The House committee looking into the events of January 6, 2021, released a tonne of new information about the violent uprising in nine televised hearings over the course of more than four months, including hours of illuminating witness testimony, reams of documents, and communications of Donald Trump, updated timelines and movements, and reels of never-before-seen video footage of the day, including, in the panel’s likely final hearing Thursday, extraordinary videos of House Speaker Nancy P.
Donald Trump’s response to the committee
All of the information provided by the committee has been used to create a sober, almost prosecutorial case that portrays Donald Trump as the central figure, one who started and continued the uprising despite being aware from a number of sources and admitting in a number of forums that his claims of fraud regarding the 2020 election were untrue.
In reaction to the committee’s actions, Trump has maintained a constant criticism of the probe, reiterating the fraud allegations at the center of the problem while hurling a barrage of colorful insults at both the panel as a whole and specific members of it. However, Trump has seldom provided a direct response to any of the new evidence offered by the committee, declining to make any sort of public defense against certain claims made by the panel, and offering no new information of his own.
This week, the pattern repeated itself as the committee on Thursday took its most audacious action yet by summoning the former president in the waning seconds of what was supposed to be its final public session. Trump delivered a 14-page rebuttal on Friday morning, written to committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, following a more restrained reaction on Thursday evening in which he continued to criticize the probe and questioned the timing of the panel’s vote.
The lengthy report embodied everything that is Trump: it begins with a declaration in all caps (“THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN”) before moving on to frequently repeated criticisms of congressional Democrats and the investigation’s focus, some of which are so well-known that both his supporters and opponents have grown numb to them.
This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that you have not spent even a brief moment looking into the massive election fraud that occurred during the 2020 Presidential Election and has instead targeted only those who were, as concerned American citizens, protesting, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a witch hunt and charade, and despite strong and powerful requests.
Trump once more attacked Pelosi and Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., for their conduct before to the protest.
The majority of the remaining pages of the document are pages of misinformation about the 2020 election that Trump repeatedly refutes and recycles, broken down by state. This is the kind of misinformation that the panel painstakingly dissected for hours, frequently using testimony from Trump’s closest advisers and allies.
You have not pursued the fraud’s perpetrators, but rather great American Patriots who questioned it as is their constitutional right, the note continued.
In order to brag about the size of the audience at the demonstration before to the march to the Capitol, he also uploaded images.
Despite being lengthy, the letter notably made no mention of whether or not Trump would agree to go before the committee and testify, which would have been the most direct route for him to address the allegations and data presented by the panel.
Though there is doubt regarding Trump’s participation because of his animosity toward the inquiry, his PAC on Friday sent out an email with a link to a Fox News piece that quoted an unnamed Trump ally who said that the former president “loves the idea of appearing” before the committee. According to the New York Times, Trump reportedly informed those close to him on Friday that he would consider the interview as long as it was broadcast live.
Members of the committee indicated a duty to subpoena Trump before the vote.
Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and vice chairperson of the committee, stated during the hearing that “none of this is natural, appropriate, or lawful in our country.”
