WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump’s closest advisers have been watching his latest efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to suspend Congressional certification of his 2020 election defeat as “crazy”, “crazy” and even likely to provoke riots. if Pence follows him, witnesses revealed in clear testimony before the commission on Thursday, January 6.
Captivating new evidence has revealed a heated conversation between Trump, mocking Pence with vulgar names on the morning of January 6, 2021, before the defeated president took to the stage at a rally near the White House. From there, he sent his supporters to the Capitol to fight “like hell,” as the vice president had to chair a joint meeting.
The panel highlighted the physical danger to Pence as the rebels approached 40 feet from the Capitol site where he and others were evacuated. Unseen photos show Pence and his team taking shelter.
“He deserves to be burned along with the others,” a rebel is heard saying on video as the crowd prepares to storm the iconic building.
“Pence betrayed us,” said another rebel wearing a Make America Great Again hat in a Capitol selfie.
Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, said he could “hear the noise” of the rebels nearby. Asked if Trump had ever checked on Pence during the siege, Jacob said: “He didn’t.
With live testimonies and other evidence from its long-running investigation, the commission opened its third hearing this month to show that Trump’s repeated false allegations of election fraud and desperate attempts to stay in power led directly to the Capitol uprising.
Overall, the commission is drawing a dark portrait of the end of Trump’s presidency, as the defeated Republican was left to fend for alternatives while courts rejected dozens of cases challenging the vote.
Trump clung to the vague plan of Conservative law professor John Eastman to oppose the historic precedent of the Census Act and reverse Joe Biden’s victory. Publicly and privately, Trump ran a campaign of pressure that put his vice president in jeopardy as he had to chair a joint session of Congress to verify the election.
Trump aides and allies have warned in private about his efforts, although some have continued to publicly support the president’s false allegations of election fraud. Nine people died in and after the uprising.
“Are you crazy?” Eric Hershman, a lawyer advising Trump, told Eastman in recorded testimony shown at the hearing.
“Will you turn around and tell the 78-plus million people in this country that your theory is that this will invalidate their votes?” Hershman said. He warned: “You will provoke riots in the streets.
A text message from Fox News’s Sean Hannity to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows about the plan on the eve of Jan. 6 reads: “I’m very worried about the next 48 hours.”
Trump’s campaign adviser Jason Miller said people around Trump called the plan “crazy.”
The committee said the plan was illegal, and a federal judge said it was “more likely than not” that Trump had committed crimes in an attempt to suspend certification.
In a social media post on Thursday, Trump again condemned the hearings as a “witch hunt”, criticized the coverage of the “Fake News Networks” and exclaimed: “I DEMAND EQUAL TIME !!!”
On Capitol Hill, Commission Chair Benny Thompson, D-Miss., Quoted Pence as saying that “there is almost no idea more un-American” than the one he was asked to follow – a rejection of American votes.
By rejecting Trump’s demands, Pence “did his duty,” said Liz Cheney, a Republican deputy chairwoman from Wyoming.
The panel heard Jacob, an adviser to the vice president who rejected Eastman’s ideas for Pence, and retired federal judge Michael Lutig, who called Eastman’s plan, his former lawyer, “wrong at every turn.”
Jacob said it had become clear to Pence from the outset that the founding fathers did not intend to authorize anyone, including anyone running for office, to influence the election result.
Pence “never moves” from that initial point of view and was determined to stay in the Capitol that night and finish the job, despite the threats, Jacob said.
Lutig, a conservative scholar, said in a hushed voice but firmly that Pence had obeyed Trump’s orders, saying: “Trump as the next president would plunge America into what I think would be tantamount to a revolution in a constitutional crisis. America.”
Thursday’s session presented new evidence of the danger Pence faces as rebels chanted “Hang Mike Pence” with a makeshift gallows in front of the Capitol as the vice president fled with senators to abscond.
President Ivanka Trump’s daughter testified about the “hot” phone conversation he had with Pence this morning when the family joined the Oval Office. Another aide, Nicholas Luna, said he had heard Trump call Pence “weak.”
In another development Thursday, Thompson said the commission would request an interview with Virginia’s Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, amid revelations of the conservative activist’s communications with people in Trump’s orbit before the attack. He did not specify a schedule for this.
“It’s time for her to come talk,” Thompson told reporters.
The commission’s year-long investigation shows the last weeks of Trump’s rule, as the defeated president clung to the “big lie” in rigged elections, even when others – his family, his best aides, top officials – told him he had simply lost.
With 1,000 interviews and about 140,000 documents, the commission shows how Trump’s false allegations of election fraud became a battle cry when he called thousands of Americans to Washington and then to Capitol Hill.
Thursday’s hearing unpacked Eastman’s plan to get states to send alternate lists of voters from states disputed by Trump, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With competing rankings for Trump or Biden, Pence will be forced to reject them, returning them to the states to settle things according to plan.
More than 800 people have been arrested during the siege of the Capitol, including members of extremist groups facing rare charges of rioting over their role in the Capitol attack.
The panel is considering sending a referral for criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department. No president or former president has ever been prosecuted by the Justice Department, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said he and his team are monitoring the proceedings in Congress.
Several members of Congress are also under surveillance, and the commission is investigating several candidates who were among the rebels.
The panel, which is expected to present a final report on its findings later this year, intends to set a record in the history of the Capitol’s most violent attack since the 1812 war.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Frecking and Eric Tucker in Washington and Farnush Amiri of Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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