The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots on Thursday showed how former President Donald Trump and his allies plotted for months to simply declare victory on election night regardless of the actual results.
CNN political analyst John Avlon broke down the committee's timeline on Friday and said it made a "truly damning" case against the former president.
"This was laying out a fact pattern truly damning to the extent the president and his allies were telegraphing an intent to declare victory well before the election," he said. "We know that Brad Parscale was talking about plans that were in discussion to have the ex-president declare victory as early as July. We've seen Roger Stone saying we'll declare victory regardless of the results. Steve Bannon, we heard him in October saying that was Trump's plan. And then yesterday we saw an email from Tom Fitton to senior members of the White House, basically proposing talking points for the former president saying, 'We had an election today and I won.'"
Avlon went on to explain that this was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to Trump's plan to stay in power no matter what.
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In particular, he zeroed in on evidence that Trump legitimately knew he lost the 2020 election and continued to push false claims about it as "the most damming aspect of yesterday's testimony," as it could go a long way toward proving his state of mind in the leadup to the deadly riots that sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Analyst breaks down timeline of Trump plot to declare victory no matter whatwww.youtube.com
