A l’occasion de sa neuvième audition, la Commission du 6 janvier a voté à l’unanimité une assignation à comparaître à Donald Trump. La probabilité que cette démarche aboutisse est quasi nulle, l’ex-président étant le champion toutes catégories pour trouver des mesures dilatoires sur des actions de justice ou prises par le Congrès.
La conclusion de ces neuf auditions, des témoignages et des travaux réalisés est simple : Donald Trump est le prescripteur et l’organisateur de la tentative de coup d’état raté dont le point culminant a été le 6 janvier 2021.
Le magazine Axios propose un récapitulatif des événements intervenus entre la nuit des élections 2020 et le 6 janvier.
Episode 1: A premeditated lie lit the fire
“Jared, you call the Murdochs! Jason, you call Sammon and Hemmer!”
President Trump was almost shouting. He directed his son-in-law and his senior strategist from his private quarters at the White House late on election night. He barked out the names of top Fox News executives and talent he expected to answer to him.
Episode 2: Barbarians at the Oval
President Trump plunked down in an armchair in the White House residence, still dressed from his golf game — navy fleece, black pants, white MAGA cap. It was Saturday, Nov. 7. The networks had just called the election for Joe Biden.
Episode 3: Descent into madness
President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office one day in late November when a call came in from lawyer Sidney Powell. “Ugh, Sidney,” he told the staff in the room before he picked up. “She’s getting a little crazy, isn’t she? She’s really gotta tone it down. No one believes this stuff. It’s just too much.”
Episode 4: Trump turns on Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr stood behind a chair in the private dining room next to the Oval Office, looming over Donald Trump. The president sat at the head of the table. It was Dec. 1, nearly a month after the election, and Barr had some sharp advice to get off his chest. The president’s theories about a stolen election, Barr told Trump, were “bullshit.”
Episode 5: The secret CIA plan
In his final weeks in office, after losing the election to Joe Biden, President Donald Trump embarked on a vengeful exit strategy that included a hasty and ill-thought-out plan to jam up CIA Director Gina Haspel by firing her top deputy and replacing him with a protege of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes.
Episode 6: Last stand in Georgia
On Air Force One, President Trump was in a mood. He had been clear he did not want to return to Georgia, and yet somehow he’d been conscripted into another rally on the night of Jan. 4.
Episode 7: Trump turns on Pence
“The end is coming, Donald.”
The male voice in the TV ad boomed through the White House residence during “Fox & Friends” commercial breaks. Over and over and over. “The end is coming, Donald. … On Jan. 6, Mike Pence will put the nail in your political coffin.”
On Jan. 6, White House deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger entered the West Wing in the mid-afternoon, shortly after his colleagues’ phones had lit up with an emergency curfew alert from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Bonus episode: Inside the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency
Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official.
Episode 9: Trump’s war with his generals
One important piece is only now beginning to emerge: Former President Donald Trump’s last-minute bid to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan and swaths of the Middle East, Africa and even Europe ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration – and why he blinked.
John McEntee, one of Donald Trump’s most-favored aides, handed retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor a piece of paper with a few notes scribbled on it. He explained: “This is what the president wants you to do.”
1. Get us out of Afghanistan.
2. Get us out of Iraq and Syria.
3. Complete the withdrawal from Germany.
4. Get us out of Africa.