In commentary posted to X (formerly called Twitter) this week, former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney directly accused ex-President Donald Trump of complicity in violent attacks on police officers that took place on January 6, 2021, as crowds that believed Trump’s election lies descended on the Capitol.
Sharing footage of the day’s chaos, Cheney wrote online as follows: “On Jan 6, Trump thought it would help him to let police officers be violently attacked, so he did. He sat in the WH dining room and watched the attack on television, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave the Capitol. That’s depravity.”
In Trump’s federal criminal case covering his schemes after the last presidential election to stay in power despite his documented loss to Joe Biden, prosecutors led by Special Counsel Jack Smith have indicated they have evidently insider evidence of what Trump was doing at the White House complex while some of the Capitol violence unfolded. The portrait of Trump’s actions they established lines up with other reporting — namely, that he was watching television. The prosecution team intends to use details associated with the riot to build out what they argue is context to Trump’s allegedly criminal conspiracies towards staying in power.
A Capitol riot participant who used a stolen police baton to injure then-officer Aquilino Gonell was recently sentenced to over four years in prison after pleading guilty to a felony criminal charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon. That version of the assault charge comes with up to 20 years in prison if convicted, so pleading guilty probably reduced by a significant margin the sentence for defendant Matthew Krol, a Michigan man who authorities tied to extremist groups including one tied in turn to the foiled plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Cheney, meanwhile, has been consistently speaking out against Trump in tandem with a new book that she released.
On Jan 6, Trump thought it would help him to let police officers be violently attacked, so he did. He sat in the WH dining room and watched the attack on television, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave the Capitol. That’s depravity. pic.twitter.com/MReMysC534
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) December 19, 2023
