Donald Trump celebrated his return to the presidency with a falsehood-filled rant about the Jan. 6 committee's investigation.
The newly inaugurated president gave a rambling speech at the U.S. Capitol – the site of the infamous riot that led to criminal charges for hundreds of his supporters and Trump himself – in which he pledged "action" on those defendants, and complained that Joe Biden had preemptively pardoned some of his enemies.
"I was going to talk about the hostages, but you will be happy because, you know, it's action, not words that count," Trump told the crowd, "and you're going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages. You will see a lot, and I was going to talk about the things that you all did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes. Like the 'unselect' committee of political thugs, where they literally, I mean what they did, they destroyed and deleted all of the information, all of the hearings, practically not a thing left. They deleted all the information on Nancy Pelosi having turned down the offer of 10,000 soldiers. You wouldn't have needed 10,000, you could have had 500, and it would have stopped, because we may have a million people that day, you don't see any photographs. But you don't see those photographs, they don't put them in the show."
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Trump has repeatedly – and falsely – claimed the House select committee had destroyed evidence, but the panel issued a more than 800-page report, as well as videos, transcribed interviews, depositions and other documents, and chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said more than a million records were prepared for publication and archiving in compliance with the law and House rules.
"I was talking about that," Trump said. "They said, 'Please don't bring that up right now, you can bring it up tomorrow.' I said how about now? I'll bring it up right now, you know, little time delay is great because we're getting great reviews on the speech."
Trump lashed out at the panel's two Republican members, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and disputed testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who told investigators that the former president had lunged at a Secret Service agent who refused to drive him to the Capitol to join his supporters' siege.
"They destroyed and deleted all the information that went against Trump, and and the reason they did is because it was all false," Trump said. "Like the person who said who said I would try to strangle a Secret Service agent that's one of the toughest human beings I think I've ever seen. I actually had a friend who said, 'Please don't change that, sir. You are the coolest sucker in history.' Remember, she said I put my hands around his neck because he wouldn't go to the Capitol – made-up fiction. I was rebuffed, and the guy on the right is a massive weight lifter, probably stronger than me. Do you think he's stronger than me? Possibly stronger and younger than me, like, I won't say how many years, because I don't want to talk about that, but a lot of years. I had a friend saying, 'Why are you disputing that story? That's the coolest story I ever heard.'"
Trump also repeated his false claim that then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi had "turned down" his offer to send 10,000 troops to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but she did not direct the National Guard and had asked for military assistance during the insurrection with the consent of then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
"I offered 10,000 soldiers – she knows it, she admitted it on tape that her daughter made," Trump claimed. "She said the videographer, whatever you called her, which I'm glad she is. She can't be in good step with Nancy. But Nancy said, 'It was my responsibility,' as she's leaving the Capitol. She said it was and she's in charge of security at the Capitol."
Pelosi was not solely responsible for security at the Capitol, which is overseen by Capitol police and its board made up of congressional appointees, and she blamed Trump in that same video for sending his supporters to disrupt the certification of Biden's election win.
In fact, Ms. Pelosi was not solely responsible for the security of the Capitol that day. While the speaker wields considerable influence, security is the job of the Capitol Police, which is controlled by a board that includes one security official appointed by the speaker and one by the Senate leader, who at the time was Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky.
"I offered them up to 10,000 soldiers, even more, one time I said as many as you need," Trump said. "But you needed 4,500 – 10,000 is more than enough, and we offered her 10,000. Think of it, 10,000 soldiers. In other words, there would not be that and no J6, but she rebuffed them. She didn't like them, no, she didn't like them, and maybe she wanted that to happen, but she is guilty as hell, and now we would have to go through the process because they destroyed all evidence. They deleted everything, and virtually nothing left. Other fake stories and so many other fake stories and many people came out on our side, and those people now need to find them and there is nothing left, so that is a criminal offense."
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