The 1/6 Committee is set to rush in Donald TrumpLast attempt to save the 2020 election by pressuring the Vice President Mike Pence to negate the number of electors – powers that Pence did not have – in the riots in front of the US Capitol.
With two witnesses on Thursday, the House panel intends to show how Trump’s false claims about a rigged election made him grasp the alternatives as the courts rejected them. dozens of lawsuits against the vote.
Trump seized on conservative law professor John Eastman’s puzzling plan and launched a public and private pressure campaign on Pence days before the vice president presided over a January 6 joint session of Congress. to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
A federal judge has said it is “more likely than not” that Trump committed a crime in an attempt to block the certification.
“The illegality of the plan is obvious,” the board said January 6 in a court filing against Eastman. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., co-chair of the committee, said in her opening statement last week: “What President Trump is asking Mike Pence to do is not only wrong, it is illegal and violates the law. give”.
The committee will hear from Greg Jacob, the vice president’s adviser, who has resisted Eastman’s ideas for Pence to implement the plan; and retired federal judge Michael Luttig, who called Eastman’s plan, his former law clerk, “incorrect at every turn.”
Thursday’s session is also expected to reveal new evidence of the danger Pence faced that day as crowds stormed the Capitol shouting “hang Mike Pence!” with the gallows on the Capitol grounds as the vice president fled with the senators into hiding. Nine people died in the riot and its aftermath.
The session is expected to show how Trump’s pressure on Pence “directly contributed” to the attack on Capitol Hill, according to a committee aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the session. upcoming hearings.
Before the hearing, Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, said his boss was determined to stay on Capitol Hill that night and get the job done, despite threats.
“He knows his job is to stay in his position,” Short said on CNN Wednesday.
Short said Pence didn’t want the world to see the vice president leave the Capitol when “a hallmark of democracy” was under siege.
“He thought it was important that he stayed there and made sure the work of the American people was done that night,” said Short, who testified under subpoena to the committee for eight hours. , speak.
The panel is reconvening for a third hearing this month after a blockbuster primetime start last week followed by logistical setbacks in recent days. Monday’s key witness, former Trump campaign director Bill Stepien, abruptly declined to appear in person because his wife was pregnant with their child.
A hearing scheduled for Wednesday with witnesses from the Justice Department who had tried to convince Trump that his claims of voter fraud were untrue has been postponed.
However, the yearlong jury investigation is revealing Trump’s final weeks in office as the defeated president engaged in the “big lie” of a rigged election even as the People around him – his family, top aides, officials at the highest levels of government – told him he simply lost the election.
Former Attorney General William Barr, who resigned at the end of 2020 instead of being part of Trump’s plan, testified earlier that the president was becoming “distant from reality” if he believed his words. lie. He said he told the president his claims about voter fraud were “a cow-—.”
With 1,000 interviews and 140,000 documents assembled, the committee is connecting the dots, showing how Trump’s false claims of election fraud became a battle as he convened thousands Americans came to Washington to attend the rally on January 6 and then sent them to Capitol Hill to “Fight Like Hell” for his presidency.
More than 800 people were arrested during the siege of the Capitol, and the panel is considering whether to send a referral for criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department. No president or former president has ever been indicted by the Justice Department, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said he and his team are following due process in Congress.
The panel is currently conducting hearings, with more scheduled for next week.
Thursday will unpack the Eastman plan for states to send alternative sets of electors from the five or seven states Trump is contesting, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With the means competing for Trump or Biden, Pence will be forced to turn them down, sending them back to the states for the planned arrangement.
Pence rejected the plan, believing the founders would not leave it to one person, the vice president, to decide the outcome, Jacob told the panel in earlier testimony. Jacob said the idea goes against 130 years of precedent in US history, “totally fabricated.”
The committee in upcoming hearings will study the role of extremist groups and others who have heeded Trump’s call to Washington. Leaders and others from the Oath-Keepers and the Proud Boys face rare sedation charges over their roles in the Capitol attack.
Several members of Congress are also under scrutiny, including Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., whom the committee requested an interview with to discuss the Capitol tour he organized. The organization included tunnels in the basement for a group of people the day before the attack.
The panel is also probing several candidates for elective office, including the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, who is among the rebels.
The panel, which is expected to issue a final report on its findings later this year, intends its work to set a record in history for the most violent attack on the Palace of Justice. Capitol since the War of 1812. Unlike other national traumas that have pulled the nation together, the attack on the Capitol on January 6 appears to have divided many Americans. Congress split up the commission’s creation, which most Republicans oppose.
Two Republicans, Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, have been shunned by the GOP for their work with the Democrats leading the investigation into Trump and his role in the Capitol attack.
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