Trump spurred ‘attempted coup’ at US Capitol, January 6 panel tells hearing

Chairman US Representative Bennie Thompson speaks next to Vice Chair U.S. Representative Liz Cheney during the opening public hearing of the US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, June 9, 2022. © Jonathan Ernst, Reuters

The House panel investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol laid the blame firmly on Donald Trump Thursday night, saying the assault was hardly spontaneous but an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.

With a never-before-seen 12-minute video of the deadly violence and startling testimony from Trump’s inner circle, the special committee sought to persuade a divided country that Trump’s repeated lies about election fraud and his public effort to stop Joe Biden’s victory led to the attack and imperilled American democracy.