Latest hearing of US Capitol riot panel to look at Trump pressure on states to flip vote

Lawmakers investigating the January 2021 assault on the US Capitol are due to focus at a hearing today on the pressure that former US president Donald Trump mounted on state officials to overturn the 2020 election.

The presentation launches a third week of summer hearings in which the panel has set out its initial findings that Trump led a multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the insurrection in Washington.

Committee aides say they have evidence that Trump and his allies were personally involved in pushing Republican-controlled legislatures to flip the results in several swing states, away from Joe Biden and into Trump’s column.

The panel will hear from several top Republican state officials who found themselves cajoled by the Trump campaign to thwart the will of millions of voters based on bogus claims of election fraud.

“Donald Trump knew that there was no widespread fraud — he knew that those claims were baseless, he knew that the numbers simply weren’t there to potentially overturn the election — and he continued to drive these campaigns anyway,” a committee aide says.

“He knew they were false and it became increasingly clear that this pressure campaign could lead to violence, and he continued to do it anyway.”