“President Trump called the mob, he called the mob, and he ignited the flame of this attack,” the panel’s Republican vice chair, Liz Cheney, said in her opening remarks.
Minutes earlier, opening the panel’s first public hearing, the committee’s Democratic chairman, Bennie Thompson, accused Trump of being “at the center of this conspiracy.”
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“January 6 (2021) was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6, to topple the government. The violence was no accident.”
On the day of the attack, protesters stormed the Capitol at “encouragement from the president of the United States,” he added.
In its careful presentation, the panel used testimony given behind closed doors by some of Trump’s most senior and trusted advisers, including former Attorney General Bill Bar, and his son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner.
In addition, images were broadcast, some never seen before, of the violence that engulfed the government headquarters, which left five dead.
“Democracy remains in peril,” Thompson warned, in remarks prepared and released just before the hearing.
“The conspiracy to frustrate the will of the people has not ended. There are those who are thirsty for power in this country, but have no love or respect for what makes America great,” he said.