Incendiary tweets, a threatening call, a fiery speech ... The commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol detailed, Thursday, June 16, during a hearing, the numerous pressures exerted by Donald Trump on his vice-president Mike Pence to try to prevent him from certifying Joe Biden's presidential victory on January 6, 2021.
"The president was repeatedly told that the vice president couldn't change the outcome of the election. But he still publicly pressured Mike Pence to do just that," the statement said. elected Democrat Pete Aguilar, during a detailed presentation.
After almost a year of investigation, the group of elected officials seeks to show that Donald Trump's rejection of the results of the November 2020 presidential election was not just bad loser coquetry, but the essential component of a strategy. thoughtful to keep power.
This quickly focused on the ceremony of certification of the results of the election by Vice President Mike Pence before Congress on January 6, 2021, in principle a simple formality.
"Revolution"
The commission of inquiry has unveiled the precise plan developed by lawyer John Eastman for Donald Trump in December 2020, aimed at exploiting loopholes in the voter count law and blocking Joe Biden's accession to the White House.
Under pressure, Mike Pence then turned to several legal experts who had assured him that he had no legal leeway and had to certify Joe Biden's victory at all costs.
"I believe that if Vice President Pence had obeyed the orders of his president (...), it would have plunged America into a revolution in the midst of a constitutional crisis", warned in a solemn voice the Judge Michael Luttig, before the commission.
Supporting video testimony, the group of elected officials also revealed a telephone exchange between Donald Trump and his vice-president on the morning of January 6, 2021. "The conversation was tense", confided Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter , who was in the Oval Office at the time of the call.
Other former advisers to Donald Trump have reported that the president has addressed several insults to Mike Pence.
An hour later, the American president tried one last time to force the hand on his right arm by presenting himself to a crowd of Trumpists gathered in Washington in the freezing cold.
"Mike Pence, I hope you will fight for the good of our country, for our Constitution. Otherwise, I will be extremely disappointed," says the Republican billionaire, in a serious tone.
"Hang"
A few minutes later, Mike Pence publishes a letter in which he affirms that he will not comply with the pressures of the president.
At the same time, pro-Trump protesters are beginning to crowd around Congress, images that have circulated around the world.
The certification session is abruptly interrupted.
While the vice-president and the elected members of Congress are evacuated from the hemicycle, Donald Trump is annoyed on Twitter that Mike Pence did not "have the courage to do what was necessary to protect the country".
In the crowd that stormed Congress, Trumpists call to "hang Mike Pence".
Taken refuge in an underground, the vice-president remained in the precincts of the Capitol throughout the duration of the assault, with demonstrators sometimes only a "dozen meters from him", revealed the commission Thursday.
After a few hours, calm finally returned to the American capital.
From the House of Representatives, the vice-president then promises that “those who have sown discord” have not “won” and officially certifies the election of Joe Biden.
After long months of silence, Mike Pence spoke publicly about the horror of January 6 during a speech in Florida in mid-February.
"President Trump said I had the right to reverse the election, but President Trump is wrong," he said, noting his final break with the former businessman, who still supports opposite.
With AFP
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