Donald Trump ordered to give evidence over deadly US Capitol riots

13 October 2022, 21:03 | Updated: 14 October 2022, 03:24

Donald Trump has been ordered to give evidence to a group of politicians investigating the attack on the US Capitol on January the 6th 2021.

It comes after a committee investigating the 2021 attack on the US Capitol voted to subpoena Mr Trump to give evidence.

The panel voted unanimously to compel the former president to appear.

"We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th's central player," said Republican Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chairwoman.

"We need to hear from him," chairman Bennie Thompson added.

"It is our obligation to seek Donald Trump's testimony."

Mr Trump is almost certain to fight the subpoena and decline to testify.

The subpoena - which comes more than a year after the committee began looking into the riots - is set to expire at the end of the congressional term in December.

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Protesters run riot through Capital Hill in unseen footage from Jan 6th 2021 uprising

In the committee's 10th public session, just weeks before the congressional mid-term elections, the panel summed up Mr Trump's "staggering betrayal" of his oath of office.

With vivid new details and evidence, including from the former president's Cabinet secretaries and US Secret Service, the panel showed Mr Trump was told repeatedly by those around him that the election was over yet he still orchestrated the far-reaching effort to stop Mr Biden from taking office.

Several former aides testified that Mr Trump said privately that he knew he had lost to Mr Biden.

The panel was shown video footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats hidden away in a secure location in the Capitol, begging for the National Guard to be called in during the siege.

Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer can be seen talking to governors in neighbouring Virginia and Maryland.

Later it showed Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and others in the party asking Mr Trump's acting attorney general for help.

"They're breaking the law in many different ways - quite frankly at the instigation of the president of the United States," Ms Pelosi is heard saying at one point.

"Do you believe this?" she exclaims.

The video comes from a documentary being produced by Ms Pelosi's daughter, sources said.

In never-before-seen Secret Service messages, the panel produced evidence that extremist groups provided the muscle in the fight for Mr Trump's presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force to Washington.

The Secret Service warned in a December 26 2020, email of a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to outnumber the police in a march in Washington on January 6.

"It felt like the calm before the storm," one Secret Service agent wrote in a group chat.

The House panel warned that the insurrection at the Capitol was not an isolated incident but a warning of the fragility of the nation's democracy in the post-Trump era.

"None of this is normal or acceptable or lawful in a republic," Ms Cheney declared.

"There is no defence that Donald Trump was duped or irrational. No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional republic, period."

Five people were killed and hundreds injured during the riots.

Shortly before it happened, Mr Trump gave a speech in which he repeated claims that he'd been denied a second term because of voter fraud.

Those claims have been debunked by election authorities.

The panel cannot bring legal charges against Mr Trump, but its series of hearings has been trying to establish his exact involvement.

Ms Cheney also said the committee had sufficient information to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department for multiple individuals.