Former President Donald Trump responded publicly Friday night to the final report released by the House Jan. 6 committee, attacking the committee and refuting its findings that he was ultimately responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol.
“The unselect committee [sic] did not produce a single shred of evidence that I in any way intended or wanted violence at our Capitol,” Trump said of the voluminous report in a video posted to Truth Social. “The evidence does not exist because the claim is baseless and a monstrous lie.”
Trump said that the doors to the Capitol were “flung open for people to walk in” and that “federal informants” played a role in the violence.
“The events of Jan. 6 were not an insurrection,” Trump said. “They were a protest that got tragically out of control.” Trump also called the 2020 election ‘corrupt’ stating that it was what lead to the protest that ultimately got out of hand.
The former president also pushed back on the committee’s conclusion that he did not respond to the riot for 187 minutes, saying he issued two tweets “within 25 minutes of the Capitol bridge, and another statement 30 minutes after that.”
“The select committee found no evidence of this,” the report said. “In fact, President Trump’s own acting secretary of defense Chistopher Miller directly refuted this when he testified under oath.”
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On Monday, the committee asked federal prosecutors to charge the former president with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for what they said were efforts to overturn results of the November 2020 election and sparking the attack on the seat of government.
“Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome,” the House panel had said earlier in of its report.
Erica Carlin is an independent journalist, opinion writer and contributor to several news and opinion sources. She is based in Georgia.