right-wing militia groups the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and other Trump supporters saw the president’s tweet as a “call to arms,” lawmakers said.
More than 850 people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Congress, which killed at least five and injured 140 police officers.
Trump, 76, who has repeatedly hinted that he will return to the White House in 2024, was impeached by the House for a historic second time after the Capitol riot — he was charged with inciting an insurrection — but was acquitted by the Senate, where only a handful of Republicans voted to convict him.
The House committee will submit a report of its findings to Congress this fall.
The commission can make criminal references to the Justice Department, leaving it to Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether Trump or others should be prosecuted for attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election.
Garland told reporters on Wednesday that the Jan. 6 investigation is the “most important” investigation the Justice Department has ever conducted, stressing that “no one in this country is above the law.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
