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U.S. Capitol riot hearing shows Trump allies, daughter rejected fraud claims

Published 06/09/2022, 05:10 AM
Updated 06/10/2022, 06:22 AM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A mob of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A mob of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The congressional committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump's supporters trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat presented testimony on Thursday showing that close allies - even his daughter - rejected his false claims of voting fraud.

The U.S. House of Representatives select committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, assault also showed graphic footage of thousands of rioters attacking police and smashing their way into the Capitol. It was the first of six planned hearings intended to show that the Republican former president conspired to unlawfully hold onto power.

The Democratic-led committee presented video of testimony from notable Trump administration figures including his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Attorney General William Barr, campaign spokesperson Jason Miller and General Mark Milley.

It also showed part of Trump's incendiary speech before the attack in which he repeated false election fraud claims and directed his supporters' anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the Capitol overseeing congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election win - a process the riot failed to prevent.

Some congressional Republicans in the days after the attack condemned Trump, but most have since changed their tune, supporting him and downplaying the day's violence. Trump himself has gone after Republicans who voted to impeach him for his actions, backing primary challengers to them ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the following two years.

Democratic committee chair Bennie Thompson said Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to thwart American democracy and block the peaceful transfer of power.

"Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one writer put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government," Thompson said. "The violence was no accident. It was Trump's last stand."

Barr in videotaped testimony said: "I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I call the bullshit. And, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it."

Barr's view convinced Trump's daughter.

"I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying," Ivanka Trump said in videotaped testimony.

Trump, who is publicly flirting with another White House run in 2024, issued a statement before the hearing calling the committee "political Thugs."

"Aware of the rioters' chants to 'hang Mike Pence,' the president responded with this sentiment: 'Well, maybe our supporters have the right idea,'" said Representative Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the nine-member panel and its vice chairperson.

Since leaving office last year, Trump has kept up his false claims that his 2020 election loss to Biden was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by numerous courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.

"We can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election," Barr, who resigned about two weeks before the Capitol attack, said in the video.

Kushner was shown on video dismissing threats by some Trump aides to resign after the riot as "whining."

The hearing also featured two witnesses who testified in person: U.S. Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, who sustained a brain injury in the attack, and Nick Quested, a filmmaker who captured footage of the far-right Proud Boys group, accused of helping to plan the attack.

Edwards described insults hurled by rioters at her during the melee but said she was proud of fighting them off even after being injured.

"I was slipping in people's blood," Edwards said. "It was carnage. It was chaos."

"What I saw was just a war scene," Edwards added.

'SUMMONED THE MOB'

The mob attacked police, sent lawmakers and Pence fleeing for their safety and caused millions of dollars in damage. Four people died that day, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.

"Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: That the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president," Cheney said. "President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack."

To her fellow Republicans - who voted to remove her from her House leadership position - Cheney offered a warning: "There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

Cheney noted that multiple Republican congressmen contacted the White House after Jan. 6 to seek pardons for what she said was their role in trying to overturn the election.

Biden on Thursday described the attack as "a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution."

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Tear gas is released into a crowd of protesters during clashes with Capitol police at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday underscored the partisan lens through which many Americans view the assault. It found that among Republicans about 55% believed the false claim that left-wing protesters led the attack and 58% believed most of the protesters were law-abiding.

Two Republican Georgia state election officials who Trump tried to pressure to "find" votes that would overturn his election defeat will testify at hearings later this month, a source familiar with the matter said.

Latest comments

why do the modern non conservative republicans think they could achieve through violence what they can't achieve peacefully through the electorate? oh I forgot, they have no vision, no policies, no agenda not even debates. vote them out they have no future!
This isn't a game. Serious adults have to stop pretending falsehoods are true. Trump had every opportunity to prove that the election was stolen, and couldn't even come close to demonstrating that. Instead, realistic and responsible people from his inner circle, even his family told him he lost, fair and square. It will pain people to come to terms with the fact that it was Trump who tried to steel an election, and it will be uncomfortable to have to recognize that this puts him at the bottom of the barrel, below any of the other perceived villains, such as BLM or antifa, but only Trump perpetrated a conspiratorial plan to stop democracy in its tracks. Its time to grow up and accept a realization of what happened; to give up on a kooky fantasy that history will mock: Trump was legitimately rejected by the free an fair expression of the American people. He then set about to steel the election for himself. Those are the facts. At this point, supporters of Trump are enemies of Democracy.
Very well said, Brad!
yawn
Fact, after fact, after fact showed an irrefutable picture of a President with the worst of motives and followers intent on crushing American democracy. The kooks and know-nothings will not have their minds changed, but the rest of us are getting a better understanding of just how despicable and dangerous these anti-American pigs are to the country. Their extremism is coming into focus.
Zero credibility yesterday at the Comedy Show in Washington…lots of noise and zero substance and politics all in..NHL game had higher ratings I’m sure
 Right! And you would think these people would wake up and notice just who was peddling the idea that there was "evidence" of fraud -- a cadre of hucksters, lunatics and morons. Yet, the know-nothings remain resolute in their certainty that the Pillow Guy is coming forth with proof any day now and that a bipolar lawyer off her meds is going to release the kraken. It's sad, If they weren't a threat to America, I would feel sorry for them.
 Right! And you would think these people would wake up and notice just who was peddling the idea that there was "evidence" of fraud -- a cadre of hucksters, lunatics and kooks. Yet, the know-nothings remain resolute in their certainty that the Pillow Guy is coming forth with proof any day now and that a bipolar lawyer off her meds is going to release the kraken. It's sad, If they weren't a threat to America, I would feel sorry for them.
Michael mcdonough you must have an IQ of less than 80
the Republican party grooms their kids to hate their political opponents by lying to them then hand them ar15 to finish the job.sad! vote them out! they dont belong in democratic america!
the criminal lying ex is finally getting his due! karma is a biotch!
enjoy the midterms
The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.
 yet Barr did so with absolutely no proof that the election wasn't stolen. He did zero investigation and called it "good".
Enemies of American Democracy and the United States Constitution.
 You are wrong: "DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven't seen anything to substantiate that." -- https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/trumps-justice-department-found-no-evidence-of-widespread-voter-fraud-barr-tells-ap/
MAGA47
He will be in pampers by the next election.
If this committee was actually concerned about Democracy, they would bring some proof that the election wasn't stolen. They are laser focused on discrediting Trump but ignore the one thing that would destroy him, or maybe they know the proof isn't there.
 Barr was one of the talking heads that declared the election "secure" without even getting off his lazy ********to conduct any kind of actual audit to verify that was true. Counting the same votes again and again is by no means any kind of audit. Americans have been gullible through the years to assume that their vote is counted but we have no way of even knowing that our votes leave the building, much less are counted as we submitted them. In an electronic age where identities are stolen every minute and 5th graders can hack into the local bank, why should we simply accept that our elections are secure?
 Oh, geez, man. You have been so bamboozled. That came from Donald Trump and he lied to you. When are you diehards going to wake up? You fell for a conman. That makes you a dupe. Continuing to believe makes you a fool. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pennsylvania-205000-votes/
 why are you posting a Snopes link about 205,000 excess votes? (Actually why post any link to Snopes as they have been shown again and again to be biased) I said over 40,000 which was based on PA's final recount and was posted in several news sources.
Trump ends the US democracy, period!!!
DNC propaganda. Total sham.
The 2020 election was absolutely stolen. The January 6th Capital protest was like a day at Disneyland compared to the blm and antifa riots across the country that caused massive monetary loss and uncountable loss of life. The Dems are fascist criminal traitorous freaks.
Barr in videotaped testimony said: "I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I call the bull *******...."   -- President Orange's AG
What a cangaroo court. Federal government is corrupt!
cangaroo dumbass
I can’t wait for 2024
It will be even bigger than the 2022 Republican landslide.
what a waste of taxpayer money.
Ironic that you would think that it's Dems that only care about power when it's Trump and his cronies that this hearing shows went to new extremes to desperately hold onto power at any cost.
they spent a couple of years and 8 millions on Benghazi and what, hillary is a retired grandma peacefully enjoying herself and trump is quacking in his boots about wearing an orange jumpsuit.
I give it to Dems/deep state, they never sleep.
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