Trump ‘wild’ rally tweet was a ‘call to arms’: January 6 committee

A committee member noted that the tweet “served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms, for many of President Trump’s most loyal supporters”

Right-wing extremists and supporters of Donald Trump staged the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol after a tweet from the former President seen as a “call to arms,” lawmakers said on Tuesday.

Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House select committee investigating the attack on Congress, said meanwhile that Mr. Trump had attempted recently to call a committee witness.

The witness, who was not identified, did not take the call from Mr. Trump and alerted their lawyer, who contacted the committee, Ms. Cheney said.

“This committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice,” she said.

During its seventh televised public hearing, the House committee examined the impact of a tweet that Mr. Trump sent on December 19 urging his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6 for a rally he promised would be “wild.”

The tweet was sent a little more than an hour after Mr. Trump met at the White House with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former general Mike Flynn, and Sidney Powell, another attorney, for a meeting which one White House aide described as “unhinged.”

“Donald Trump’s 1:42 a.m. tweet electrified and galvanized his supporters, especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government,” said committee member Jamie Raskin.