Former President Donald Trump denounced the final report of House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, as “highly partisan,” following the document’s release on Thursday.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump sought to deflect blame for Jan. 6 by attacking outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and calling the deadly riot a “protest.”
“The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the ‘Peacefully and Patrioticly’ words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud. WITCH HUNT!,” he wrote.
Republicans, including Trump, have long sought to lay the blame on Pelosi for security failures on Jan. 6 even though she is not responsible for the Capitol Police and has no authority to call the National Guard. Besides, her own life was at risk during the storming of the Capitol.
In the report, the Jan. 6 committee recommended Trump be barred from holding office again, citing Section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, and also noted the need for accountability for those involved in misconduct.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wis.), the vice-chair of the committee, said Trump misled many Americans with his baseless election lies, which she described as “concocted nonsense.”
“Most Americans also did not know exactly how Donald Trump, along with a handful of others, planned to defeat the transfer of presidential power on January 6th. This was not a simple plan, but it was a corrupt one,” she wrote in her foreword.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee’s chair, said those who stormed the Capitol acted on Trump’s calls.
“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” Thompson wrote in his foreword.
The panel referred Trump to the Justice Department Monday on four criminal charges: obstructing an official proceeding, conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to make false statements, and inciting an insurrection against the United States.
The referrals are mostly symbolic, but could still put pressure on the DOJ to act on the ex-president.
