Joe Biden declined to reveal what former president Donald Trump wrote in the letter that was left for the new president. He characterized it as “generous,” and left it at that.
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The News-Gazette 01/24/2021
The rioters were adamant when they stormed the US Capitol: Joe Biden and the Democrats had stolen the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Congress wasn't doing anything to stop it, so it was up to patriotic Americans like themselves to save the country.
The months of lies and misrepresentations and horrific innuendo and hyperbolic speech by President Trump was designed to inflame, enrage, motivate. His words and actions for months directly led to an armed and deadly insurrection at the Capitol. He can't argue that nobody took him seriously or that his words didn't provoke violence.
"You'll never take back our country with weakness," Trump told his fanatics at the January 6 rally, which took place as Congress was convening to finalize Biden's victory. "You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We're going to have to fight much harder. After this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down - we're going to walk down."
At the end of the 70-minute speech that was riddled with grievances and falsehoods about the election, Trump said: "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
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Business Insider 01/22/2021
The News-Gazette
01/14/2021
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A pardon might constitute an admission of guilt. The families of victims of the January 6 riot might well sue Trump for his role in inciting the violence. Trump might try pardoning himself to make sure he can’t be charged with criminal incitement, but admitting the crime makes it even easier to bring a civil suit against him.
The easiest way out of the self-pardon dilemma would be for Trump to make a deal with Mike Pence, under which he would resign before leaving office and Pence would grant him a pardon. Unfortunately for Trump, Pence is still sore about the whole “whipping up a paramilitary mob to lynch him” episode. ABC reported recently that Trump does not want to resign, in part because he doesn’t trust his vice-president to pardon him.
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New York magazine
January 18, 2021 issue
John Dickerson is a reporter for CBS News:
There are a lot of ways in which the President contributed to what happened on the 6th. But the example of what he was willing to trample in order to get his way is clearest in the grotesque treatment of his vice president.
He says loyalty is the most important thing. No one has been more loyal to this President than Mike Pence. He has wagered his entire reputation defending the President.
How was he repaid? The President said Pence could stop the count in Congress. He knew that to be a lie. When Mike Pence didn't do that because he couldn't, the President said he lacked courage. He put a target on the back of his vice president.
And what happened? As sure as night follows day, those rioters said “Hang Mike Pence.”
What gave them the idea that Mike Pence had done anything worthy of a hanging? Well, the President of the United States told them that, the person to whom Mike Pence was loyal. That's pretty low.
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Face the Nation 01/10/2021
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Bob Schieffer, television journalist with CBS News since 1969:
America has never experienced anything like the Trump presidency.
It is ending as it began--in chaos, controversy, and confusion. He told us America was broken, and only he could fix it.
His reign mirrored his own chaotic life. He lurched from one crisis to another, from financial windfalls to bankruptcies, from tabloid scandals to audacious lies.
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| Rudy Giuliani |
Most he touched were diminished by the experience. Others, who sought power by riding the back of the tiger, wound up inside.
He played down the pandemic and found kind words for Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, but seemed determined to drive a wedge between America and our traditional allies.
Yes, the stock market went up, but the nation's deficit and national debt ballooned to record levels.
As we saw in those awful scenes unfolding in the Capitol, we came to understand that the man who had a manic desire for power had no real understanding of the power he possessed, or what happens when it is misused.
He will be gone soon, but he showed us America was not broken; he was.
I've been reading a book, published in 2019, about the Trump presidency. As I neared the end of the book on Friday afternoon, I read this passage. In particular, take note of the last 3 sentences and how they relate to the mob insurrection that occurred on this past Wednesday.
source: A Warning / by Anonymous, c2019, p. 242-243
Anonymous is "a senior Trump administration official." He was identified in November as Miles Taylor who served in the Department of Homeland Security.
Capitol Riot
The protest came after two months of Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen from him through widespread voter fraud across numerous battleground states won by Biden.
During the speech before the march to the Capitol, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said. “So, let's have trial by combat.”
Trump Attacks Pence
Trump went after Pence during his speech preceding the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday. The president’s main contention was that Pence could refuse to certify the results of the Electoral College while presiding over the joint session of Congress, even though such a move would not be legally binding or have any impact on President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
“And Mike Pence is gonna have to come through for us,” Trump said as the crowd jeered. “And if it doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country.”
Vice President Mike Pence became uncharacteristically angry on Wednesday during the siege on the Capitol, according to Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. “I've known Mike Pence forever,” Inhofe told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday night. “I've never seen Pence as angry as he was today. I had a long conversation with him. He said, ‘After all the things I've done for [Trump],’” Inhofe added.
Even while the siege was happening, Trump was focused on going after Pence once again on Twitter instead of urging his supporters to stop attacking Capitol Police officers and back away from storming the building.
Trump directed his disdain toward Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to do what Trump wanted him to do — illegally refuse to accept the final election results in his role as Senate president.
Later Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said on the Senate floor: “What happened today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”
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| Inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday |
Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did.
Edward B. Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State University, said, “What Trump is asking for is control of the outcome that will lead to him being declared the president. That is definitely not within Pence’s power.”
Mr. Pence has spent the past several days in a delicate dance, seeking at once to convey to the president that he does not have the authority to overturn the results of the election, while also placating the president to avoid a rift that could torpedo any hopes Mr. Pence has of running in 2024 as Mr. Trump’s loyal heir.
Mr. Trump has been cajoling Mr. Pence in public and private to find a way to use his role on Wednesday to give credence to his unfounded claims — rejected by the states and in scores of court cases and backed by no evidence — that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.
The president has told several people privately that he would rather lose with people thinking it was stolen from him than that he simply lost, according to people familiar with his remarks.
In the days immediately after the election on Nov. 3, Mr. Trump was in shock but understood that he had lost, advisers said. But the more time that has passed, and the more that he has been enabled by a small group of people who have fed his belief that there is a mechanism to wipe away Mr. Biden’s win, the more invested in trying to reverse the outcome Mr. Trump has become.
