President Donald Trump released a 415-word meandering rant in response to the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot on the Capitol accusing him of criminal conspiracy.
Mr Trump’s statement comes after he and his attorney John Eastman, who helped lead Mr Trump’s “war room” to challenge President Joe Biden’s election win, were charged with criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.
“The facts we’ve gathered strongly suggest that Dr Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power,” committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney said in a statement.
But the former president slammed the committee’s actions and blamed media coverage of the laws.
“The actual conspiracy to defraud the United States was the Democrats rigging the Election, and the Fake News Media and the Unselect Committee covering it up. Few things could be more fraudulent, or met with more irregularities, than the Presidential Election of 2020,” he said.
Mr Trump proceeded to rattle off a series of unfounded conspiracy theories or claims made by Republicans who have spread untruths or called for decertifying the 2020 election. The president also said that people being angry about the election was why the riot happened and blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the lack of security, a common claim in right-wing circles.
“The reason for January 6th was that millions of people in our Country know the Election was Rigged and Stolen, and Nancy Pelosi refused to put the requested 10,000+ troops in the Capitol three days earlier, as strongly recommended by me,” he said, claiming that she didn’t like “the look,” though there is no evidence that Mr Trump ordered the guards and there is no record of such a request.
Mr Trump said the committee’s charge is politically motivated and a means of stopping him making another run in 2024.
“The Unselect Committee’s sole goal is to try to prevent President Trump, who is leading by large margins in every poll, from running again for president, if I so choose,” he said. “By so doing they are destroying democracy as we know it.”
Mr Eastman reportedly proposed pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the presidential election results during the certification process on 6 January 2021. The committee is attempting to access emails from Mr Eastman.
