Former President Donald Trump went on a rant on his social media site Truth Social after Thursday’s hearing of the House Select Committee investigating last year’s Capitol riots, saying at one point that “U.S. they will go to hell.”
While the committee highlighted the 45th president’s inaction for more than three hours while his supporters besieged Congress on January 6, 2021, Trump accused the panel of spreading “lies.”
“The Unselects are ashamed of their ‘performance’ tonight!” the former president wrote shortly after the prime-time hearing adjourned.
Throughout his posts, Trump repeated his frequent claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had rejected his offer to send 10,000 National Guard troops to Washington before the riot, and asked why the “unselect committee,” its nickname for the panel, had not addressed the issue.
Former President Donald Trump is being criticized during the Jan. 6 hearings.AP
Other than Trump’s word, there is no evidence that such an offer or request for troops was made by the White House.
“The Deselection Committee refuses to do this because it ends their bogus case,” Trump wrote. “Will there be any mention or study by the Unselects of how the election was rigged and stolen? There is so much evidence, but the Unselects don’t want it seen in any way, shape or form, and for good reason, it would ruin the his latest scam!
“It’s Nancy Pelosi’s fault, she rejected the troops! Maybe she was disengaged, maybe looking for her husband!” she said in another post.
At one point, Trump tried to disparage former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, one of two witnesses on the floor Thursday night.
Trump took to alternative social media platform Truth Social to express his disdain for the alleged revelations from the hearing. Social Truth/Donald Trump
“But wasn’t this the same Sarah Matthews, whom I don’t know, who said such nice things about me on January 20th, or long after January 6th?” he wrote, referring to a tweet from Matthews on Trump’s last day in office, in which he said: “Thank you President Trump and Vice President Pence for your service to the American people. It was the greatest honor and privilege to my life to serve this great nation.”
During the hearing, however, Matthews said he decided to resign from his post on Jan. 6 after Trump tweeted that then-Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t have the guts” to stop certifying Joe’s election victory Biden, than the former White House. The spokesman said he was “pouring petrol on the fire and making it [the riot] much worse.”
Trump also sought to downplay video evidence produced by the committee that showed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) working with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the Pentagon to clear the building, as well as the minority of the Chamber. Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Trump admitted he was responsible for what happened during the riots.
Trump also took personal shots at committee members and their witnesses.AP
“Is this the same Mitch McConnell who was losing big in Kentucky and came to the White House to ask for my endorsement and help? Without me he would have lost in a landslide,” Trump wrote. “A disloyal bad-tempered bag!”
He continued: “1. But Crooked Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams, and many others ran for their elections, and for much longer than I did. 2. How do they know I saw them on TV? 3. I never said that to Kevin McCarthy, who came to Mar-a-Lago to say ‘hello’ very early (the Unselects don’t say that),” he wrote in another attack. “So many lies and misrepresentations by the Committee of corrupt and very partisan selection!”
Trump then met with committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), whom he called “a holy loser.”
The former president also disavowed the committee’s video evidence. AFP via Getty Images
“The Great State of Wyoming is wise for her,” he said. “Why not show the tapes, or interviews, those that, with evidence, challenge the election?”
Throughout the series of hearings this summer, Trump has repeatedly criticized the proceedings and witnesses, most notably former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
During her testimony, Hutchinson alleged that the former president threw food at a White House wall after then-Attorney General Bill Barr said in December 2020 that the Justice Department had found no evidence of fraud mass election He also claimed that Trump tried to overpower his Secret Service and drive to the Capitol to join his supporters on January 6.
“Why haven’t the Unselects asked the Secret Service to corroborate the so-called ‘suffocation’? Because they know the answer and they don’t like it,” he said. “A kangaroo court!”
Thursday’s hearing also included excerpts from a speech Trump gave the day after the riot, in which he refused to say the 2020 presidential election was over.
“This election is over,” Trump says in the video. “Congress has certified the results.”
He then interrupted to tell his aides: “I don’t want to say that the election is over. I just want to say that Congress certified the results without saying the election is over, okay?
In response to the hearing, Trump continued to insist that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, saying: “I had an election rigged and stolen from me and our country. America is going to hell . Am I supposed to be happy?”