Trump calls the investigation a “kangaroo court”

• Former US President Donald Trump has called Congress’ investigation into the Capitol riots a “kangaroo court”.
• In a 12-page statement, he said the investigation was designed to distract Americans from the “disaster” of the Democratic-led administration.
•  Trump supporters stormed Congress on January 6, 2021 to thwart confirmation of Joe Biden’s election victory.

Former US President Donald Trump has called Congress’ investigation into the Capitol riots a “kangaroo court”.

In a 12-page statement, he said the investigation was designed to distract Americans from the “disaster” of the Democratic-led administration. It came after the committee held two public hearings accusing Trump of attempting a coup to stay in power.

Monday’s panel cited detailed evidence of divisions among Trump supporters over whether to accept his electoral defeat. Trump supporters stormed Congress on January 6, 2021 to thwart confirmation of Joe Biden’s election victory. A separate ongoing criminal investigation has resulted in more than 800 arrests in nearly every state.

“Seventeen months after the events of January 6, the Democrats are unable to provide solutions,” said Trump, a Republican, in a statement released via his Save America PAC. “They are desperate to change the history of a failing nation without even mentioning the devastation and death caused by the radical left a few months earlier,” he continued, referring to the riots that broke out amid US protests against racial justice in the United States. summer 2020.

“Make no mistake, they control the government. They own this mess. They hope these hearings will somehow change their prospect of failure. ”

Trump accused the “unselected pseudo-committee” of treason, citing the Democratic-led House of Representatives select committee that has conducted the investigation over the past year. For much of the statement, Trump refuted his baseless allegations of election fraud. A handful of such cases, representing a small number of ballots in all, have been prosecuted since the November 2020 election, but nothing on any scale that could have overturned the election in Biden’s favor.

Trump has labeled the current president as “Basement Biden”. “Our country is in freefall,” he concluded, dismissing the congressional investigation as an excuse to bar him from running for president again in 2024.

Earlier Monday, the House committee, in its second day of public hearings, viewed video testimony from former campaign manager Bill Stepien, who said aid workers split into two teams after the elections. He described a “normal team” of those who accepted the election results and “Rudy’s team” who followed up on allegations of voter fraud by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Stepien and another witness, former Trump adviser Jason Miller, said Mr. Giuliani appeared to have been intoxicated on election night.

Mr Miller said that despite the results continuing to come in, Mr Giuliani suggested that Trump “declare victory and say we won it immediately.” On Monday, through a spokesperson, Mr. Giuliani denied being drunk on election night, adding that he did not know why Mr Miller “would have made such a false claim.”

Read More: Ivanka Trump ‘checked out’ and wasn’t paying attention to election results, Trump claims

In a video testimony that also aired during Monday’s hearing, former Attorney General Bill Barr said he repeatedly told Trump there was no basis for claims of rigged voting machines or “junkyard. “He called” crazy things “.

However, Mr Trump refused to acknowledge those concerns and continued to spread allegations of fraud, Mr Barr said. He testified that he was “demoralized” by his boss’s claims. “I thought, ‘Guys, if he really believes these things, he’s lost touch with – he’s disconnected from reality, if he really believes it,'” she said.

The select committee on January 6 is trying to show that the former president’s election fraud allegations led directly to an attack on the Capitol. But the panel will not refer Mr. Trump or anyone else to the Justice Department for prosecution, committee chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, told reporters on Monday.

Read More: Former Trump campaign manager will testify at the ‘Big Lie’ hearing

“If the Justice Department looks at it and assumes there’s something that needs further investigation, they certainly will,” he said, according to a news channel, when asked about the possibility of a sentence. prison for Mr. Trump or his entourage. The committee’s Republican vice president, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, appeared to contradict Mr. Thompson moments later by tweeting that the committee “has not come to a conclusion on possible criminal references.”

“We will announce a decision on this in due course.”

The commission will hold further hearings on Wednesday and Thursday at the end of this week.