David Graham, writing for The Atlantic, sums up the riveting testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, regarding the events of Jan. 6.
Donald Trump knew the protesters marching on the Capitol on January 6 were armed. He knew they could do harm to someone. He wanted to go to the Capitol with them as they marched that afternoon. And he did nothing to stop them as they attacked.
The salient point here is Trump’s knowledge and support of the fact that an armed (some carrying Glock pistols and AR-15s), violent mob was imminently going to march on the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election that he had lost.
When Trump arrived at a rally on January 6, he saw that the space for the speech was not totally full, Hutchinson testified today. Ever attentive to optics, he wanted the area filled, but many attendees were outside a cordon, because they weren’t allowed in: The Secret Service had set up magnetometers, or mags, and these people were carrying weapons. They didn’t want to disarm, and couldn’t enter while carrying. But Trump didn’t care.
“They’re not here to hurt me,” he said, according to Hutchinson. He demanded that the Secret Service “take the fucking mags away,” and added, “They can march to the Capitol after this is over.”
Not only did he support the mob’s presence, its plans of violence, but, according to conversations Hutchinson described, he made a concerted effort to join in with them, allegedly physically accosting members of his own Secret Service detail in a futile effort to personally lead the mob himself (NBC now reports that the Secret Service officers involved dispute some of the facts underlying Hutchinson's assertions).
As Graham observes, there is no longer any room for Trump or anyone else to contend that all that was sought was a “peaceful demonstration.” There is no longer any room for farcical rejoinders that the “demonstrators” were peaceful and “unarmed.” The intent was to hurt, maim and kill if necessary, which is exactly what these people were prepared for, and exactly what they did.
There is no longer any room to explain why, in light of that knowledge, Trump did absolutely nothing for hours to stop the insurrectionists from trying to achieve their goal: “Her account establishes that Trump knew that the crowd was armed and understood that they were there to threaten or harm someone—specifically, his opponents—and that he wanted them to march on the Capitol with those weapons.” And there is no possible way to explain away his callous indifference to the potentially deadly threat to his own vice president.
As the New York Times’ Peter Baker noted during the testimony:
Or, as Graham himself puts it: “If you pour gasoline all over a building, tell some people it is essential the building burn, and make sure they’re carrying matches and lighters, you are to blame for the arson that follows—especially if you then decline to call the fire department and condone the inferno.”
There is simply no longer any possible excuse for not prosecuting this man. At this juncture, the failure to prosecute him would be a travesty and mockery of justice, far worse for this country in the long run than any possible “damage” that could possibly result.
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