Ex-US President Trump repeatedly claimed that he won the 2020 election. The committee of inquiry into the attack on the Capitol is now to show that Trump knowingly tells the untruth.
The allegations against former US President Donald Trump are to be substantiated in the next meeting of the investigative committee into the storming of the US Capitol.
“We will tell the story of how Trump knowingly spread his Big Lie,” wrote committee member Adam Schiff on Twitter. Trump’s critics describe his refuted claim that he was cheated of his victory in the November 2020 presidential election by fraud as a “big lie”. Democrat Schiff wrote that Trump used this lie to ultimately unleash the aggressive mob that stormed the Capitol in January 2021.
The committee announced that Trump’s former campaign manager, William Stepien, would testify at Monday’s meeting. The panel is convening in Washington for its second public hearing. It wants to show that Trump and his advisors were fully aware of their defeat in the 2020 election against Democratic challenger Joe Biden – and still stuck to the allegations of fraud.
Trump goaded his supporters
On January 6, 2021, supporters of the then Republican President Trump attacked the seat of parliament in the capital Washington. They wanted to prevent Biden’s election victory from being confirmed. Several people were killed in the attack. Trump had recently incited his supporters at a rally by claiming that his election victory had been stolen.
The committee chairman Bennie Thompson from the Democrats spoke at the well-publicized first public meeting on Thursday of an “attempted coup”. Thompson warned that democracy in the US was still in danger. For Vice Committee Chair Liz Cheney, known as a Trump critic and herself a Republican, the attack was “not a spontaneous uprising”. “President Trump summoned the mob, gathered the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.” For months, Trump coordinated an elaborate plan to overturn the outcome of the election and prevent the transfer of power.
Trump claims to this day that he was deprived of victory by fraud. His camp has failed with dozens of lawsuits against the election results. Trump called the committee’s work a “witch hunt” after its first public meeting.
Committee is under pressure
Of the nine congressmen on the committee, seven are Democrats and only two are Republicans. The two Republican MPs Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are proven Trump critics. The House of Representatives is currently controlled by the Democrats. In the congressional elections in November, however, they are threatened with losing their majority to the Republicans. Then the committee could face the end. The committee is therefore under pressure to present results as quickly as possible.
The investigative committee had interviewed hundreds of witnesses behind closed doors for months and examined large amounts of documents and evidence. The third public hearing is scheduled for this Wednesday (10:00 a.m. local time/4:00 p.m. CEST).
