Civil war, violence, intimidation: Jan. 6 hearing shows Trump knew what was coming

“A sitting president asking for civil war”

“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

“he likes the crazies”

Those are all actual comments or texts from around the time of the Capitol attack by top aides and associates of former President Donald Trump, recounted during Tuesday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, an overwhelming moment in American history when the miserable malice and utter dishonesty of a sitting president was shown in stark relief.

The civil war quote came from a text by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack. All hell breaking loose came from Trump associate Steve Bannon on his podcast the day before the attack. And the last line is from a text sent by Trump campaign official Katrina Pierson.

Leveraging lies and crackpot theories

The complete picture painted in the roughly two-hour hearing – the committee's seventh – was one of a man who had exhausted all legitimate legal options to overturn a free and fair election and decided to leverage lies and crackpot theories to inflame a base of cult-like followers he knew had the potential to become violent.

From the last committee hearing:

►Cassidy Hutchinson puts her former boss and Trump-supporting cowards to shame

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►Cassidy Hutchinson shows more guts than all the president's men

And while election deniers and Trump loyalists of all sorts cling to the idea the Jan. 6 attack was a spontaneous event, it’s abundantly clear from the committee’s work that Trump knew exactly what he was doing. He was out of options, wanted to exert maximum pressure on Republican lawmakers and the vice president and, even as the rhetoric surrounding the Jan. 6 rally became more violent in the weeks leading up to the event, did nothing but continue to inflame the masses.

As committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Democrat from Florida, put it: “The evidence confirms this was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy decided upon in advance by the president.”

On Dec. 19, 2020, Trump sent a tweet that read in part: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild.”

Trump's call to arms received

The committee showed video clips of various influential right-wing figures embracing that tweet. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones called Trump’s call to arms “one of the most historic events in American history.” Matt Bracken, another popular right-wing commentator, suggested people who go to Washington on that date should “if necessary, storming right into the Capitol.”

The chatter on social media sites was intense, violent and disturbing. There was no question, in the weeks between that Dec. 19 tweet and Jan. 6, that Trump’s message had become a rallying point for potentially dangerous people and groups, including white supremacist militia-style groups like the Oath Keepers.

Trump could have called the rally off. He could have tried to calm things down. But all he did was continue his barrage of lies about the election. He even added, according to evidence presented by the committee Tuesday, lines in his Jan. 6 rally speech that called for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election.

Americans must pay attention

Perhaps more than any of the hearings thus far, Tuesday’s showed how important it is for Americans to pay attention to the work this committee is doing. Because not only was Trump’s feckless behavior around the time of the election inexcusable, but his effortless lying and complete disregard for the law continues to this moment.

At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney informed us that Trump recently tried to contact a committee witness who has not yet been featured in the public hearings. Information about that call has been passed along to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The committee had already said people in Trump’s orbit have been trying to exert pressure on witnesses. But this is the man himself allegedly calling a witness directly.

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If true, that’s the action of a man who cares nothing about the law or the country. And yet, it’s a man who leads by a huge margin in any poll asking whom Republicans favor as a presidential candidate in 2024.

It’s a man who led 147 Republican lawmakers to vote against certifying the results of the 2020 election.

A man who, according to a June report by The Washington Post, has inspired more than 100 winners of GOP primaries nationwide to embrace his perverse election denialism.

'We've got to stop with the dishonesty'

A former media director for the Oath Keepers, Jason Van Tatenhove, testified at Tuesday’s hearing. Showing his own frustration with the further radicalization of the group he left as well as the danger a figure like Trump presents, he said one thing that stuck with me: “We’ve got to stop with this dishonesty and the mincing of words and just call things for what they are.”

So how about we start with the 147 GOP politicians who embraced the election lie. They surely knew it was nonsense every bit as much as Trump did. Let them speak up.

And the GOP candidates still holding fast to the election lie. They need to explain themselves.

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Let’s not mince words. All of these people, Trump and everyone else, are liars. All of them are putting nonsense and opportunism ahead of our democracy.

And if they don’t stop with the dishonesty, if we don’t call them what they are, the additional damage they’ll do is incalculable.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Twitter @RexHuppke and Facebook: facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jan 6 hearing shows Trump lied, accuses him of calling witness