Donald Trump and his GOP defenders are trying to rewrite history of the violent and deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, all in an effort to inoculate Trump from criticism after he pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists, including hundreds who violently assaulted law enforcement officers.
In an interview with Fox News sycophant Sean Hannity that aired Wednesday night, Trump defended his unpopular pardons by falsely declaring that the law enforcement assaults “were very minor incidents.”
Trump on January 6 insurrectionists who assaulted police: “They were very minor incidents.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-01-23T02:48:57.376Z
Also on Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson announced the creation of a new committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, giving Republicans an avenue to spread disinformation about who was responsible despite it being Trump’s fault.
“We are establishing this select subcommittee to continue our efforts to uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people,” Johnson said in a statement, as if we don’t have hours of video tape showing what happened and hours of interviews with witnesses who say Trump is to blame.
CNN reported that it is Trump himself who asked for the committee, so it’s no surprise that lap dog Johnson acquiesced to Dear Leader’s command.
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, went to the jail in Washington, D.C., where many of the violent offenders were being held and declared she wanted to be the first to give them a tour of the Capitol they had defiled four years earlier.
Right-wing white supremacist Stewart Rhodes
One of the men released from that prison has already been rearrested on gun charges. Great going, guys! So much for making the streets safer.
Right-wing white supremacist Stewart Rhodes, whose sentence Trump commuted, was also already seen at the Capitol on Wednesday, and met with Florida GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis. Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in prison, was caught on tape after the insurrection saying, “My only regret is they should have brought rifles. We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang fucking Pelosi from the lamppost.”
“I think it’s new and interesting that they’re using the front door this time,” Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, a member of the now-defunct committee that probed the Jan. 6 attack, told The Associated Press.
Judges who oversaw the trials of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists are aghast at Trump’s pardons, issuing blistering statements decrying the decision.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw Trump’s federal case on his effort to steal the 2020 election, wrote in a decision dismissing the case against one of the insurrectionists that Trump’s pardons “cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”
The Fraternal Order of Police, the union that endorsed Trump’s reelection bid, also slammed Trump’s move, saying in a statement that the union “firmly believe[s] that those convicted of such crimes should serve their full sentences.” If only they had a hint ahead of time that Trump was going to pardon violent cop assaulters.
But few Republicans are speaking out, and are instead either playing dumb or playing a ridiculous whataboutism game to avoid having to criticize Trump’s vile decision.
“We’re not looking backwards, we’re looking forwards,” Johnson said on Wednesday, adding that he wasn’t going to “second guess” Trump’s pardons—as if his job doesn’t include oversight of the executive.
But it sure doesn’t seem like launching a committee to reopen the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack in order to try to convince Americans that they didn’t see what they saw is a forward-looking move.
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