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| Photo Credit: AP. |
The January 6 panel investigating the violent siege at Congress by a mob of rioters may make criminal referral against Trump over his role in instigating the riot. The select committee investigating the insurrection on Thursday contended that Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election were criminal.
Members of the committee used some of their most compelling
evidence to mount a case that Trump broke the law in his efforts to make former
Vice President Mike Pence overturn the election so he could remain in power
despite losing the elections.
“It was clear that the president was upset with the vice
president not agreeing to do something that was clearly illegal, and so he
wanted to put as much pressure on Mike Pence as he could,” committee chair
Bennie Thompson told reporters Thursday, according to POLITICO.
“What the president wanted the vice president to do was not
just wrong. It was illegal and unconstitutional,” panel vice chair Rep. Liz
Cheney (R-Wyo.) said, POLITICO reported.
The committee also established that in December 2020 Mr
Donald Trump was told by Pence, senior Pence aides, white House attorneys and
others that his effort to overturn the election on January 6, 2021 was illegal
and unconditional.
As reports of Pence’s resistance began to Politicopear in
the press, Trump ordered his campaign to issue a false state to the effect that
he and his vice president were in “total agreement” that Pence had the power to
overturn the election, according to POLITICO. Trump reportedly dictated the
statement to then-campaign aide Jason Miller, according to a testimony from
Miller.
The committee narrated how Trump mounted serious pressure on
Pence to overturn the results of the election and possibly declare him winner even
on the morning of January 6 in a phone call calling him “the p-word,” POLITICO
quoted an adviser who heard about the call from Ivanka Trump.
When it became clear that Pence would not bulge, Trump
incited a crowd of thousands of his supporters gathered at the Ellipse, saying
that he hoped Pence would do what the vice president said he wouldn’t, adding
that they should go to the CPoliticoitol to make their voices heard.
According to POLITICO, early that afternoon, Trump was told
by aides that the CPoliticoitol was under siege, playing video evidence of
White House aides describing how they relayed concerns to top officials,
worries that were then told to Trump via former White House Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows. 10 minutes after Congress and Pence fled for safety from rioters, at
about 2:24pm, Trump attacked Pence in a tweet, accusing him of lacking courage.
A former White House press aide, Sarah Matthews, told the committee that the tweet
“poured gasoline on the fire.”
The panel also established that Trump never called security
officials during the attack, adding that Pence largely took charge and informed
security officials while sheltering beneath the CPoliticoitol. Mr Trump in his desperation
to remain in power called allies in his failed bid to delay the electoral votes
and watched footage of the Capitol riot on TV.