In lieu of the controversial invasion of the Capitol last year, a congressional panel investigating the mob assault on the US Capitol has laid out its case that Donald Trump and his claims of a stolen election were at the heart of what amounted to an “attempted coup” to remain in power.
In a prime-time presentation of its findings from a year-long probe, the special committee sought to persuade a divided country of the existence of a deep-rooted and ongoing plot — orchestrated by the former president — to overturn the result of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.
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“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” the Republican vice chairwoman of the panel, Liz Cheney, said in her opening remarks at the first in a series of hotly anticipated summer hearings.
Minutes earlier, Democratic committee chief Bennie Thompson accused Trump of being “at the center of this conspiracy.”
“January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup — a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6 — to overthrow the government. The violence was no accident,” he said.
Rioters acted “at the encouragement of the president of the United States,” to march on Congress and block the formal transfer of power by lawmakers to Biden, he added.
The panel’s carefully produced presentation made use of testimony given behind closed doors by some of Trump’s most senior and trusted advisors, including former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s son-in-law and senior aide, Jared Kushner.
The panel aims to demonstrate that the violence was part of a broader — and ongoing — drive by Trump and his inner circle to illegitimately cling to or regain power, tearing up the Constitution and more than two centuries of peaceful transitions from one administration to the next.