Even after being repeatedly informed by those around him, by members of his family, by several of his legal advisers and members of his campaign team that the theory of electoral fraud did not support the reality of the facts, Donald Trump continued to claim the existence of a stolen election by the Democrats, for the sole purpose of mobilizing its troops and trying to overthrow the legally elected government of Joe Biden.
This “big lie” has also become a lever for the populist to extract millions of dollars from the pockets of its followers to supposedly counter this “theft” in court. Including by feeding an “Official Election Defense Fund” which… never existed, we learned Monday morning, on the second day of public hearings for the House Committee to Investigate the Capitol Uprising. , January 6, 2021.
The “big lie” was also “a big scam”, summed up Democrat Zoe Lofgren, representative of California and member of this commission of inquiry, referring to a campaign aimed “to deceive millions of Americans with allegations knowingly false electoral fraud”. Donald Trump’s team received $250 million in donations, including $100 million within a week of the vote results.
For nearly two hours, the group of elected officials paraded before them several witnesses and exposed a handful of testimonies recorded during the 11 months of their work behind closed doors, to demonstrate that Donald Trump knew that no massive electoral fraud tainted the 2020 presidential poll, knew he had lost the election, but persisted in claiming otherwise, for the sole purpose of staying in power.
The attack on the Capitol was the culmination of this “attempted coup”, in the words of the Commission, “a plan” with several chapters, planned for months in advance by the ousted ex-president.
“All allegations [du populiste] were completely false, crazy and generally based on disinformation, ”explained the former United States Attorney General Bill Barr, met by the commission’s investigators. His testimony was presented on Monday. “I was demoralized because I thought that if [Donald Trump] really believed these stories, he had lost touch with reality. »
Insistent and yet
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, told the Commission that he also disapproved of the plan drawn up by Rudy Giuliani to call into question the official results of the election and that he shared this with the ex-president, without that having had a great influence.
Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue also came forward to say that he repeatedly presented Mr. Trump with the results of investigations proving that the presidential election had been carried out completely legally and that the attacks on the ballot that he denounced in the public square – such as the vote of the dead, the suitcases of ballots entering at full speed in the offices of counting the votes, the manipulation of the voting machines, etc. — did not hold water.
“We made dozens of surveys, conducted hundreds of interviews and the majority of the allegations did not support the reality of the facts collected,” he said. “Most of the information [sur la fraude] he received were false. »
The rejection of the challenges to the results brought about by Donald Trump and his entourage was “crushing”, said Ms. Lofgren, recalling that “twenty-two federal judges appointed by Republican presidents, including 10 appointed by President Trump himself- even and at least 24 elected or appointed Republican state judges, have denied the president’s demands.”
During this period, 11 lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, faced disciplinary proceedings for “bad faith and baseless efforts” to undermine the election and several had their right to practice revoked.
A first indictment of president?
On Sunday, several members of the Commission said their work had gathered enough evidence to allow US Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict former President Donald Trump for seeking to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. This decision is in the hands of the Department of Justice. However, it would mark a first in the United States.
” I think [que M. Garland] knows, his staff knows, American lawyers know, what’s at stake here, Democratic commissioner Jamie Raskin told CNN. They know its importance and rightly pay attention to the precedent in history [que cela pourrait créer], as well as the facts related to this case. »
No president or ex-president has ever been indicted in the United States. Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974 as he faced indictment for bribery, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. His successor, President Gerald Ford, later pardoned the Republican before any Watergate-related criminal charges could be filed against him.
Last Thursday, nearly 20 million Americans followed the first public hearings of this commission of inquiry on January 6, according to Nielsen. At the opening of this media-political event, Donald Trump was directly placed at the center of a conspiracy to overthrow the country’s government to illegally maintain himself in power.
That 20 million is a low number, however, with just 8.3% of registered voters in the United States or 12.6% of Americans going to the polls in 2020. Last March, Joe Biden’s speech on the State of the Union had attracted 38 million viewers.