The House select committee examining January 6 is focusing on former President Donald Trump, with public hearings beginning this week, and is poised to use its platform to argue that he was culpable for significant abuses of power that threatened US democracy.
The committee’s main goal has been to learn the exact extent of Trump’s unprecedented attempt to prevent President Joe Biden from taking office.
This includes Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 loss by pushing state and federal officials, as well as his “dereliction of duty” on January 6, when his supporters ransacked the US Capitol, according to committee members.
Incitement Of Insurgency
Lawmakers will try to persuade the people to convict Trump in a court of public opinion, which is all they can do because they lack the authority to actually indict Trump. But, owing to a landmark court ruling from a federal judge who stated it was “more likely than not” that Trump broke the law on January 6, they have a legal foundation to assert that he did.
The panel’s first opportunity to present the public what they’ve discovered from over 1,000 witness interviews and 135,000 papers will be at these highly planned hearings. Since Trump’s impeachment trial in February 2021, when he was acquitted of one count of “incitement of insurgency,” an avalanche of fresh material about January 6 has surfaced.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat on the committee, told the Washington Post earlier this week that the committee “had found indications of intentional planning and premediated action” relating to the events of January 6.
Trump’s Election Tampering Before The 6th of January
The committee spoke with officials from Michigan and Georgia, among other states, where Trump failed to persuade local officials to overturn Biden’s votes and declare him the winner. Trump also attempted to recruit the help of senior Justice Department officials in his efforts.
Hundreds of emails from right-wing attorney John Eastman, who personally counselled Trump to explore legally problematic means to stay in office, have been seized by congressional investigators. On January 6, then-Vice President Mike Pence planned to throw the election to Trump while presiding over a joint session of Congress to confirm Biden’s Electoral College victory.
