According to The Times and The Washington Post, several aides and members of Trump's inner circle — including Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel; and members of Trump's family — had warned him of the legal repercussions he could face for encouraging the mob.
Then on Thursday, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney in Washington, DC, said federal prosecutors were investigating anyone who may have played a role in the Capitol riot.
When asked by journalists whether that included Trump, Sherwin said: "We are looking at all actors here, and anyone that had a role. If the evidence fits the element of a crime, they're going to be charged."
New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi tweeted on Thursday that Trump was now fully aware of the legal trouble that could await him.
"A person who currently advises Donald Trump tells me: 'It's all hit him since yesterday: 'You may have legal exposure from yesterday. You definitely have legal exposure from other things. You have less than two weeks to remain ensconced in here with executive privilege,'" she said.
The Post reported that it took Trump a long time to say anything about the Capitol insurrection at all and that he refused aides' pleas to call into Fox News to urge the rioters to stop.
The aides were eventually able to persuade the president to tweet, The Post said. "Stay peaceful!" Trump said in one post. Shortly after, he tweeted, "No violence!"
"He didn't want to say anything or do anything to rise to the moment," a US official told The Post.
The president also recorded a video on Wednesday calling on his supporters to stop the violence. But in it, he continued to peddle false claims about the 2020 election and said, "We love you; you're very special."
On Wednesday afternoon, the Times reporter Maggie Haberman said a Trump advisor had told her that people close to Trump were "certain the president wanted this and is enjoying it." Nuzzi also described an advisor as saying that Trump was enthusiastically watching TV coverage of the riot but was later upset by the mess the mob created.
"Donald Trump was annoyed by the violent siege on the Capitol Wednesday — which left several dead — because it looked 'low class,' according to his adviser. 'He doesn't like low class things,'" Nuzzi tweeted.
She added: "The adviser confirmed that he was watching television coverage of the siege enthusiastically, but noted that the sight of his own supporters forming a violent mob and destroying property and lives offended him on aesthetic grounds."
Trump agreed to condemn the Capitol rioters only after realizing he could face legal trouble for inciting them, report says
The president spent Wednesday refusing to denounce his supporters who ransacked the Capitol, agreeing to do so only the next day.
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