Don’s grand delusion will continue on date of riot that led to 2nd impeach
Former President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to hold a news conference on the first anniversary of the storming of the Capitol as he steps up his campaign to whitewash the Jan. 6 attack.
A day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a “solemn observance” of the violent attack, Trump on Tuesday said he would offer his own spectacle claiming the historic insurrection was nothing more than a peaceful protest.
Trump says he will discuss his bogus claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which have been conclusively debunked by judges and officials in both parties. He also plans to trash the House of Representatives select committee probing the attack.
“I will be having a news conference on January 6th at Mara-Lago to discuss all of these points, and more,” Trump said in an email statement. “Until then, remember, the insurrection took place on November 3rd, it was the completely unarmed protest of the rigged election that took place on January 6th.”
Trump has stepped up his attacks on the select committee as it zeroes in on his role in planning and instigating the attack, including hints that it could refe him to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.
“Why isn’t the Unselect Committee of highly partisan political hacks investigating the CAUSE of the January 6th protest, which was the rigged Presidential Election of 2020?” Trump asked.
Meanwhile, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) on Tuesday rejected the Jan. 6 committee’s demand for testimony about his key role in Trump’s effort to overturn his election loss, escalating a confrontation with the panel.
The outspoken Republican lawmaker said he wouldn’t voluntarily answer questions about his effort to get Trump to install to boost false claims of election fraud in the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol.
“I decline this entity’s request and will continue to fight the failures of the radical left,” Perry said in a statement.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack must now decide whether to slap Perry with a subpoena. That would be a significant escalation because Perry would be the first sitting lawmaker targeted by the panel.
Perry has emerged as a pointman in Trump’s Big Lie campaign, particularly his aborted effort to install loyalists in top ent. Trump mulled replacing Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark in hopes of getting the Justice Department to openly back his false claims that vote counts were tainted in key swing states that Joe Biden won. He backed down in the face of threats by top aides to quit en masse.
On Monday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee chairman, asked Perry to answer questions about his communications with Clark, who has taken the Fifth Amendment and refuses to cooperate, and exWhite House chief of staff Mark Meadows.