After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump took a path of lawlessness and corruption to stay in power, said the head of the parliamentary commission investigating the storming of the Capitol.
The US House of Representatives Commission of Inquiry into the storming of the Capitol accused then head of state Donald Trump of willful inaction. The outgoing president deliberately did not take steps to stop the violence from his supporters for several hours, commission chairman Benny Thompson said Thursday night, July 21, at a commission public hearing.
Head of the commission: Hard consequences are necessary
According to him, Trump went down the “path of lawlessness and corruption” to stay in power. “Strong consequences for the perpetrators” of the January 6, 2021 incident are needed to protect democracy, Thompson demanded.
The Democrat pointed out that during the 2020 presidential campaign, Donald Trump “did everything in his power” to reverse the results of the vote. “He lied, he threatened, he betrayed his oath. He tried to destroy our democratic institutions,” the congressman insisted. Now, according to him, “the reckoning before the law, the reckoning before the American people” must be followed.
In this regard, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said that on the day of the attack on the Capitol, Trump refused to call his supporters for three hours to maintain order, thus violating the oath. “In the comfort of his dining room, he was watching TV as the attack intensified,” said the politician, who is a critic of Trump’s inner party. According to him, not intervening was not a mistake of the then president, but his conscious decision. A crowd of his aggressive supporters disrupted the procedure for recognizing the results of the presidential election in Congress and the victory of Joe Biden, thus enabling Trump to achieve his goal, Kinzinger added.
Capitol Storming and Congressional Investigations
Radical supporters of Donald Trump, who lost the US presidential election, after his speech at a rally in Washington on January 6, 2021, entered the Capitol, where the participants approved a joint meeting of the Senate and the House of Representatives the results of the vote. Protesters managed to enter the building, Congressional debates were suspended for several hours, and lawmakers were evacuated.
The rioters clashed with the police, who responded with tear gas. The National Guard has arrived in Washington. Five people were killed in the clash, including a policeman. Authorities regained control of the Congress building a few hours later. Two more police officers committed suicide in the following weeks. After the riots, around 50 people were detained, some of whom were charged.
After the storming of the Capitol, a commission of the US House of Representatives examined more than 140,000 documents and interviewed more than a thousand witnesses to clarify Trump’s role in the events of that time. At its first meeting in early June, the commission held Trump primarily responsible for the chaos in Washington. “January 6 was the culmination of a coup attempt, a brazen attempt to overthrow the government. The violence was not an accident. This was Trump’s last attempt,” said Benny Thompson. After the eighth public meeting, a break was announced in the work of the commission, new hearings will be held in September. Trump himself has denied his guilt and does not rule out that he will run again for the presidency of the United States in 2024.
Source: DW
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.