J-6 panel shifts focus to Trump ‘tweet heard around the world’
by Rebecca Beitsch and Mike Lillis - 07/11/22 5:14 PM ET
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will turn its focus this week to former President Trump’s campaign to rally protesters to Washington, pointing to one tweet in particular as a pivotal moment in the violent effort to overturn his election defeat.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Trump tweeted Dec. 19, 2020.
That message, the investigators contend, acted as a shrewd battle cry to the far-right extremist groups and other supporters who were wrongly convinced the election had been “stolen” and viewed Jan. 6, 2021 — when Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s victory — as their last best chance to keep Trump in power.
On Tuesday, lawmakers on the select committee will drill into the events both before and after the tweet, using their latest public hearing in the wide-ranging investigation to advance their case that Trump’s allies acted in cahoots with the violent extremists who would ultimately storm the Capitol.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who will help lead Tuesday’s hearing, noted that the tweet followed a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting at the White House where some of Trump’s closest allies pushed him to seize voting machines in key states. Trump ultimately decided against the idea, but as options dwindled to remain in power, he shifted gears to focus on a protest the day of the election certification — something online chatter shows Trump’s most zealous supporters took as a call to arms.
Trump’s first full-throated endorsement of that protest — the now-infamous Dec. 19 tweet, sent at 1:42 a.m. — cited a report from Peter Navarro, a top aide, claiming to demonstrate proof of massive voter fraud. “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” Trump wrote, before urging his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 for the “wild” protest.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3553851-j-6-panel-shifts-focus-to-trump-tweet-heard-around-the-world/
