Trump tweet incited attack, says inquiry

A Trump tweet mobilised far-right extremists to converge on Washington DC on the day of last year’s Capitol riot, a congressional inquiry has heard.

He posted the tweet after “the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency”, said a lawmaker on the panel.

The then-president forged ahead with a rallying call to supporters even though aides repeatedly told him he had fairly lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

The committee accuses Mr Trump of an attempted coup to remain in power.

Supporters of Donald Trump violently stormed Congress on 6 January 2021 as lawmakers met to certify Mr Biden’s victory.

Hours before the hearing, Mr Trump, a Republican, dismissed the Democratic-led House of Representatives panel on his Truth Social social media platform as “Political Hacks and Thugs” perpetrating a “HOAX”.

The select committee has been conducting a nearly year-long investigation into the attack on the Capitol. Tuesday’s hearing, the seventh since June, focused on a tweet Mr Trump sent in the early hours of 19 December 2020, and a stormy six-hour meeting at the White House that preceded the post.

Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat on the committee, said the meeting had been described as “unhinged” and “not normal”.

Trump had already been told by White House aides and figures within his own campaign team that he should concede to Mr Biden, a Democrat.

However, on 18 December he welcomed to the White House some informal advisers who had been urging him to pursue his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

The group - which included his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn - had suggested Mr Trump order the military to seize state voting machines.