Attack on Capitol Hill: What Trump Did – and Didn't Do – on January 6

In this file photo from January 6, 2021, supporters of President Donald Trump besiege the US Capitol in Washington.

The committee responsible for investigating the attack on the Capitol will wrap up a series of high-profile hearings on Thursday evening by detailing, at prime time, the day of January 6, 2021 as experienced “minute by minute”. minute” by Donald Trump.

It's very simple: he did nothing to stop the riot, summarized the elected Democrat Elaine Luria during an interview this weekend on CNN. And yet, his advisers kept calling him to action.

With fellow Republican Adam Kinzinger, also a veteran, she will lead the charge against the ex-president who she says failed in his duty as commander-in-chief by not calling on his supporters to stand down. from the headquarters of Congress.

Adam Kinzinger, one of the two representatives of the Republican Party who sit on the committee in charge of investigating the January 6 assault. Washington, the day when elected officials were to certify the victory of his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in the presidential election.

Around noon, in a fiery speech in the heart of the capital, he asked them to fight like the devil against supposed massive electoral fraud. He then returned to the White House, while the crowd launched an assault on the temple of American democracy.

It had taken more than three hours before #x27;call on his supporters to leave the premises. I know your pain, he finally told them in a video posted on Twitter. But we have to go home now.

Thursday's hearing before the House of Representatives committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans repudiated by their party, must return to what happened between these two speeches.

Down in the private dining room of the White House, Donald Trump followed the attack on television, according to excerpts of deposition posted Thursday on Twitter by Adam Kinzinger.

Former United States President Donald Trump

In all this time, he hasn't once picked up his phone to order his administration to lend a hand to overwhelmed police, said Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney .

Not only did he do nothing, but he sent an infamous tweet at 2:24 p.m. that added fuel to the fire by criticizing his Vice President Mike Pence for not wanting to block the certification of the results of the election, added Elaine Luria.

For her, Donald Trump wanted this violence. He didn't react until he realized it wouldn't produce the desired result, she told the Washington Post. p>

Matthew Pottinger, then deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, deputy spokesperson, are expected to testify publicly for the first time behind the scenes of this sinister day. Both had resigned after Jan. 6.

The committee is also expected to feature lengthy video clips of the testimony of Pat Cipollone: ​​the former White House legal adviser recently said his former boss should have conceded defeat.

The hearing could also return to the efforts made, the next day, by Donald Trump's advisers, so that he denounces in a video the violence against the Capitol, and on his difficulty in doing so.

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Pat Cipollone was the White House counsel during the Trump administration.

This public session is the eighth in six weeks and the second broadcast in prime time across the country. The previous ones have focused, among other things, on the role of the far right in the assault or the pressure exerted on electoral agents by Donald Trump and his relatives.

Exceptionally, it will take place in the absence of the chairman of the committee, Democrat Bennie Thompson, who is ill with COVID-19.

The January 6 committee will then withdraw from the public eye to work on its final report which, according to the elected Democrat Zoe Lofgren, will be delivered in the fall.

But he will continue to collect testimonies and documents and it is not impossible that he will organize a new hearing if he obtains new elements.

Its findings could include a recommendation to initiate legal action against the former president.

The decision will rest with Justice Secretary Merrick Garland, who will not. x27; not exclude. Nobody is above the law, he said again on Wednesday.

Merrick Garland, secretary to American Justice

Donald Trump, who openly flirts with the idea of ​​running for president in 2024, vehemently denounces the work of the committee and would not fail to present as a victim of a political cabal if indicted.