Kinzinger says Trump “chose not to act” and other takeaways from Thursday’s Jan. 6 hearing

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• The January 6 committee shared testimony showing that former President Trump rejected pleas to stop the assault on the U.S. Capitol.
• The House panel shed light on the 187 minutes that passed when Trump went dark during the Capitol attack.
• Rep. Adam Kinzinger said “Trump did not fail to act” but “he chose not to act.”

The House Jan. 6 select committee’s second prime-time hearing on Thursday shed light on the 187 minutes that passed between Trump’s speech at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse and his taped statement telling his supporters to leave the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the two Republican members of the committee, said Trump didn’t act immediately to control the rioters because they were carrying out his plot to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

“President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home,” Kinzinger said. “He chose not to act.”

Here are the key takeaways on Thursday’s hearing:

Trump watched the riot on TV, refused to take action

The panel presented several former White House officials as witnesses to fill in critical gaps about what was Trump doing while the mob closed in on then-Vice President Mike Pence and congressional lawmakers. Sarah Matthews, a former deputy White House press secretary, and Matthew Pottinger, a former deputy national security advisor, served as live witnesses.

They painted a picture of the former president sitting in a private dining room off the Oval Office watching the Capitol attack on Fox News.

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone said he was among several officials, including Ivanka Trump, who asked for Trump to quickly make a “strong” statement to stop the violence.

Matthews said Trump declined to leave the dining room and make a statement in the briefing room.

White House reacts to Trump’s tweet about Pence

Trump tweeted at the height of the riot, saying Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

Pottinger said he decided to resign after that tweet.

“It looked like fuel being poured on the fire,” he told the panel. “I did not want to be associated with the events that were unfolding on the Capitol.”

Matthews said she thought the tweet “was the last thing that was needed in that moment” from Trump.

“He should have been telling these people to go home, and to leave, and to condemn the violence that we were seeing,” she said. “For him to tweet out the message about Mike Pence, it was him pouring gasoline on the fire, and making it much worse.”

Pence’s Secret Service agents feared for their lives

The panel presented new audio of Secret Service radio traffic from the attack. Officers can be heard as very concerned about Pence’s safe evacuation as the mob approached.

“If we lose any more time, we may lose the ability to leave,” one agent said over the radio. “So, if we’re going to leave, we need to do it now.”

An anonymous White House security official said that members of Pence’s detail “were starting to fear for their own lives” and that “there were calls to say goodbye to family members.”

Trump didn’t want to say ‘the election is over‘

New footage was presented showing Trump’s outtakes recorded on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol attack.

“This election is now over. Congress has certified the results,” Trump started saying, reading off a teleprompter script. He then stops to say, “I don’t want to say the election is over.”

“I just want to say Congress has certified the results, without saying the election is over, OK?” he insists.

Cheney asks if Trump can be trusted

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee vice-chair, concluded the hearing with a question as Trump floats of a comeback in 2024.

Cheney argued that Trump was given a choice between right and wrong on Jan. 6, and his behavior was “indefensible.”

“Every American must consider this: can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of Jan. 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?” she asked.

Source: Yahoo! News