Trump wanted to go after his GOP allies along with Democrats on Jan. 6: Rep. Jamie Raskin
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who serves on the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack, said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump went after his Republican allies just as he did Democrats.
Speaking to MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle, Raskin explained that the committee is "closing in on the target if the target is the truth." What has become clear is that "the violent insurrection was directed as much at his -- some of his Republican allies — as it was against the Democrats and against the Constitution. He wanted to make sure that they went through with his plan, and that's why he unleashed the violence against them."
The committee is still examining documents, including those that were ripped up into confetti by Trump and pasted back together by aides. However, Raskin explained that everything they've uncovered points to a president desperately trying to find a way to overthrow the presidential election.
"And, in fact, he said that over the weekend," Raskin noted, citing the admission of guilt Trump sent out in a press release. "The alarming part is that they are -- he and his entourage — are working to do it again, and they are trying to activate the same violent forces in the country, some kind of movement of street fascism and violence to attack elections, to attack anybody who gets in his way. So, you know, we had seven Republican senators who voted with all 50 Democrats to convict in the Senate. I wish we had ten more. At this point, the Republican Party needs to stand up to say that this is intolerable to our constitutional order. But way too many of them are still playing footsie with Donald Trump and think that he might just go away on his own. And we need everybody to be standing up for the constitutional framework and for the democracy."
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The information they have uncovered, he said, will establish a historical record that will show what happened and Republicans will never be able to erase it from the annals of history. Ultimately, Raskin said that no leader, even among Republicans, will be able to stand with Donald Trump.
"They will have to disavow his tactics and his strategy -- rule or ruin," Raskin explained. "Either he will rule the country or he will ruin our possibility of governing and ruin our possibility of making progress in the country. So, everybody is going to have a decision to make. I'm not saying that the conclusion is foreordained. I think we're in a tough time here. We need to stand up for democratic institutions. That means congress. That means the states. Here they were talking about seizing voting machines from the states, the party that refuses to even pass a Voting Rights Act that will defend everybody's right to vote is perfectly content to go along with a president who is willing to deploy the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice to take voting machines away from the state governments. It's just extraordinary."
He went on to say that the "big reveal" has already arrived, with Trump confirming it publicly.
"Some people seem to think if you talk about crime in public, it can't be a crime," said Raskin. "If you rob a bank in broad daylight, you're still robbing a bank, and this president clearly tried to overthrow a presidential election. He's the first American president to do so. Our committee is charged with telling America the truth. We want to get the truth out in vivid and fine-grained detail so America understands exactly what happened."
See the full exchange below:
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