The public session of the commission investigating the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol ended on a cliffhanger. What was previously mistaken for the final public session culminated in the announcement of the subpoena of former President Donald Trump and that inevitably means a sequel – whatever that may look like. “He is the center of the story of what happened on January 6,” said committee chair Bennie Thompson. “He has to account for himself.”
There was no room in this hearing for the examination of witnesses. Only members, seven Democrats and two Republicans, were given speaking time. Their carefully coordinated statements sounded like one lengthy plea for the criminal prosecution of the former president. The commission has “no doubt” that Trump spearheaded the effort to block the election of President Biden, the 2020 election winner. But it is up to the prosecution, led by the Minister of Justice, to decide whether to prosecute.
It will not be up to the committee. The various members emphasized words that a prosecutor should also use. The president knew he had lost, but deliberately decided to sabotage Biden’s victory with a premeditated plan that would culminate in inciting violence from his supporters. The committee can make a so-called criminal referral to the judiciary, and several members have alluded to this as well.
Secret Service
Some new clues were presented. The commission managed to get hold of communications from the Secret Service, the president’s police surveillance. Emails and other communications show that this service could have been aware of the violent intentions of Trump supporters. The night before the demonstration at the White House, which would culminate in the storming of the Capitol, members determined that some of the protesters were armed and that they intended to storm the Capitol.
For the Secret Service, these are painful revelations. She has tried to pretend to be ignorant. It was already noticeable that a large part of the message traffic had been destroyed on that day. Now it turns out that the FBI had informed the security guards about the violent plans for the day. “They literally intend to kill people,” one tipster told the FBI, who passed the tip on to the Secret Service. The Republican vice chairman of the committee said they are still investigating a lot of information from the Secret Service.
Also new were the recordings of politicians who had been taken to safety in the Capitol. The footage belonged to Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, one of the targets of the mob that had entered the Capitol. The committee had made a montage, intersecting images of the people’s representatives with images of the violence of the Trump supporters. But even without that contrast, the calm of the besieged was remarkable. While watching the raging mob outside on TV, they struggled inside to get down to the order of the day: the formal endorsement of Joe Biden’s election victory.
The committee also explicitly underlined the difference between President Trump’s behavior and the troubled politicians. He watched TV footage of the disturbances for hours in the dining room next to his Oval Office at the White House and did nothing. He ignored pleas from his advisers, from friends and family to call his supporters to order. He did not contact the Ministry of Defense to discuss the situation or to deploy auxiliary troops. Meanwhile, the images from the Capitol show that politicians from both parties are trying to do just that.
This is expected to be the committee’s last public session before the House of Representatives and (part of) the Senate by-elections. Although chair Bennie Thompson underlined that the committee does not engage in partisan politics, the message of the past nine sessions has been clear: whoever wants to prevent the chaos of January 6 from repeating itself will have to vote on November 8 to prevent Trump’s disciples from being elected. become. “One of the most important lessons from these events is that the institutions of our rule of law will only survive if men and women of goodwill sustain them,” said Vice-President Cheney. “We have no guarantee that those men and women will be in the right place next time.”