‘The Central Cause of January 6th Was Donald Trump’: Liz Cheney Kicks Off Final Jan. 6 Hearing With Brutal Condemnation of Former President
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) directly implicated then-President Donald Trump as the “central cause” of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol during Thursday’s House hearing on the pro-Trump riot aimed at stopping the electoral vote count certifying the 2020 presidential election.
“Much has happened since our last public hearing on July 21st. As the chairman mentioned, we’ve received new and voluminous documentation from the Secret Service, which we continue to analyze,” began Cheney, giving her opening statement.
“We’ve received new witness testimony, including about efforts to obstruct our investigation and conceal key facts. And according to public reporting, the Department of Justice has been very active in pursuing many of the issues identified in our prior hearings,” Cheney noted before commenting on the possibility of criminal referrals from the committee:
Our committee may ultimately decide to make a series of criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. But we recognize that our role is not to make decisions regarding prosecution. The preamble to our Constitution recites among its purpose is to, quote, establish justice in our nation’s judiciary and our U.S. Department of Justice have that responsibility.
A key element of this committee’s responsibility is to propose reforms to prevent January 6th from ever happening again. We’ve already proposed, and the House has now passed a bill to amend the Electoral Count Act to help ensure that no other future plots to overturn an election can succeed. And we will make further specific recommendations in our final report, based in part on the evidence you will hear today.
“Our hearings last summer began with an outline of President Trump’s multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election. We then proceeded to demonstrate each of these elements in detail with more than 20 hours of evidence. Today, we will see new evidence. But as the chairman said, we will also synthesize evidence you’ve seen before,” she continued, before signaling out Trump’s alleged culpability:
The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January six was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it.
Exactly how did one man cause all of this? Today we will focus on President Trump’s state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding and how another January 6th could happen again if we do not take necessary action to prevent it.
“As you view our evidence today, I would suggest to focus on the following points. First, as you will see, President Trump had a premeditated plan to declare that the election was fraudulent and stolen before Election Day. Before he knew the election results. He made his stolen election claims on election night against the advice of his campaign without any evidence in hand,” Cheney added.
She continued, laying out Trump incited the attack:
He had all of this information. But still, he made the conscious choice to claim fraudulently that the election was stolen, to pressure state officials to change election results, to manufacture fake electoral slates, to attempt to corrupt our Department of Justice, to summon tens of thousands of supporters to Washington knowing that they were angry, knowing that some of them were armed.
He sent them to the Capitol. Then as the riot was underway, he incited his supporters to further violence by publicly condemning his vice president.
And then he refused 4 hours to disband his rioting supporters and instruct them to leave the capital. Even when he was begged repeatedly to do so. None of this is normal or acceptable or lawful in our republic.
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
