Five Republicans from the US House of Representatives asked then-President Donald Trump to pardon their role in the plan to alter the results of the 2020 election. That became clear Thursday during a public hearing of the House of Representatives committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
They are Moe Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Bigs, Louie Gommert and Scott Perry. The five Republicans attended a meeting with the president in December 2020 to discuss options for changing the election results. They asked about the possibility of a so-called preemptive pardon, which the president can grant before imposing a sentence or even convicting someone of a crime.
Preventive pardons are not uncommon in the United States, but they’ve happened before. Gerald Ford gave one to his predecessor Richard Nixon in 1974. He had resigned over the Watergate scandal, but no charges had been brought against him to date.
Sean Penn at the hearing
Actor Sean Penn was featured at Thursday’s public hearing. He said he was only there for “surveillance as a citizen,” CNN reports. “I think we all saw what happened on that 6th of January, and now we’ll see if justice will be served,” said Ben, 61, who sat next to several police officers.
During hearings in Washington, the committee is trying to establish that former President Donald Trump played a major role in the storming of the Capitol by his supporters. He believed that the election results were incorrect and that incumbent President Joe Biden had been incorrectly elected as the new president. However, the Republican has not provided any evidence for these allegations. Also, all legal protests by Trump’s lawyer team since the election have been dismissed by various courts.
According to the current investigative committee, Trump incited his followers to go to the Capitol and then did nothing for hours to solve the chaos that followed. Trump is also said to have contributed to a plan to alter the January 6 election results.
The actor is known for his years of struggle for human rights and is not shy about regularly criticizing politicians. In February he was still in Ukraine to shoot a documentary Where the people will tell their truth about the Russian invasion.
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