EXPOSED: Jan. 6th committee to release incriminating outtakes of post-riot speech by Trump
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection plans to show the video outtakes of disgraced former president Donald Trump as he struggled to record the speech that he posted the day after his attempt to prevent then Vice President Mike Pence from certifying Joe Biden as the new president-elect.
According to a report in The Washington Post, Trump did not have an easy time recording the speech in which he was forced to concede the election and condemn the violence by his supporters that the House committee has done a superb job proving that he helped plan and instigate.
“Over the course of an hour of trying to tape the message, Trump resisted holding the rioters to account, trying to call them patriots, and refused to say the election was over, according to individuals familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack,” The Post reported.
During their prime-time public hearings tonight, the Select Committee will give the public the first glimpse of Trump as he tried and failed to record his video message multiple times, presenting the outtakes of the recording session. The video will help support the main theme of tonight’s hearings: that not only did Trump fail to do anything to stop the violent insurrection while it was unfolding, but that he “sat back and enjoyed watching it.”
“He reluctantly condemned it — in a three-minute speech the evening of Jan. 7 — only after the efforts to overturn the 2020 election had failed and after aides told him that members of his own Cabinet were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office” The Washington Post revealed.
Congresswoman Elaine Luria (D-VA) is scheduled to conduct the primary line of questioning in tonight’s hearing along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). Rep. Luria told an interviewer earlier this week that “This is what he [Trump] wanted to happen.”
“You might have earlier on said, ‘Was he incompetent? Was he someone who freezes in a moment when they can’t react to something? Or was it exactly what he wanted to have happened?’ And after all of this, I’m convinced that this is exactly what he wanted to have happen,” the Virginia lawmaker said.
It’s difficult for anyone to reach any other conclusion, given the inaction by the then-president during the 187 minutes that elapsed between his speech to the Stop the Steal rally on the Ellipse and his Rose Garden message telling the rioters to go home, a message that he ended with a less than regretful message to his violent followers: “”We love you. You’re very special.”
“It’s very clear that watching this violence was part of the plan,” Luria was quoted as saying by The Washington Post. “He wanted to see it unfold. And it wasn’t until he realized that it was not going to be successful that he finally stood up and said something.”
With the new video outtakes proving that Trump was reluctant to condemn his followers violent behavior and refused to admit his defeat in the election, the House Select Committee is further escalating its case against the twice-impeached former commander in chief.
Let’s hope that the Department of Justice decides to act on this new evidence expeditiously.
Original reporting by Amy Gardner, Josh Dawsey, and Paul Kane at The Washington Post.
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