Donald Trump has doubled down on his unfounded claims of election fraud after a congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021, riot on the US capitol voted to subpoena the previous president and attainable 2024 candidate.
In a letter to the committee’s chairperson, dated Thursday and posted to Trump’s Reality Social platform Friday, the previous US president reiterated his wholesale rejection of the investigation, which was launched months after his supporters stormed the US Capitol within the hopes of overturning President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump didn’t point out the subpoena, which the panel unanimously accredited following its ninth public listening to on the occasions surrounding the lethal riot and Trump’s position in it.
As an alternative, Trump repeated a litany of falsehoods associated to the incident, together with the unfounded claims that widespread fraud had affected the result of the presidential vote.
Thus far, there was no proof that malfeasance shifted the election outcomes. Dozens of lawsuits by Trump’s marketing campaign and its supporters have been dismissed or dropped as a result of they have been discovered to haven’t any benefit.
“This memo is being written to specific our anger, disappointment, and grievance … you haven’t spent even a brief second on inspecting the large Election Fraud that happened in the course of the 2020 Presidential Election,” learn the letter, which was signed by Trump, “and have focused solely those that have been, as involved American Residents, protesting the Fraud itself.”
Trump additionally once more claimed that he had “really helpful and licensed hundreds of troops” to be deployed to the US Capitol for the rally, however the request was blocked by Democratic Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Thus far, no proof has emerged backing both declare. On Thursday, the congressional panel performed video of Pelosi and different legislators interesting to an array of officers for safety backup as they waited, trapped, in the course of the riot.
Whereas missing proof, Trump’s misinformation marketing campaign has remodeled the upcoming midterm elections, which in November will determine which events management the US Home of Representatives and Senate, in addition to who will occupy prime state postings and legislatures.
In keeping with a Washington Submit evaluation, of the 569 Republican candidates operating for the Home and Senate or prime state roles, 291 have questioned or outright denied the result of the 2020 presidential election.
At the least 171 of these candidates are projected to win handily, whereas one other 48 are in tightly contested races.
In his letter, Trump acknowledged the power of his supporters within the upcoming polls.
“The individuals of this Nation is not going to stand for unequal justice underneath the legislation, or Liberty and Justice for some,” he wrote. “Election Day is coming.”
In the meantime, with Democrats anticipated to lose the Home within the midterms, it’s unclear what sensible impact, if any, the congressional panel’s subpoena could have. If a Republican-controlled chamber takes over within the new Congress in January, it might doubtless finish the panel’s probe.
Nonetheless, chatting with US broadcaster Nationwide Public Radio on Friday, Consultant Jamie Raskin mentioned a failure of Trump to conform would have large symbolic significance.
“If he refuses to come back ahead, he’s basically assenting to our institution of his central culpability in staging the coup towards America and the violent riot,” he mentioned.
He added that the panel may pursue felony contempt of Congress fees, because it did towards Steve Bannon, in addition to a civil order looking for to implement the subpoena, though each situations are more likely to finish in protracted court docket battles.
“We don’t suppose that is just a few form of poetic train,” Raskin mentioned. “We actually need and anticipate Donald Trump to come back ahead and to reply an entire bunch of questions we’ve got about this assault on our constitutional order.”