WATCH: Rep. Thompson says Jan. 6 hearings have shown ‘inner workings’ of a political coup

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., gave a closing statement on June 23 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public.

The committee chairman said former President Donald Trump’s repeated election fraud claims were lies.

“Those who say the election was affected by widespread voter fraud are lying,” he said. “They were lying in 2020. They were lying in 2021. Indeed they are lying today.”

Thompson said the former Justice Department officials who testified at the June 23 hearing detailed Trump’s attempt to pressure the enforcement arm of the federal government to support his attempts at overturning the outcome of the 2020 election.

“He hoped law enforcement officials would give the appearance of legitimacy to his lies, so he and his allies had some veneer of credibility when they told the country that the election was stolen,” he said.

Thompson said the committee’s ongoing hearings have so far shown the “inner workings of what was essentially a political coup. An attempt to use the powers of the government from the local level, all the way up, to overturn the results of the election.”

The hearing, the fifth of several planned by the Jan. 6 committee, focused on Trump’s pressure on the Department of Justice to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.

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