Trump Releases 14 PAGE Response to Jan. 6 Committee — Blasting Its Ratings, Bragging About Crowd Size, and Flat Out Lying

Former President Donald Trump formally responded to the January 6 Select Committee with a stunning 14-page rebuke that served as something of a compendium of his baseless claims of voter fraud and breathless declaration of the “crime of the century” — without addressing any of the merits of the damning evidence provided across multiple hearings.

Curiously missing in this relatively massive memo? Any indication as to whether or not he’ll agree to testify before the committee.

Trump’s missive takes the approach that the best defense is a good offense, though one can argue about whether this particular playbook even works anymore. To put into context the situation Trump finds himself in, even the hardcore conservative editorial board at the Wall Street Journal lauded the committee’s accomplishments while brutally criticizing Trump. To wit:

What the committee has accomplished, however, is to cement the facts surrounding Mr. Trump’s recklessness after Nov. 3 and his dereliction of duty on Jan. 6. The Justice Department and Mr. Trump’s own campaign repeatedly told him that his fraud claims were without basis. Whether it was willful blindness or an intentional strategy, he kept repeating them.

Trump’s only recourse is to keep repeating his fraud claims without basis, and this time in a 14-page letter addressed to The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, Chairperson, The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

When the former president puts out such an unhinged treatise of bullshittery, one immediately wonders if amplifying the lies serves any greater good. It’s a great question, one that I struggle with regularly. But in the interest of being the first draft of history, here are some details.

The letter opens with all caps: “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!” and somehow, impossibly, gets worse from there. He blames the investigation into the events of January 6th on who else? Read for yourself:

The same group of Radical Left Democrats who utilized their Majority position in Congress to create the fiction of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, the $48 Million Mueller Report (which ended in No Collusion!), Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the atrocious and illegal Spying on my Campaign, and so much more, are the people who created this Committee of highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination.

He then explains how this memo is designed “to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt,” before insisting that HE is the victim of a two-tier system of Justice.

He then cites Molly Ball’s article in Time about how the fourth estate effectively kept the truth in the news, including the following passage:

“‘To the President, something felt amiss. ‘It was all very, very strange,’ Trump said on Dec. 2. ‘Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.’ In a way, Trump was right. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes…”

That, of course, is a selective and misleading edit, but Trump is not concerned with a truthful portrayal here; he only cares about painting himself in the most favorable and exonerating light. And clearly believes in the rhetorical benefits of repetition and how those with less critical thinking abilities will begin to believe him.

He criticized the committee for not asking “one question” about his baseless claims of voter fraud, eager to ignore that the committee’s clear mission was not to look at the 2020 election but rather the events of January 6th and the disinformation campaign that led up to that, and the one he is still leading vis-a-vis this memo.

He continued to mock the television ratings of the largely dayside hearing programming. He reiterates that the real controversy is that his so-called direction of the National Guard troops to the capitol was ignored (false) and the same old tired bullshit we’ve heard from him for years now. Enough.

He finished with photos of the crowd assembled around the giant symbolic phallus known as the Washington Monument and lists state-by-state bullet points of what he sees as evidence of voter fraud, NONE of which passed muster in a court of law.

Read the full memo here.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.