The former constitutional law professor on the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol previewed the final pre-election public hearing during an appearance on CNN.
Anchor Wolf Blitzer interviewed Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) on Wednesday ahead of the hearing, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. eastern on Thursday.
"Sources tell CNN your committee will argue that former President Trump remains a clear and present danger to democracy in America," Blitzer said. "What new evidence can we expect your committee to lay out in tomorrow's hearing to make that case?"
"Well, we have a bunch of new documentary evidence and statements that establish the central role that Donald Trump played and his overwhelming culpability in these events," Raskin replied. "I don't think any reasonable, open-minded observer could watch what we're going to do tomorrow and what we've done over the course of these hearings, put it all together, and not come away with one conclusion, which is that none of this would have happened except for the will of Donald Trump."
"Had he accepted his defeat after losing in more than 60 federal and state courts, if he had just accepted it the way that other presidents have in the past, none of this would have happened," Raskin explained. "But the political coup and all of the events surrounding the attempt to overthrow Joe Biden's majority in the Electoral College, the insurrectionary violence, the mobilization of the mob, all of it flowed out of the will and determination of one man to seize the presidency and that's Donald Trump and I think that we have a lot of new evidence which will make that abundantly clear to the American people."
"But do you have specific evidence, congressman, of a direct link between various extremist groups and the former president or his inner circle?" Blitzer asked.
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"Well, if the inner circle includes the three people that he pardoned between the election in November and Jan. 6 -- [Mike] Flynn, [Roger] Stone, and [Steve] Bannon -- I call them the Flynnstones -- then absolutely. There is abundant evidence that we are going to present about, for example, Stone's enmeshment with domestic violent extremist groups," Raskin said. "I think if you add up everything that we've put out there, it's very clear that those operatives were out mobilizing and galvanizing domestic violent groups on an attack on the Capitol and that of course is precisely what happened."
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