House GOP launches a new investigation on January 6, seeking to shift blame for the attack on the Capitol to Trump

(Julio Cortez/Associated Press)

House GOP launches a new investigation on January 6, seeking to shift blame for the attack on the Capitol to Trump

Election 2024

LISA MASCARO

March 13, 2024

Republicans in the House of Representatives are launching a major reinvestigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, in an effort to shift blame away from Donald Trump, who has been indicted for his actions or

that of

his supporters in the mob siege trying to overturn the 2020 election.

As Trump campaigns to return to the White House, the House of Representatives

a

The Administration’s Oversight Subcommittee held the first of what are expected to be regular public hearings, reviewing the official report, which had been broadcast in detail by the Chamber of Deputies in 2022.

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committee on January 6.

Chairman Barry Loudermilk

(

R-Ga.

)

called Jan. 6 a dark day in American history as he opened Tuesday’s hearing to delve into the investigation into pipe bombs left outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters that day. But, he said, we still have many unanswered questions.

Republicans say the Jan. 6 congressional committee withheld evidence. Whether that is the case is complicated

The panel’s work comes as Trump and president

Joe

Biden is galloping toward a 2020 rematch this fall, and Republicans, some who were once skeptical of Trump’s return to the White House, are quickly lining up to support the former president. The GOP’s high-profile impeachment inquiry into Biden has stalled without a clear path forward.

Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to issue a final report on Jan. 6 to correct the incomplete narrative put forward by the Republican Party’s previous work.

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committee on the January 6 attack.

With recently released testimony and an 80-plus page report outlining initial findings, the House

a

The subcommittee on administration has a

away m

The investigation should pre-empt the investigation, including revisiting key testimony from White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who provided a compelling account of Trump’s actions that day.

The panel’s report draws on many of the conspiracy theories that circulated around Jan. 6 following the formation of the select committee by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

D-California, (D-San Francisco)

to newer questions about the unidentified people who erected the executioner’s scaffolding outside the Capitol.

On January 6, many Republicans blamed Trump for the riot at the Capitol. Now they support his presidential bid

“Democrats wasted no time in pointing the finger at President Trump for the events of January 6, 2021,” the report’s initial findings said.

During the first hearing, Republicans questioned U.S. Capitol Police about why a bomb-sniffing K9 unit initially failed to spot the pipe bombs found outside party headquarters and why police didn’t respond more quickly to seal off the area .

Sean Gallagher, assistant chief of the Capitol Police, told the panel that it was chaotic that day as the mob of Trump supporters breached the Capitol.

“I want to be frank and honest: the U.S. Capitol Police did not shy away from the failures of that day,” Gallagher said of the well-documented leadership problems laid out in their own report.

He described fighting on the west and east fronts of the Capitol as police tried to hold back the crowds. Our officers suffered injuries and calls came in, including a pickup truck loaded with Molotov cocktails, machetes, rifles, pistols and ammunition parked. close to.

Letters to the editor: Three years after January 6, Trump has normalized. How did this happen?

Five people died in the riot and its immediate aftermath, including a police officer, and other officers later died by suicide. More than 1,200 people have been charged in the riots, with hundreds convicted.

For context, I would like to give up a perimeter that is not perfect so that officers can respond to help their brothers and sisters who called for help at the U.S. Capitol, Gallagher testified.

Representative Norma Torres

of California (D-Pomona)

the jury that ranked the Democrat and a former 911 dispatcher questioned the premise of the hearing, especially with federal investigations underway: What exactly are they doing here?

Maybe it’s to spread crazy right-wing conspiracy theories about the January 6 pipe bombs spreading in the dark corners of the internet? she asked.

Or perhaps we are here so that this subcommittee can once again attempt to muddy our history, smear law enforcement, and undo the bipartisan January 6 efforts.

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ommittee, she said, all to distract from the simple fact that the former president and the Republican nominee for president had orchestrated a corrupt scheme to overturn the results of a free and fair election.

‘How are we going to defend ourselves?’ Inside the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection

Trump, who urged his supporters to fight hard before they overran the Capitol, has been indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to defraud Americans and obstruction of an official proceeding on Jan. 6. The Supreme Court is considering his claim of immunity.

Republicans in the House of Representatives criticize the

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ommittee and they claim that it has not transferred all aspects of its work.

A previously undisclosed transcript of the

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The ommittee’s interview with an unnamed Secret Service officer who rode in the presidential SUV on January 6 provided new information about Trump’s actions that day. It was obtained by

T

he Associated Press.

That transcript from the presidential limousine driver contradicted some of Hutchinson’s testimony but corroborated other aspects of her story, including Trump’s attempt to join the mob scene in the Capitol.

Trump had told his supporters at the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally at the Ellipse near the White House to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, saying he would be there with them as Congress considers the 2020 elections and confirmed Biden’s victory. .

The landmark January 6 report concludes that Trump deliberately misled and provoked insurrectionists

But his security detail refused to take him there and instead took him back to the White House.

Hutchinson, who was an assistant to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, had tested in June 2022 that another official told her that Trump fought for control of the presidential SUV and demanded that he be taken to the Capitol . when the uprising started.

Hutchinson testified that she was told that Bobby Engel, the head of security who was in the car with him, had grabbed Trump’s arm to prevent him from gaining control of the armored vehicle, and Trump then used his free hand to attack Engel. She worked in the White House and said that when she was informed of the altercation immediately afterward, Engel was in the room and did not dispute the story at the time.

In the newly obtained transcript, the driver confirms: The president insisted on going to the Capitol.

The driver explained that Trump and Engel got into the car after the meeting, and Trump began asking Engel if he wanted to go to the Capitol. When Engel suggested this was not possible, Trump continued to insist.

The Jan. 6 House committee releases 34 transcripts of the investigation

Sure, his voice sounded raised,” the driver tested, “but it didn’t seem to me like he was angry, and certainly not as irritated or excited as he was on the way to the Ellipse.

said the driver

:

“What stood out most was that he kept asking why we couldn’t go?”

But the driver said he did not see the altercation Hutchinson described.

He never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him lunge at all to try to get into the front seat, the driver tested it.

“You know, what stood out was the irritation in his voice, more than his physical presence, which would have been pretty obvious if he was trying to position himself between the two front seats,” the driver said.

The driver said he told other colleagues at the White House what happened while he waited outside with the vehicles.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

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