The House committee is to submit a report back to Congress this fall with its findings.

Washington:

The House committee probing the assault on the US Capitol laid out a searing, prime-time indictment on Thursday of Donald Trump’s refusal to halt or condemn the violence and insisted he ought to be held accountable for a gross dereliction of presidential responsibility.

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson, talking on the televised finale of a collection of public hearings, mentioned Trump “recklessly blazed a path of lawlessness and corruption” as he sought to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 US election.

The Mississippi congressman, addressing the committee nearly as a result of he has COVID-19, mentioned there have to be “accountability” for what he referred to as an assault on democracy.

During a two-and-a-half-hour listening to, lawmakers offered testimony from White House aides who mentioned that Trump watched the Capitol assault unfold on tv and ignored their repeated pleas to inform his supporters to go away.

“From the comfort of his dining room he watched on TV as the attack escalated,” mentioned Adam Kinzinger, certainly one of two Republicans on the panel.

“He sent tweets that inflamed,” Kinzinger mentioned. “For three hours he refused to call off the attack.”

“Donald Trump’s conduct on January 6 was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty to our nation,” Kinzinger mentioned. “It is a stain on our history.”

Thompson mentioned Trump “did everything in his power to overturn an election — he lied, he bullied, he betrayed his oath.

“He tried to destroy our democratic establishments,” he said. “There must be accountability. Accountability beneath the legislation, accountability to the American individuals… all the way in which as much as the Oval Office.”

With Trump mulling another White House run in 2024, Republican vice chair Liz Cheney said “Every American should take into account this: ‘Can a president who’s prepared to make the alternatives Donald Trump made through the violence of January 6 ever be trusted with any place of authority in our nice nation once more?'”

Lawmakers provided a minute-by-minute account of Trump’s actions between the time he gave a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House claiming the November 2020 election was stolen and extending until the moment when he finally told the rioters they were “very particular” but should go home.

Outtakes were played from a message taped by Trump the next day, in which he refused to stick with a written script on a teleprompter. “I do not wish to say the election’s over,” he said, rejecting that phrase from the script.

‘One of the darkest days’

Two former White House officials — deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, who served on the National Security Council — testified about their decision to resign on January 6.

Matthews said it was “one of many darkest days in our nation’s historical past” and “President Trump was treating it as a celebratory event.”

“His refusal to behave and name off the mob that day and his refusal to sentence the violence was indefensible,” she said.

Pottinger said a tweet sent by Trump attacking vice president Mike Pence for refusing Trump’s demand that he block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory was “like gasoline being poured on the hearth.”

“That was the second that I made a decision that I used to be going to resign,” he said.

Thursday’s prime-time hearing was the eighth and final one in this series. Committee members said there would be further hearings in September.

Previous committee hearings focused on Trump’s attempt to sway election officials in swing states that Biden narrowly won and put pressure on Pence.

The committee also examined the impact of a tweet Trump sent in December urging his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6.

Members of right-wing militia groups the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and other Trump supporters saw the tweet from the president as a “name to arms,” lawmakers said.

More than 850 people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Congress, which left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured.

The 76-year-old Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House after the Capitol riot but was acquitted by the Senate, where only a handful of Republicans voted to convict him.

The House committee is to submit a report to Congress this fall with its findings.

The committee may issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department, leaving it up to Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether Trump or others should be prosecuted for the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Garland said Wednesday that the January 6 probe is the “most vital” investigation the Justice Department has ever conducted and stressed that “nobody is above the legislation on this nation.”

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