Speaking to Raw Story after the second of four House Select Hearings on the attack on Congress, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) connected the dots about how important the testimony was about the plot to overthrow the election and the violence seen on Jan. 6.
The committee walked through many Republican witnesses who testified under oath that they told former President Donald Trump that his conspiracies about the 2020 election being stolen were false. Over and over, the committee showed former officials who worked at both the state and federal level who investigated Trump's claims of fraud. Each of the witnesses said that they were able to prove that the claims were false.
Those officials ultimately conveyed to the former president that his public comments were subsequently untrue, yet he continued to voice them. As the Electoral College certification date approached, Trump then pushed his supporters to stand up for the election in Washington, D.C.
As participants have testified in their own trials, they were called by the president and they heeded that call.
READ: 'Lying on multiple levels': George Conway says Jan. 6 hearings blew the lid off Trump's election con
Sherrill, who was in the gallery during the Jan. 6 certification process, told Raw Story that none of them fully realized just how much planning took place to motivate Trump's supporters into action.
"I think there's a narrative that this was just sort of a normal protest turned violent," said Sherrill. "And I think what the committee is showing with this evidence is that there is there is a lot of forethought and planning into trying to overturn the results across the country from the American electorate — and that that began as far back as September (2020)."
She went on to quote former Attorney General Bill Barr, who testified that Trump was uninterested in the facts, regardless of how many people around him made it clear that the election was legitimate.
Sherrill called Trump's unwillingness to concede to losing an election an "existential threat to our government... What's troubling he wasn't coming into this trying to get to the truth. He wasn't coming into this in an attempt to protect our elections. He wasn't coming into this with what we would call a good faith attempt to ensure the will of the people was executed as far as who the president of the United States would be, but rather, throwing out all evidence based in fact and really just trying to search for any means of overturning the election."
According to the New Jersey congresswoman, we're only the beginning of what the committee will present to help connect those dots between Trump knowingly lying, and then motivating his supporters to act on those lies.
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