Trump Throws Truth Social Tantrum Over Jan. 6 Hearing
Donald Trump was not happy with the Jan. 6 committee’s first hearing on Thursday night. The former president took to Truth Social on Friday morning to air his grievances.
“I NEVER said, or even thought of saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence,’” Trump wrote. “This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!”
Trump wasn’t quoted as saying “Hang Mike Pence,” though. “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” Trump told his staff after hearing the Capitol crowd chanting for the vice president to be hung, according to committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). “Mike Pence deserves it.”
Trump also repeated his criticism of former Attorney General Bill Barr, who testified to the committee that he told Trump he had lost the election, and that his claims of widespread voter fraud were “bullshit.” Barr resigned in December 2020, citing Trump’s insistence on a stolen election.
Barr was “scared stiff of being Impeached,” Trump wrote on Friday, adding that Barr “ridiculously said there was no problem with the Election, & [Democrats] left him alone.”
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Ivanka Trump, in pre-taped testimony the committee showed during the hearing, said that she “accepted what [Barr] was saying” about the election. Airing Ivanka’s apparent acknowledgment that the election was legitimate was part of the committee’s effort to discredit the argument that Trump for some reason didn’t know he lost the election. Trump, naturally, pushed back on this implication, as well. Ivanka “was not involved at, or studying, Election results,” Trump wrote. “She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as attorney general (he sucked!).”
Trump didn’t address how his own campaign lawyer testified that there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
Regarding the overarching theme of the hearing, that Trump was a would-be autocrat carrying out a seven-part conspiracy to stay in power with the help of his supporters, Trump tried to deflect from his role in inciting the violence against officers that day. “The so-called ‘Rush on the Capitol’ was not caused by me, it was caused by a Rigged and Stolen Election!” Trump claimed, falsely.
The Jan. 6 committee preemptively combatted Trump’s objection to the idea that the incited the riot by playing clips of several Capitol rioters saying they were there because Trump told them to be. “I did believe, you know, that the election was being stolen and Trump asked us to come,” one of them said.
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