WASHINGTON: The House committee probing the assault on the US Capitol laid out a searing, prime-time indictment on Thursday of Donald Trump’s refusal to halt or condemn the violence and insisted he should be held accountable for a gross dereliction of presidential duty.
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson, speaking at the televised finale of a series of public hearings, said Trump “recklessly blazed a path of lawlessness and corruption” as he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 US election.
The Mississippi congressman, addressing the committee virtually because he has Covid-19, said there must be “accountability” for what he called an attack on democracy.
During a two-and-a-half-hour hearing, lawmakers presented testimony from White House aides who said that Trump watched the Capitol attack unfold on television and ignored their repeated pleas to tell his supporters to leave.
“From the comfort of his dining room he watched on TV as the attack escalated,” said Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the panel.
“He sent tweets that inflamed,” Kinzinger said. “For three hours he refused to call off the attack.”
“Donald Trump’s conduct on January 6 was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty to our nation,” Kinzinger said. “It is a stain on our history.”
Thompson said Trump “did everything in his power to overturn an election — he lied, he bullied, he betrayed his oath.
“He tried to destroy our democratic institutions,” he said. “There needs to be accountability. Accountability under the law, accountability to the American people… all the way up to the Oval Office.”
– AFP
