“Donald Trump, the president, has incited many of the internal enemies of the Constitution to march to Capitol Hill and undermine American democracy,” said the person in charge of this parliamentary inquiry.
The attack on the Capitol on January 6 was “the culmination of a coup attempt” that jeopardized “centuries of constitutional democracy.” With these words, the chairman of the committee investigating the insurgency, Bennie Thompson, opened the first of six landmark public hearings broadcast live to North Americans during prime time. Below are some testimonials from the Capitol attack process:
The committee chair, Democrat Bennie G. Thompson, opened the first day of the public hearings with a speech in which he accused former President Donald Trump of the race. “The violence was not an accident. It was Trump’s last and most desperate chance to stop the transfer of power. And in the end, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has provoked a host of internal enemies of the Constitution to march on Capitol Hill and undermine American democracy,” he said.
The uprising marked a black page in the country’s history. “We can’t sweep under the rug what happened,” Thompson said. “The American people deserve answers. So I stand before you tonight, not as a Democrat, but as an American who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, which protects not just Democrats or Republicans, but everyone. And this plan was an attempt to undermine the will of the people.”
A year later, “our democracy is still in jeopardy. The conspiracy to frustrate the will of the people is not over. There are people in this country who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great: dedication to the Constitution and loyalty to the rule of law.”
Republican Vice President Liz Cheney said Trump was trying to use the resources of his office, including the Justice Department, to nullify the presidential election, and he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to block the electoral college votes for Joe. Biden on June 6, 2021. violence erupted, the tycoon not only failed to quell it, but “encouraged the crowd,” he claimed. Aware of the rioters’ chants for ‘hang Mike Pence,’ Trump responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves it,'” he was quoted as saying.
Trump’s intent, he said, was to remain president of the country despite the legal outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power. To do this: “He called the crowd, gathered the crowd and lit the flame of this attack.”
Finally, Cheney referred to a painting hanging on Capitol Hill that shows George Washington voluntarily relinquishing power by leaving his Continental Army commission, a sign of his desire to transfer power peacefully. “The sacred obligation to maintain this peaceful transfer of power has been fulfilled by every US president. Except for one,” he said.
“A butchershop”. This is how Caroline Edwards, a police officer injured in the attack, described the attack on the Capitol. The mob threw her to the ground, leaving her unconscious and with brain damage. When he came to, he saw wounded officers around him. “It was a war scene. They were bleeding and vomiting. I slipped in people’s blood. It was chaos. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be in the middle of a battle.”
About 140 officers were attacked in the attack, leaving five dead. Among them, Officer Brin Sicknick, for a stroke. Before he was killed in the attack, “I was as pale as this paper,” Edwards recalls holding up a sheet of paper. At the conclusion of the hearing, he hugged Sicknick’s partner, Sandra Garza, who was present in the committee room.
Edwards, who has not yet been cleared to return to work, called himself “the proud granddaughter of a Marine” who fought in the Korean War. She, like other police officers, suffered a setback from Trump supporters both on the day of the attack and in the days after. “They called me a traitor. And no, I was an American standing face to face with other Americans and wondering how we got here,” she said.
Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, is one of the most aggressive members of Congress in an effort to hold former President Donald Trump responsible for the unrest on Capitol Hill. “We are in the midst of a struggle to defend our democratic institutions and our democratic processes and the constitutional order,” he said during his participation in the hearing.
“We have a former president who has now placed himself and his supporters out of the constitutional order. They are attacking our elections. They attack the peaceful transfer of power. They are attacking the rule of law,” Raskin said, who also expected the findings uncovered in the commission’s investigation to “blow the roof off the house,” he said.
Raskin was the lead director of the second impeachment trial against Trump. In it, seven Republican senators joined Democratic ranks to accuse the former president of inciting the insurgency against the Capitol. The vote did not reach the 67 support needed to convict the Republican leader. Still, Raskin often noted that “commanding majorities” in both the House and Senate believed Trump was guilty of encouraging the “crowd.”
Source: La Verdad
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