Former President Donald Trump spent Friday morning trying to spin the story of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol in a series of messages posted to his social media app, Truth Social.
He specifically targeted his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, whose videotaped testimony was played in part on Thursday evening at the first public hearing of the House select committee investigating the attack.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee’s vice chair, walked viewers through sworn testimony from Trump-era Attorney General William Barr in which he dismissed Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen as “bullshit.” Asked about Barr’s assertion, Ivanka said it “affected my perspective.”
“I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying,” she said in a clip aired at the hearing.
The former president responded by saying his daughter didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying Election results. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Bar and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!),” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He also bashed Barr in other messages, calling him “weak and frightened” and a “coward.”
Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack for refusing to stop pushing falsehoods about the 2020 election. He eventually responded by launching his own platform, which is very similar to Twitter, and now posts there in his familiar emphatic, over-capitalized style.
“A one sided, totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” Trump wrote in another Truth Social message.
Although he posted once during the hearing, calling the “Unselect Committee” a group of “political HACKS,” he saved most of his anger for Friday morning.
“The so-called ‘Rush on the Capitol’ was not caused by me, it was caused by a Rigged and Stolen Election!” Trump wrote in one of eight hearing-related messages.
In one of the hearing’s more astonishing moments, Cheney said that the committee had uncovered how Trump responded in the White House after learning that the mob of his supporters were chanting “hang Mike Pence” as they stormed the Capitol. A noose on a makeshift scaffold was found on the grounds of the building that afternoon.
“Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” Trump said, in Cheney’s telling based on witness statements. “Mike Pence deserves it.”
Trump denied this.
“I NEVER said, or even thought of saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!”
Trump had unsuccessfully urged his vice president to overturn the results of the election by interfering with their official certification in spite of the law.
The committee expects to hold several more public hearings to share what they have found so far; the next is set for Monday at 10 a.m. EST.