The Jan. 6 committee penetrated the barrier wall in Trump’s West Wing

[ad_1]

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the panel had “significant testimony” showing that the White House was told to “do something.” as the majority of Trump supporters fired at his election fantasies fell on the Capitol. Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, told ABC News of “firsthand testimony” that Trump’s daughter Ivanka, then a West Wing adviser, had twice asked her to intervene in a melee in which policemen were beaten by his majority.

Thursday’s anniversary will revisit the horrors of the attack, in which Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell” in support of his conspiracy to steal power from Joe Biden in violation of will of the people declared in a democratic election. And now comments from the committee leadership have shed new light on the motivation behind the former President’s effort to keep secret documentary evidence of his role on Jan. 6, which reached as far as the U.S. Supreme Court. They also explained the refusal of some of Trump’s closest aides and acolytes to talk to the committee about what exactly he was doing in the Oval Office. It’s increasingly clear that those displays could force them to choose between telling the truth under oath and crossing over to their old boss, who still dominates the GOP. Two such allies of Trump-his former political guru Steve Bannon and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows-have already received criminal contempt referrals to the Justice Department from the committee and the entire House. Bannon faces trial in July.

But this week’s events will also emphasize that in a year, Trump’s massive power over the GOP and the complicity of many of its top leaders in his voting fraud means U.S. democracy is in a deeper position. problem and is under greater attack than ever before.

A growing picture of neglect

Thompson and Cheney’s comments will also reinforce the growing impression that the committee, which conducted several hundred interviews, produced a detailed behind-the-scenes picture of what happened inside Trump’s West Wing in a sworn- curse day in US history. Some of that evidence has already emerged in journalistic narratives of what happened during the insurrection. But the committee’s final report will have the capacity to create a definitive record for history-and for future voters-on the truth about the attack.

There were further signs on Sunday that the committee was making progress on monitoring the funding of the Ellipse rally in Washington, DC, which Trump responded to with his inflammatory lies about election fraud on Jan. 6. Worried Thompson in “State of the Union” about the possibility of financial fraud in connection with the event.

“We haven’t made those concerns public at this point. But we think it’s very concerned on our part that people are raising money for an activity, and we can’t find the money being spent for that particular activity. that, “he said.

It is also noteworthy that the chairman refused to dispel the notion that the committee could have taken the extraordinary step in making Trump’s criminal referral to the Justice Department. While it’s unclear whether the entire committee will come together for such a move, it would raise the hopes of an administration’s attorney general considering an accusation by the President from the previous White House, a puzzle that could pour into more fuel to a raging political inferno in a midterm election year.

“We don’t know … If there’s anything that comes to us as a committee that we think warrants a referral to the Department of Justice, we’ll do that,” Thompson told Dana Bash. Cheney added to CBS that Trump is guilty of a “supreme dereliction of duty” and the committee is looking into whether there is a need for “enhanced penalties” for such conduct, even though he appears to be referring to the law as probably not retrospective in relation to Trump’s behavior.

‘Not eligible for office’

However, Cheney warned that Trump’s behavior is so serious that he should not be allowed again anywhere near power, as the former President considers a potential new bias in the White House in 2024.

“This is a man who has shown that he is at war with the rule of law. He has shown that he is willing to bypass every guardrail of democracy,” Cheney told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “And he won’t be able to approach the Oval Office again.”

On the face of it, the commander in chief’s refusal to intervene to stop the attack on the stronghold of American democracy during Biden’s election verification process is a clear violation of his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend. the Constitution.

But even a deeply malicious report of the committee doesn’t seem to break the dynamics of the GOP’s rejection of Trump’s violations.

A new poll, for example, from the Washington Post and the University of Maryland shows that only 27% of Republicans believe the former President deserves the “big deal” or “good amount” of blame for being attack on the Capitol on January 6.

Such data, which reflects a year of lies by Trump and conservative media, helps explain why the House GOP especially anchored in its hopes of getting a majority in midterm elections in allegiance to the insurrectionist former President . Aside from Cheney and the other Republicans on the select committee, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, most of the Republican conference participates or sympathizes with the bleaching of history.

Trump has already announced that he will give new impetus to a process that has convinced millions of grassroots supporters to lie that he has been cheated on power and should still be president, at a press conference in his lavish Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Thursday. The former President plans to argue that the real insurgency took place in the November 2020 election-which Biden won by a free and fair vote not on January 6, even though the attack on the Capitol took place in front of the eyes of the world and there is no evidence of election fraud in 2020.

‘We want to verify it all’

The committee is concerned with what it says is the crucial 187 minutes between the start of the uprising in the Capitol and Trump releasing a message to supporters to go home. Thompson indicated that there were signs that the former President had tried to tape some past messages but his words did not seem to adequately address the moment and were not released by the White House. That’s one reason the committee wants the Supreme Court to allow it to review documents, texts, emails and memos which Biden refused to assert executive privilege but Trump refused to grant. After several previous court reversals, the former President in the days before Christmas appealed to the conservative majority in the Supreme Court he helped build.

“We have significant testimony that leads us to believe that the White House was told to do something,” Thompson told Bash Sunday. “We want to verify all of it, so that, when we produce our report and when we have the hearings, the public will have an opportunity to see for themselves.”

The chairman added: “The only thing I can say, it’s very rare for anyone in charge of anything to watch what’s going on and nothing.”

Cheney also weighs in on those important moments, enhancing the reporting content in the books “I Alone Can Fix It” by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker and “Peril” by Washington Post reporters. Posted by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

“We know her daughter – we have the very testimony that her daughter Ivanka came in at least twice to ask her to ‘please stop this violence,'” Cheney told ABC News’ “This Week.”

Cheney’s willingness to pursue the Jan. 6 reality, which sets him apart from many of his fellow House Republicans, has seen him ousted by his party. He lost a leadership position in the House Republican conference and he is being challenged by a key challenger backed by Trump. But he still expressed hope on CBS on Sunday that a committee dismissed by Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill could produce evidence that has the power to change the minds of skeptics. He also had a challenge for his party, which mostly then chose to protect Trump and ignore the truth for political gain.

“Our party has to choose. We can be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we can’t be the same,” he said.

[ad_2]