CNN
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In response to the second public listening to of the January 6 committee, former President Donald Trump launched a 12-page assertion – sure, 12 full pages! – looking for to rebut the costs leveled in opposition to him.
It’s full of the standard name-calling, exaggerations and conspiracy theories which have dominated Trump’s post-2020 election life. However it’s additionally a window into the previous President’s psyche because the January 6 committee weighs whether or not to advocate a prison indictment of Trump to the Division of Justice.
I went by way of Trump’s, um, assertion. The strains from it it’s essential to see are beneath.
1. “If they’d any actual proof, they’d maintain actual hearings with equal illustration.”
Do not forget that the explanation there isn’t an impartial fee – just like the one which investigated the 9/11 terrorist assaults – is as a result of Senate Republican Chief Mitch McConnell killed it after it had handed the Home with 35 GOP votes. And away we go!
2. “They use the illegally-constituted committee to placed on a smoke and mirrors present for the American folks, in a pitiful last-ditch effort to deceive the American public … once more.”
It’s in no way clear to me what Trump thinks is illegitimate concerning the January 6 committee. It’s a choose committee established by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Not in contrast to the Benghazi choose committee established by then-Home Speaker John Boehner.
3. “They’ve refused to permit their political opponents to take part on this course of, and have excluded all exculpatory witnesses, and anybody who so simply factors out the failings of their story.”
Once more, this isn’t fairly correct. First off, the explanation the committee has two Republicans and 9 Democrats is as a result of a) McConnell nixed the thought of an impartial fee and b) Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy pulled all 5 of his picks for the committee when Pelosi rejected the appointments of Indiana Rep. Jim Banks and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. Second, loads of strongly pro-Trump witnesses have been subpoenaed by the committee. Actually, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two shut Trump confidants, have refused to adjust to subpoenas to testify earlier than the committee.
4. “The Unselect Pseudo-Committee has coordinated with their media puppets to broadcast their witnesses on nationwide tv with none opposition, cross-examination, or rebuttal proof.”
I hate to sound like a damaged document right here, however the committee took greater than 1,000 depositions from all types of witnesses – together with Invoice Stepien, who managed Trump’s 2020 marketing campaign, and Invoice Barr, who served as Trump’s legal professional normal. These aren’t precisely portraits of Trump haters. Plus, the committee tried to speak to folks like Bannon and Navarro.
5. “What are the members of this treasonous ‘Committee’ afraid of?”
That is coming from somebody who refused to simply accept the outcomes of a free and truthful election and incited folks to protest the outcomes due to a sequence of simply debunked conspiracy theories.
6. “Democrats created the narrative of January sixth to detract from the a lot bigger and extra necessary fact that the 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen.”
Uh, what. So, a number of folks died on account of the riots on January 6. Greater than 100 law enforcement officials had been injured. Over 800 folks have been criminally charged for his or her roles within the rebellion that day. That’s much less necessary {that a} set of lies about supposed election fraud?
7. “They illegally inflated voter rolls, illegally allowed harvested and stuffed ballots, abused the usage of mail-in ballots, bodily eliminated Republicans from counting amenities, abused the aged in nursing houses, bribed election officers with donations, stopped relying on Election Evening, gave Democrats three additional days to reap ballots, and demanded that the American folks imagine it was official.”
Wow. That’s, um rather a lot. There was completely no proof that there was widespread voter fraud within the 2020 election.
8. “The reality is that People confirmed up in Washington, D.C. in large numbers (however seldom revealed by the press), on January sixth, 2021, to carry their elected officers accountable for the apparent indicators of prison exercise all through the Election.”
Crowd dimension has lengthy been a Trump hobbyhorse. However there’s simply no proof that the press purposely low-balled the group on January 6. Additionally, that’s completely irrelevant. Which is that this: A mob of rioters stormed the US Capitol fueled by an election lie pushed by Trump that he had one way or the other been cheated out of victory.
9. “That is all a ridiculous and treasonous try and cowl up the truth that Democrats rigged the Election and are siphoning People’ freedoms and energy for their very own profit.”
What, precisely, is treasonous concerning the January 6 committee? Trump – shock, shock – doesn’t clarify.
10. “On Election Evening, America watched as my lead grew and grew over Joe Biden, as I used to be set to assert one other victory.”
Merely not true. We knew nicely upfront of Election Day that, largely due to new guidelines in place to take care of the Covid-19 pandemic, the variety of mail-in ballots can be far greater than in previous elections. And we knew that it could take a while to correctly course of all of them. Right here’s what Stepien, Trump’s marketing campaign supervisor, prompt he say on election evening: “My advice was to say that ‘votes had been nonetheless being counted, it’s too early to inform, too early to name the race however we’re happy with the race we ran and we predict we’re in good place.’” Trump didn’t take that recommendation.
11. “The Swamp was so decided to maintain their stranglehold on energy that they delayed the outcomes of the Election in order that they might discover, manufacture, or produce extra ballots, after they knew what number of they wanted to beat me.”
“Thus far, we’ve not seen fraud on a scale that would have effected a distinct consequence within the election,” Barr stated on December 1, 2020.
12. “There’s no affordable clarification for why it took a lot longer to depend the few remaining ballots versus the thousands and thousands on Election Day – aside from they wanted to visitors extra ballots, and it took 4 days to supply the ballots and do it.”
Other than merely claiming it to be so, Trump gives no proof for his declare that there have been “few remaining ballots” left to be counted after Election Day. The rationale he doesn’t provide any proof for this declare is that none exists.
13. “Like drug mules, on this context, mules are these paid to illegally visitors ballots from nonprofits organizations and drop them into the poll drop packing containers.”
It’s nicely value watching – or studying – Barr’s full takedown from Monday’s listening to of the movie “2,000 Mules” which is the place Trump will get this bogus info. Right here’s the gist of it in a single Barr quote: “For those who take 2 million cell telephones and determine the place they’re bodily in a giant metropolis like Atlanta or wherever, simply by definition, one can find many lots of of them have handed by and hung out within the neighborhood of those packing containers.”
14. “The reality is, in response to Joe Biden, that the Swamp has created the ‘most in depth and inclusive voter fraud group within the historical past of American politics – and it facilities round poll trafficking.’”
As Reuters famous of the Biden quote cited by Trump right here: “It was a slip of the tongue – Biden was describing the voter safety program his marketing campaign has launched in anticipation of potential authorized fights over the result of the Nov. 3 election in opposition to President Donald Trump.”
15. “It’s additionally extremely doubtless that True the Vote didn’t uncover 100% of the mules, making the numbers a lot bigger than a landslide in scope, and that there have been many extra mules on the market affecting extra of the Election than we notice. This was not an in depth Election.”
Joe Biden received greater than 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million. So no, by latest measures it wasn’t a very shut election. However I don’t suppose that’s what Trump means.
16. “Joe Biden, a candidate who by no means left his basement and might’t communicate with out a teleprompter, outperformed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of their two high-charged elections.”
By way of uncooked vote totals, that’s true. Biden’s 81 million votes is greater than both Clinton or Obama obtained. However, in each 2008 (365) and 2012 (332), Obama obtained extra electoral votes than Biden.
17. “Both there’s plenty of black voters in America who establish extra with Joe Biden than Barack Obama, or Democrats are stealing black votes – and everyone knows the reply to that.”
Earlier than this line, Trump cites a handful of majority-Black counties and areas the place Biden did higher in 2020 than Obama did in 2008 or 2012. That truth is proof optimistic of fraud, in response to Trump. In fact, it’s not. Initially, the inhabitants, within the Black group and elsewhere, grew between 2008 and 2020, which means that there have been simply extra voters available for Biden than for Obama. Additionally, and I’m simply spitballing right here, isn’t it attainable that the need to vote Trump out of workplace was a strong motivator for heaps and many Black voters?
18. “Mark Zuckerberg contributed $419 million {dollars} to election initiatives across the nation.”
Trump is suggesting right here that Zuckerberg, the founding father of Fb, spent lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to make sure that Democrats received the 2020 election. The one factor he will get proper although is the sum of money Zuckerberg spent. Trump would do nicely to learn this Protocol piece headlined “How ‘Zuck Bucks’ saved the 2020 election — and fueled the Huge Lie.”
19. “Zuckerberg must be criminally prosecuted. Election legal guidelines forestall people from donating greater than $5,000 per yr, but Zuckerberg gave $419 million.”
Once more, Trump is just flawed about what Zuckerberg did within the 2020 election. As Protocol notes: “He provided grants to any election official who needed one, as long as they spent it on what lots of people would think about mundane necessities that make it simpler and safer for everybody to vote: poll sorters, drop packing containers, ballot employees and — as a result of it was 2020 — hand sanitizer.”
18. “Rumors circulated that the Justices devolved to shouting and argued intensely over the best way to deal with the Texas v. Pennsylvania case. In the end, the Justices yielded to the identical worry mongering ways Democrats had deployed for years. They punted and threw the case out on standing.”
As CNN reported of the election fraud case introduced by Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton: “The court docket’s order, issued with no public dissents, to dismiss the problem is the strongest indication but that Trump has no likelihood of overturning election ends in court docket, and that even the justices whom he positioned there have no real interest in permitting his determined authorized bids to proceed.” No public dissents. So, yeah.
19. “However, the Swamp runs deep. I assume that turning round an election was a step too far.”
Sure, I’d say overturning an election was a “step too far.”
20. “People are struggling to fill their fuel tanks, feed their infants, educate their kids, rent staff, order provides, defend our border from invasion, and a number of different tragedies which might be 100% brought on by Democrats who obtained energy by way of a rigged election, and the folks of our nation are each indignant and unhappy.”
This sentence is 53 phrases lengthy. Yup.
21. “No person brings this up, however as President, I suffered years of vicious lies, scandals, and innuendo regarding a faux and contrived narrative of Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Enable me to cite from the Mueller Report: “(I)f we had confidence after a radical investigation of the info that the President clearly didn’t commit obstruction of justice, we might so state,” reads the Mueller report. “Based mostly on the info and the relevant authorized requirements, we’re unable to achieve that judgment. … Accordingly, whereas this report doesn’t conclude that the president dedicated a criminal offense, it additionally doesn’t exonerate him.”
22. “That is merely an try and cease a person that’s main in each ballot, in opposition to each Republicans and Democrats by broad margins, from working once more for the Presidency.”
So, is Trump saying he’s working for president once more in 2024? Huge information! Yeah, this seems like a very good place to finish.
