Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), who chairs the committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, sharply criticized former President Trump for returning to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday for the first time since that infamous day.
“How can Trump show his face like this after inciting a deadly insurrection that desecrated the halls of Congress? Republican lawmakers allow him to come here when they know he has zero respect for our democracy,” Thompson said in a statement about Trump’s visit to Washington.
President Trump met with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club in the morning, then had lunch with Senate Republicans at the Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters.
The visit marked President Trump’s first return to the Capitol since a mob of his supporters stormed the building on January 6, 2021, aiming to halt the transition of power from Trump to President Biden.
It also comes just two weeks after a 12-judge New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of conspiring to conceal information that could harm the American people and falsifying business records ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has been charged with three other felony counts: one in federal court and one in Georgia for keeping classified documents after leaving office and trying to obstruct federal efforts to recover them, and one for trying to retain power after losing the 2020 presidential election.
In a statement, Thompson said President Trump has continued to ignore the rule of law since the storming of the Capitol.
“Since January 6th, Donald Trump, who has been twice impeached and convicted, has repeatedly demonstrated his disdain for the rule of law and continues to sow hatred and division,” Thompson said. “He remains as great a threat to our democracy as he did three years ago. He would be wise to return to Mar-a-Lago and await his sentence.”
The special committee, led by Thompson and then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), concluded its 18-month investigation on January 6 with the release of an 845-page final report that recommended criminal charges against the former president and included much of the testimony and evidence collected during the process.
According to a summary released by the committee, it found Trump “directly responsible” for summoning a mob of his supporters to Washington, D.C., on January 6 and encouraging them to march on the Capitol, and for “further inciting an already violent and lawless crowd” by posting on social media that then-Vice President Mike Pence should halt the certification of the election.
The committee also noted that Trump did nothing on the day of the riot despite repeated requests from staff and families for his supporters to return home, and that he was unwilling to send security support to the Capitol during the riot.
As a result of the committee’s investigation, two former aides to President Trump, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, were sentenced to prison for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas.
When Bannon was ordered to report to prison last week, Trump called for the indictment of the January 6th committee members, falsely claiming that they had destroyed all of the evidence, when in fact the testimony and evidence they had collected was It is published online.
