In a heated, “unhinged” dispute, Donald Trump fought objections from his White House lawyers to a plan, eventually discarded, to seize states’ voting machines and then, in a last ditch effort to salvage his presidency, summoned supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol for what turned into the deadly riot, the House Jan. 6 committee revealed Tuesday. In another disclosure, raising the question of witness tampering, the panel’s vice-chair said Trump himself had tried to contact a person who was talking to the committee about potential testimony. And still more new information revealed that Trump was so intent on making a showing at the Capitol that his aides secretly planned for a second rally stage there on the day of the attack. Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s vice chair, said it had notified the Justice Department that Trump had contacted the witness who has yet to appear in public. “We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” said Cheney, a Wyoming Republican. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley declined to comment when asked if the department was investigating the call. The hearing Tuesday was the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee, which is portraying the defeated Trump as “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat. It all led to his “be there, will be wild” tweet summoning supporters to Washington. The panel delved into a critical three weeks of secret planning in the run-up to the Capitol attack and heard remorseful testimony from an Ohio father who believed Trump’s election lies and answered the defeated president’s tweet to come to Washington. The panel also heard form a former spokesman for the extremist Oath Keepers who warned of the far-right group’s ability for violence. Read: 1/6 panel: Told repeatedly he lost, Trump refused to go “I think we need to quit mincing words about just talk. ... What it was going to be was an armed revolution,” said Jason Van Tatenhove. “I mean, people died that day.” Tuesday’s session focused in part on December 2020, a time when many Republicans were moving on from the November election Trump lost to Joe Biden. Testimony brought out details of a late night Dec. 18 meeting at the White House with Trump’s private lawyers suggesting he order the U.S. military to seize state voting machines in an unprecedented effort to pursue his false claims of voter fraud . The panel featured new video testimony from Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel at the time, recalling the explosive meeting when Trump’s outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize the states’ voting machines — a “terrible idea,” Cipollone said. “That’s not how we do things in the United States,” he testified. Another former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, called the meeting “unhinged” in separate video testimony. Cipollone and other White House officials scrambled to intervene as Trump met late into the night with attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, retired national security aide Michael Flynn and the former head of the online retail company Overstock. It erupted in shouting and screaming, another aide testified. “Where is the evidence?” Cipollone demanded of the claims of voter fraud. “What they were proposing, I thought, was nuts,” testified another official, Eric Herschmann. But Trump was intrigued and essentially told his White House lawyers that at least Powell and outside allies were trying to do something. As night turned to morning, Trump tweeted his call for supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, when Congress would be tallying the Electoral College results. “Be there. Will be wild,” Trump wrote. Instantly, the extremists reacted. The panel showed graphic and violent text messages and played videos of right-wing figures, including Alex Jones, and others vowing that Jan. 6 would be the day they would fight for the president. Messages beaming across the far-right forums laid out plans for the big day that they said Trump was asking for in Washington. It would be a “red wedding,” said one, a reference to a mass killing in “Game of Thrones.” “Bring handcuffs.” Several members of the U.S. Capitol Police who fought the mob that day sat stone-faced in the front row of the committee room. Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups are now facing rare sedition charges over the siege. Nine people died the day of the attack and in its aftermath. “This tweet served as a call to action -- and in some cases a call to arms,” said one panel member, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla. The committee revealed new details about what happened next, as planning was underway for Trump’s big rally on the Ellipse outside the White House, and aides scrambled to secretly set up a second stage outside the Capitol complex across the street from the Supreme Court. In a Jan. 4 text message from rally organizer Kylie Kremer to Trump ally Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, Kremer explains: “This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the Ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol.” Kremer warns that if the information gets out, others will try to sabotage the plans and the organizer “will be in trouble” with the National Park Service and other federal agencies. ”But POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly,’” Kremer wrote. On the morning of Jan. 5, Trump ally Ali Alexander sent a similar text to a conservative journalist saying: “Ellipse then US capitol. Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech but we will see.” And the panel showed a draft tweet from Trump, which was obtained from the National Archives and never sent, calling on supporters to arrive early for the rally and expect crowds. “March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!” the draft Trump tweet said. Committee member Murphy said, “This was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy.” Tuesday’s was the only hearing this week, as new details emerge. An expected prime-time hearing has been rescheduled for July 21. Cheney said the Trump team is shifting its strategy in dealings with the committee, and is now trying to shield the former president from blame, suggesting he received bad advice from “crazy” advisers or was otherwise “incapable” of understanding some of the details of the situation. Trump is “not an impressionable child,” Cheney said. “Just like everyone else in our country he is responsible for his own actions.” The panel also heard from a sorrowful Stephen Ayres, the Ohio father who said he got caught up in social media after the election, but has since lost his job and his house after joining the mob at the Capitol. He pleaded guilty last month to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building. When Trump summoned supporters to Washington, “I felt like I needed to be down here,” he testified. Ayers hugged and apologized to the police officers after the hearing. “The problem of politicians whipping up mob violence to destroy fair elections is the oldest domestic enemy of constitutional democracy,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

The House Jan. 6 committee has heard dramatic testimony from former White House aides and others about Donald Trump’s relentless efforts to overturn the 2020 election — and his encouragement of supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol bent on achieving his goal. But the big question remains: Was any of it criminal? Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide in Trump’s White House, added fresh urgency to the question Tuesday as she delivered explosive new testimony about Trump’s actions before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. She said Trump was informed that there were armed protesters at his morning rally before he stood onstage and told them to “fight like hell” at the Capitol. Then he argued with his security detail, she said, trying to go with the crowd. Trump’s aides knew there could be legal consequences. Hutchinson said White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told her “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump had gone to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying President Joe Biden’s win. Cipollone said Trump could be exposing himself to obstruction of justice charges or defrauding the electoral count, she said. On the heels of Hutchinson’s public testimony, the House committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena for Cipollone, saying in a letter that while he had provided an “informal interview” on April 13, his refusal to provide on-the-record testimony made their subpoena necessary. The Justice Department has recently expanded its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, targeting some of Trump’s allies in Washington and around the country who participated in his scheme to invalidate Biden’s victory. But prosecutors have not indicated whether they will bring a case against the former president. A look at potential crimes, and what Congress and the Justice Department might do: WHAT HAS THE EVIDENCE SHOWN? Witnesses have testified that Trump was repeatedly advised by campaign aides and top government officials that he had lost the election to Biden and that his claims of widespread voter fraud were divorced from reality. Yet he pressed ahead, shouting the false allegations that culminated in the riot at the Capitol. Still in office, he leaned on the Justice Department to get government law enforcement officials to take up his cause. He pressured the states — asking Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” votes, for example — and Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the joint session of Congress that day. Read: 1/6 panel: Told repeatedly he lost, Trump refused to go Hutchinson testified that Trump said he wanted metal detectors removed from the area near where he was delivering a speech on Jan. 6. He said it did not matter to him if the supporters, who were to head to the Capitol, were carrying weapons because they were not there to hurt him. Trump took to his social media website on Tuesday to deny much of Hutchinson’s testimony, which was based on both her own interactions with Trump and information from others who talked to him that day. WERE ANY CRIMES COMMITTED BY TRUMP? He hasn’t been charged, but legal experts believe the testimony, presuming it can be corroborated, does give prosecutors avenues to pursue. Federal law, for instance, makes it a crime to incite, organize, encourage or promote a riot like the one that enveloped the Capitol. But that’s a high bar for prosecutors to clear. Trump’s exhortation to “fight like hell” could be construed as a more general call to action. He was acquitted by the Senate of an incitement charge in his impeachment trial after the insurrection. Still, a federal judge in February, in rejecting a request by Trump to toss out conspiracy lawsuits from Democratic lawmakers and two Capitol Police officers, said Trump’s words “plausibly” led to the riot. And Hutchinson’s first-hand account of hearing Trump complain about metal detectors suggested he was aware that some supporters were capable of violence but brushed it off. READ: Biden suspends rules limiting immigrant arrest, deportation A more likely option for prosecution, said Jimmy Gurule, a former federal prosecutor who is a Notre Dame law professor, would be to pursue a case that Trump conspired to defraud the United States through his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the election and to obstruct the congressional proceeding at which the results were to be certified. That broad statute was cited by the House committee when it asserted in a March legal filing that it had evidence Trump had engaged in a “criminal conspiracy.” “He was perpetuating the big lie. To what end? To remain in power and to prevent Biden from assuming the reins of the presidency,” Gurule said. “It was fraud on the American people.” Some legal experts say it doesn’t matter if Trump believed the election was stolen or not. But others say much would depend on the president’s intent and state of mind and whether he supported activities he knew to be unlawful. Though witnesses have testified under oath about telling Trump he had lost, it would be hard to prove what he actually believed. “I can confidently say that any serious felony-level federal crime that is going to be charged here is going to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal intent,” said Samuel Buell, a Duke University criminal law professor. “Any argument that he doesn’t believe that he’s doing something that is against the law ... is still an argument he can make and still something the prosecutor has to prove.” WILL THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ACTUALLY BRING A CASE? That’s anyone’s guess. The congressional hearings have produced eye-popping testimony, but the one-sided presentation of facts, with no opportunities for cross-examination of witnesses, is a far cry from the burden of proof and trial constraints in criminal prosecutions. One of the more striking accounts from Hutchinson — that Trump, irate at being driven to the White House instead of the Capitol on Jan. 6, tried to grab at the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle — was something she heard second-hand, likely inadmissible before a jury. There are clear signs prosecutors are moving beyond the rioters, serving subpoenas last week on multiple state Republican Party chairmen in examining a scheme by Trump allies to create slates of alternate, or fake, electors in an attempt to subvert the vote. Attorney General Merrick Garland, a former federal appeals court judge and circumspect by nature, has pledged the Justice Department will hold accountable wrongdoers “at any level” — more than 800 people have been charged so far — but he has not said one way or another that he’s considering a case against Trump. Some Democrats in Congress have been pressing Garland to act. The Jan. 6 committee itself could make a formal criminal referral based on its more than 1,000 interviews. The Justice Department wouldn’t have to act on such a referral, but it has been pressuring the panel to hand over its interview transcripts as it weighs making its own case. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. There’ no legal bar to prosecuting Trump as a former president. Since he is no longer in office, Justice Department legal opinions that shielded him from criminal charges no longer apply. But while it may be hard for the department to turn away from a case if the cumulative evidence is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, there are other factors to consider. No former president has ever been prosecuted by the Justice Department, and a criminal case against the already polarizing former president risks dividing the country even further. Trump has also been laying the groundwork for another presidential run, and the department may want to avoid any perception that it is targeting a political adversary of Biden in the heat of an election. “It will be,” Buell said, “one of the hardest issues that any U.S. attorney general has ever confronted.”

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol laid the blame firmly on Donald Trump Thursday night, saying the assault was hardly spontaneous but an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president's effort to overturn the 2020 election. With a never-before-seen 12-minute video of extremist groups leading the deadly siege and startling testimony from Trump's most inner circle, the 1/6 committee provided gripping detail in contending that Trump’s repeated lies about election fraud and his public effort to stop Joe Biden's victory led to the attack and imperiled American democracy “Democracy remains in danger,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the panel, during the hearing, timed for prime time to reach as many Americans as possible. "Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government,” Thompson said. "The violence was no accident.” Also read: Trump set to undergo questioning in July in NY civil probe The hearings may not change Americans' views on the Capitol attack, but the panel's investigation is intended to stand as its public record. Ahead of this fall's midterm elections, and with Trump considering another White House run, the committee's final report aims to account for the most violent attack on the Capitol since 1814, and to ensure such an attack never happens again. Testimony showed Thursday how Trump desperately clung to his own false claims of election fraud, beckoning supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 when Congress would certify the results, despite those around him insisting Biden had won the election. In a previously unseen video clip, the panel played a quip from former Attorney General Bill Barr who testified that he told Trump the claims of a rigged election were “bull——.” In another, the former president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, testified to the committee that she respected Barr's view that there was no election fraud. “I accepted what he said.” Others showed leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys preparing to storm the Capitol to stand up for Trump. One rioter after another told the committee they came to the Capitol because Trump asked them to. “President Trump summoned a violent mob,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel's vice chair who took the lead for much of the hearing. “When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union — or worse, causes a constitutional crisis — we're in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.” There was an audible gasp in the hearing room when Cheney read an account that said when Trump was told the Capitol mob was chanting for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged for refusing to block the election results. Trump responded that maybe they were right, that he “deserves it.” At another point it was disclosed that Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a leader of efforts to object to the election results, had sought a pardon from Trump, which would protect him from prosecution. When asked about the White House lawyers threatening to resign over what was happening in the administration, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner scoffed they were “whining.” Police officers who had fought off the mob consoled one another as they sat in the committee room reliving the violence they faced on Jan. 6. Officer Harry Dunn teared up as bodycam footage showed rioters bludgeoning his colleagues with flagpoles and baseball bats. In wrenching testimony U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards told the panel that she slipped in other people’s blood as rioters pushed past her into the Capitol. She suffered brain injuries in the melee. “It was carnage. It was chaos,” she said. Also read: Capitol rioters' social media posts influencing sentencings The riot left more than 100 police officers injured, many beaten and bloodied, as the crowd of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol. At least nine people who were there died during and after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police. Biden, in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, said many viewers were “going to be seeing for the first time a lot of the detail that occurred.” Trump, unapologetic, dismissed the investigation anew — and even declared on social media that Jan. 6 “represented the greatest movement in the history of our country.” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tweeted: “All. Old. News.” Emotions are still raw at the Capitol, and security was tight. Law enforcement officials are reporting a spike in violent threats against members of Congress. Against this backdrop, the committee was speaking to a divided America. Most TV networks carried the hearing live, but Fox News Channel did not. The committee chairman, civil rights leader Thompson, opened the hearing with the sweep of American history. saying he heard in those denying the stark reality of Jan. 6 his own experience growing up in a time and place “where people justified the action of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and lynching.” Republican Rep. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, outlined what the committee has learned about the events leading up to that brisk January day when Trump sent his supporters to Congress to “fight like hell” for his presidency. Among those testifying was documentary maker Nick Quested, who filmed the Proud Boys storming the Capitol — along with a pivotal meeting between the group's then-chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, the night before in nearby parking garage. Quested said the Proud Boys later went to get tacos. Court documents show that members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were discussing as early as November a need to fight to keep Trump in office. Leaders both groups and some members have since been indicted on rare sedition charges over the military-style attack. In the weeks ahead, the panel is expected to detail Trump’s public campaign to “Stop the Steal” and the private pressure he put on the Justice Department to reverse his election loss — despite dozens of failed court cases attesting there was no fraud on a scale that could have tipped the results in his favor. The panel faced obstacles from its start. Republicans blocked the formation of an independent body that could have investigated the Jan. 6 assault the way the 9/11 Commission probed the 2001 terror attack. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ushered the creation of the 1/6 panel through Congress and rejected Republican-appointed lawmakers who had voted on Jan. 6 against certifying the election results, eventually naming seven Democrats and two Republicans. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has been caught up in the probe and has defied the committee's subpoena for an interview, called the panel a “scam.” In the audience were several lawmakers who were trapped together in the House gallery during the attack. “We want to remind people, we were there, we saw what happened,” said Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. ”We know how close we came to the first non-peaceful transition of power in this country.” The Justice Department has arrested and charged more than 800 people for the violence that day, the biggest dragnet in its history.

Two men identified as members of the Proud Boys have been indicted on federal conspiracy and other charges in the Capitol riot as prosecutors raise the stakes in some of the slew of cases stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Joe Biden swears the oath of office at noon Wednesday to become the 46th president of the United States, taking the helm of a deeply divided nation and inheriting a confluence of crises arguably greater than any faced by his predecessors.

Small groups of right-wing protesters — some of them carrying rifles — gathered outside heavily fortified statehouses around the country Sunday, outnumbered by National Guard troops and police brought in to prevent a repeat of the violence that erupted at the U.S. Capitol. As darkness fell, there were no reports of any clashes.             

War-like imagery has begun spreading in Republican circles after the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, with some elected officials and party leaders rejecting pleas to tone down rhetoric calling for a second civil war.

Federal prosecutors who initially said there was “strong evidence” the pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week aimed to “capture and assassinate elected officials” backed away from the allegation after the head of the investigation cautioned Friday that the probe is still in its early stages and there was no “direct evidence” of such intentions.

President Donald Trump has been impeached by the House days before leaving office, becoming the first American president to be impeached twice.

His place in the history books rewritten, President Donald Trump endured his second impeachment largely alone and silent.