Trump Incited January 6 Attack After Chaotic Meeting

By Staff, Agencies

US lawmakers on Tuesday accused former president Donald Trump of inciting a mob of followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a last-ditch bid to remain in power fueled by a chaotic meeting with some of his most ardent supporters.

The House of Representatives committee also produced evidence that aides and outside agitators knew before the riot that Trump would urge thousands of his supporters to march on the Capitol that day.

The panel's seven Democrats and two Republicans have used the hearings to build a case that Trump's efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election constitute illegal conduct, far beyond normal politics.

As the three-hour hearing ended, Republican Representative Liz Cheney said Trump had tried to phone a potential committee witness, raising the possibility he might have illegally tried to influence witness testimony.

In video testimony shown during the hearing, witnesses described a loud late-night six-hour meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, where Trump disregarded White House staffers who urged him to concede the November 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

Instead, Trump sided with outside advisers who urged him to keep pressing his baseless claims of election fraud.

Committee members said Trump ultimately was responsible for the chaos that followed.

"President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. ... He is responsible for his own actions and his own choices," said Cheney, the committee vice chairperson.

Committee members said Trump incited the riot through his refusal to admit he lost the election and through comments like his Dec. 19, 2020, Twitter post, shortly after the meeting, for supporters to flock to Washington for a "big protest," saying, "Be there, will be wild."

Trump, a Republican who has hinted he will seek the White House again in 2024, denies wrongdoing and has falsely asserted that he lost only because of widespread fraud that benefited Biden, a Democrat.