The final public hearing begins in the investigation into the attack on the US Congress. The witness statements have revealed Trump’s blatant attempt to overturn the election result, writes ‘s U.S. reporter Juri von Bonsdorff.
11:10am•Updated 11:12am
WASHINGTON When the congressional investigative committee released the evidence in early June, its main goal was to show that Donald Trump was complicit in the attempt to prevent the democratic transfer of power defined in the constitution.
The eighth and probably the last public hearing is coming up today, Thursday, and the committee has come a long way in its mission.
The former president’s own insiders have told a priceless story about how Trump tried to stay in power with the power of lies and ignoring the law.
Former federal prosecutor and CNN legal expert Jennifer Rodgers tells that based on the evidence, it was a coup attempt led by Trump.
– Now we understand how determined the company was. The situation where the president refuses a peaceful transition of power was much closer than we knew, says Rodgers.
Investigating the takeover of the Congress building public hearings have been held for about 20 hours and with almost 50 witnesses.
They have revealed that President Trump’s fogging began on election night, when the vote count started to turn against him.
Against the advice of his own campaign manager, Trump declared himself the winner and accused the Democrats of election fraud.
In the following weeks, Trump’s lawyers struggled with the fraud allegations and filed more than 60 lawsuits. The courts rejected them all.
The then president’s own minister of justice Bill Barr investigated the allegations and ultimately found them baseless and “bullshit”. White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone agreed.
Despite this, Trump did not relent, but pressed more gas.
When from your own Ministry of Justice and there was no support for the fraud claims from White House lawyers, Trump turned to outside aides.
The biggest role was played by a lawyer unknown to the general public John Eastman. He developed legal theories, based on which action plans were drawn up. Also the former mayor of New York and Trump’s lawyer at the time Rudy Giuliani actively stir up the issue.
Trump, Giuliani and Eastman, among others, asked the Arizona state legislature to reject the Democrats Joe Biden electors and replace them with Trump electors.
Speaker of the Arizona House, Trump supporter Rusty Bowers refused because he considered the activity illegal. Bowers was also not presented with any evidence despite his requests.
– Giuliani said they have a lot of theories but no evidence, Bowers recounted the events in disbelief at the investigative committee’s hearing.
In the end, six states soloed their own alternate electors and sent official documents about them to Congress.
In Georgia, all sixteen illegal voters are now under criminal investigation.
Next, Eastman developed a theoryaccording to which the Vice President Mike Pence could assume a decisive role in his capacity as Senate Speaker.
Eastman fed Trump a plan according to which the vice president could either directly overturn Biden’s victory or send the electoral votes back to those states where, in Trump’s opinion, election fraud had occurred.
Again, the White House’s own lawyers and Trump-appointed Justice Department executives dismissed the plans as illegal.
Eastman himself admitted that the plan was against the law, but continued to promote it.
Just a couple of hours before Pence was scheduled to confirm the outcome of the presidential election in Congress on January 6, 2021, Trump called the vice president and made this appeal.
However, Pence considered the plan illegal and refused to comply.
Trump then called his vice president a weak motherfucker, using very strong and understated language.
After the call, Trump took the stage in front of his supporters in front of the White House. In his defiant speech, Trump called on people to fight and march to Congress.
Despite the objections of the White House lawyers, Trump had added many mentions of Pence to his speech and that he would have the power to resolve the matter in the best way for Trump.
After the speech, the president sent a message to his supporters on Twitter. In it, he accused Pence of cowardice.
Moments later, the message spread among the rioters, and rhythmic chants of hanging Pence began to echo into the sky.
– He deserves it, Trump said after hearing about the screams.
The evidence is full interesting details about meetings, discussions and mutual arguments.
However, the key message is that it had been made clear to Donald Trump by all experts within the administration that there was no election fraud and that all attempts to overturn Biden’s victory were illegal and dangerous for the United States and its democracy.
Based on witness statements, Trump ignored the warnings and persistently continued his attempts to stay in power.
Although the course of events seems clear and most of the witnesses are key people in the Trump administration, the committee’s work is only one side’s perspective.
The investigative committee is preparing a final report, which will be released at some point before the midterm elections in November.
Minister of Justice of Merrick Garland it remains to decide whether the criminal criteria are met and whether charges will be brought against Trump. The ministry will conduct its own investigations into the matter before deciding on possible further actions.
The former president has never been charged before.
Former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers tells that charges should be filed.
– Trump still believes that the election was stolen from him. He may run again and is still a threat to our democracy, says Rodgers.