Former President Trump railed against the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on Friday following the release of the committee’s final report on the attack.
Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social that the American people have been “deceived with lies” about the attack from the committee.
The committee released its report on Thursday with its conclusions on the Capitol riot, including a series of 11 recommendations for actions that Congress should take to prevent efforts similar to those to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election from happening again. It also made referrals for the Justice Department to pursue four criminal charges against Trump.
Trump said the committee “cut the part” of his speech at the rally at the Ellipse preceding the riot out in which he said protesters will be walking to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically.”
He said in his speech at the Ellipse that he knows people will go to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” but also said in his speech that people must show “strength” to “take back our country” and called on people to “fight like hell.”
Trump said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the committee, “deliberately omitted” in a public committee hearing a part of a tweet he posted on Jan. 6 in which he told protesters to “go home with love and in peace.”
For the tweet Trump references, Cheney only read the part in which he said, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”
The committee did show a picture of the entirety of the tweet at the hearing.
Trump also rebutted the committee’s statement that he did not respond to the violence for 187 minutes, when he told rioters to go home and leave the Capitol, saying he posted a tweet after 25 minutes and another 30 minutes after the first tweet.
The first tweet Trump referenced told people to “support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement,” while the second tweet asked for everyone at the Capitol to “remain peaceful” and for “no violence.”
But Trump previously slammed Vice President Mike Pence in a tweet before these two, saying that he did not have the “courage” to do what was needed to protect the country and the Constitution. That tweet no longer appears to be on Trump’s Twitter page.
“USA demands the truth,” he said.
Trump repeated claims that he urged for the deployment of 10,000 to 20,000 National Guardsmen to keep the event safe. The Associated Press has reported that Trump was involved in discussions in the lead-up to Jan. 6 about a National Guard response, but he never signed an order for the Guardsmen before or during the riot.
The committee blamed Trump for delays in the deployment of the Washington, D.C., National Guard.
Trump falsely claimed that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser refused his push for deployment of the National Guard. The president serves as commander-in-chief of the D.C. National Guard and has authority to deploy them to a situation.
Pelosi has repeatedly rejected claims from Republicans that she had the authority to bring in the National Guard and failed to prepare Capitol Police.
Trump said the committee “barely discussed the catastrophic” security failures that happened at the Capitol. The committee mentioned the security response in an appendix of the report but focused mostly on what led to the riot.
Trump also said the committee did not mention that the election was a “corrupt disaster,” referring to his false claims that the election was stolen, and did not “produce a single shred of evidence” that he wanted violence at the Capitol.
Via The Hill
