Trump claims ‘there was no insurrection’ in video blasting Jan 6 report

Former president claims Jan 6 violence was ‘protest that got tragically out of control and which the left has been weaponizing ever since’

Donald Trump claimed “there was no insurrection” on January 6 2021 in a video blasting the report published by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot.

The former president attacked the panel and disregarded the evidence it put forward that he was responsible for the events at the Capitol.

“The unselect committee did not produce a single shred of evidence that I in any way intended or wanted violence at our Capitol,” Mr Trump said in the video published on Truth Social on Friday night.

In the video, which lasted five minutes, Mr Trump soft-pedalled what took place on January 6 and promoted multiple baseless conspiracy theories connected to the events that day.

He falsely claimed that the Capitol doors were “flung open for people to walk in,” adding that “federal informants” were partly responsible for the attacks on law enforcement and democracy.

“The events of January 6 were not an insurrection,” Mr Trump said. “They were a protest that got tragically out of control and which the left has been weaponizing ever since.”

“The committee cut the part of my speech out where I encouraged protestors to make their voices heard peacefully and patriotically, but nobody ever says that,” he added.

He again baselessly claimed that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

“The election was a corrupt disaster,” he said.

Mr Trump rejected the committee’s evidence that he did nothing to stop the violence for 187 minutes on that day, saying that he had tweeted twice “within 25 minutes of the Capitol bridge, and another statement 30 minutes after that”.

“I told protestors to go home with peace and respect,” he said.

But the panel’s massive report states that “evidence showed that neither of these tweets had any appreciable impact on the violent rioters”.

“Neither the 2:38 nor the 3:13 tweets made any difference,” the 845-page report states.

Mr Trump also repeated one of his previous claims that he “urged the deployment of 10,000 to 20,000 National Guard troops” ahead of the riot, which the report rejects in its summary released on Monday.

“The select committee found no evidence of this,” the report states. “In fact, President Trump’s own acting secretary of defense Christopher Miller directly refuted this when he testified under oath.”

“There was no insurrection and there was not going to be an insurrection. It was made up by these sick people,” Mr Trump said before making his National Guard claim.

Mr Trump blasted the committee, saying “they pushed an absurd and discredited story where I supposedly lunged for the steering wheel in an attempt to commandeer a presidential limo and they believe that story. Nobody believes that story!”

Mr Trump posted several written posts on Truth Social after the report was issued on Thursday night, claiming in one of them that “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!”

The former president returned to the platform after his video was published on Friday night, writing that “the highly partisan Unselect Committee of political Hacks & Thugs should be ashamed of themselves. I fought terrible Liz Cheney and she lost her House Seat in RECORD fashion”.

“I fought Cryin’ Adam K and he quit. The Committee Dems are the same Russia, Russia, Russia and Impeachment crowd. Of course they don’t want me to run because I beat them twice (they cheated, just look at the FBI Facebook & Twitter Scandals!) and am leading in the polls, by a lot. That’s what this is all about. Scammers!!!” he thundered.

The Independent has reached out to a spokesperson for Mr Trump for comment.