Trump Wants to Testify to Jan 6 Committee to Claim Pelosi ‘Did Not Call Up National Guard’ – After Video of Her Pushing for That Is Released
Former President Donald Trump reportedly wants to testify to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol in order to showcase how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “did not call up the National Guard” – even though she pushed for them as the riot was underway.
The committee subpoenaed Trump at the end of Thursday’s meeting.
Fox News, citing “a source close to Trump,” reported on Thursday that the former president would “talk about how corrupt the election was, how corrupt the committee was, and how Nancy Pelosi did not call up the National Guard that Trump strongly recommended for her to do three days earlier on January 3, 2021.” No basis was provided for the election or the committee being “corrupt.”
Reporting for Fox News Digital, Brooke Singman writes:
Trump told Fox News Digital that the committee “never covered the important subject of election fraud, or why Pelosi and the mayor of D.C. did not call up the National Guard — which I strongly recommended.”
“They didn’t cover the reason for January 6 — the largest crowd — it wasn’t set up by me,” Trump said. “The committee didn’t cover election fraud, which was massive, and they didn’t cover why Pelosi didn’t call the National Guard.”
Footage released by the committee on Thursday showed Pelosi on the phone with then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, asking for his state’s National Guard to come to the Capitol. Pelosi did not have the unilateral authority to call up the National Guard.
The footage also shows Pelosi and then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on the phone with then-Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, seeking the call-up of the Maryland National Guard.
Pelosi and Schumer can also be seen on the phone with then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, asking him to push the president to make a statement calling on the rioters to leave the Capitol. All of these calls were made as congressional leaders took shelter at Fort McNair in Washington as the violence at the Capitol was unfolding.
New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman told CNN on Thursday that “in terms of the subpoena, for him, that is actually one of the things that has animated him. He’s been talking to advisers about how, you know, he would consider testifying if they would air it live, which is also not surprising.” However, she said, “it seems hard to imagine the committee would go for that.” Fox News, in its report, noted that the source said that Trump “loves the idea of testifying” before the committee.
Watch above via MSNBC.
