ABC’s Jonathan Karl: January 6 Committee Showed Donald Trump’s Actions Were ‘A Betrayal Of America’

US President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, … [+] 2021, in Washington, DC. – Thousands of Trump supporters, fueled by his spurious claims of voter fraud, are flooding the nation’s capital protesting the expected certification of Joe Biden’s White House victory by the US Congress. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

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ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl said Friday that the gripping testimony before the January 6 committee on Thursday laid out a damning case against Donald Trump as “a betrayal of America.”

On Thursday, the committee presented testimony, video and photos that detailed the efforts to protect Vice President Mike Pence and his family from the mob that had invaded the U.S. Capitol, coming within 40 feet of Mr. Pence as his security detail rushed him to an underground garage. Revealing new details about the grave threat to Pence, committee member Rep. Pete Aguilar said a confidential informant who was a member of the Proud Boys told the FBI “that anyone they got their hands on would have been killed, including Nancy Pelosi.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 07: Vice President Mike Pence hands the West Virginia certification to … [+] staff as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., listen during a joint session of Congress after working through the night, at the Capitol on January 7, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress reconvened to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump, hours after a pro-Trump mob broke into the U.S. Capitol and disrupted proceedings. (Photo by J. Scott Applewhite – Pool/Getty Images)

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On ABC’s Good Morning America, Karl said the testimony painted “a direct line from the words of Donald Trump to the murderous rage of the people who were hunting his own vice president down in this building.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 16: Former Vice President Mike Pence is displayed on a screen during the third … [+] hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill on June 16, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chen Mengtong/China News Service via Getty Images)

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The January 6 committee laid out the case Thursday that President Trump’s closest advisers had told him there was no legal ground to demand the vice president refuse to certify the results of the November election. But the president pushed on anyway, tweeting during the attack on the Capitol that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.”

One witness said the president’s tweet was like “throwing gas on the fire.” Rep. Aguilar went on to say “make no mistake, the vice president’s life was in danger.”

“Whether or not this ends up being criminal, crimes that are prosecuted by the Justice Department,” Karl said, “I think what the committee did here was clearly show that what Trump did on that day and in the days leading up to it was clearly a betrayal of America, a betrayal of American democracy.”

Karl, noting that the Justice Department issued a statement that its efforts to prosecute the people who took part in the attack on the Capitol on January 6 were being slowed because the January 6 committee had not released transcripts of its interviews, said the purpose of the committee—and its public hearings—was not to make a criminal case, but to demonstrate “for history and for the American public the truth of what happened here.”