Trump wanted to "stoke up" the violent assault on Capitol Hill

New documents obtained by the secret services of the White House regarding the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 prove that, as former White House adviser Cassidy Hutchinson testified in June, the then outgoing president Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted about the violence that was brewing that day, and he still tried to "stoke up the conflict," The Washington Post revealed on Wednesday.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
12 October 2022 Wednesday 11:30
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Trump wanted to "stoke up" the violent assault on Capitol Hill

New documents obtained by the secret services of the White House regarding the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 prove that, as former White House adviser Cassidy Hutchinson testified in June, the then outgoing president Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted about the violence that was brewing that day, and he still tried to "stoke up the conflict," The Washington Post revealed on Wednesday.

The new evidence, basically videos and internal electronic messages about the insurrection, will be seen and read during the hearing that the investigative committee of 6-E in Congress will hold today to, in principle, close its cycle of public sessions and prepare its conclusions endings.

Among the videos that will be shown are some recorded in the Ellipse square in Washington DC, in front of the White House, before the incendiary speech in which Trump encouraged his followers to "march to the Capitol", together with him.

Footage shows a crowd of protesters piling up outside the fenced off area of ​​the rally as officers search what they were carrying. Many opted to stay out, and the Secret Services deduced it was because they wanted to avoid having their weapons confiscated.

The internal emails collected reinforce previous reports of how different members of the Security and presidential aides warned Trump about the violence of the assault while the president recently defeated in the presidential elections insisted on accompanying the insurgents, according to information advanced to the newspaper of the capital.

The Security services managed to get Trump into the White House. It was after arriving there that, shortly before 2:30 p.m., Trump tweeted criticism of Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to block the certification of the election, thus inciting his supporters who by then had already knocked down the fences of security and attacked the police to invade the seat of Congress. "Mike Pence did not have the courage to do what should have been done," Trump wrote.

The messages that the committee will present in public would confirm the confrontation that Trump had with the head of his security team, Bobby Engel, when he tried to prevent them from going to the Capitol. It is unclear, however, whether the texts will corroborate Cassidy Hutchinson's dramatic and detailed account of how, inside the presidential limousine after the Ellipse rally, the president "reached out to the front of the vehicle to grab the steering wheel." and snapped at the driver: "I'm the fucking president, take me to the Capitol now." The assistant based this version on Engel's confidences to another Trump assistant in the White House, Tony Ornato, confidences that for now neither of them has come to ratify, as far as is known.

It is foreseeable that the 6-E committee will reveal today, in what may be its last hearing under the spotlight, a summary of its findings over more than a year of investigations. The parliamentarians that compose it, seven Democratic representatives and two Republicans, have to decide whether to send testimony of their conclusions to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General of the United States, considering that there are indications that Trump and others committed crimes related to the rebellion. The assault resulted in nine deaths.