トランプ氏、選挙結果反転へ圧力 拒否したペンス氏に命の危険 議会襲撃で元側近ら証言

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】昨年１月の米連邦議会襲撃を調査する下院特別委員会は１６日、３回目の公聴会を開いた。調査委員や元側近は、ドナルド・トランプ前大統領は２０２０年大統領選の結果を覆すため違法な試みに賛同するようマイク・ペンス前副大統領に圧力をかけたが、受け入れられなかったため支持者を扇動し、結果的にペンス氏の命を危険にさらしたと証言した。（写真はドナルド・トランプ大統領とマイク・ペンス副大統領〈肩書きは当時〉）
　公聴会では、トランプ氏が大統領の座に居座り続けるための試みの要として、ペンス氏に賛同するよう「執拗（しつよう）に」圧力をかけていた様子が明らかになった。
　特別委のベニー・トンプソン委員長は「トランプ氏はペンス氏に対し、歴代の副大統領がしなかったことをするよう求めた。つまりペンス氏が選挙結果の受け入れを拒否し、トランプ氏の勝利を宣言するか、もしくは各州に差し戻して再集計させることを望んだ」と説明。「ペンス氏はノーと答えた。圧力に耐えた。彼にはそれが違法で、過ちであることが分かっていた」と語った。
　リズ・チェイニー副委員長は、この「無意味な」試みを主導したのはトランプ氏の弁護士ジョン・イーストマン氏だと指摘。同氏はそうした試みが違法であることを知りながら、積極的に進めたと述べた。
　特別委が公開したペンス氏の首席顧問グレッグ・ジェイコブ氏の証言によると、イーストマン氏は議会襲撃の２日前、トランプ氏を前にして、試みが連邦法に違反することを認めていた。
　トランプ氏の長女イヴァンカ氏は公聴会で流された映像の中で、１月６日の襲撃当日、一家がホワイトハウスの大統領執務室にいた時、トランプ氏は電話でペンス氏と「激しい」会話を交わしたと振り返った。その語調はそれまで聞いたものとは「異なるもの」だったという。
　トランプ氏は、同日開いた「選挙を盗むのをやめろ（Ｓｔｏｐ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔｅａｌ）」集会で演説し、ペンス氏に何度も言及。支持者に議事堂に向けて行進し、「死に物狂いで戦え」と呼び掛けた。
　演説草稿にはペンス氏の名前はなかったが、トランプ氏は演説中にアドリブでペンス氏を名指しして非難。特別委のピート・アギラル委員は、この言動が議会襲撃へと駆り立て、ペンス氏を危険にさらす結果につながったと語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/06/17-12:55）

Donald Trump pressured his vice president to go along with an illegal plot to overturn the 2020 US election and whipped up a mob that put his deputy's life in danger when he refused, congressional investigators and former administration aides said Thursday.
The House committee probing last year's attack on the US Capitol detailed how the former president berated Mike Pence for not going along with the scheme both knew to be unlawful -- even after being told violence had erupted as Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden's victory.
At its third public hearing into the January 6, 2021 insurrection, the panel detailed a relentless pressure campaign by Trump on Pence -- as cornerstone of a criminal conspiracy to keep the defeated president in power.
Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done: the former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again, panel chairman Bennie Thompson said.
Mike Pence said no. He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong.
Trump's lawyer John Eastman was the architect of the nonsensical plot, said committee vice-chair Liz Cheney, pushing the scheme aggressively despite knowing it to be unlawful.
The committee showed testimony from Pence's general counsel Greg Jacob saying Eastman admitted in front of Trump two days before the riot that his plan would violate federal law.
- 'In danger' -
A desperate Trump had turned to Pence for help after dozens of legal challenges against the election were dismissed in courts across the land.
The defeated president used rally speeches and Twitter to exert intense pressure on his deputy to abuse his position as president of the Senate and reject the election results.
Members of Trump's family were in the Oval Office on January 6 when Trump had a heated phone call with Pence, according to first daughter Ivanka Trump's deposition, aired at the hearing.
She said Trump took a different tone than she'd heard him use before.
Nicholas Luna, a former assistant to Trump, recalled in his own deposition: I remember hearing the word 'wimp.'
During his Stop the Steal rally later that day, Trump referenced Pence numerous times as he told his supporters to march on the Capitol and fight like hell.
Trump's original speech didn't mention Pence but he ad-libbed to berate his vice president in a move Democratic committee member Pete Aguilar said helped incite the insurrection and the threats against Pence.
But Pence resisted, releasing a letter to Congress saying the vice president had no unilateral authority to overturn election counts.
Aguilar said an informant from the neofascist Proud Boys told the FBI the group would have killed Pence given the opportunity.
The California congressman said the mob storming the Capitol came within 40 feet (12 meters) of Pence and to make no mistake about the fact that the vice president's life was in danger.
- 'Pretty jarring' -
Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows told him about the violence erupting at the Capitol but the president tweeted anyway that Pence did not have the courage to overturn the election, aides told investigators in videotaped depositions.
Immediately after the tweet, the crowds at the Capitol surged forward, the committee said.
The mob threatened to hang Pence for failing to cooperate as they stormed the Capitol, even erecting a gallows in front of the building.
What the former president was willing to sacrifice -- potentially the vice president -- in order to stay in power is pretty jarring, Aguilar said.
The panel aired a video clip of a rioter saying he would drag people through the streets if Pence refused to overturn the election.
The committee also heard from retired federal judge J Michael Luttig, who testified that the United States would have been plunged into a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis had Pence folded under Trump's pressure.
Luttig, a renowned conservative legal scholar, had advised Pence at the time that his role in overseeing the ratification of the election was purely ceremonial -- and that he had no power to oppose the result.
There was no basis in the constitution or the laws of the United States at all for the theory espoused by Mr Eastman. At all. None, Luttig said.
Trump reacted to the hearing by demanding that he receive equal time on the airwaves to lay out his bogus theory that the election was stolen -- but opponents pointed out that he has not taken up the committee's invitation to testify.