WASHINGTON (AP) — A Jan. 6 panel is preparing to highlight how violent far-right extremists responded to Donald Trump’s “siren call” to come to Washington for a major rally, as some now face rare charges of sedition in connection with the deadly attack on the US Capitol and an attempt to cancel the 2020 presidential election.
The panel investigating the Capitol siege since Jan. 6, 2021, is scheduled to meet Tuesday for a public hearing to examine what it calls the latest phase of Trump’s multi-pronged effort to stop Joe Biden from winning. While dozens of lawsuits and false claims of voter fraud failed, Trump tweeted the rally invitation, a key moment, the committee said. The far-right Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others now facing criminal charges responded readily.
“We’re going to lay out the wealth of evidence that we have that speaks to how the president’s tweet in the wee hours of December 19th, ‘Be there, be wild,’ was a siren call to these people,” said one member of the committee, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., over the weekend on “Meet the Press.” In fact, Trump tweeted: “Be there, it’s going to be wild!”
This is the seventh hearing in a series that has featured multiple blockbuster revelations from the commission since Jan. 6. Over the past month, the panel has created a stark narrative of a defeated Trump, “out of touch with reality,” clinging to his false claims of voter fraud and working frantically to reverse his election defeat. It all culminated in the deadly attack on the Capitol, the commission said.
What the committee intends to examine Tuesday is whether extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and QAnon supporters who have previously rallied behind Trump, coordinated with White House allies for the Jan. 6 rally. The Oath Keepers denied any plan to storm the Capitol.
The panel is also expected to highlight new testimony from Pat Cipollone, the former White House adviser who “was aware of every major move” Trump was making, said Congressman Jamie Raskin, MD, who will chair the session.
This is the only hearing for this week as new details emerge. The expected prime-time hearing on Thursday has been postponed for now.
This week’s session comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson provided stunning accounts under oath about an angry Trump who knowingly sent armed supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and then refused to quickly call them off when violence erupted, siding with the rebels while Vice President Mike Pence menacingly sought them out.
Trump said Cassidy’s account was not true. But Cipollone in Friday’s private session did not contradict the earlier testimony. Raskin said the panel plans to use “a lot” of Cipollone’s testimony.
The group is expected to highlight a Dec. 18, 2020 meeting at the White House in which former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and others presented ideas to overturn the election results, Raskin told CBS on the weekend.
That was days after the Electoral College convened on Dec. 14 to certify the results for Biden — a time when other key Republicans declared the election and challenges to them over.
On Dec. 19, Trump would send out a tweet inviting supporters to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally, the day Congress was scheduled to certify the Electoral College count: “Big protest in DC on Jan. 6. Be there, it’s going to be wild!”
The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups whose leaders and others now face rare sedition charges for their role in the attack, are set to come to Washington, according to court documents.
On Dec. 29, the chairman of the Proud Boys posted a message on social media saying members planned to “walk out in record numbers on Jan. 6,” according to a federal indictment.
The group planned to meet at the Washington Monument, its members instructed not to wear their traditional black and yellow colors, but to be “incognito.”
The Proud Boys claim membership has grown since Trump, during his first debate with Biden, refused to directly condemn the group, instead telling them to “back off and stay away.”
The night before Jan. 6, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tario met with Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes in an underground parking lot, according to court documents along with images provided to the panel by a documentary filmmaker tracking the group.
Oath Keepers also organized for Jan. 6 and created a “rapid response force” at a nearby hotel in Virginia, according to court documents.
After the Capitol siege, Rhodes called someone with an urgent message for Trump, another member of the group said. Rhodes was denied a chance to speak with Trump, but urged the man on the phone to tell the Republican president to call on militia groups to fight to keep the president in power.
An attorney for Rhodes recently told the committee that their client wanted to testify publicly. Rhodes has already been interviewed by the committee in private, and the group is unlikely to agree.
The panel also intends to discuss how many of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 appeared to be QAnon believers. Federal authorities have specifically linked at least 38 insurgents to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, according to an Associated Press review of court records.
One of the most recognizable figures from the Jan. 6 attack was a shirtless man from Arizona who called himself “QAnon Shaman,” wearing a spear and face paint and a Viking hat with fur and horns.
A central belief among QAnon followers is that Trump has been secretly fighting a cabal of deep government officials, prominent Democrats and the Hollywood elite who worship Satan and engage in child sex trafficking.
The panel showed, in quick hearings and with eyewitness accounts from the former president’s inner circle, how Trump was told “over and over again,” as Vice Speaker Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said he had lost election and his false claims of voter fraud were simply not true. Still, Trump summoned his supporters to Washington and then sent them to the Capitol in what Chairman Benny Thompson, Md., called an “attempted coup.”
___ Associated Press writers Farnoosh Amiri and Mary Claire Jeylonik in Washington, D.C., and Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Md., contributed to this report.
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For full coverage of the January 6 hearings, go to
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