After the second hearing on the 2021 Capitol Hill riots concluded in the United States on Monday, 13 June, former President Donald Trump criticised the congressional probe as a "mockery of justice."
Trump said that instead of focusing on the country's larger problems, the Democratic-led panel was "a Kangaroo Court, hoping to distract the American people from the great pain they are experiencing," news agency AFP reported.
A bipartisan committee of the US House of Representatives is investigating former President Donald Trump's role in the rampage that took place on 6 January last year.
"The truth is that Americans showed up in Washington, DC in massive numbers... to hold their elected officials accountable," Trump asserted in a statement issued on Monday.
What Happened in Monday's Hearing?
The United States House Select Committee, in its second hearing on Monday, showed how former US President Donald Trump refused to listen to his campaign advisors, who told him categorically that he had lost the 2020 presidential elections.
Instead, Trump took to his attorney Rudy Giuliani to file false claims that the 2020 election was "stolen" by incumbent President Joe Biden.
Monday's hearing was one witness short, but the testimonies included that of a former Fox News Digital politics editor, a former Republican election official, a former US attorney, and a conservative lawyer. Their testimonies indicated that they believed President Joe Biden was the clear winner of the 2020 elections and that Trump's claims of fraud were baseless, reported CNN.
A major area of focus of Monday's hearing was on how Trump and some of his allies peddled false claims of election fraud even after they were told those claims were illegitimate.
Former attorney general William Barr said that Trump's theories were "idiotic," "detached from reality," and "amateurish." He derided Trump-backed claims on "illegal vote dumps" in Detroit and country-wide vote-rigging by Dominion Corporation and its election machines.
The committee argued that Trump's top officials, including Stepien and Barr, continued to advise the former president that the variety of fraud claims he was pushing was baseless and that there was no clear evidence that the election was stolen.
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