The day after the storming of Congress in the United States, Trump refused to say that the election was over, an internal video shown by the January 6 committee shows. The day before, colleagues and family members had begged the former president to put his foot down, according to witness accounts.
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– I don’t want to say that the election is over, Trump says in the video.
This was recorded the day after angry Trump supporters stormed the Congress building when Joe Biden’s election victory was to be formally adopted.
In the video, the former president practices the talking points from his staff, but is clearly not satisfied with what they have prepared.
See the video at the top of the case
Could reach out in 60 seconds
Former Trump associates Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger were present as witnesses. Both resigned from their jobs as president shortly after the congressional storming.
Matthews has since publicly criticized Trump and expressed dismay at what happened on January 6.
Matthews, who was Trump’s press adviser, says that several people expressed a desire for the president to act when the protesters broke into Congress. She explains that the dining room where Trump stayed was right next to the press room in the White House.
– He could have been in front of the camera and reached out to the people for 60 seconds, she says.
In a witness interview, adviser Pat Cipollone was asked if the staff in the White House got the mob’s slogan to hang Vice President Mike Pence. He confirms that this was something he himself witnessed on television, and that there was talk about the employees among themselves.
– It was outrageous. That people are shouting that they are going to hang the American Vice President is terrible and wrong. I clearly expressed that, he says.
He also confirms that he pushed to get the president to make a statement, but would not confirm whether Pence’s security was the topic.
See the full hearing here:
It was expected that the hearing on Friday night (Norwegian time) was the last in a row from the committee investigating what happened on January 6, 2021, but Republican Liz Cheney opened the hearing by saying that there will be more.
– Although we are now in our ninth hearing, we have more to do. We have had more evidence to share and new witnesses have come forward. We will use August to collect this and then come back with more hearings in September, she said.
The hearing on Friday night was aimed at mapping out what Trump did, or did not do, during the time the storming was going on.
– He did not act
Democrat Elaine Luria and Republican Adam Kinzinger are leading the night’s hearing. They have stated that the committee will go through what happened minute by minute:
– He (Trump, editor’s note) did not act. He had a responsibility to act. Therefore, we will go through it in detail, and from there we will build on the information we have provided in the previous hearings, said Luria on Sunday.
