Storm on the Capitol
What did he discuss with Donald Trump? Fox News star presenter is to testify voluntarily in front of the commission
Donald Trump and Sean Hannity (left): two who get on really well with each other
© Ethan Miller / Getty Images / AFP
Did Donald Trump actually urge his supporters to storm the Capitol directly? Someone who might know this is Trump’s close confidante Sean Hannity. Now congressmen have asked the Fox moderator to give a voluntary testimony.
The committee of inquiry into the storming of the US Capitol has asked the conservative TV presenter Sean Hannity, a confidante of ex-President Donald Trump, to give a voluntary testimony. The moderator of the broadcaster Fox News had communicated around the events a year ago directly with Trump, his then chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top officials, which made him a witness, said the chairman of the body, the Democratic MP Bennie Thompson on Tuesday , and his Republican vice-president, Liz Cheney.
The committee of inquiry has “immense respect” for the freedom of the press, it said. The voluntary and thematically narrowly limited survey should not be about Hannity’s journalistic work, but about his political contacts with the White House at the time. In the letter to Hannity, the committee also quoted several SMS messages from the well-known television man, which the committee had received through the disclosure of documents and communication content by third parties – for example through information from Meadows.
Hannity was considered a close confidante of Trump. According to the US media, Trump spoke to the moderator on the phone frequently. Hannity also appeared once at a campaign rally with the Republican.
The attack on the Capitol marks the first anniversary on Thursday. Supporters of Trump had stormed the seat of the US Congress in Washington to prevent the confirmation of the election victory of the Democrat Joe Biden. Five people were killed in the attack. The attack on the heart of US democracy, in which many MPs and senators feared for their lives, shook the country.
Biden wants to comment on the events of the past year in the Capitol on Thursday, and several commemorative events are also planned in parliament. Trump, in turn, had announced that he would hold a press conference on the anniversary in Florida – but canceled it on Tuesday. Instead, Trump said he would speak about many of the important topics at his next major event on January 15 in Arizona.