On Tuesday, writing for The Daily Beast, reporter Eleanor Clift outlined the three main questions that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol needs to ask to make a definitive case linking the violence to former President Donald Trump.
"The Jan. 6 Committee, in its seventh hearing on Tuesday, revealed the underbelly of a violent extremist movement — which had been aided and abetted by Donald Trump’s allies, and egged-on by the former president in his attempt to stay in office," wrote Clift. "Today’s hearings showed that — having exhausted bogus legal appeals after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden — Trump convened a December 18 meeting in the Oval Office that ended after midnight in a flurry of profane shouting between the outside 'crazies' and the inside White House lawyers. Upon concluding that unhinged meeting, at 1:42am, Trump tweeted about the planned protests on Jan. 6: 'Be there. It will be wild.'"
Clift then outlined the three final things the committee needs to do: "Dig into Trump’s dereliction of duty for the 187 minutes that he was AWOL; Get the answers for why it took so long to send reinforcements to the U.S. Capitol; [and] lay out exactly who knew that (and when) the violent attack on the Capitol was coming."
"Last month’s testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson blew the roof off the carefully constructed bunker that Trump aides had built," noted Clift. "Once the 26-year-old stared down Trump, others would follow. Though it’s not quite a herd, In the words of recently ousted British prime minister, Boris Johnson, 'When the herd moves, it moves.'"
The latest committee hearing focused on links between the Trump team and violent extremist groups. And, Clift wrote, there is an obvious next step.
"The testimony from far-right extremists who had been taken under Trump’s cult-like spell is a fitting bridge to where the committee is headed next," concluded Clift. "And if the next hearing does prove to be the committee’s last—it’s up to Cheney and company to hit their marks and solidify the case that Donald Trump, alone, is responsible for Jan. 6 and the conspiracy that led to one of the darkest days in our nation’s history."
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