Trump 'detached from reality' of defeat, panel hears

WASHINGTON－Donald Trump's closest advisers, top government officials and even his family were dismantling his claims of 2020 election fraud ahead of the Jan 6 assault on the US Capitol last year. But the defeated president seemed "detached from reality" and kept clinging to outlandish theories to stay in power, the committee investigating the Capitol attack was told on Monday.

With gripping testimony, the panel was laying out in step-by-step fashion how Trump ignored his own campaign team's data as one state after another flipped to Joe Biden, and instead latched on to conspiracy theories, court cases and his own declarations of victory rather than having to admit defeat.

Trump's "big lie" of election fraud escalated and transformed into marching orders that summoned supporters to Washington and then sent them to the Capitol on Jan 6,2021, to block Biden's victory.

"He's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff," former attorney general William Barr testified.

Barr called the voting fraud claims "bogus" and "idiotic", and resigned in the aftermath. "I didn't want to be a part of it," he said.

The House of Representatives committee spent the morning hearing delving into Trump's claims of election fraud and the countless ways those around him tried to convince the defeated Republican president they were not true, and he had simply lost the election.

Witnesses, mostly Republicans and many testifying in prerecorded videos, described in blunt terms and sometimes exasperating detail on Monday on how Trump refused to take the advice of those closest to him, including his family members. As the people around him splintered into a "team normal" headed by former campaign manager Bill Stepien and others led by Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani, the president chose his side.

On election night, Stepien said Trump was "growing increasingly unhappy" and refusing to accept the grim outlook for his presidency.

Son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to steer Trump away from Giuliani and his far-flung theories of voter fraud. The president would have none of it.

On Monday, Trump blasted the hearings as "ridiculous and treasonous" and repeated his claims. The former president, mulling another run for the White House, defended the Capitol attack as merely US citizens seeking "to hold their elected officials accountable".

Agencies via Xinhua