Incendiary posts on Twitter, a threatening phone call, an incendiary speech: the commission of inquiry into the Capitol attack on Thursday presented the pressure exerted by former US President Donald Trump on Vice President Mike Pence to try to prevent him from ratifying it. Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
“The president has been repeatedly informed that the vice president cannot change the outcome of the election. Nevertheless, he has publicly pressured Mike Pence to do just that,” said Democratic MP Pete Aguilar.
After nearly a year of research, the House House of Representatives special committee wants to prove that Trump’s rejection of the presidential election results was not just the reaction of a man who does not know how to lose, but part of his strategy to maintain power.
Yesterday’s hearing focused on the constitutional process by which US presidents are elected, the ceremony for the ratification of the election results by Pence before Congress on January 6, 2021. Usually this ceremony is just formal.
“Revolution”
Trump had then claimed that the vice presidents had the power to stop the ratification process, something that Pence’s lawyers and advisers have denied.
Greg Jacobs, then an adviser to the US vice president, testified before the committee that “the examination of the text, the history and, frankly, common sense” confirmed that Pence did not have the power to overturn the election result.
“I believe that if Vice President Pence had obeyed the orders of his president (…) it would have plunged America into what I believe would be a revolution in the midst of a constitutional crisis,” said Michael Lating, a former Conservative judge and unofficial adviser to Pence. .
The commission also revealed a telephone conversation that Trump had with Pence on the morning of January 6, 2021.
“The debate was tense,” said Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, who was in the Oval Office at the time of the phone call.
An hour later, the former president tried for the last time to force Pence to bow to his request, telling a group of supporters gathered in Washington: “Mike Pence, I hope you will fight for the good of our country, of our Constitution. Otherwise I will be very disappointed “.
“Hang him”
A few minutes later, Pence published a letter in which he stated that he would not succumb to pressure from the president.
At the same time, pro-Trump protesters began to gather outside Congress. The process of validating the results was violently interrupted.
As the vice president and members of Congress walk out of the semicircle, Trump comments angrily on Twitter that Pence “did not have the courage to do what was necessary to protect the country.”
Crowds have stormed the Capitol, chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”
After taking refuge in a basement, Pence remained in the Capitol during the attack, with protesters sometimes being “a few tens of meters away”, the commission revealed yesterday.
When calm was restored in Washington a few hours later, Pence from the House of Representatives stressed that “those who sowed weeds did not win” and ratified Biden’s election.
After months of silence, the former vice president referred to the events of January 6 during a speech in Florida in mid-February. “President Trump had said I had the right to overturn the election result, but President Trump was wrong,” he said.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
Source: Capital
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