Former President Trump late on Thursday took to his Truth Social platform to condemn the House Jan. 6 committee’s prime-time public hearing.
“So the Unselect Committee of political HACKS refuses to play any of the many positive witnesses and statements, refuses to talk of the Election Fraud and Irregularities that took place on a massive scale,” Trump wrote in a post. “Our Country is in such trouble!”
Trump had also publicly denounced the hearing earlier in the day, before the event began, through a statement from his Save America PAC, describing the 2021 Capitol riot as the “greatest movement” in the history of the U.S.
The former president has continued to push unfounded conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud, claims that led to a mob of Trump’s followers storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop the election from being certified.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot on Thursday launched a searing public case against Trump in the prime-time hearing using testimony and video snippets from the day of the attack.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chairwoman of the committee who was booted from GOP leadership for challenging Trump, laid the blame for the events of Jan. 6 directly at the former president’s feet.
“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful president,” Cheney said. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
The committee also played clips from people close to Trump, including former Attorney General William Barr, saying that Trump’s claims of a stolen election were unfounded.
“I told him that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that and that it was doing great, great disservice to the country,” Barr said in a clip.
Also on Thursday night, Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller pushed back on the hearing, saying that one of the clips the House select committee played of Miller testifying before the committee was incomplete.