Former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric “killed someone” on January 6, 2021, during the violent Capitol insurrection, a former campaign manager told another close Trump ally.
Brad Parscale ran the successful Trump campaign in 2016. He was also a part of the losing 2020 campaign.
Katrin Pierson was a former campaign spokesperson. She helped to organize the Trump rally near the White House on January 6, at which Trump addressed his supporters.
Texts between Parscale and Pierson were on display at the most recent House Select Committee that is investigating the deadly insurrection.
This week’s hearing on Tuesday focused on how after plans to seize voting machines amounted to nothing, Trump instead drummed up supporters to march on Congress. He did so by using Twitter, and by making a speech on Jan. 6.
Several deaths were linked to the riot.
After Trump’s rally, supporters marched to the Capitol and stormed Congress. A Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by law enforcement in the Capitol. Others died as the mob stormed Congress, searching for lawmakers, including then vice-president Mike Pence, who supporters had chanted to hang at the rally.
It was all in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. Two police officers subsequently killed themselves, and two more officers killed themselves after the report was released.
Parscale told Pierson:
“This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country. A sitting president asking for civil war… I feel guilty for helping him win” (referring to the 2016 election.)
Pierson replied: “You did what you felt right at the time and therefore it was right.”
Pascals replied: “Yeah, but a woman is dead.”
“You do realize this was going to happen,” Pierson said.
Parscale: “Yeah, if I was trump, and I knew my rhetoric killed someone…”
Pierson said it was not the rhetoric, to which Parscale said simply “Katrina. Yes, it was.”
Lawmakers accused Trump of inciting a mob of followers to attack the Capitol, saying it was a last-ditch bid to remain in power. They said this was fueled by a chaotic meeting with his top supporters.
The committee also showed evidence that aides and outside agitators knew before the riot that Trump would urge thousands of his own supporters to storm up to the Capitol that day.
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