WASHINGTON (AP) — A presidential tweet that some saw as a “call to arms.” An “unhinged” meeting in the White House. Violent extremists planning to storm the Capitol as President Donald Trump pushed lies about election fraud.
At its seventh hearing, the House Jan. 6 panel on Tuesday showed further evidence that Trump was told, repeatedly, that his claims of fraud were false — but that he continued to push them anyway. And at the same time, he turned to the widest possible audience on Twitter, calling his supporters, some of them violent, to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to not only protest but “be wild” as Congress certified President Joe Biden’s victory.
‘A CALL TO ACTION … A CALL TO ARMS’
A major focus of the hearing was Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet about a “big protest” at the coming joint session of Congress: “Be there, will be wild!”
Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Democratic member of the panel, said the tweet “served as a call to action and in some cases as a call to arms.” She said the president “called for backup” as he argued that Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans didn’t have enough courage to try to block Biden’s certification as he presided over the joint session.
The tweet “electrified and galvanized” Trump’s supporters, said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, another Democratic committee member, especially “the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other far-right racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight.”
"Anura brother (elder sibling), making a system change," reads a Sinhala-language Facebook post shared on April 27, 2026, referring to Dissanayake. The post includes an image that appears to show ...