Rep. Jamie Raskin says Donald Trump ‘lashing out’ at Jan. 6 Committee shows guilt

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said in an interview this weekend that former president Donald Trump’s reaction to the revelations from the public hearings for the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol shows Trump’s guilt for his role in the attack.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Raskin, who sits on the Committee, said the former president’s scathing verbal attacks on the panel and its findings are further proof of Trump’s guilt. “Yeah, he’s essentially saying, ‘Yeah I did it and I’ll do it again,’” Raskin said on Sunday.

After several hearing sessions were broadcast publicly in the last few days, Trump lashed out in speeches, eviscerating the Committee and its witnesses. Speaking at a meeting of Christian conservatives on Friday, Trump responded to claims during the hearings that Trump had called former vice president Mike Pence a wimp for refusing to try and overturn the 2020 presidential election results. 

Denying that he ever called Pence a wimp, Trump maintained the former vice president “did not have the courage to act,” further solidifying the testimony from witnesses that Trump waged a persistent campaign against Pence at the time to convince him to somehow change the election results, in spite of being told repeatedly that Pence did not have that power. 

Raskin told NBC the fear of a repeat attack is the reason the panel’s investigation is vital, saying, “… if you allow impunity for attempts at unconstitutional seizures of power — which is what a coup is — then you’re inviting it again in the future. And to be a strong, self-sustaining, self-respecting democracy, we can’t allow people to decide that they are above the law and that they are more important than our constitutional processes.”