In the history of the United States, there has never been a more damning indictment presented against an American president than the one presented on Thursday night.
Other presidents have been accused of wrongdoing, even high crimes, but the case against Donald Trump mounted by the bipartisan House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol described not just a rogue president but a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang on
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During its prime-time televised hearing, the committee portrayed a seven part conspiracy to overturn a free and fair democratic election. He lied to the American people, ignored all evidence refuting his false fraud claims, pressured state and federal officials to throw out election results favoring his opponent, encouraged a violent mob to storm the Capitol, and even signaled support for the execution of his own vice president.
The chair of the select committee said that January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup. It was not an accident. The most desperate chance to stop the transfer of power is represented by it.
The words of Trump's own advisers and appointees were played over video on a giant screen above the committee dais and beamed out to a national audience. He was told that his election claims were false. There was no evidence of fraud that could have changed the outcome. There was his own daughter, who admitted that she accepted the conclusion that the election was not stolen as her father had claimed.
The lead Republican on the committee, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, outlined a lot of the evidence that was presented. She spoke to her fellow Republicans who had chosen to stand by their former president and excuse his actions.
She said that there will be a day when Donald Trump is gone but you will stay.
Cheney pulled together the committee's findings in relentless, prosecutorial fashion, but many questions about Trump's actions were left unanswered for now.
There were gasps in the room and in living rooms across the country when some of the new revelations were made public. Trump was quoted as saying, "Maybe our supporters have the right idea." He was told that the crowd on Jan. 6 was chanting "Hang Mike Pence," the vice president who disobeyed the president and blocked the transfer of power. He said that Mike Pence deserved it.
The 25th Amendment was discussed by members of the Cabinet after the Jan. 6 attack, according to Cheney. She said that multiple other Republican congressmen sought pardons from Trump in his final days in office.
She played a video of the president's son-in-law and senior adviser who was absent after the election rather than fighting the conspiracy theorists. To be honest with you, I took it up to just be complaining.
She noted that the president didn't try to stop the mob even though he was called to do so many times. The White House chief of staff tried to convince Milley that Trump was involved.
Milley said that he was told to kill the idea that the vice president made all the decisions. We need to say that the president is still in charge and that things are stable. I thought that was politics, politics, politics.
Trump and his supporters have dismissed the work of the House committee as a partisan effort. Sean Hannity was on Fox News, which chose not to show the hearing, attacking the committee for not focusing on the breakdown in security at the Capitol, which he mostly blamed on Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Before the hearing, Trump tried to rewrite history by saying that the attack on the Capitol was a protest against the election. He wrote that January 6th was the greatest movement in the history of the country to make America great again.
There have been many presidents reproached for violating the Constitution. Both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were acquitted by the Senate. John Tyler was in favor of the Confederacy during the war. The threat of impeachment caused Richard Nixon to resign. Ronald Reagan was involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
In comparison to what Trump is accused of, the crimes Tyler is accused of paled in comparison, and he died before he could be held accountable. During Watergate, Nixon was involved in more scandals than the one that led to his downfall. His misdeeds were overshadowed by the brazen dishonesty and insinuation of violence on display Thursday.
Trump was acquitted for the second time for his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. The case against him is much more extensive and wide-ranging after the committee obtained more than 100,000 pages of documents.
The committee was trying to show that this was not a president who was concerned about fraud or a protest that got out of control. The panel was trying to build the case that Trump was involved in a criminal conspiracy against democracy and that he knew there was no widespread fraud because his own people told him.
Political strategists and analysts don't think the panel can change public views of those events. Most Americans have decided what they think about the new year and are only listening to those who share their opinions.
Attorney General Garland was in attendance at the hearings as they began. If the committee was going to lay out an indictment against the former president, it would make sense for the Justice Department to use a grand jury and court of law to try the case.
The story that will be told in the weeks to come was written by Cheney. She said that seditious conspiracy is a crime that can be committed on January 6.
If Garland disagrees and the hearings this month turn out to be the only trial Trump ever faces for his efforts to overturn the election, Cheney and her fellow committee members were determined to win a conviction with the jury of history.
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