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Former President Trump slammed the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 and its primetime hearing Thursday night as “totally partisan,” while taking a swipe to undercut his daughter, Ivanka Trump’s testimony saying she “accepted” then-Attorney General Bill Barr’s conclusion that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen.
Trump, posting on his own TRUTH Social platform, called the committee hearing Thursday night a “one sided, totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”
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Lawmakers on the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday night said Trump “spurred a mob of domestic enemies” to attack the Capitol in an effort to “subvert American democracy” and overturn the 2020 presidential election.
President Donald Trump holds his face mask as he stands on the Blue Room Balcony upon returning to the White House Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, in Washington, after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md. Trump announced he tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Lawmakers on the committee also presented videos of interviews and depositions with former top Trump officials before the select committee, including one from Attorney General Bill Barr and his daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Barr said he had three discussions with Trump between Election Day 2020 and his early resignation from the Trump administration in December 2020.
An image of Ivanka Trump is seen on a screen as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first public hearing to reveal the findings of a year-long investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022. Mandel Ngan/Pool via REUTERS
“I made it clear I did not agree with the idea that the election was stolen, which, I told the president, was bulls–t,” Barr said during his deposition. “And you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it, and that’s one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did.”
Barr added that: “You can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that the election–that there was fraud in the election.”
Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., also presented video testimony from Ivanka Trump on Barr’s statement that the Justice Department found “no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.”
During the video, Ivanka Trump was asked how Barr’s statement affected her perspective of the election.
“It affected my perspective,” she testified. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so, I accepted what he was saying.”
Trump, taking aim at his daughter on TRUTH Social Friday morning, said she “was not involved in looking at, or studying Election results.”
Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., gives her opening remarks as Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., left, looks on, as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first public hearing to reveal the findings of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 9, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“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 posted.
Trump also slammed Barr as a “coward” and as a “weak and frightened Attorney General who was always being ‘played’ and threatened by the Democrats and was scared stiff of being impeached.”
Trump’s reaction comes after Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in his opening statement, said Trump “was at the center of this conspiracy.”
“Ultimately, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies..to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy,” Thompson said.
Cheney, during the hearing, said “there is no room for debate.”
“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them–that the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president,” Cheney said. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
The Select Committee played a never-before-seen video of graphic events that transpired during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Thompson, before playing the tape, warned that it “is hard to watch.”
Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) reacts with Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) after the opening video presentation as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first public hearing to reveal the findings of a year-long investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 9, 2022. Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS
Meanwhile, Cheney said that there is “no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed.”
“White House staff urged President Trump to intervene and call off the mob,” Cheney said, presenting a document written by a member of the White House staff “advising what the president needed to say” while the attack was underway at the Capitol.
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“Anyone who entered the Capitol without proper authority should leave immediately,” the note Cheney presented read. “This is exactly what his supporters on Capitol Hill and nationwide were urging the president to do. He would not.”
Cheney also pointed to congressional leaders who “begged” Trump for help, including Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who was “‘scared’ and called multiple members of President Trump’s family after he could not persuade the president himself.”
“Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended,” Cheney said. “Trump did not call his secretary of defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his attorney general. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security.”
“President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day, and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and display and deploy law enforcement assets,” Cheney said.
STANFORD, CA – FEB. 17: Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Stanford University’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Stanford, Calif. The Stanford College Republicans hosted the former vice president in an event titled “How to Save America from the Woke Left.” (Santiago Mejia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Cheney, though, said then-Vice President Mike Pence did contact the Pentagon for assets to protect the Capitol.
Cheney played audio of testimony from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who said Pence “was very animated and he issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders–there was no question about that.”
Milley said Pence urged then-Defense Secretary Christopher Miller to “get military down here, get the guard down here, put down this situation.”
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In contrast, Milley shared details of his conversation with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“He said, we have, we have to kill the narrative that the vice president is making all the decisions,” Milley testified Meadows said. “We need to establish the narrative that, you know, that the president is still in charge and that things are steady or stable.”
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Milley added: “That’s something– I immediately interpret that as politics, politics, politics. Red flag for me personally.”
Thursday’s hearing was just the first of seven televised hearings expected in the coming weeks. The next hearings have already been announced for Monday and Wednesday of next week.