President Biden made rare comments Monday about testimony presented by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, sharply criticizing former President Donald Trump for his inaction during the attack on the Capitol.
In a prime-time hearing Thursday, the committee showed evidence that Trump resisted multiple pleas from top aides to call off a mob attacking the Capitol on his behalf, even as members of Vice President Mike Pence’s bodyguards feared for their lives . Trump largely spent his time during the attack watching television, committee members said.
Biden referred to that Monday in virtual remarks at the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives conference, first recounting how law enforcement officers on Jan. 6 were “attacked before our eyes — stabbed, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized” as pro – Trump’s mob storms the Capitol to stop the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory. The siege resulted in five deaths and left around 140 law enforcement officers injured.
Trump removed remarks calling for the prosecution of the rebels on January 6
“And for three hours, the defeated former president of the United States watched it all while sitting in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office,” Biden said. “While he did this, brave law enforcement officers were subjected to medieval hell for three hours – dripping with blood, surrounded by carnage, face to face with a maddened mob that believed the lies of a defeated president.”
“The police officers were heroes that day,” Biden continued. “Donald Trump lacked the courage to act. The brave women and men in blue across the nation must never forget that. You can’t be a supporter of the rebels and the cops. You cannot be pro-insurgency and pro-democracy. You can’t be pro-rebels and pro-America.
Senior reporter Rhonda Colvin breaks down the main takeaways from the Jan. 6 hearings so far. (Video: Casey Silvestri/The Washington Post)
Biden has often spoken out strongly against the Jan. 6 attack, calling it “one of the darkest periods in our nation’s history,” but has rarely addressed the commission’s work directly. Asked about the panel’s first televised hearing in June, Biden said he had not watched it, but stressed the importance of the bipartisan panel’s work.
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre told reporters last week that Biden, who tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, had indeed watched part of the committee’s hearing tonight.
Thursday’s hearing ended six weeks of televised testimony, but committee members stressed on Jan. 6 that their work will continue through the summer and that there will be additional hearings in the fall.
On Sunday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee’s vice chairwoman, said investigators planned several interviews in the coming weeks, including with more former members of Trump’s cabinet and his campaign. Lawmakers remain focused on gathering information from the Secret Service, which the committee recently subpoenaed following reports that the agency deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General requested them.
Cheney also said the committee could subpoena Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, over her efforts to pressure the Trump White House to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
New testimony released by the select committee on Jan. 6 on July 25 shows that President Donald Trump redacted parts of his speech on Jan. 7, 2021. (Video: The Washington Post)
On Monday morning, the committee released new evidence showing that Trump apparently removed lines from the prepared text of a January 7, 2021, speech calling for the prosecution of the rebels.
“It took President Trump more than 24 hours to address the nation again after his January 6 Rose Garden video in which he gently told his followers to go home in peace. There were more things he didn’t want to say,” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) tweeted Monday, along with a video featuring previously unreleased testimony from several people close to Trump.
In one part of the video, committee investigators on Jan. 6 showed Ivanka Trump — Trump’s eldest daughter and a former senior presidential adviser — a draft of a document titled “Remarks on National Healing.”
On the document were handwritten redactions that Ivanka Trump identified as her father’s. He had apparently deleted any mention of the Justice Department prosecuting the rebels. Crossed out from the prepared remarks were the following lines: “I direct the Department of Justice to ensure that all violators of the law are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We need to send a clear message – not with mercy, but with JUSTICE. The legal consequences must be swift and firm.”
Also scrawled was this message to those who committed the violence: “I want to be very clear: you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement. At the beginning of the document, Trump also apparently crossed out that he was “disgusted” by the violence.
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