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Donald Trump crossed out critical sentences from the script – and made changes by hand – before giving a speech about the storming of the Capitol.
Daughter Ivanka testifies to this in a video interview with congressional investigators.
– It looks like my father’s handwriting, she says in the film.
The storm on January 6, 2021 is being investigated by a special commission in the US Congress.
Last Thursday, in prime time, the eighth round of open hearings was held. They were the last before the summer break and a kind of final plea of Trump’s role in the violence.
The commission focused on the 187 minutes that passed before Trump, in a video message, did ask the rioters to go home, but at the same time repeated his false claims that the election was stolen.
– There was no worry, anger, despair. He was not upset, said Democratic Congresswoman Elaine Luria, who chaired the hearings.
Publish documents on Twitter
Now Lauria has published new material from the investigation, CNN reports.
On Twitter On Monday she released a film which shows, among other things, that Trump crossed out and changed the script of the speech he gave on January 7, the day after the storm.
The document, a written draft of what he would say, includes several redactions in black ballpoint pen:
check The wording that those who broke the law “belong in prison” is crossed out. By hand, it has been changed to “should pay”.
check The following sentence is completely deleted: “I call on the Department of Justice to ensure that anyone who broke the law is prosecuted. We must send a clear message, not with mercy but with justice. The legal consequences must be swift and severe”.
check Removed is also a wording where Trump addresses the rioters directly: “I want to be absolutely clear that you do not represent me.”
Son-in-law: I don’t know why
In Elaine Lauria’s film, there are several video interviews from the commission’s investigation.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner says he helped write the script for the speech and that he and several other Trump advisers stressed the importance of it being delivered.
When asked why Trump deleted and changed critical wording, he answers:
– I do not know.
Daughter: “Looks like my father’s handwriting”
Daughter Ivanka Trump is also part of an interrogation. She certifies that the document looks like a draft of the January 7 issue. When asked if she recognizes the handwriting, she says:
– It looks like my father’s.
According to the investigators, Trump was hesitant to give the speech at all on January 7, writes CNN. Once it aired, several scenes had been cut, something that was already revealed in congressional hearings on Thursday. Among other things, Trump stopped when he read the words “the election is over” from the script:
– I don’t want to say that the election is over.
Biden: “Medieval Hell”
US President Joe Biden, now recovered from covid-19, during the night of Tuesday was harsher than ever in his criticism of the representative’s actions in connection with the storm.
Before a pre-recorded video message to the participants of a conference for black police officers, he said, among other things, that Trump “lacked the courage to act”:
– Brave law enforcement officers were subjected to a medieval hell for three hours, surrounded by a carnage, face to face with the maddened crowd who believed the lies of the defeated president.
– For three hours, the defeated former president of the United States sat comfortably in his private dining room next to the Oval Office and watched everything happen.
Pence’s chief of staff questioned
Republican Adam Kinzinger, who is also on the investigative commission, said last week that Trump was “doing little more than gleefully watching television” while his supporters broke into the Capitol.
Last night, Marc Short, chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, also confirmed for CNN that he was questioned before a jury in the Department of Justice’s parallel criminal investigation into the events of January 6. However, he did not want to comment on what he said.
Short – who testified before Congress back in January – was with Pence inside the Capitol when the storming took place. Together they fled at the last moment while the rioters shouted “hang Mike Pence” in the corridors.
In Thursday’s hearings, it emerged that Pence’s bodyguards thought they were going to die. Several of them called their relatives to say goodbye.