‘He is required to answer’: January 6 committee subpoenas Donald Trump after final bombshell public hearing

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The vote to compel testimony from the ex-president came after a two-and-a-half hour session, during which committee members presented evidence showing Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and remain in office against the wishes of American voters were executed as a “coordinated multi-part plan to ensure that he stayed in power” despite being well aware that he’d lost the election. Representative Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee in addition to his role on the select committee, presented emails obtained from the US Secret Service showing the agency charged with protecting Mr Trump, vice president Mike Pence, as well as then-president-elect Joe Biden and then-vice president-elect Kamala Harris knew Mr Trump’s supporters were planning for violence on the day Congress was set to certify Mr Trump’s defeat. “It was known to secret service that members of the crowd were armed, President Trump had been told, and there was no doubt that President Trump knew what he was going to do: sending an angry mob, a number of whom were clad in tactical gear and military garb, armed with various weapons to the Capitol.” open image in gallery Video shows US Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reacting to the Capitol riot as it unfolded Mr Aguilar said there was “no scenario” under which Mr Trump’s actions that day would have been “benign”, nor was there any scenario under which any American president would have been justified in engaging in similar conduct. “It would have been catastrophic, and yet President Trump signed the order.” open image in gallery Rep Bennie Thompson, right, chairs the committee For her part, Democratic Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia, spoke about how Mr Trump continued to spread misinformation and said the committee’s report will document “Purposeful lies made in public directly at odds with what Donald Trump knew from unassailable sources, the Justice Department's own investigations and his own campaign.” “Donald Trump maliciously repeated this nonsense to a wide audience over and over again,” she said.