Secret Service testifies against Donald Trump to January 6th Committee
January 6th Committee members Jamie Raskin and Liz Cheney have each recently stated that they have evidence proving that Donald Trump didn’t merely incite the Capitol attack, he criminally conspired to make the attack happen. Even as we await this evidence in upcoming public hearings, some of the story is beginning to spill out.
It turns out Trump planned all along to travel with his supporters from their initial rally location to the Capitol. Trump went so far as to pressure the Secret Service to secure him a motorcade route so he could ride along with his goons as they marched on the Capitol, according to the Washington Post. Politico is also separately reporting that multiple Secret Service agents, including the top Secret Service agent on Trump’s detail on January 6th, have testified to the January 6th Committee.
So where does this get us? At the least, it makes clear that Trump always intended for his January 6th “rally” to turn into a march on the Capitol. So the march on the Capitol wasn’t a spontaneous thing that happened of its own accord; it was something that Trump and his people specifically plotted out in advance and intended to happen.
This prevents Trump from being able to make the legal argument that he was being spontaneous when he told the rally attendees that “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol.” It also prevents him from being able to argue that when he used the word “we,” it didn’t include him – because now we have proof that Trump originally intended to travel to the Capitol in order to lure his supporters to go along with him. These are the kinds of reasonable doubt arguments that Trump might try to use if and when he’s on criminal trial for this, but now these arguments are being taken away from him.
This is still one step from proving that Trump intended for his supporters to attack and invade the Capitol once they arrived there. But given the rate at which incriminating evidence is now surfacing ahead of Thursday evening’s initial public hearing, we expect plenty more evidence will surface soon.
