Trump: I didn’t whip up the Capitol rabble
President’s defiance as police warn of new threats from extremists
DONALD Trump tried to dodge the blame for inciting the riot at the US Capitol – as police warned of chilling new threats from his extremist supporters.
The President insisted his speech that whipped up the mob who rampaged through the seat of american democracy was ‘totally appropriate’.
Mr Trump last week sent supporters from a White House rally to the Capitol building in a futile bid to stop Joe Biden being confirmed as the next President, saying: ‘You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.’
But as he boarded air Force one yesterday, bound for his border wall in Texas, he claimed: ‘If you read my speech, many people have done it, it’s been analysed and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.’
Mr Trump today faces the prospect of becoming the only president impeached twice when Democrats move to charge him with ‘ inciting insurrection’.
‘Go there ready for war’
attempts to remove him – a week before his term ends – have whipped up such fury among supporters that Democrats were warned of a threat to their lives.
large, armed groups are set to converge on Washington DC at the weekend. one plan is said to involve 4,000 ‘patriots’ encircling the White House to ‘protect’ Mr Trump, the Supreme Court and the Capitol building. Police discovered talk of blocking access to the Capitol to any Democrat, plus any Republican who failed to support efforts to overturn november’s election, and potentially even killing them.
‘They have published rules of engagement, meaning when you shoot and when you don’t,’ Pennsylvania Democrat Conor lamb told Cnn. ‘So this is an organised group that has a plan.’
another event planned in Washington is being billed as the ‘largest armed protest ever to take place on american soil’. and 16 hardline groups aligned to the Trump cause have registered to stage protests in the capital from Saturday until the handover of power to Mr Biden next Wednesday. The plots against Democrats were uncovered by the Capitol Police but suspicion has fallen within their own ranks. Two officers were suspended yesterday and a dozen more are under investigation for helping last week’s rioters or posing for photos with them.
Mr Trump has declared a state of emergency in Washington, effectively ordering 15,000 national Guard troops to turn out against his own supporters. But he blamed Democrats for causing ‘tremendous danger and anger’ and called the move to impeach him part of ‘the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics’.
The FBI has warned of ‘armed protests’ planned at all 50 state capitols and in Washington by Trump supporters who refuse to accept he lost the election.
anger is rising over security failures that led to the Capitol assault in which five people died, including a policeman.
Three politicians have tested positive for Covid-19 having sheltered in a secure room together.
The Washington Post reported the FBI were warned of extremists saying they wanted ‘war’ the day before the riot happened. an online threat on January 5 read: ‘Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest.
‘Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. nothing else will achieve this goal.’
Republican congressional leader Kevin McCarthy told members of his party the President acknowledged to him in a phone call that he was partly to blame for the assault on the Capitol. Mr McCarthy said: ‘He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened.’ But politics website axios reported that on the same call, Mr Trump falsely claimed left-wing activists antifa were behind the attack.
Mr McCarthy told him: ‘It’s not antifa, it’s MaGa (Trump supporters). I know. I was there’.
a White House official said the call was tense, with Mr Trump ranting about election ‘fraud’.
at one point an exasperated Mr McCarthy cut in to say: ‘Stop it. It’s over. The election is over.’