January 6 hearings

How the January 6 panel set the stage for a criminal case against TrumpThe committee laid out evidence in a manner federal prosecutors could use as framework for potential prosecution The House January 6 select committee advanced new evidence at its Thursday primetime hearing that Donald Trump took active steps to obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, paving the way for prosecutors to construct a criminal case against the former president.‘It’s a kangaroo court’: in key state, Trump backers dismiss January 6 hearingsRead moreThe former president knew as early as 15 mins after returning to the White House from his rally at the Ellipse that the US Capitol was under attack by his supporters, and yet acted only to find ways to stop the certification by calling senators to make objections, the panel showed.And when Trump finally sent a tweet instructing the rioters to leave the Capitol, it was 4.17pm, only after it had become clear they had been unable to fully occupy the building after being repulsed by a late-arriving national guard and the Capitol attack had largely failed.Those deliberate actions to first advance the obstruction, and then refuse to intervene until the attack was essentially over, bolstered the case that Trump violated federal law that prohibits obstructing an official proceeding, through both action and inaction.Elaine Luria, the select committee member who co-led Thursday’s hearing, concluded: “In the end, this is not a story of inaction in time of crisis. It was the final action of Donald Trump’s own plan to usurp the will of the American people and remain in power.”The select committee, in effect, at the primetime hearing laid out the evidence of obstruction of an official proceeding – a violation of federal law – in such a manner that justice department prosecutors could take up their presentation as a framework for a potential prosecution.Aside from presenting new details of the former president’s actions on January 6, the panel also revealed new and potentially legally significant details about Trump’s frame of mind that the members believe revealed his intent and understanding of what had taken place that day.The select committee notably focused on a tweet that Trump sent at 6.01pm, after the attack was largely over, referring to his lie that he had won the 2020 election, that read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away.”Playing a clip from a deposition with Trump’s close aide Nicholas Luna, the select committee revealed that Luna had suggested that Trump might consider revising that first part of the tweet because it read to him as though Trump was responsible for the Capitol attack.Luna testified that he had told Trump the language “would lead some to believe that potentially he had something to do with the events that happened at the Capitol”.Trump did not revise the tweet, and the select committee appeared to raise the extraordinary situation that the former president did not dispute that assessment that he had something to do with the Capitol attack and therefore saw no reason to change the phrasing.The episode is significant since it came immediately after the crisis at the Capitol, which Trump had been watching live on television, as had millions of shocked Americans. Insight into Trump’s frame of mind would be an important consideration for any criminal case.Within three days, Trump’s stance had shifted from apparently not caring that he might be perceived as having a role in the events of January 6, to refusing to even discuss in a video address from the White House the attack or the US Capitol police officers who died.The reversal was noted by Trump’s former campaign chairman, Tim Murtaugh, in a text to a Trump campaign press aide, Matthew Wolking, that the select committee showed.“He’d be implicitly faulting the mob. And he won’t do that, because they’re his people. And he would be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control. No way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault,” Murtaugh said.From an investigative perspective, the select committee also raised the pattern of crucial missing evidence from January 6, which members and investigators on the panel increasingly see as malfeasance, according to two sources close to the inquiry.The primetime hearing on Thursday – the final one of the summer before further hearings in September – for the large part ran through how Trump chose not to act while ensconced in the White House watching Fox News as the violence at the Capitol unfolded two miles away down Pennsylvania Avenue.In order to reconstruct his actions, the select committee showed it had attempted to rely on the presidential daily diary, the presidential call logs and official photos taken by the White House photographer that day.But the panel revealed that none of those records existed for the crucial 187 minutes of the Capitol attack. The daily diary lacked entries, hours’ worth of call logs were missing and the White House photographer had been told to take no pictures during that time.The missing records fit a pattern of evidence loss, the select committee indicated: the text messages among Secret Service agents on the presidential security detail that day were erased 11 days after Congress requested the communications in January last year.TopicsUS newsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

January 6 panel: shining a light on American democracy’s nose diveThe gripping hearings have laid out a remarkably complex plot of a simple story: a president’s attempt to blindly retain power After eight gripping hearings, the panel investigating the January 6 attack has completed its first phase of laying out one of the most consequential stories of the modern era: how America’s democracy came to the brink of collapse in the aftermath of the 2020 election.Meet the key players who have defined the January 6 hearingsRead moreIt was a story that at times seemed remarkably complex, involving the vice-president, justice department, advisers inside and outside government, state and federal elected officials, election workers, fringe legal theories and violent extremist groups. But at it’s core it was a very simple story: a president who was determined to stay in power and use whatever power he could to do so.“The January 6 committee has laid out how close we came to full-blown constitutional chaos. Trump and his allies were ready to break through any barrier – both physical and legal – to install him to a second term,” said Nick Penniman, the CEO of Issue One, a good government group. “The collusion and complicity was vast.”Trump sought to overturn the election even as his inner circle warned him that what he was doing was likely unlawful and was fomenting violence. The hearings heard how the president was willing to do whatever it took, even condoning the idea of a violent mob hanging his vice-president.“The disease in the American body politic that the hearings have so ably diagnosed, including the members frequently addressing the threat, was addressed once before when a grand coalition came together in 2020 to defeat Trumpism and defend democracy. It can be addressed again if appropriate steps are taken,” said Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as special counsel to the House judiciary committee during Trump’s first impeachment.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletter As much as America is built on the rule of law and its institutions, it was the actions of a handful of people that ensured Joe Biden was seated as the lawfully elected president.There was Mike Pence, who refused to acquiesce to Trump’s pressure campaign to block the lawful counting of electoral votes. There were top officials at the justice department, first, attorney general Bill Barr, who told Trump his claims of fraud were “bullshit”, and later acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and Richard Donoghue, his deputy, who refused an effort to install a Trump loyalist and put the department’s credibility behind specious fraud accusations. There were state officials, Brad Raffensperger in Georgia and Rusty Bowers in Arizona, who refused to entertain far-fetched schemes to overturn the election.“The hearings have revealed how fragile our democracy is, and how important it is to install people of integrity into positions of public trust,” Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney in Michigan, wrote in an email. “We should consider fortifying our democracy through laws, such as amending the electoral count act to clarify the role of the vice-president and demanding transparency at the highest levels of government.”But even though Trump’s effort didn’t succeed in overturning the election in 2020, he unleashed a movement of election deniers that is now trying to set its hooks deep into the machinery of America’s election systems.The vast majority of Republicans continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen. At least more than 120 GOP nominees this year deny the results of the 2020 election, according to FiveThirtyEight. Some of them are running to be their state’s top election official, a position from which they would wield enormous power over election results. This month, Trump called the most powerful Republican in Wisconsin and asked him to help overturn the 2020 race.Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer closely involved in Trump’s strategy for overturning the election, is leading a push to recruit people who don’t believe the 2020 election to work the polls. While parties have long recruited people to be their eyes and ears in the precinct on election day, there’s concern that these new workers could spur more misunderstanding and confusion over election procedures.Meanwhile, experienced election officials, facing a wave of harassment, are leaving their jobs. Vigilante groups of citizens are going door-to-door looking for voter fraud and pushing officials to conduct shoddy post-election reviews and move to hand-counting election results. There is growing concern that election workers may unlawfully lead breaches into voting equipment and software.And perhaps most alarmingly, some local election boards have refused to certify primary races this year.“The January 6 committee hearings have revealed that the insurrection didn’t really end on January 6, it just metastasized,” Eisen said.Congress is already taking some steps to shore up the cracks that January 6 exposed. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would clarify ambiguities in a 19th century law that would make it harder for Trump or any future presidential candidate to overturn a validly held election.07:50But Eisen, who voiced concern about the bipartisan senate proposal on Wednesday, said perhaps the most important outcome of the January 6 hearings would be criminal prosecutions for those who were involved in efforts to overturn the election, including Trump. The decision over whether to prosecute will likely fall to attorney general Merrick Garland, one of the principal audiences for the committee’s public hearings.“They should be held accountable because what they did was wrong. But, bringing them to justice will also prevent them from doing the same thing again and again. That is why it’s so urgent that prosecutors act,” he said.McQuade agreed that prosecution would be the most important consequence of the hearings.“We need to hold accountable those who attacked our democracy through criminal prosecution. An important part of criminal prosecution is deterrence,” she said. “Unless we prosecute those who worked to undermine our democracy, they will be emboldened to try again.” TopicsUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpanalysisReuse this content More