Donald Trump Watches Capitol Riots On TV In White House Dining Room Instead Of Intervening, Trial Investigation | US News

Donald Trump watched the Capitol riots on television in his dining room and failed to take “immediate action in a time of crisis,” an investigation has found.

In the eighth hearing on January 6 riotsThe committee was told that the former president was aiming to prevent or delay congressional endorsement of Joe Biden’s election victory by not interfering.

Thousands of his supporters stormed Parliament during last year’s riots, smashing windows, forcing doors open and scaring politicians.

The uprising left five people dead, including a policeman, and injured more than 100 officers.

Representative Liz Cheney said the only thing that would help Mr Trump achieve his goal was the “angry armed mob” he “sends to the Capitol”.

She added that Mr Trump chose not to answer pleas from Republican lawmakers to intervene and stop the violence in the hours after the riots began.

“He refuses to do what every American president is supposed to do,” she said.

The committee was told that his daughter Ivanka Trump and former chief of staff Mark Meadows were among those urging him to strongly condemn the events.

His son, Donald Trump Junior, also pleaded with his father to do something, telling Mr Meadows: “He must condemn this as soon as possible.

“This one, you go to the mattress. They’ll try to destroy his entire legacy on this if it gets worse.”

Time frame 187 minutes

Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the committee, said Mr Trump was “against” tweeting that protesters should be peaceful, with a former deputy White House press secretary saying he only agreed to do so after his daughter suggested using the phrase.

Sarah Matthews said his tweet “didn’t go far enough” and that Mr Trump initially “didn’t want to include any kind of mention of peace” in it.

The hearing was intended to present “minute by minute” details of Trump’s actions during the attack on the Capitol building – a time frame of 187 minutes.

It started at 1.10pm, when Mr. Trump finished his speech that sparked the riot, and ended at 4:17pm when he released the famous video on Twitter telling his supporters to “please home in peace”.

At 1.25pm, just 15 minutes after concluding his speech, Mr. Trump headed to the private dining room outside the Oval Office, where he stayed until about 4pm.

Congressman Elaine Luria explained how he watched the chaos unfolding on TV, saying he refused to do anything due to his “selfish desire to stay in power”.

She said witnesses told the committee he was sitting in his “familiar position” at the head of the table across from the television on the wall, which was showing Fox News.

The hearing noted that, despite pleas for him to act, Mr. Trump instead sent a number of tweets, including one sharing a link to his speech and one mentioning Vice President Mike. Pence.

‘Pour gasoline on fire’

In the tweet, he said Mr. Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect” the United States.

Footage from the hearing showed a lot of anger centered on Mr. Pence, with protesters calling for him to be hanged, calling him a traitor and saying he had “twisted the necks” of the American people. .

Shortly after the tweet was sent, the committee said the incident had escalated but Mr. Trump continued to call for a delay in Biden’s congressional certification as president.

One witness who appeared at the hearing, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, described the tweet as “filling gasoline on the fire”.

In Secret Service radio traffic broadcast to the committee, officers could be heard expressing concern about getting Mr. Pence out of the building safely.

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“Start booting the windows of the Capitol. VP is being pulled. Decide in the next 2-3 minutes or… VP may be stuck in the Capitol,” the security log reads.

“If we lost more time, we could lose the ability to leave,” one agent said. “If we’re going to leave, we need to do it now.”

Sharing images of the White House call logs, the committee said it showed Mr Trump made no calls during the violence that followed.

Trump’s video messages revealed

It wasn’t until after 4 p.m., more than three hours after the siege began, that Trump recorded a video of his message from the Rose Garden of the White House.

The committee heard that a script had been written for him to read, but he decided to “take off the cuffs” instead.

One of his messages released during the hearing showed Trump wanting to claim that the majority of his supporters were acting “peacefully” on Capitol Hill.

“I urge all my supporters to do exactly as 99.9% of them have been – express their passions and opinions peacefully,” he was recorded. so.

In another clip, which shows a recorded message the next day, the former president still refuses to say “the election is over”, instead saying only that Congress has certified the results.

In his closing remarks, Kinzinger described Mr Trump’s conduct as “a supreme violation of the oath of office” and a “disgrace” to American democracy.

“It’s a stain on our history,” he added.

The hearing is likely to be the last this summer, with another round due in September.