Footage of former US President Donald Trump is shown during a House Select Committee hearing in Washington on July 21.SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
For more than three hours on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump refused pleas from his top aides, lawyers and family members to stop a riot by his supporters at the US Capitol, instead watching the attack unfold on Fox News while sitting in his house. dining room next to the Oval Office.
In its final summer session, a congressional committee investigating the insurgency heard testimony from former White House officials and security officials outlining Mr. Trump in vivid detail.
He also issued a plea for Mr. Trump and associates who conspired to overturn the 2020 election to face criminal charges. So far, the Justice Department appears to have refrained from investigating the former president.
“He recklessly opened a path of lawlessness and corruption,” said Bennie Thompson, chairman of the panel. “There has to be accountability under the law, accountability to the American people, accountability at every level … all the way up to the Oval Office.”
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In a midday speech at the Ellipse, a park near the White House, Mr. Trump urged his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” promising to join them. Within minutes of returning to the White House, the president was told that the rioters had broken through a police line. He immediately retreated to the dining room and turned on the television.
According to several witnesses, including then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Keith Kellogg, a national security official, Mr. Trump made no attempt to call for reinforcements from the National Guard, FBI, Department of Justice or Homeland Security, even as police at the Capitol were mobbed and beaten and mobs stormed the building .
The rioters went after politicians, with their anger particularly focused on Mike Pence, Mr Trump’s vice president who had rejected their demands to throw out the election result.
In a video, the audience saw a group of rioters shoot smoke at police outside the Senate chamber just moments before Mr Pence was evacuated meters away as his bodyguards led him to a for sure.
A White House security official described radio transmissions from members of Mr. Pence’s security detail from inside the Capitol as the rioters entered. the committee
“There was a lot of screaming, a lot of very personal calls over the radio.” It was, the official said, “disturbing.”
“There were calls to say goodbye to family members and so on.” Those tasked with keeping Mr Pence safe “thought this was about to get really ugly”.
Although the White House was informed of the violence at the Capitol, Mr. Trump tweeted that Mr. Pence “lacked the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.” Two of his staff, testifying in person before the committee, said the tweet prompted them to resign.
“I just didn’t want to be associated with the events that were unfolding in the Capitol,” said Matthew Pottinger, Mr. Trump’s deputy national security adviser. trump
Sarah Matthews, deputy White House press secretary, added: “I remember thinking it would be bad for him to tweet that because he was basically giving these people the green light, telling them that what they were doing on the steps. of the Capitol and entering the Capitol was fine, that they were justified in their anger.”
Former National Security Council member Matthew Pottinger and former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews are sworn in.DOUG MILLS/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Trump continued to call senators even as the rioters approached the Capitol chambers. Among them was Tommy Tuberville, one of the president’s staunchest supporters. Mr Tuberville was inside the Capitol at the time as security prepared those inside for evacuation.
“I’m going to have to hang you, I’ve got to go,” Tuberville recalled telling the president.
Mr. Cipollone told the committee that he, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter and a top adviser, pleaded with the president to fire his supporters.
“I was pretty clear that there had to be an immediate, forceful statement that people have to get out of the Capitol now,” Mr. Cipollone. “There needs to be a quick public announcement.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, another aide, said Mr. Meadows told Mr. Cipollone that day that Mr. Trump “thinks Mike deserves” to be hanged and that the rioters weren’t doing anything wrong.
The demands of the intervention of Mr. Trump flooded Mr. Meadows from Republicans in Congress, current and former White House officials, media persons and friends. Text messages shown by the committee showed that Donald Trump, Jr., urged Mr. Trump to condemn what was happening, “as soon as possible” or risk “his entire legacy.”
Brian Kilmeade, a Fox News personality, pleaded: “Please put him on TV. Destroying everything you’ve accomplished.”
But Mr. Trump refused to make a statement to end the unrest. Instead, he asked for a list of Republican senators so he could keep calling them out and push them to void the election, Mr. Trump’s then-spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said in a video statement.
At one point, after his daughter’s intervention, Mr Trump tweeted telling supporters to “keep calm”. but did not condemn the ongoing riot.
Instead, Mr. Trump “told Mark Meadows that the rioters were doing what they should be doing,” said Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman on the committee.
Not until 4 p.m., 187 minutes after the crowd descended on the Capitol, Mr. Trump recorded a video in the Rose Garden of the White House asking the rioters to “go home in peace.” In the message, he also told them: “We love you, you are very special.”
Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chairwoman, said the group will continue to investigate in the coming weeks and plans more hearings in the fall.
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