The January 6th committee of the US House voted on Thursday to subpoena Donald Trump to testify before the panel on the 2021 attack on the Capitol.
The court voted unanimously to compel the former president to appear.
“We need to seek the testimony under oath from the central player on January 6,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican, the committee’s vice chairwoman.
“We are forced to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” he added. “And all Americans are entitled to those answers.”
Trump is almost certain to fight the subpoena and refuse to testify. He had no immediate comment.
The vote came as the panel produced new details and evidence of Trump’s state of mind when he refused to concede his election defeat to Joe Biden, leading to the attack.
LOOK | Trump quoted by the committee:
Jan. 6 committee votes to subpoena Trump
“We are compelled to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” said Rep. Liz Cheey, a Republican, as she asked the committee on Jan. 6 to vote on a resolution to subpoena Donald Trump to testify. It was approved unanimously.
“His plan is to literally kill people”
The panel also showed never-before-seen footage of Congress leaders calling officials for help during the assault.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer can be seen speaking with governors from neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Footage later shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders as the group appeals to the acting attorney general for help.
“They’re breaking the law in many different ways, frankly at the instigation of the president of the United States,” Pelosi is heard saying at one point.
LOOK | Congressional leaders are asking for help:
New footage of congressional leaders calling for help during Capitol siege
The Jan. 6 committee released a new video Thursday that showed members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, trying to get help as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is heard saying, “They are breaking the law in many different ways, frankly at the instigation of the President of the United States.”
In never-before-seen messages from the Secret Service, the panel produced evidence of how extremist groups provided muscle in the fight for Trump’s presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force to Washington.
“His plan is to literally kill people,” read a tip that was sent to the Secret Service more than a week before the Jan. 6 violence.
The Secret Service warned in a December 26, 2020 email of a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to march on Washington on January 6 with a group large enough to overwhelm police.
“It felt like the calm before the storm,” one Secret Service agent wrote in a group chat.
The text of a US Secret Service email is shown at a House select committee hearing on Thursday. (Alex Wong/Pool/The Associated Press)
Delve into Trump’s state of mind
The panel warned that the uprising at the US Capitol was not an isolated incident but a warning of the fragility of the nation’s democracy in the post-Trump era.
“None of this is normal, acceptable or lawful in a republic,” Cheney said.
“There is no defense that Donald Trump was delusional or irrational. No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional republic, period.”
The committee’s 10th public hearing, just weeks before midterm elections for Congress, delved into Trump’s “state of mind,” said committee chairman Bennie Thompson.
The committee begins summarizing its findings: Trump, after losing the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory. The result was the siege of the Capitol by the deadly mob.
Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, seen with Trump at a Sept. 3 rally, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and has questioned the results of the 2020 election. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
Thompson’s and Cheney’s statements were loaded with language frequently seen in criminal indictments. Both lawmakers described Trump as “substantially” involved in the events of January 6. Cheney said Trump had acted in a “premeditated” manner.
To illustrate what it said were “purposeful lies,” the committee juxtaposed repeated instances in which senior administration officials said they told Trump the real facts with clips of him repeating the exact opposite of his demonstration prior to the riots at the Ellipse on January 6.
The committee can make a decision on whether to make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice.
LOOK | Trump repeatedly said he lost:
Trump ignored staff, advisers told him the election was over
The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday released video evidence showing how its top staff repeatedly told Donald Trump that the election was over and that he had lost, but that he ignored them and carried on with the his attempt to stay in power. .
Thursday’s hearing opened in a nearly empty U.S. Capitol complex, with most lawmakers at home campaigning for re-election. Several people who were among the thousands around the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now running for office in Congress, some with Trump’s support. Police officers who fought the crowd filled the front row of the courtroom.
To describe the president’s mindset, the committee released new and previously seen material, including interviews with top Trump cabinet officials, aides and associates in which some described the president privately acknowledging that he had lost.
In one, according to former White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump looked at the TV and said, “Can you believe I lost on this? [expletive] dude?”
A picture of former US President Donald Trump is shown during a committee hearing June 16 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Drew Anger/Reuters)
The committee is also drawing on 1.5 million documents it received from the U.S. Secret Service, including an email from Dec. 11, 2020, the day the Supreme Court rejected one of the top lawsuits that Trump’s team had filed against the election results.
“Just fyi. POTUS is angry,” the Secret Service wrote, according to documents obtained by the committee.
White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top adviser to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled that Trump was “livid” and “angry” about the court’s decision.
Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Don’t know about it,'” Hutchinson told the panel in a taped interview.
Cabinet members, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, also said in interviews shown at the hearing that they believed that once legal avenues were exhausted, this should have been the end of Trump’s efforts to remain. in power
“In my opinion, that was the end of the matter,” Barr said of the Dec. 14 electoral college vote.
The January 6 committee has been meeting for more than a year and is expected to issue a report of its findings. It was created by the House after Republican senators blocked the formation of an outside panel similar to the 9/11 commission panel that looked into the 2001 terrorist attacks.
House Republicans are expected to drop the Jan. 6 probe if they win control of the chamber after the midterms.
The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the panel have argued that their work is not just a recapitulation of the past, but a dire warning about ongoing threats to the democratic process.
Millions of Americans still incorrectly believe Trump won in 2020, according to polls, while a Washington Post analysis published last week indicated that half of Republicans entering the races next month for key US congressional and state offices have denied or questioned the 2020 outcome, including the governor. candidates Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Kari Lake of Arizona.
Trump associate Peter Navarro faces trial next month for refusing to cooperate with a House committee subpoena, while Steve Bannon will be sentenced next week after pleading guilty to charges of similar disdain.
Outside of the committee’s work, more than 850 people have been criminally charged by the Justice Department in the Capitol attack, some receiving lengthy prison terms for their roles. Several leaders and associates of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been hit with rare charges of sedition.
LISTEN | Oath keepers at trial:
Front Burner19:36 The Oath Keepers on trial
The Oath Keepers are a far-right militia, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes. He is one of five members currently on trial in Washington, facing charges of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Prosecutors say they planned to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election. Explosive, secretly recorded audio of an alleged insurrection planning meeting was played last week in the courts Joining us today is Andy Campbell, senior editor at HuffPost and author of the new book We Are Proud Boys. He explains who the Oath Keepers are and what was revealed at the trial about how the deadly attack could have been prevented.