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Perhaps the biggest hurdle for prosecutors eventually to clear in order to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election will be proving his intent. As we explain in a new report, the Jan. 6 committee hearings that begin this week, together with what we know already, should provide more than enough proof to establish the former president's corrupt mental state as he attempted to overturn the election.

In criminal law, "intent" refers to someone's state of mind at the time of their criminal action. When proving intent, you need to show that they intended to do the thing that is a crime. Because it is rare to have direct evidence of what a person is actually thinking, prosecutors usually infer intent from the facts and circumstances surrounding a person's actions.

In the case of Donald Trump, what we already know about his actions and statements following the 2020 election demonstrate his intent. His actions explicitly showed he was willing to go to any lengths to retain power and was using false claims of fraud as a pretext.

RELATED:Time for Merrick Garland to act: Trump can't get a pass on serious crimes over "politics"

He attempted to coerce Georgia state officials to "find 11,780 votes," just enough for him to wina request that would not have made sense if he wanted a legal response to actual evidence of fraud.

He threatened to replace Justice Department leaders who did not cooperate with his scheme to weaponize the agency to bolster unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and pressure state legislators to appoint "alternative" electors.

He pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject or delay the Jan. 6, 2021, counting of Electoral College votes. And then, when Pence refused to do his bidding, not only did Trump praise and endorse violence, but he sat by instead of mounting a prompt and appropriate response to an attack on the Capitol.

Starting on Thursday night, we expect the House select committee to give us a behind-the-scenes look at how all this evidence fits together, providing a detailed account of what transpired during Trump's 187-minutesilence between the beginning of the Capitol invasion and when he finally tweeted a video begrudgingly telling his supporters to go home.

As Trump apologists prepare to defend his conduct, it is important to realize how shallow their defense will be. It is laughable to suggest that Trump genuinely believed he had won the 2020 election. We already know that experts and advisers told him the election results were legitimate. He heard this from his campaign advisers, DOJ lawyers, high-level officials in his own Department of Homeland Security and Republican elected officials. Trump knew he had lost a free and fair election, but he wanted to remain in power anyway.

Here too, the committee's work will be helpful, providing key evidence about what Trump and his allies knew, or should have known, about the results of the 2020 election and shedding light on discrepancies between what Trump and others were saying and doing in public and what they were admitting in private.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The committee, prosecutors and all of us have a foundation for showing Trump's corrupt intent: his long-established pattern of crying "fraud" to undermine results he didn't like.

After Trump lost the 2016 Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz, he cried fraud and demanded a do-over. He did the same thing in the general election after losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, despite winning the Electoral College and becoming president.

We already have a clear foundation for demonstrating Trump's corrupt intent: his long-established pattern of crying "fraud" to undermine results he didn't like.

Trump laid the groundwork for claims of fraud in 2020 before votes were cast and before there could be any evidence of irregularities. At a rally in August 2020, Trump said that "[t]he only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged." Throughout 2020, he made a series of statements along these lines building the foundation for his post-election narrative and showing us that even before the first vote was cast, he had no intention of accepting election results he didn't like.

Through its investigation and public hearings, the committee will shed light on what is already apparent: Trump's claims of fraud were not in response to reports or evidence. They were not in response to a genuine concern about our democracy. Before the first ballot was even cast, Trump's team was prepared to mount a baseless offensive that supported the conclusion they wanted to reach.

Even if Trump could somehow convince prosecutors and a jury that he really believed he had won despite all the evidence to the contrary that would not have permitted him to use dishonest means to stay in power. His legal adviser, John Eastman, made clear that the scheme he and Trump tried to execute to keep Trump in power required breaking the law. You can't keep power illegally even if you believe you really won an election. But prosecutors won't need to reach this point, since the evidence is so strong that Trump and those around him knew he lost.

We already know that lawyers in the White House counsel's office warned Trump's team about the lawlessness of their scheme. The committee will likely reveal more information about Trump's knowledge of its lawlessness and his intention nonetheless to use whatever means necessary to remain in office.

Prosecutors don't need Donald Trump to dramatically confess on the stand in order to convict him. All they need is to show that he intended to undermine the counting of electoral votes. That is already evident and will be further substantiated by the mountain of evidence that the Jan. 6 committee has amassed and will present to the American public.

As a federal judge in California has already found, there is significant evidence that Trump and his close advisers committed criminal offenses in the course of their plot to overturn the people's vote in the 2020 election. His intent will become even clearer through the evidence presented in this month's hearings. We hope that will embolden prosecutors to overcome their caution and move forward with criminal charges.

Read more on the effort to hold our 45th president accountable:

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To indict Donald Trump, prosecutors will need to prove intent. Well, here it comes - Salon

The irony is rich: Truth Social, Donald Trumps Twitter copycat claiming it is free from political discrimination, has reportedly banned users who posted information from Thursdays congressional hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in which the former president is a key focus.

Thats according to several posts on Twitter by users who claimed Truth Social was censoring them. Reps for Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns and operates Truth Social, did not respond to a request for comment.

Travis Allen, whose Twitter bio describes him as an information security analyst, on Thursday evening posted a screenshot from the Truth Social app that said Account suspended, and he wrote: My Truth Social account was just permanently suspended for talking about the January 6th Committee hearings.

He added, So much for free speech. This is censorship! Allen did not provide details about what allegedly led to Truth Social kicking him off the platform.

Seeing a lot of folks getting banned from Trumps Truth Social for posting updates about the January 6 Committee hearings, Max Burns, communications director for Democratic New York State Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, tweeted Friday. Apparently free speech has its limits even in Trumpland.

Also Friday morning, another Twitter user reported, Just put out my first post on Truth social and they deleted it. Real freedom of speech champs there.

Truth Socials terms of service state, We reserve the right to, in our sole discretion and without notice or liability, deny access to and use of the service (including blocking certain IP addresses), to any person for any reason or for no reason We may terminate your use or participation in the service or delete [your account and] any content or information that you posted at any time, without warning, in our sole discretion. (Twitters terms of service include similar language.) In the U.S., under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, internet platforms like Truth Social have legal protections for their content-moderation decisions a carve-out that Trump unsuccessfully sought to revoke when he occupied the White House.

Twitter permanently banned Trump in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot citing the risk of ongoing violence after he posted a video praising the violent mob seeking to overturn the 2020 election. Billionaire Elon Musk, whose $44 billion bid for Twitter is pending, has called Twitters ban of the ex-president a mistake and a decision he would reverse.

Earlier this year, as a counter to the imagined anti-conservative bias of Big Tech, Trump launched Truth Social. Its not clear how many users are on Truth Social. Trump currently has 3.2 million followers on the app; before he was banned from Twitter, he had more than 88 million followers.

As of March 31, 2022, Trump Media & Technology Group had not generated any revenue to date and has warned investors that TMTG may never generate any operating revenues or ever achieve profitable operations. Sarasota, Fla.-based TMTG had approximately 40 full-time employees as of the end of March, per a regulatory filing by Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that intends to merge with TMTG.

At some point, Trumps media company plans to launch a subscription-streaming service called TMTG+ with a range of right-wing and non-woke content, including Trump-specific programming as well as blue-collar comedy and cancelled shows.

TMTG is led by CEO Devin Nunes, the former Republican congressman who once unsuccessfully sued Twitter and anonymous parody accounts Devin Nunes Cow and Devin Nunes Mom, alleging defamation.

Trump also sued Twitter unsuccessfully. In a complaint filed last year, the ex-president and others asserted that Twitter was a government actor and therefore bound to the First Amendments prohibition against abridging freedom of speech i.e., that Twitters ban on Trump was unconstitutional. A federal judge rejected that argument and dismissed the case last month.

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Trumps Truth Social Is Banning Users Who Post About Jan. 6 Hearings, According to Reports - Variety

With Trump in office, Meadows reinvented himself as one of the Presidents most outspoken defenders. He was entranced by access to the Oval Office, and he even showed off the call log on his iPhone to a reporter to prove that he was speaking with VIP POTUS. Meadows called Trump so often, in fact, that he later claimed to have discovered he was No.14 on the White House switchboards list of approved callers to be put through to the President. By late 2018, he claimed to have made it up to No.7. When Meadows quit Congress and Trump hired him as his fourth chief of staff in as many years, Meadows planned to avoid what he saw as the mistakes of the previous three.

Trumps first chief of staff, the Republican Party operative Reince Priebus, had tried, with little success, to manage Trump before being dumped, via tweet, in the summer of 2017. The second, the retired Marine General John Kelly, had a reputation for trying to block Trump. Mick Mulvaney came to the office as acting chief, vowing to let Trump be Trump. Meadows, however, appeared to be more Trump than Trump, not only enabling but actively facilitating and orchestrating the former Presidents most reckless pursuitsand connecting with Trumps disruptive approach in a way his predecessors did not.

To many of his new colleagues, Meadows quickly came across as duplicitous and untrustworthy. He would lie to peoples faces, a fellow White House official told my husband and me. Stephanie Grisham, whom Meadows ousted from her position as White House press secretary, called him one of the worst people ever to enter the Trump White House. Grisham said that on a scale of awfulness, with a five being the worst, Id give Mark Meadows a twelve. Joe Grogan, the Presidents top domestic-policy adviser, described Meadows to colleagues as someone who thought he was a genius but, in fact, did not know what he was doing. Meadows was an absolute disaster, Grogan would tell others, who played to all the Presidents worst instincts.

Meadows did not think much of Grisham or Grogan, either, or of many other staffers he inherited. He was particularly disdainful of the doctors, such as Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, who advised Trump and the White Houses COVID task force during the onset of the pandemic. Theyre inept, theyre idiotic, theyre a bunch of scientists, Meadows told people in the White House at one point, referring to the scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even the most loved Dr. Fauci, he said, still has no clue on a whole lot of stuff.

In the days immediately following the 2020 election, before the race was even called for Joe Biden, Meadows began entertaining pitches from Donald Trump, Jr., and various Republicans suggesting a plan to overturn what they saw as Trumps impending defeat. They proposed having Republican-led legislatures in states Biden won set aside the actual election results and substitute in pro-Trump electors. Its very simple, Don, Jr., texted. We have multiple paths, he added later. We control them all. (A lawyer for Don, Jr., said this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.)

Trumps eldest son was already looking ahead to January 6th, the day when by law Congress was supposed to formally count and certify the Electoral College results. Don, Jr., suggested that, if they could swing enough states by then, they could prevent Biden from winning a majority of Electoral College votes, thereby sending the decision to the House. The Constitution states that, in such a circumstance, the House would vote by state delegation, and although Republicans did not hold a majority of House seats they did control twenty-six of the fifty state delegations. We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021, Don, Jr., wrote to Meadows.

Meadows apparently did not reply to that text message, but other texts from him suggest that he was encouraging those who wanted Trump to pursue the plot to overturn the election. For instance, Representative Andy Biggs, of ArizonaMeadowss former House colleaguewrote Meadows to propose what he admitted was a highly controversial strategy of getting Republican legislatures to appoint alternate electors for Trump in states that he lost. I love it, Meadows wrote back.

Over the next two months, as Trump pursued his rigged election claims, Meadows further consolidated power in the White House, eventually excluding Vice-President Pence from meetings he had once attended as a matter of course. Meadows really tried to separate Pence from Trump for the last couple months, a White House official noted. Meadows again actively played both sides. He reassured Barr that Trump would leave office while personally pressing to overturn results in key states and pressuring Cabinet officials. On December 21st, he attended a meeting with his former colleagues from the Freedom Caucus at the Oval Office, where the lawmakers strategized with Meadows and Trump over how to block Pence from carrying out his constitutional duty to preside over the counting of the electoral votes that would finalize Trumps defeat.

On January 6th, Meadows was bombarded with text messages and calls urging him to stop the storming of the Capitolan action that he helped foment. Even Don, Jr., who had also promoted the election lies, frantically urged Meadows to get his father to turn down the temperature. Hes got to condemn this shit Asap, he texted the chief of staff. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.

Im pushing it hard, Meadows responded. I agree.

How hard, though, was not clear. Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director who had quit in disgust over the post-election campaign to overturn the results, texted Meadows, who had been her boss for years on Capitol Hill and at the White House: You guys have to say something. Even if the presidents not willing to put out a statement, you should go to the sticks and say, We condemn this. Please stand down. If you dont, people are going to die. Meadows did not reply. Farah then texted Ben Williamson, Meadowss senior adviser. Is someone getting to POTUS? she asked. He has to tell protestors to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed.

Williamsons reply suggested that neither Trump nor Meadows was reacting with urgency: Ive been trying for the last 30 minutes, he wrote. Literally stormed in outer oval to get him to put out the first one. Its completely insane.

Meadows and his two different personas are at the center of many of the controversies lingering since Trumps tumultuous exit from office. The January 6th committee has discovered this duality. Meadows at first agreed to coperate with the panel but then abruptly stopped after Trump castigated him for publishing a memoir, The Chiefs Chief, which airbrushed their historythough not sufficiently for Trump. The former President was furious with Meadows for revealing his lies, which Trump dismissed as Fake News, to the public about the seriousness and timing of his October, 2020, bout with COVID.

Meadowss remarkable ability, even for a politician, to do one thing while saying another has also been the subject of running news reports. My colleague Charles Bethea disclosed, in The New Yorker, that Trumps chief of staff was publicly alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election while apparently committing voter fraud himself. Meadows registered to vote by absentee ballot in September, 2020, from a mobile home in North Carolina which he had never visited. North Carolinas authorities have removed Meadows from the states voter rolls and are investigating his actions.

In many ways, Meadowss skill for obfuscation has delayed an inevitable reckoning about his role in enabling Trumps post-election conduct. But the evidence is now much clearer that Meadowss actions in the White House at this crucial moment not only mattered but might well have been decisive. Its very possible, in fact, that the tragedy of January 6th might never have happened had it not been for Trumps final chief of staff.

One of the most persistent themes my husband and I found in our reporting was the moral struggles of the people around Trump during earlier stages of his destructive Presidencytheir justifications and rationales for working for a man whom many of them considered reckless and loathsome. They could make things better, they told themselves. They could stop bad things from happening. They would be replaced by people who would be far worse. There was always a measure of self-aggrandizing or self-justification. But there was also a measure of truth, as well.

There is little doubt that the situation in the White House after the 2020 election would have been different had John Kelly still been chief of staff, instead of Mark Meadows. Kelly might not have been able to persuade Trump to concede, or stop Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and the MyPillow guy from getting into the Oval Office and feeding Trump wild lies about crooked voting machines and foreign intrigues while urging the imposition of martial lawbut its hard not to think that Kelly would have thrown his body on the grenade in trying.

Original post:
Without Mark Meadows, January 6th Might Never Have Happened - The New Yorker

Strangely enough, one of the sharpest takes on Thursdays prime-time January 6th hearing on Capitol Hill came from an anchor of the news network that, to its eternal shame, chose not to show the proceedings live: Bret Baier, of Fox News. Having spent two hours helming coverage of the hearing on Foxs much less popular sibling, Fox Business, Baier popped up on the main network in the eleven-oclock hour, where he pointed out that its not entirely clear yet where the Democrats and Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the January 6th House select committee, are going with this. Is it ultimately an effort to go after Donald Trump criminally?, Baier asked. Or is it a political play to prevent him from running for President again?

The redoubtable Liz Cheney, the Republican ostracized by her party, and the resolute Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who shared the spotlight with her at the hearings, would doubtless insist that their primary goal is to protect American democracy. There would be no reason to doubt them. But that doesnt negate Baiers question, and, arguably, makes it more pertinent. For, if theres one thing the hearing reminded everyone of, its that Trump will represent a mortal threat to American democracy until the day he retires from politics. So, if your goal is to protect that democracy, the first question you have to consider is this: Whats the most effective way to make sure Trump remains a former President?

The most definitive move would be to charge and convict him of seditious conspiracy, insurrection, or incitement. From one perspective, the entire series of hearingsanother five are expected this month, with a final report due in Septembercan be interpreted as a lengthy criminal referral to the Justice Department, or, at the least, as a heavy hint in the ear of Attorney General Merrick Garland. While Justice Department prosecutors have gone far and wide in their investigation into the assault on the Capitol, charging more than eight hundred people with crimes related to the riot, the Department hasnt yet indicted anyone in Trumps immediate orbit. The farthest Garland has gone was his pledge in January, on the eve of the anniversary of the insurrection, that his department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under lawwhether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.

If the Feds dont indict Trump because they dont think there is enough evidence to secure a conviction from a jury, the job of protecting democracy from the former President will fall on his quislings in the Republican Party and, eventually, on American voters at large. In this context, the hearings provide an important public service in two ways.

First, they remind elected Republicans, whose ultimate loyalty is to themselves, that if they dont somehow find a way to move past Trump they will spend years defending the indefensible. Because, as sure as the sun rises, Trump is going to make them do it. Hours before Thursdays hearing started, the former President posted this monstrous statement on his social-media app Truth Social: January 6 was not merely a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again. It was about an Election that was Rigged and Stolen, and a Country that was about to go to HELL.

Tucker Carlson and some other media figures who make millions monetizing Trumps grievances and legitimizing his fantasies may be willing to continue down this road with him. But is it politically viable in the long term for establishment Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (some of whose staff members were shown in the January 6th committees video presentation scurrying away from their Capitol offices in terror of the MAGA rioters)? What about the multiple G.O.P. lawmakers who, according to Cheneys presentation, contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th and asked for Presidential pardons for their role in promoting Trumps Big Lie? Some of them may privately prefer to move on as well.

For the sake of argument, lets assume that, two years from now, Trump and his MAGA hordes steamroll their way through the G.O.P. primaries, as they did in 2016, and its left to the American people to stop him at the voting booth. In that alarming scenario, it will be essential to have a full and accurate account of January 6th, including the attack itself, the events that led up to it, and its chaotic aftermathwhen Betsy DeVos, Trumps ultra-conservative Secretary of Education, discussed invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment with Pence and other Cabinet members; when the spineless McCarthy talked (and only talked) about asking Trump to resign; and when General Mark Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly sought to limit the ability of a raging Commander-in-Chief to launch a nuclear strike.

Of course, there is no guarantee that establishing the full truth about January 6th will defeat Trump: in a democracy, the voters remain free to make awful choices. But in using the testimony of the Attorney General at the time, Bill Barr, along with Trumps daughter Ivanka and others who were on the inside of this horrid saga, the members of the select committee have made a good start in laying out Trumps culpability with fresh details and conveying it to anybody who is willing to watch and listen.

One Trumper who seems rattled is Trump himself. On Friday morning, he again took to Truth Social, where he accused his own daughter of being checked out and said that his former Attorney General sucked. As the hearings proceed, well probably be seeing more from both of them. The next hearing is on Monday.

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of Republicans on the committee.

Read more from the original source:
What the January 6th Hearings Are Really About - The New Yorker

US Capitol siege: January 6 hearing: What was revealed about Donald Trumps involvement? | USA | EL PAS English Edition

Opening statements from the hearing

The House select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, began its first hearing on Thursday. The chair of the nine-member panel, Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, wasted no time in sharing his conclusions about what happened that day. Jan 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, he said within the first 15 minutes of the hearing. Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy.

Following his address, the vice chair of the panel Liz Cheney one of only two Republicans on the committee presented previously unseen footage of the attack on the US Capitol, which was stormed by a pro-Trump mob in a bid to stop the session to certify the electoral victory of Joe Biden.

The House members at the hearing on Thursday squirmed in their seats as the new material was shown. Some shook their heads, others covered their face with their hand. The Democrat Pramila Jayapal broke into tears, and was handed a tissue by fellow Democrat Cori Bush. After the hearing, she told EL PAS: We were there, we know how close we came to losing our democracy. And we also know how close we are to that happening. Its important that the work of this commission yield results.

Footage from the siege of the US Capitol

Thursdays hearing is the first of six that will seek to explain what happened on January 6. The findings are based on a nearly 11-month investigation, which interviewed more than 1,000 people and gathered over 140,000 documents. The hearing, which was broadcast at primetime and screened by most networks, with the exception of Fox News, has brought up comparisons to the 1973 Watergate scandal, which ended with the resignation of president Richard Nixon.

We cant sweep what happened under the rug. The American people deserve answers, said Thompson in his opening statement on Thursday. So I come before you this evening not as a Democrat but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The Constitution doesnt protect just Democrats or just Republicans.

Cheney who has been marginalized by the Republicans for openly opposing Trump and his false accusation that the 2020 election was stolen had a similarly strong message for Trump supporters in her party. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain, she said.

Using documents such as Twitter messages and emails, as well as witness testimony recorded during the investigation, Cheney showed how Trump and his supporters deliberately spread false election fraud claims, even though they knew that such claims were lies.

The very first piece of evidence shown during the hearing was a clip of former attorney general William Barr, who 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 told the president was bullshit. Despite this, the former president continued to pressure officials to recount the votes. He also pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to refuse to count the electoral results. What president Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasnt just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional, said Cheney.

Thompson explained that the January 6 insurrection was about more than one day, when Trump encouraged supporters at a rally to march on the Capitol, but was the culmination of months of planning. The former president was determined to hold on to power, despite the objections of those close to him. The hearing showed a recording of Trumps daughter, Ivanka Trump, who tried to distance herself from her fathers actions. In a separate video, Trumps son-in-law and former adviser, Jared Kushner, dismissed then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollones threats to resign in the lead-up to the January 6 siege as whining.

Thursdays hearing also made it clear that during the insurrection, Trump did not listen to his advisers and allies such as Fox News presenter Sean Hannity, who told him to call off the mob. Instead, he watched from the White House as the protesters stormed the US Capitol, the cradle of US democracy, in his name. Four people were killed in the siege and another five people died in the following days.

A few hours before the hearing, Trump posted a message on his Truth social platform, arguing that the January 6 insurrection was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.

The hearing heard testimony from Caroline Edwards, a police officer who was seriously injured, along with hundreds of other officers, while trying to stop the pro-Trump mob, which included members of far-right organizations, such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

I couldnt believe my eyes: There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up, said Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury during the attack. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in peoples blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I cant even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle, she recalled. Im trained to detain a couple of subjects and handle a crowd, but Im not combat trained. That day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat.

British documentary filmmaker Nick Quested also testified at the hearing. He explained that he had been following the Proud Boys in the leadup to the insurrection with the idea of making a documentary about them. Quested told the panel that on January 5, he saw Enrique Tarrio, the leader of Proud Boys, meet with Steward Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, in a parking garage in Washington even though a judge had ordered Tarrio to leave the District of Columbia following a previous arrest. Quested was also present at the pro-Trump rally on January 6. I documented the crowd turn from protestors, to rioters, to insurrectionists, he told the hearing on Thursday.

The panel also showed a recorded interview with Robert Schornak, who was sentenced to 36 months of probation for his involvement in the siege. In the video, he explained: What really made me want to come was the fact that I had supported Trump all that time, I did believe that the election was being stolen and Trump asked us to come. He continued: Trump has only asked me for two things. He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on January 6th.

Jamie Ruskin, a Democrat from Maryland and one of the most high-profile faces of the panel, appeared at the hearing with a copy of Thomas Paines famous 1776 pamphlet Common Sense. He expressed his dismay at how an absolute lie was able to trigger the violence seen on January 6, and offered words of consolation to officer Edwards, and her colleague Harry Dunn, a nearly two-meter tall officer, who wore a shirt with the definition of insurrection: a violent uprising against an authority or government, followed by a date: January 6, 2021.

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January 6 hearing: What was revealed about Donald Trumps involvement? - EL PAS USA