Investigators from the US House of Representatives presented the case to the American public in a prime time hearing on Thursday that the violent uprising of supporters of former US President Donald Trump should not be forgotten.
While the foundations of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 are well known, the commission is trying to tell the story of how it happened and how to prevent it from happening again, of history.
Television hearings involving videos of brutally beaten police officers and right-wing extremists leading crowds to the Capitol came as some tried to downplay the violence.
“We can’t throw what happened under the rug,” said committee member Benny Thompson, chairman of the committee, when he opened the first of a series of hearings. “The American people deserve answers.”
Conclusions from the first hearing of the committee on January 6:
The role of Trump
Thompson outlined the commission’s initial findings that Trump was leading a “spreading multi-stage conspiracy aimed at canceling the presidential election.”
The sun was setting behind the Capitol in Washington on Thursday as the committee held its hearing. (Julio Cortes / Associated Press)
Liz Cheney, Wyoming’s deputy chairman, called it a “complex seven-part plan.”
The commission plans to investigate how Trump imposed his false allegations of widespread fraud and how this ultimately sparked violence in the Capitol. They say his lies have prompted far-right extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to take action.
“January 6 was the culmination of a coup attempt, a brazen attempt,” Thompson said.
The committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews with people involved in the siege and collected more than 140,000 documents. They will use this evidence during this month’s hearings to show how the attack was coordinated by some of the rebels in the violent mob that stormed the Capitol and cut off President Joe Biden’s victory – and how Trump’s efforts began.
“The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous revolt,” Cheney said.
Testimony from Trump’s inner circle
The hearing included unprecedented video testimonies from former Attorney General Bill Barr and others who told Trump at the time that his allegations of fraud were unfounded. Bar, who said publicly at the time that the Justice Department had not detected the fraud, said he had told Trump it was “nonsense.”
WATCH Bar and Ivanka Trump in unprecedented testimony:
Testimonies of Ivanka Trump and William Barr were broadcast at the Capitol riot hearings in the United States
A U.S. congressional commission investigating the January 6, 2021 riots began its televised hearings on Thursday, showing a video interview with former Attorney General Bill Barr who testified that he told Donald Trump that his allegations of electoral fraud are “nonsense.” The panel also showed testimony from Ivanka Trump.
The panel also showed video testimony from Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who addressed the commission in April. She said Bar’s statement “affected my point of view”.
“I respect Attorney General Bar, so I accepted what he said,” she told the committee.
Offer for attention
The commission took the unusual step of launching the hearings with a prime-time show – in order to gather as many viewers as possible.
It is not yet clear how many will be involved, but the commission is producing the hearing in hopes of making it mandatory, which includes unprecedented videos of the violent uprising.
The committee’s interview with former White House councilor Ivanka Trump was shown while members of the committee watched on Thursday night. (J. Scott Applewright / Associated Press)
The hearing room was also prepared for the coup, with a huge screen hanging over the deputies.
Lawmakers witnessed the attack
Lawmakers who were caught together in the house during the uprising attended a hearing Thursday after dinner together. The deputies were caught in the upper gallery of the hall while the rebels knocked on the doors.
MEP Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota, said members of the House, who were eventually relocated without harm, were concerned that an event that revealed the fragility of democracy could “somehow be bleached by tens of millions, including a lot … here in Congress. “
Some Republican lawmakers have tried to downplay the uprising, accusing Democrats of being too focused on trying to thwart a peaceful transfer of power.
“We want to remind people, we were there, we saw what happened. We know how close we were to the first riotous transition of power in this country,” Phillips said.
The commission took the unusual step of launching the hearings with a prime-time show – in order to gather as many viewers as possible. (J. Scott Applewright / Associated Press)
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