The White House rolled out a new website Tuesday with a full-blown recast of the historic report of January 6, 2021, hailing the pro-Trump mob who stormed the US Capitol 5 years in the past as “peaceful protesters” who have been provoked by regulation enforcement.
The new site baselessly claims the violence on January 6, 2021, was instigated by regulation enforcement and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It recasts the rioters because the victims that day, and depicts President Donald Trump as a hero for granting sweeping pardons for the practically 1,600 individuals charged in reference to the deadly attack.
For years, Trump has whitewashed the history of January 6, when 1000’s of his supporters violently stormed the Capitol in hopes of stopping Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. But the brand new website notably goes additional than Trump’s previous rhetoric, and offers an official White House platform to his long-debunked claims.
One overarching theme on the brand new website is Trump’s long-running — however fully false — declare that the 2020 election was stolen. His repeated lies about mass voter fraud have been the explanation why he and his supporters wished to cease Congress from certifying the outcomes on January 6.
White House communications director Steven Cheung urged in an X post that the webpage was a “trap” to spark outrage from the media. NCS has previously reported on how the Trump administration is utilizing the official White House web site to troll its opponents.
A cherry-picked “timeline” on the web site characterizes Trump’s January 6 speech on the Ellipse as “detailing evidence of election fraud,” and urging the group to march to the Capitol to peacefully protest and present “strength and determination.” His claims of fraud have been debunked weeks earlier than January 6, and the timeline omits the parts of Trump’s deal with the place he twice mentioned his supporters ought to “fight like hell.”
The timeline overlooks particulars of rioters breaking home windows to breach the Capitol and assaulting police. Instead, the timeline claims the rally that day was “orderly and spirited, with flags, signs, and chants supporting President Trump.”
The web site baselessly accused the US Capitol Police of “deliberately escalating tensions” that day when throngs of Trump supporters swarmed the complicated. It mentioned officers’ “provocative tactics,” like firing tear fuel into the group, “turned a peaceful demonstration into chaos,” although there’s in depth video footage exhibiting rioters attacking police first.
NCS has reached out to the US Capitol Police for remark.
Also, the White House claimed that Trump supporters who died exterior the Capitol of natural causes – a coronary heart attack and a stroke – have been “killed” that day.
The web site features a disputed assertion that “zero law enforcement officers lost their lives.”
US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, died from strokes sooner or later after being assaulted whereas defending the Capitol, and the DC medical expert said “all that transpired” on January 6 influenced his demise. Four other officers who responded to the Capitol died of suicide within the months after the assault. (The Whtie House web site additionally doesn’t point out that 140 different officers have been injured that day, some requiring hospitalization, and many later suffered from PTSD.)
Blaming Pence and Pelosi
The web site champions Trump’s controversial declare that then-Vice President Mike Pence “had the opportunity to return disputed electoral slates to state legislatures for review and decertification,” throughout the joint session of Congress that day, however selected to not “in an act of cowardice and sabotage.”
Pence himself, authorized students from throughout the (*6*), and a lot of Trump’s aides and advisers, together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have mentioned it might be would have been blatantly unconstitutional for the then-vice president to refuse to certify the 2020 election.
Casting Pelosi, then the Democratic House speaker, as a main villain of January 6, the White House website seized on feedback she made in an HBO documentary, the place she mentioned, of safety on the Capitol: “I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more.”
“They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more,” Pelosi mentioned within the clip.
That comment doesn’t show Trump’s oft-repeated declare, which he said again in a speech Tuesday, that Pelosi turned down his supposed supply for an advance deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops. Pelosi has at all times denied having acquired such a suggestion, and the president – not the House speaker – is in control of the DC National Guard.
“January 6th was not an aberration and it was not spontaneous. It was the culmination of a sustained assault on truth, on the rule of law, and one of the most sacred principles of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power,” Pelosi mentioned in a statement Tuesday, the place she referred to as January 6 an “attempted coup” incited by Trump to overturn the 2020 election.
The White House web site additionally forged Trump as a sufferer who was subsequently “silenced” on social media platforms and debanked by monetary establishments, like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
The White House argues that Trump “corrected a historic wrong” by pardoning thousands of these charged or convicted within the Capitol attack. On his first day in workplace final yr, Trump pardoned practically all 1,600 charged rioters and commuted the sentences of the leaders of right-wing extremist teams just like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
The website labels all the 1,600 pardon recipients as “patriotic Americans.” That group consists of members of far-right militias, individuals convicted of beating police, alleged Nazi sympathizers and others who brought weapons to the Capitol.