Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Hallie Jackson Reports” during the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, then President Donald Trump “thought that he would enter like Mussolini being carried on the shoulders of his supporters.”
Discussing former Secret Service agent Bobby Engel’s testimony before the January 6 Committee, Raskin said, “Well, I can’t enter into specific details about this testimony. But I will tell you that from everything we’ve learned, we know that the former president was incensed and enraged when he was not being taken to the Capitol. He was adamant that he be able to join the mob and approach and enter the Capitol with them.”
He continued, “Everything that we’ve heard tells me that the former president was incensed. He was enraged. There was conflict about whether or not he would go to the Capitol, and he was adamant that he be able to do that. I imagine that he thought that he would enter like Mussolini being carried on the shoulders of his supporters and enter the Capitol, and at that point, if they could either get Mike Pence to do his will, or substitute someone else, then he would have been made president either directly in the Joint Session, by somebody calling it that way, or through a so-called contingent election in the House of Representatives under the 12th Amendment, where the House would have been voting not on the on the basis of one member vote but one state, one vote. They thought that would be a perfect way to seize the presidency because the GOP was in control of 27 state delegations and the Democrats have 22, and one Pennsylvania was split down the middle. So they had a couple of different scenarios about how it would ensue.”
Raskin concluded, “Donald Trump really went to bed the night before on the evening of January 5, believing that he was going to be staying in office for another four years. And he believed that through the day.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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