Trump expressed support for hanging Pence during Capitol riot, Jan. 6

Fresno CA

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The Jan. 6 select committee has heard testimony indicating that then-President Donald Trump — after rioters who swarmed the Capitol began chanting “hang Mike Pence” — expressed support for hanging his vice president, according to three people familiar with the matter. The White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, was in the dining room off the Oval Office with Trump at one point during last year’s Capitol attack, the committee has been told. Meadows then left the dining room and informed other people nearby that Trump had signaled a positive view of the prospect of hanging the vice president, the panel heard. Meadows’ account as it was described to the committee came after some members of the mob converging on the Capitol had broken into chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” Those chants were a reaction to Pence’s decision to accept electoral votes that indicated Joe Biden had won the presidency. The testimony about Meadows’ account represents some of the committee’s most detailed allegations about Trump’s state of mind as a mob of his supporters smashed through police lines and disrupted the counting of electoral votes that would confirm Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The panel has been meticulously reconstructing Trump’s actions, comments and movements that day, with a particular focus on his activity as the violence escalated. Trump did not speak to Pence during the riot, even after learning that the Secret Service had ushered him to a secure location under the Capitol plaza. Their last call came at 11:20 that morning, when Trump urged Pence to refuse to count Biden’s electors and Pence subsequently declined. Trump publicly expressed outrage at Pence during the riot via a 2:24 p.m. tweet. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” he said, igniting a fresh wave of anger among the crowd that had breached the Capitol. POLITICO could not independently verify the veracity of the claim regarding Meadows’ comments.