WASHINGTON — Faced with no legal path to staying in office, former President Donald Trump summoned supporters to Washington to pressure Congress to overturn the 2020 election results, a move far-right extremists saw as a cue to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the House committee investigating the insurrection argued in Tuesday’s hearing.
Members of the panel used the seventh public hearing to cover an extended timeline from the Electoral College’s Dec. 14, 2020, meeting to affirm Joe Biden’s win until Jan. 6, 2021, when the electoral vote count in Congress was interrupted by the attack on the Capitol. The committee presented evidence and testimony on the preparations for the insurrection by extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, whose members have since been charged with sedition.
Reps. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., led the questioning of witnesses Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, a rioter who pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol building and told the committee that he only went there because Trump urged his supporters to do so in his speech.
