The committee's unanimous vote Thursday to subpoena former President Trump came as it described his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss.
In the committee’s 10th public session, the panel summed up Trump’s “staggering betrayal” of his oath of office, as Chairman Bennie Thompson put it, describing Trump’s unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.
Before any votes were cast, committee members said, Trump planned to simply claim victory on Election Day.
The committee presented new and previously seen material, including interviews with Trump’s top aides and Cabinet officials — including Secretary of State Pompeo, Attorney General Barr and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia — in which some described the president acknowledging he'd lost.
Among the new revelations was that the Secret Service was aware before Jan. 6 that some Trump supporters were using online forums to discuss plans for violence, including plots to storm the Capitol. Along with interviews, the committee is drawing on the 1.5 million pages of documents it's received from the Secret Service, says The Associated Press.
And the panel showed previously unseen footage of congressional leaders on the phone with the Defense Department, Justice Department and governor of neighboring Virginia, asking for help during the assault as Trump refused to call off the mob. The footage also portrays Vice President Pence telling House Speaker Pelosi and the others that he's spoken with the Capitol Police, as Congress plans to resume its session that night to certify the election of Biden.
Trump has been telling aides privately that he favors testifying before the panel as long as he gets to do so live, The New York Times says. The lawmakers have rejected similar demands from other witnesses, but preliminary discussions among the panel members indicate more openness to a live interview with Trump, the Times says.
Several former presidents voluntarily testified before Congress — including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Gerald Ford — but there's no Supreme Court precedent that says whether Congress has the power to compel a former president to testify about his actions in office, according to the Times.
A separate AP article discusses the committee’s discussions of how to preserve its transcripts of more than 1,000 interviews and millions of other documents after the panel is shut down following the release of its final report.
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