Today, an article in the Washington Post praised the culmination that the House Select Committee on the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol assigned to Thursday's hearings as perhaps among the most meaningful actions since For decades, the latest hearing provided powerful new evidence that former President Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, and deliberately lied in order to retain power.
In this context, the article writer Jennifer Rubin summarized the most important aspects of the session in 4 points:
Representative Liz Cheney, deputy chair of the committee, set the tone from the start of the hearing saying that "President Trump had a premeditated plan to declare the election was fraudulent and stolen before Election Day," including Trump's attack on mail-in ballot security long before the election.
Trump understood he had lost, as testimony before the committee revealed.
Former White House official Alyssa Griffin quoted Trump as saying he could not believe the outcome of the vote.
Those around Trump told him that he had to abide by court decisions, but he refused.
Once again, this points to Trump's willful defiance, and raises the question: Why did none of those around him come forward to warn the country of his actions?
Trump knew the violence was going to happen on January 6, yet he instigated his supporters.
And the commission of inquiry into the storming of Congress revealed in previous hearings that Trump knew that the crowd that gathered in the capital on January 6 included armed men, and encouraged them to march to the Capitol.
Trump clearly wanted to see the evolution of the violence, as evidenced by the first hours he spent that day watching insurgents storm the Capitol.
He refused to act during that period despite repeated pleas from his allies for him to speak frankly, and this also shows his intent to overthrow the elections through mob force if necessary.
The threat continues, with Republican Representative Cheney making it clear that "if false allegations of election fraud and violence are allowed to go unpunished, we will not have a democracy."
"The main lesson of this investigation is that our institutions only survive when men and women of goodwill make them solid, regardless of the political cost. We have no guarantee that these men and women will be where they are next," she said.