The Jan. 6 Committee overwhelmingly approved a motion on Thursday to summon former president Donald Trump to testify about his involvement in the assault on the US Capitol.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s head, concluded the meeting by saying, “We need to hear from him. He needs to answer for his actions.
It is our responsibility to obtain Donald Trump’s testimony, he continued. Congress has been known to force a president to testify before in American history. Additionally, it has happened before for presidents to testify before congressional investigators and offer written documentation.
We also understand that issuing a subpoena to a former president is a serious and unusual measure, he added.
Thompson said there was evidence of a “multipart scheme” led by Trump to rig the 2020 election during his opening remarks on Thursday afternoon.
He claimed that no president in our nation had ever done what Donald Trump did after the 2020 election.
The 9-0 vote took place less than a month before the midterm elections and at what was supposed to be the last meeting of the House committee looking into the January 6, 2021 uprising. Although there were no live witnesses at the hearing on Thursday, numerous former Trump advisers gave fresh testimony.
The committee will vote on “additional investigative action” after holding nine public hearings, more than 1,000 witness interviews, and more than a year of inquiry, Thompson said at the outset of the hearing on Thursday. The former vice president Mike Pence may be called to testify by the panel, he added, adding that this is “always a possibility” to reporters.
The committee can issue subpoenas that require witnesses to give testimony and produce records, but it is not empowered to prosecute or indict Trump. The committee will submit a report to the Justice Department by the end of the year that may contain suggestions and referrals for criminal charges.
Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, stated that “proposing improvements is part of this committee’s role.”
Cheney said that Trump’s attempts to retain the office were part of a “premeditated plot” in her opening statements. She also stated that the former president had always meant “to announce that the election was fraudulent and stolen on Election Day before he knew the election results.”
She also called Trump the “primary cause” of the disturbance on January 6, and the committee heard fresh testimony from Republicans and former Trump administration officials.
In a republic, none of this is “natural,” “acceptable,” or “lawful,” according to Cheney.
The former president “pulled out all the brakes in his quest to stay in power,” Thompson claimed, adding that “Donald Trump understood he lost,” which prompted the attack on the Capitol.
The fact that former advisers told the committee that Trump admitted to losing the election in private was one of the hearing’s most important revelations.
Alyssa Farah, a former White House director of strategic communications, recalled hearing Donald Trump say, “Can you believe I lost to this fucking guy?” while watching Joe Biden on television, in a tape that was presented during her testimony on Thursday.
Additionally, the Secret Service recently provided 1.5 million emails and other documents to the committee, which helped to clarify what occurred on and around January 6.
In December 2021, as the Supreme Court denied Trump’s legal team’s request to file a case, a Secret Service agent email stated, “Just fyi, POTUS is angry.”
The Secret Service had knowledge of the security dangers before the Capitol attack, according to other emails.
According to a tip given to the Secret Service in December 2020, “Their objective is literally to kill people.” The message displayed throughout the hearing requests that you thoroughly consider this tip and conduct additional research.
With so many weapons discovered thus far, you wonder how many are undiscovered, a Secret Service agent texted at 12:36 on January 6. After dusk, it might get active.
In light of the Secret Service conversations, Rep. Pete Aguilar of California stated that the panel would be bringing witnesses back in and “doing further investigative depositions.” If more public hearings will result from this was not immediately apparent.
The committee’s final report will be made public before the start of the next congressional session in January 2023. The committee looking into Jan. 6 will be disbanded thirty days after the report is issued.
It will be up to the Justice Department to decide whether the former president will face criminal charges for his involvement in the violence on January 6. More than 850 insurrection participants have been charged by DOJ officials thus far.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, the former president blasted the panel in reaction to the hearing on Thursday.
The reason for what happened on January 6th, according to Trump, was that the Unselect Committee willfully neglected to look into the widespread voter fraud that occurred during the 2020 presidential election
In addition to this subpoena, the former president and his organization are under investigation by other state and federal agencies.
The Trump Organization, three of Trump’s children, and herself were being sued for fraud in September, according to the attorney general of New York. A Manhattan criminal tax trial for the business is also scheduled to begin in October.
In addition to being under federal investigation for mishandling confidential records under the Presidential Records Act, the former president is also being looked into by Georgian authorities for possible illegal election tampering.
