Capitol riot an ‘attempted coup,’ prime-time hearing told

Reps. Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney
'President Trump summoned a violent mob,' said Rep. Liz Cheney.

The chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election declared at Thursday’s prime-time hearing that the attack was an “attempted coup” that put “two and half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said “the world is watching” the U.S. response to the panel’s yearlong investigation into the Capitol riot and the defeated president’s extraordinary effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. He called it a “brazen attempt” to overturn the election.

“Democracy remains in danger,” Thompson said. “We must confront the truth with candor, resolve and determination.”

The committee presented never-before-seen 12 minutes of video of the deadly violence that day and also of Trump administration officials in the chilling backstory as the defeated president, tried to overturn Biden’s election victory.

In one clip, the panel played a quip from former Attorney General Bill Barr who testified that he told Trump the claims of a rigged election were “bull——.”

In another, the former president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, testified to the committee that she respected Barr’s view that there was no election fraud. “I accepted what he said.”

Thursday night’s hearing aimed to lay out in gripping detail that the deadly 1/6 violence was no accident. Instead, the panel declared it was the result of Trump’s repeated lies about election fraud and public call for supporters to come to Washington and his private campaign at the highest levels of government to block Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.

“President Trump summoned a violent mob,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who is the panel’s vice chair. “When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union — or worse, causes a constitutional crisis — we’re in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.”

There was an audible gasp in the hearing room, when Cheney read an account that said when Trump was told the Capitol mob was chanting for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged, Trump responded that maybe they were right, that he “deserves it.”

Biden, in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, said many viewers were “going to be seeing for the first time a lot of the detail that occurred.”

Trump, unapologetic, dismissed the investigation anew — and even declared on social media that Jan. 6 “represented the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

The result of the coming weeks of public hearings may not change hearts or minds in politically polarized America. But the committee’s investigation with 1,000 interviews is intended to stand as a public record for history. A final report aims to provide an accounting of the most violent attack on the Capitol since the British set fire to it in 1814, and to ensure such an attack never happens again.

The riot left more than 100 police officers injured, many beaten and bloodied, as the crowd of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol. At least nine people who were there died during and after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police.

Emotions are still raw at the Capitol, and security will be tight for the hearings. Law enforcement officials are reporting a spike in violent threats against members of Congress.

Against this backdrop, the committee is speaking to a divided America, ahead of the fall midterm elections when voters decide which party controls Congress. Most TV networks were carrying the hearing live, but Fox News Channel was not.

Among those in the audience are several current and former police officers who fought the mob in a desperate battle to protect the Capitol and lawmakers who were trapped together in the House gallery during the siege have stayed close.

“We want to remind people, we were there, we saw what happened,” said Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat. ”We know how close we came to the first non-peaceful transition of power in this country.”

The committee chairman, civil rights leader Thompson opened the hearing with sweep of American history. saying he heard in those denying the stark reality of Jan. 6 his own experience growing up in a time and place “where people justified the action of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and lynching.”

He and Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, outlined what the committee has learned about the events leading up to that brisk January day when Trump sent his supporters to Congress to “fight like hell” for his presidency as lawmakers undertook the typically routine job of certifying the previous November’s results.

One witness scheduled Thursday was documentary maker Nick Quested, who filmed the Proud Boys storming the Capitol — along with a pivotal meeting between the group’s then-chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, the night before in nearby parking garage.

Court documents show that members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were discussing as early as November a need to fight to keep Trump in office. Leaders both groups and some members have since been indicted on rare sedition charges over the military-style attack.

Information from Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who urged her father to call off the rioters, was likely to be shared from her private appearance before the committee.

In the weeks ahead, the panel is expected to detail Trump’s public campaign to “Stop the Steal” and the private pressure he put on the Justice Department to reverse his election loss — despite dozens of failed court cases and his own attorney general attesting there was no fraud on a scale that could have tipped the results in his favor.

The panel faced obstacles from its start. Republicans blocked the formation of an independent body that could have investigated the Jan. 6 assault the way the 9/11 Commission probed the 2001 terror attack.

____

Republished with permission from The Associated Press.

Associated Press


5 comments

  • PeterH

    June 10, 2022 at 12:16 am

    It’s time for the Republican Party to throw Coup leader Donald Trump under the Republican Clown Bus! To prevent further international embarrassment, Congressman Ex Brigadier General, Scott Perry needs to immediately design before he is impeached and / or indicted. The Freedumb Caucus strikes again.

    • PeterH

      June 10, 2022 at 12:18 am

      design should be resign

      • YYep

        June 10, 2022 at 7:53 pm

        Angry America. Dysfunctional america narcissist America. Commercial America it was always endangered

      • Tom

        June 12, 2022 at 2:32 pm

        No body listens to you dumb ass.
        You are a Dum DEmcrat
        Take Rick Wilson with you.
        No one cares what peter h thinks. You are a liar.

        Liz Cheney is done, she loses primary easily. Her and her father can’t have enough war and injured soldiers.
        Kinzinger got screwed by Dums in Illinois. So much for kissing pelosi ass. Partisan Dums.
        Schiff stick is finished. He will be expelled by new Repub. majority. He’s a liar.
        Raskin is a rascal, commie extremist.
        He will be expelled.
        His wife is corrupt. She was denied a federal reserve position earlier this year.
        Lofgren is an embarrassment. Expelled new majority.
        Murphey means well but is lost.

        This committee is a military tribunal
        Pelosi will be expelled and subpoenaed once the new majority takes place.

        This is impeachment 3, just a hater campaign. It will not save the Dums.
        25 to 70 house seats will flip. If recession comes before Labor Day, Dems will be in minority for 10 years.
        Political avalanche coming in Nov for Dums. Enjoy your partisan bastards.

  • Nancy

    June 10, 2022 at 8:29 pm

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Comments are closed.


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