During an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — who is the vice chair of the House committee that’s investigating the Capitol riot — confirmed that the panel has “firsthand testimony” revealing that then-President Donald Trump was watching television coverage of the Capitol attack in his private dining room as the violence at the Capitol played out. ABC’s Jonathan Karl has previously revealed as much in his recent book, Betrayal. Cheney pointedly commented as follows:
‘We are learning much more about what former President Trump was doing while the violent assault was underway. The Committee has firsthand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred… The briefing room at the White House is just a mere few steps from the Oval Office. The president could have at any moment walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop; he could have told them to stand down, he could have told them to go home, and he failed to do so.’
Check out Cheney’s comments below:
In Karl’s recent book, it’s revealed that Trump “liked what he saw, boasted about the size of the crowd and argued with aides who wanted him to tell his supporters to stop rioting, according to Karl’s sources,” as summarized by ABC.
On @ThisWeekABC just now, @Liz_Cheney said the January 6 committee now has “first-hand testimony” confirming Trump was in his private dining room watching TV as the Capitol riot unfolded, as reported in “Betrayal”
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) January 2, 2022
It’s not that difficult to imagine these circumstances to have been the case. Trump hardly spoke out regarding the actual violence for awhile, and once he did, he peppered his remarks with comments about his “love” for the people participating in the devastating violence. It can be lost in the tidal wave of news related to that day, but he straight-up said that “we love you; you’re very special,” addressing the rioters. For Trump to have been essentially reveling in his inaction as the violence played out at the Capitol complex could leave him vulnerable to a criminal referral from the riot investigation panel for obstruction of an official proceeding. As Cheney previously commented, there’s the question of whether “Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly [sought] to obstruct or impede Congress’s official proceeding to count electoral votes.”
New: Jan. 6 committee vice chair Liz Cheney tells ABC they have “first-hand testimony” that Trump was in his private dining room watching TV during the Capitol attack, as I reported for @GuardianUS in November
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 2, 2022
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairperson of the riot investigation committee, also shared details of what the panel has so far uncovered during an appearance over the weekend on ABC. As he put it:
‘It appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election of last November. The reason I say that is, it could be people in the executive branch. It could be people in the Department of Defense. Some state characters, some non-profits, and some very wealthy individuals who wanted to try to finance this undermining of our democracy. What people saw on January 6 with their own eyes was not just something created at one moment. It was clearly, what we believe, based on the information we’ve been able to gather, a coordinated activity on the part of a lot of people.’
Check out Thompson’s comments on ABC below:
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, tells @GStephanopoulos that “we have uncovered some things that cause us real concern.”
"It appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election." https://t.co/plR7OZ81UI pic.twitter.com/VBBDnvcAAQ
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 2, 2022
