The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol began making their case for Donald Trump’s culpability for the deadly riot Thursday night, using testimony from members of his own administration to prove that the former President was behind a coordinated conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power to Joe Biden.
Within minutes of the start of the primetime hearing, which several major broadcast networks aired live, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, aired the first footage from a former Trump White House official explaining under oath that they had informed the president that his claims of widespread voter fraud were false.
“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,” former Attorney General William Barr recalled committee investigators in taped testimony, referring to a December 2020 meeting with Trump. “And I didn’t want to be a part of it.”
The committee later aired footage from a deposition with the president’s own daughter and special adviser, Ivanka Trump, who was present for that meeting and told the committee she took Barr’s comments seriously. “It affected my perspective,” she said. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”
The revelations were among the most explosive and significant of the evening. Legal experts and former prosecutors have said that any evidence that Trump was informed that he was spreading a lie and prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory could implicate him on charges of intent to defraud. “It’s really important if you can prove he knew he lost, that helps bolster…
Source : time
