GOP Rep. Herrera Beutler: Trump sided with the Capitol mob. Calls on "patriots who were standing next to him" to step up and speak now!

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, told Rep. Beutler that the former president had sided with the mob during a phone call as the Jan. 6 Capitol attack unfolded.

In a statement Friday night, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., recounted a phone call relayed to her by McCarthy of California, the minority leader, in which Trump was said to have sided with the rioters, telling the top House Republican that members of the mob who had stormed the Capitol were “more upset about the election than you are.”

She pleaded with witnesses to step forward and share what they knew about Trump’s actions and statements as the attack was underway.

“To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time,” Herrera Beutler said in the statement.

Her account of the call between McCarthy and Trump addressed a crucial question in the impeachment trial: what Trump was doing and saying privately while the Capitol was being overrun.

Herrera Beutler said that McCarthy had relayed details of his phone call with Trump to her. She has been speaking publicly about it for weeks, including during a virtual town hall Monday with constituents, and confirmed it in the statement Friday.

McCarthy called Trump frantically on Jan. 6 as the Capitol was being besieged by thousands of pro-Trump supporters trying to stop Congress from counting Electoral College votes that would confirm his loss.

She said McCarthy asked him “to publicly and forcefully call off the riot.”

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