Former President Donald Trump denounced Thursday’s final report of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection as “highly partisan.”
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump sought to deflect blame for the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by attacking outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and calling the deadly riot a “protest.”
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“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.
Many Republicans, including Trump, have long sought to lay the blame on Pelosi for security failures on Jan. 6 even though she was not responsible for the U.S. Capitol Police and has no authority to call in the National Guard in the District of Columbia. Her own life and the lives of her staff were also 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-Wyo.), the vice chair of the committee, said Trump misled many Americans with his lies about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from him, claims she described as “concocted nonsense.”
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“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,” Cheney wrote in her foreword to the committee’s report
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 on 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 against the ex-president.
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CORRECTION: A previous version of this article referred to Rep. Liz Cheney as a Republican from Wisconsin. She is from Wyoming.
