Lessons from Jan. 6 hearings

The hearings of the House of Representatives Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have from an evidentiary point of view produced material which should convince a reasonable person that:

• Trump attempted to convince Americans that significant levels of fraud had stolen the election from him despite knowing that he had, in fact, lost the 2020 election;
• Trump planned to remove and replace the attorney general and other justice department officials as part of an effort to pressure the department to spread his allegations of election fraud;
• Trump worked to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on Jan. 6;
• Trump tried to convince state lawmakers and election officials to alter election results;
• Trump's lawyers and other members of the president's team directed Republicans in multiple states to produce fake electoral slates and send those slates to Congress and the National Archives;
• Trump assembled a destructive group of rioters in Washington and sent them to the U.S. Capitol;
• Trump ignored requests to speak out against the violence in real time and failed to act quickly to stop the attack and tell his supporters to depart the Capitol.

In testimony before the Committee, former Federal Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, whose legal philosophy was very similar to Former Supreme Court Judge Anthony Scalia, said, "Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy."

Therefore, Trump must never again hold any federal or state office.

JOHN PIEPHO, Cape Girardeau