On the fifth anniversary of the pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol, the Trump administration created a new page on the official White House website that represented the president’s most brazen bid yet to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 riot with false claims aimed at absolving him of responsibility.
The site blames Capitol Police officers, who defended lawmakers that day, for starting the assault; Democrats, who were the rioters’ main targets, for failing to prevent it; and former Vice President Mike Pence, who rejected falsehoods about the 2020 election, for allowing the results to be certified.
Mr. Trump has long sought to whitewash the violence and vandalism committed on Jan. 6, 2021, and reject responsibility for having instigated it. But the webpage, promoted on government social media accounts, put the official imprimatur of the White House on an astonishingly misleading account of the Capitol attack.
In one section, the webpage mentions several members of the pro-Trump mob who died during or in connection with the assault, identifying them by name. But it excises altogether any reference to the nearly 140 police officers who were injured when they were assaulted that day with weapons that included bear spray, stun guns, hockey sticks, fireworks, broken pieces of furniture and at least one flagpole flying the American flag. Nor does the page mention any of the officers who died in its aftermath. In fact, at one point, the timeline asserts: “Zero law enforcement officers lost their lives.”
The webpage includes a timeline of events on Jan. 6 that accuses the Capitol Police, who were attacked by the rioters for hours, of instigating the violence, and blames Mr. Pence for refusing to subvert the will of the voters to keep Mr. Trump in power.
“Vice President Mike Pence, who had the opportunity to return disputed electoral slates to state legislatures for review and decertification under the United States Constitution, chooses not to exercise that power in an act of cowardice and sabotage,” the webpage states.
“Stolen Election Certified,” another section says.
In a breathtaking reversal of reality, the site accuses Democrats of creating a “gaslighting narrative” about Jan. 6 in their efforts to certify “a fraud-ridden election” and to “persecute innocent Americans,” though those who were prosecuted for storming the Capitol were caught on video taken either by surveillance cameras or by other participants.
Instead, it is the White House account that twists the facts of the riot.
The timeline asserts, for example, that Mr. Trump invited his followers to come to Washington on Jan. 6 for “a peaceful and historic protest” over the 2020 election. It fails to mention that he also tweeted, “Be there, will be wild!” — a presidential imperative that, within hours of its posting, prompted scores of his supporters to issue calls for violence, even to post online images of the weapons, including assault rifles, that they said they planned to bring to the rally.
The White House’s timeline also fails to take note of how far-right extremist groups, like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia, reacted to Mr. Trump’s summons: quickly setting up encrypted communications channels, acquiring protective gear and, in one instance, preparing heavily armed “quick reaction forces” to be staged outside Washington. Many later took the lead in attacking officers and breaching police security lines.
A separate section of the timeline, beginning at 1:10 p.m., asserts that the Capitol Police “aggressively” fired tear gas and other crowd control munitions at the crowd, suggesting falsely that the authorities had acted without cause and saying they “turned a peaceful demonstration into chaos.” But that account leaves out entirely what happened in the minutes leading up to the police response.
Shortly before 1 p.m. that day, a small group of pro-Trump protesters confronted and attacked police officers at metal barricades set up at an area outside the Capitol known as the Peace Circle. Once the barricades fell, thousands of protesters trampled over them and were able to gain access to a plaza where they massed, greatly outnumbering the police officers defending the building.
The webpage also contains blatant falsehoods about the Justice Department’s efforts to hold the rioters accountable. In a section the timeline titled, “Mass Arrests of Patriotic Protesters,” it says that the “Biden DOJ” began “a coordinated nationwide dragnet” leading to the arrest of more than 1,500 rioters.
In fact, the arrests began well before Mr. Trump left office on Jan. 20, 2021, and the investigation was carried out for weeks by Justice Department leaders that he had put in place.
Moreover, the webpage claims that hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants were held as “political prisoners for years” and were given “lengthy sentences.” In reality, far fewer rioters were held in pretrial detention than in cases brought against drug or immigration violation defendants, and the median sentence for the rioters was about 60 days in prison.
Mr. Trump, in one of the first official acts of his second term, issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged.
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
The post White House Posts False Jan. 6 Narrative on Riot’s 5th Anniversary appeared first on New York Times.
