WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump ignored pleas to call off the mob storming the U.S. Capitol and remained publicly silent as he watched the violence unfold on television from his personal dining room off the Oval Office, according to evidence and testimony to the committee investigating last year’s insurrection.
The committee’s prime-time hearing Thursday simultaneously cast Trump’s inaction during the riot as a deliberate, desperate final ploy in his struggle to hold onto the presidency and the ultimate dereliction of duty for a commander in chief sworn to uphold the law.
“President Trump did not fail to act,” Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger, a member of the Jan. 6 committee, said. “He chose not to act.”
