Split
According to testimonies released by the US Congressional Committee of Inquiry, Donald Trump was reluctant to leave the White House by any means necessary.
Washington DC – The events of January 6, 2021 in the USA are still being processed. Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters had violently made their way to the parliament buildings on the Capitol in Washington DC that day. Five people died and more than 140 police officers were injured. A blow to the oldest democracy in the world, which is only slowly recovering from it.
The Democrats set up a committee of inquiry to investigate the events. In his final report, he in turn made serious allegations against Donald Trump. The president, who had already been voted out at the time but was still formally in office, first incited the violence and then refused to ask his fans to leave the Capitol.
Donald Trump resists in video speech
On January 7th, one day after the storming of the Capitol, Trump was supposed to send a video statement from the White House to the citizens of the USA. A video was released shortly after. More than a year later, the congressional committee published so-called outtakes, i.e. test shots that went wrong. From these, in turn, it became clear how reluctant Trump was to admit defeat.
Again and again he refused to read the prepared statement. He quickly changed individual passages by hand, like the US broadcaster ABC reported at the time. The threat to punish perpetrators of January 6 with all the harshness of the law, he deleted completely from the speech. He didn’t say a word about the uprising of the day before.
Donald Trump asks “several times for Diet Coke”
Now, one day after the uprising on January 6, Donald Trump’s video statement is once again the focus of reporting. Interviewing a photographer at the White House at the time, it becomes clear that Trump made constant efforts to delay the recording of his short speech. According to photographer Shealah Craighead, he was very “restless” and “kept stopping and starting over” the shoot. Trump asked several times for Diet Coke or stopped to take a sip. Then he started again, only to stop immediately to take another sip. He would read a play, ask for a new Coke or ask for a towel to wipe his head.” Kyle Cheney of the US magazine made the documents of their questioning Politico publicly.
She was certain that Trump “would have done everything to delay the shooting,” said Craighead at the end of her questioning. To date, the former President has neither condemned the events of January 6, 2021 nor recognized the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US election. For this and despite increasingly tough competition within the party, Trump wants to compete again in 2024. (Daniel Dillmann)