Members of President Donald Trump’s failed election campaign were involved in organizing the attack on the Washington Capitol, an Associated Press investigation said that contradicts allegations that it was a spontaneous move by the president’s followers.
A pro-Trump nonprofit called Women for America First staged the “Save America Rally” event on Jan. 6 in the Ellipse, a federal state property near the White House. But an appendix to the National Park Service document authorizing the meeting lists several people who received thousands of dollars for their work a few days earlier in Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other people scheduled to attend the meeting, have ties close to the White House.
Since the day it entered the Capitol, many of these characters have tried to distance themselves from what happened.
Prior to the attack, Trump spoke to those gathered there and called on them to go to the Capitol, stating, “They will never save the country with weakness. They have to show strength, they have to be strong ”.
A week after the attack on Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives approved Trump’s impeachment, making Trump the only US president to have been censored twice by the legislature.
But the ramifications could extend beyond Trump, who must leave the White House on Wednesday to make way for Democrat Joe Biden, the election winner. Trump has refused to admit defeat and launched unfounded allegations of fraud.
Women for America First, which had requested and received approval for the meeting, did not respond to reports asking who funded the event – which was attended by tens of thousands of people – and why campaign personnel were present.