Staff Reports
During its historic summer of hearings, the House select committee investigating the deadly insurgency at the US Capitol has attempted to show that Donald Trump was at the center of a multi-layered conspiracy to seize a second term in office, accusing him of having "summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack."
The panel argued compellingly in a final presentation on Thursday that the president let the conflagration he sparked on January 6 burn for 187 minutes.
Prosecutors claimed in the final hearing of the summer, one of the most dramatic in a series of eight, that Trump violated his oath of office and was negligent in his duty by failing to condemn the actions as rioters holding poles, bear spray, and Trump campaign banners led a bloody assault on the US Capitol.
Congresswoman Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia and a member of the committee, said on Thursday that "lives and our democracy hung in the balance" during the hours of the Capitol siege, which were recounted in terrifying detail during the primetime session.
When things went crazy in the Capitol, Trump sat in the White House and watched it all unfold on Fox News. Trump continued to delay calling the election after 24 hours.
Trump's resignation on January 6 was a "stain on our history," according to Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois and a member of the committee.
But did he break any laws by doing that? It's what the committee has spent the last year trying to figure out.
In spite of being informed repeatedly and unambiguously that his fantasy of a stolen election was incorrect, the panel has attempted to lay out the case that Trump engineered a sophisticated scheme to capture another term in government.
The Committee used tens of thousands of documents and hundreds of interviews to show that Trump got increasingly frantic in his quest to alter the results of an election that his own attorney general declared free and fair.
The panel intended to provide a thorough public accounting of the events of January 6 for the American people and the historical record.
Representative for Wyoming on the committee, Republican Liz Cheney, has stated that they will spend the month of August "pursuing and merging information" that is still starting to come in before holding more hearings in September.
Lawmakers say they will only disclose a preliminary report on the committee's probe in September, with the complete report to follow at the end of the year. Before the opening of the next Congress in early January, the committee must submit a comprehensive report.
Already, the committee's report is being given the same level of importance as other key probes like Watergate and 9/11. Books based on the committee's recommendations will be published by several publishing houses in September, including Hachette and MacMillan.
Lawmakers and staffers believe the committee has revealed material that might be utilized to create a case against the former president. Possibile allegations include conspiracy to deceive the American people and obstruction of a congressional official action. At the most recent session, the committee revealed that Trump had sought to contact a cooperating witness, raising the risk of witness tampering.
A federal judge has ruled that Trump "likely" decided to commit federal crimes in his attempts to obstruct or delay the tally of electoral college votes by Congress on January 6.
Experts disagree on whether or not the testimony given at the hearings is sufficient to press charges against Trump. No past president has ever been prosecuted by the Justice Department. Further undermining American faith in their system of justice is a real possibility if either Trump is charged or is not charged in this moment of divisiveness.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on The Daily Cable.
