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Jan. 6 panel details what Trump did — and did not do — during the Capitol riot : NPR


“187 Minutes” is displayed on a screen between images of former President Trump during a House Select Committee hearing on July 21, 2022.

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“187 Minutes” is displayed on a screen between images of former President Trump during a House Select Committee hearing on July 21, 2022.

Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images

The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has detailed former President Trump’s “complete failure to discharge his duty” when he ignored pleas to condemn the violence and called the crowd. from the White House Counsel, top aides and members of his own family.

“This man of unbridled destructive energy cannot be shaken, not by his aides, not by his allies, not by the fierce shouts of rioters, or the desperate pleas of those facing rioters,” said President Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. ., during a prime-time hearing on Thursday.

The Democratic-led committee sheds light on the much talked about but still murky 187 minutes that stretch from speech in front of his supporters at 1:10 p.m. ET came his 4:17 p.m. ET video statement asking them to return home.

Hearing, led by veterans Representative Elaine Luria, D-Va. And Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Lead, used witness testimony to piece together Trump’s actions on the afternoon of January 6, as there were no official call logs from the White House that afternoon. and nothing in the president’s daily diary.

“The White House chief of staff wanted to take the picture because, in her words, it was ‘very important to his archives and to history.’ But she was told: ‘no photo’, says Luria.

White House advisers and White House officials testified that Trump did not make any calls to the Secretary of Defense, Attorney General or Secretary of Homeland Security during the siege.

Although the White House call log is empty, the call logs of Trump attorney and ally Rudy Giuliani show at least two calls between him and the president that day. The committee also noted that other calls by Trump that day were known, including several to Republican senators urging them to delay Biden’s certification of victory.

‘I’ve seen the impact his words have on his supporters’

A key topic of the hearing was how much television the former president consumed as the turmoil and violence unfolded.

“President Trump sat in his dining room and watched the attack on television while his top advisers and family members begged him to do what is expected of any president. President of the United States,” Luria said. “When life and our democracy were in balance, President Trump refused to act out of his selfish desire to stay in power.”

The committee broadcast video clips from Fox News, to show what Trump watched in real time as he started from his dining room, right from the Oval Office. He watched as his supporters, wearing red hats and chanting his name, outnumbered and outnumbered the police as they flooded the Capitol grounds and attempted to infiltrate the Capitol.

At 1:49 p.m. ET, just as DC police were declaring a riot at the Capitol, Trump tweeted a video of his Ellipse speech earlier that day and did not comment on the incident. violence.

Kizinger noted that between 1:49 and 2:24, when Trump posted a follow-up tweet, “employees kept coming into the room to meet him and beg him to make a public statement.” strongly condemn the violence and direct the crowd to leave the Capitol.”

The panel shared video testimony from top advisers and his children begging Trump to stop the attack.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House employee, has before testified to a conversation between White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

“I remember [Cipollone] say something effective, ‘Let’s mark we need to do something more. They are calling for the vice president to be literally hanged. ‘

Hutchinson recalls Meadow responding, “You heard him Pat, he thought Mike deserved it, he didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.” “

Trump ended up ignoring calls from his aides and allies and shot a video in the Rose Garden late that afternoon to tell his supporters to leave the Capitol.

The committee shared a draft of his remarks, which read: “I ask you to leave the Capitol grounds now and go home peacefully.”

But in the video, Trump wrote the wrong script and didn’t say the words. Instead, he repeated his false claim that the election was stolen and praised the rioters, saying, “Go home, we love you.”

Thursday’s witnesses were aides to Trump, who resigned after January 6

Directly investigating Thursday were Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s deputy national security adviser at the time, and Sarah Matthews, Trump’s deputy press secretary. The couple resigned following the events of January 6, dismayed by what they saw as an inadequate response from the president to quelling the violence.

Matthews recalled a tweet at 2:24 p.m. ET from Trump read, in part: “Pence didn’t have the guts to do what was supposed to be done.”

Matt Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary, sworn in as the House selection committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. of the United States held a hearing on Thursday.

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Matt Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary, sworn in as the House selection committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. of the United States held a hearing on Thursday.

Saul Loeb / AP

“I thought the tweet about the vice president was the last thing needed in that moment. And I remember thinking it wouldn’t be good for him to tweet this because he basically gave the green light to the guy. these people told them that what they were doing on the Capitol and on the Capitol was fine, that they were justified in their anger, “Matthews, who describes himself as a” Republican all the time. life,” said.

She added that as a Trump campaign aide, she has seen the impact of his words on his supporters. “They really followed every word and every tweet he said, and so I think in the moment he tweeted out the message about Mike Pence, it was he who poured gasoline on the fire,” she said.

Matthews said White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told her “in a discreet tone” that Trump “didn’t want to include any kind of mention of peace in that tweet.”

She said McEnany told her “it took a bit of persuasion from the people in the room, and she said it went back and forth between different phrases to find something he was comfortable with.” roof and it wasn’t until Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase ‘stay in peace,’ which he finally agreed to include.”

Pottinger said he was “disturbed” by Trump’s tweet attacking Pence and that it was “the opposite of what we really needed in that moment to de-escalate.”

The panel described one of Trump’s last interacted on January 6, when he left the White House dining room at 6:27 p.m. ET to head to the mansion.

“As he was packing up his things in the dining room to leave, President Trump reflected on the events of the day to an unnamed White House employee,” Kinzinger added, the staff member recalled Trump. “Mike Pence let me down,” said.

What is next?

In his closing statement, Kinzinger said Trump relinquished his responsibilities as commander-in-chief on January 6.

“Whatever your politics, what you think of the outcome of the election, we all as Americans must agree on this: Donald Trump’s conduct on January 6 is a supreme violation. his oath of office and his complete absence of obligations to our nation,” he said. “It is an affront to all those who have sacrificed and died in the service of our democracy.”

He said when the committee publishes its report, it will recommend “changes to law and policy in case something else happens on January 6.”





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