WATCH: Republican’s ‘falsehoods and excuses about Jan. 6 insurrection’ named Politifact’s 2021 ‘Lie of the Year’
Politifact only uses the word 'lie' once a year, and brought it out on Wednesday to decry Republican "falsehoods and excuses" about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump seeking to overturn the election.
"In the days that followed, Trump, some of the loudest and most influential members of the Republican Party and vocal partisan media personalities offered a deluge of justifications, excuses and conspiracy theories to reframe the events of Jan. 6 as no big deal," Politifact reported.
Politifact noted that they had plenty of choices during a year when pandemic misinformation led to a wave of anti-vaccine activism.
"We picked these lies for two reasons. First, the attack was historically important; a federal judge called it "the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812." While some members of Congress lodged protests when the Electoral College count was close, as in 2000, or when individual states had close margins, like Ohio in 2004, never before had Americans overtaken the Capitol to hold up electoral proceedings and threaten lawmakers. In fact, 'the peaceful transfer of power' has long been a hallmark phrase in describing, with pride, the American experience," Politifact explained. "Second, the events of Jan. 6 were widely broadcast on that day and many days afterward, allowing the public to see for itself exactly what happened. The body of evidence includes direct video documentation and many eyewitness accounts. So efforts to downplay and deny what happened are an attempt to brazenly recast reality itself."
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