WATCH: Rep. Thompson says Trump tried to ‘stop the peaceful transfer of power’

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., gave a closing statement on July 12 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public. The focus of the hearing was on extremist far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the role they played in the Capitol insurrection. Thompson said that in the days preceding Jan. 6, former President Donald Trump “had an obligation to tell his supporters to accept the results of the election,” but Trump instead encouraged them further down a path toward “mob violence.” He said that there are many different ideas across the country of what role the federal government should play in American lives, but noted that “there are moments when the institutions of our federal government are the fail-safe.” Thompson said he is from a part of the nation where, without the federal government and the Constitution, his parents and other Black Americans “would have continued to be treated as second-class citizens.” The insurrec