“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” President Donald Trump tweeted in December of 2020. “Be there, will be wild!” His supporters listened.
This week’s hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol underscored the connections between key Trump associates and right-wing militia groups along with others who participated in the insurrection. The “unhinged” six-hour meeting in advance of Jan. 6, filled with expletives and shouting so loud it could be heard outside the closed Oval Office, remains disturbing as ever. So does the draft executive order presented to the president that would have authorized the Defense Department to seize all voting machines. More alarming still is the revelation that lawyer Sidney Powell believed she had been appointed special counsel, another part of that plan.
Perhaps most consequential is the news, shared by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) at the end of Tuesday’s hearing that Mr. Trump recently tried to call an unnamed witness in the House’s investigation. This troubling outreach to a witness, along with the rest of Mr. Trump’s conduct, deserves further probing.
The committee’s focus Tuesday, however, was on how the then-president’s words inspired his followers to violent action. At least one pro-Trump group moved up plans for a rally later in January to the 6th; the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers coordinated with the help of longtime ally Roger Stone to honor Mr. Trump’s wishes; conservative influencers promoted the protest as a “red wedding,” a “Game of Thrones” reference that invokes mass slaughter. Most important, text messages showed that Mr. Trump’s exhortation to march to Capitol Hill was planned rather than spontaneous — and that those involved in coordinating the rally sought to conceal this intention, because they knew it would get them into trouble.
Congress heard from one of the protesters who illegally entered the Capitol. He came to D.C. because Mr. Trump told him to; he marched to the Capitol because Mr. Trump told him to; he left, after so many hours, because finally after 187 minutes of silence Mr. Trump told him to. “I feel like I had horse blinders on,” he said. “I was locked in the whole time.”
The Jan. 6 committee has shown that Mr. Trump knew better: His closest advisers, his in-house lawyers, his own Justice Department told him there was no evidence of the widespread voter fraud he alleged. Many of his supporters, though, did not know better at all — because they trusted a president who cares nothing for truth. Mr. Trump relished in the effect his words had on his supporters. A responsible president would have used that power to restore our shared reality, but he used it lead his followers further into delusion. A responsible Republican Party would, today, also fight for the facts rather than resist efforts to find them.
These lies matter — to democracy, and to individual people. They can wound, the way they did when a crowd pushed, kicked and sprayed with chemicals a police officer who, Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) explained on Tuesday, will now never return to the force. They can kill; at least seven people lost their lives in connection with the violence of Jan. 6. Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager, said after the attacks that he felt guilty for helping his boss win in 2016.
“If I was Trump and knew my rhetoric killed someone,” he wrote to his colleague Katrina Pierson. Ms. Pierson replied, “It wasn’t the rhetoric.” “Katrina,” he answered, “Yes it was.”
