In his closing statement one the fourth day of the Jan 6. committee hearing, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Trump broke the “sacred and centuries-old covenant” in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and stay in power.
“It was unpatriotic and it was fundamentally un-American. And when he used the power of his presidency to put the enormous pressure on state and local elections officials, and his own vice president, it became downright dangerous,” Schiff said.
He then made reference to earlier testimony by former Georgia election worker. “Ruby Freeman said the president is supposed to protect every American, not target them. And she is right.”
Schiff noted that our democracy barely held because “courageous people,” who testified before the committee, “put their oath to the Constitution above their loyalty to one man or to one party.”
The hearing was the fourth of several planned by the Jan. 6 committee to present its findings to the public. It focused on Trump’s efforts to pressure state legislators and local election officials to change the results of the 2020 presidential election. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.
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