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WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee on Jan. 6 voted unanimously to subpoena former President Donald Trump, requiring his personal testimony, as he released a startling new video and described his multi-part plan to reverse his 2020 election loss ., which led to his supporters violently attacking the US Capitol.
With alarming messages from the US Secret Service warning of violence and a stark new video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders pleading for help, Thursday’s panel showed the raw desperation in the Capitol. Using language often found in criminal indictments, the panel said Trump acted in a “premeditated” manner before Jan. 6, 2021, despite countless aides and officials telling him he had lost.
It is almost certain that Trump will resist the subpoena and refuse to testify. On his social media, he criticized the members for not asking him sooner – although he did not say he would comply – and called the panel “complete BULL”.
“We have to look for the testimony under oath from the main player on January 6,” said Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee’s vice chairwoman, before the vote.
At the panel’s 10th public session, just weeks before the midterm congressional elections, the panel summarized Trump’s “stunning betrayal” of his oath of office, as Speaker Benny Thompson put it, describing the then-president’s unprecedented attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
While Trump’s subpoena efforts may be waning, more a nod to history than an effective subpoena, the panel has made it clear it is considering whether to send its findings in a criminal case to the Justice Department.
In one of its most compelling exhibits, the panel showed never-before-seen footage of congressional leaders calling for help during the attack, while Trump refused to call the crowd away.
Pelosi can be seen on the phone with the governor of neighboring Virginia, explaining as she huddles with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and others that the governor of Maryland has also been contacted. The video later shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders as the group asks the Defense Department for help.
“They’re breaking the law in a lot of different ways,” Pelosi says at one point. “And frankly, a lot of it was initiated by the president of the United States.”
The footage also shows Vice President Mike Pence — not Trump — stepping in to help calm the violence, telling Pelosi and others that he had spoken with Capitol Police as Congress planned to resume session that evening to certify Biden’s election.
The video is by Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra, a documentary filmmaker.
In previously unseen Secret Service communications, the panel presented evidence that extremist groups provided the muscle in the battle for Trump’s presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force into Washington.
The Secret Service warned in a Dec. 26, 2020, email about a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to outnumber police at a Jan. 6 march in Washington.
“It felt like the calm before the storm,” a Secret Service agent wrote in a group chat.
To describe the president’s attitude, the committee presented new and previously seen material, including interviews with senior Trump aides and cabinet officials — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia — in which some described the president, admitting he had lost.
Former White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin said Trump once looked at a TV and said, “Can you believe I lost to this (expletive) guy?”
Cabinet members also said in interviews shown during the hearing that they believed that once legal avenues were exhausted, that should have been the end of Trump’s efforts to stay in power.
“That was the end of the matter, in my opinion,” Barr said of the Electoral College’s Dec. 14 vote.
But rather than the end of Trump’s efforts, it was just the beginning — when the president called the crowd in Washington on Jan. 6.
The panel showed clips of Trump at his rally near the White House that day saying the opposite of what he was told. He then tells his supporters that he will march with them to the Capitol. This has never happened.
“There is no defense that Donald Trump was delusional or irrational,” Cheney said. “No president can defy the rule of law and act like that in our constitutional republic, period.”
Thursday’s hearing began in a nearly empty Capitol complex, with most lawmakers campaigning at home. Several people who were among the thousands around the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now running for Congress, some with Trump’s support. Police officers fighting the crowd filled the front row of the hall.
The House panel said the Capitol riot was not an isolated incident, but a warning about the fragility of the nation’s democracy in the post-Trump era.
“None of this is normal,” Cheney said.
Along with the interviews, the committee drew on a 1.5 million-page trove of documents obtained by the Secret Service, including an email from Dec. 11, 2020, the day the Supreme Court threw out one of the main lawsuits brought by Trump’s team over the election results .
“Only for information. POTUS is angry,” the Secret Service said in a statement.
White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled that Trump was “fired up” by the court’s decision.
Trump told Meadows “something like, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is uncomfortable. Figure it out,” Hutchinson told the panel in a taped interview.
Thursday’s session served as closing arguments for the two Republican lawmakers in the caucus, Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who have essentially been shunned by Trump and their party and will not return to the new Congress. Cheney lost his primary and Kinzinger decided not to run.
After conducting more than 1,000 interviews and obtaining countless documents, the committee conducted a wide-ranging investigation into Trump’s activities from his November election defeat to the Capitol attack.
According to the committee’s rules, the panel is due to report on its findings on January 6, probably in December. The committee will disband 30 days after the release of this report and with the new Congress in January.
At least five people died in the Jan. 6 attack and its aftermath, including a Trump supporter who was shot and killed by Capitol Police.
More than 850 people have been indicted by the Justice Department, with some receiving lengthy prison terms for their roles. Several leaders and associates of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were charged with sedition.
Trump faces various state and federal investigations for his actions during and after the elections.
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Associated Press writers Mary Claire Jalonik, Jill Colvin, Kevin Freking and Michael Balzamo contributed to this report.
More on Donald Trump investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
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