The second open meeting of the US Senate committee investigating the events of January 6, 2020, when a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, took place in Washington on June 13.
At the meeting, the commission presented video recordings of testimonies of people close to President Trump, who was involved in the counting process.
They said that on election night long before the vote count was over, Donald Trump publicly declared victory and then continued to insist, despite official figures.
"My opinion remains the same: the presidential election was not rigged," said William Barr, the Trump administrationʼs justice minister.
According to him, Donald Trump did not show any interest in the real facts.
"I told the president it was complete nonsense," Barr said.
Donald Trumpʼs campaign chief of staff, Bill Stepien, told the commission that he tried to persuade Trump to wait for an official announcement, but he did not listen.
However, the president heeded the advice of personal lawyer Rudolf Giuliani, who insisted on the need to declare victory immediately.
According to people around the president who were in the White House at the time, Giuliani was the only one who called on Trump to declare victory. However, Donald Trumpʼs closest adviser Jason Miller says that Giuliani was drunk on the night of the presidential election.
The purpose of the commission members, they say, is to demonstrate that Donald Trump deliberately lied to the Americans, claiming that the election was "stolen" from him.
Hours after the hearing, Donald Trump issued a statement reiterating many of his allegations of fraud and vote counting.
"Democrats are creating their narrative of the events of January 6 to distract from the more important fact that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen," the former president said in a statement.
The commission plans to hold several more public meetings to represent the results of its investigation.
- On January 6, riots broke out in Washington. That day, Congress convened to approve Joe Bidenʼs victory in the presidential election. Donald Trump then released a video in which he reiterated that he had been robbed of the election, but again did not provide any evidence. After that, his supporters went to storm the Capitol building, where Congress meets. The incident killed five people, including one police officer. President-elect Biden called the assault a revolt.
- The FBI has found no evidence of a conspiracy by Trump supporters during the assault. More than 600 people have been prosecuted in this case.
- On October 9, US President Joe Biden denied Trump the right to maintain the confidentiality of his administrationʼs correspondence regarding the storming of the Congress building.