Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said former President Donald Trump’s tweet sent out during the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6 was enough evidence to convict Trump of incitement.
In a tweet that has been deleted, Trump wrote, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
Murphy said, “So he incited people to go fight like hell, then he said something different, and as they were attacking the Capitol, he had a chance, right, as the insurrection was beginning, to tell them to stand down. I was in the Senate chamber literally as those rioters were outside our doors. While we were being locked down in the Senate chamber, instead of sending out a tweet saying that everybody should leave the Capitol, President Trump sent out a tweet attacking Mike Pence, the very person that those rioters were there to hang.”
He continued, “So even as the riot was occurring, the president had a chance to turn it around, and instead he incited it, knowing what was happening at the Capitol. So I think the case is absolutely clear both in that rally at the White House and during the riot itself the president was taking steps to make it worse, not better. There is, of course, reporting from inside the White House that suggests the president was slow-walking the response because he was very happy with what was happening over at the United States Capitol, so I think all the evidence is put on, there will be no choice but to convict.
He added, “This was an effort to overturn an election in and of itself an unconstitutional endeavor. This was a crowd of tens of thousands of people. The president had access to intelligence to tell him that there were individuals there who were intending to storm the Capitol, and then once again while the attack was happening, the president had the ability to turn them around, and he didn’t.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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