On the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the White House unveiled a new webpage recasting President Donald Trump as a hero and blaming Democrats and Capitol Police for the violence that erupted after Trump beckoned his supporters to Capitol Hill to “fight like hell.”
Many of the claims on the new site — published Tuesday and promoted on social media by White House officials — are false. It repeats, for example, Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him by Joe Biden, and says there was “no evidence of armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government” on Jan. 6.
In fact, dozens of court cases alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 election were thrown out — including by Trump-appointed judges. And while the insurrection was underway, Trump himself asked then-Vice President Mike Pence to shirk his constitutional duty to certify Biden’s electoral win, the former vice president has said. Trump also publicly urged Pence to reject Biden’s election victory, as he did repeatedly on social media.
Trump’s efforts to get Pence to bend to his will were a central part of his 2023 indictment on election interference charges brought by former Special Counsel Jack Smith. The case was derailed after the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s official actions as president were immune from criminal prosecution.
The White House page also seeks to hold then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., primarily responsible for the events of the day. It features a clip filmed by her daughter, a documentary filmmaker, on Jan. 6, in which Pelosi says, “We did not have any accountability for what was going on there and we should have.” In the clip, Pelosi asks, “Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?”
Ian Krager, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said in a statement provided to MS NOW: “Cherry-picked, out-of-context clips do not change the fact that the Speaker of the House is not in charge of the security of the Capitol Complex — on January 6th or any other day of the week. The ongoing attempts to whitewash the deadly insurrection are shameful, unpatriotic, and pathetic.”
A timeline of the events featured on the webpage also claims that Trump was calling for peace as the melee unfolded. In fact, an archive of his social media posts shows Trump was angrily tweeting, including about Pence, throughout the violent ordeal.
White House communications director Steven Cheung trolled MS NOW on Tuesday over its coverage of the new White House Jan. 6 site, tweeting “LOL!” and saying the network “actually fell for our trap in covering the new January 6 page on the White House website.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the new site on Wednesday, calling it “quite well done.”
“We knew the media would be covering January 6 quite a bit,” she said, “because they think it’s something that the American people are still believing their lies on.”
While many of the claims on the new webpage are false, some are accurate, if lacking critical context. The page notes, for example, that on his first day back in office last year, Trump “issued sweeping pardons and commutations for the vast majority of January 6 defendants.”
But the White House narrative also falsely claims that those charged were “patriotic citizens who had been viciously overcharged, denied due process, and held as political hostages by a vengeful regime.” It also says many of those who were convicted were “mere trespassers or peaceful protesters treated as insurrectionists by a weaponized Biden DOJ.” More than 170 insurrectionists pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement and about 140 police officers were injured the day of the Capitol riot. At least 33 of the people Trump pardoned have been rearrested, charged or sentenced for other crimes since then, according to a report compiled and released Monday by House Democrats. Their crimes range from drug possession and armed robbery to rape and possession of child sex abuse material. The White House webpage also mentions nine “beautiful and courageous souls” who died as a result of the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, including insurrectionists awaiting their sentencing who died by suicide. It makes no mention, though, of the five police officers who died afterward, four by suicide. The page concludes with a more than hourlong video of Trump speaking to protesters outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, alongside a clip labeled the BBC’s “deceptive edit,” referring to the basis of a $10 billion lawsuit the president filed against the British broadcaster for allegedly making it look like he explicitly encouraged the violence. The BBC apologized for the edit before Trump filed the suit. The webpage echoes comments Trump has made about Jan. 6, including labeling it “a day of love.” Soon after he was inaugurated last year, the DOJ deleted a database tracking the rioters’ crimes. Update, Jan. 7, 1:09 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with comments from the White House press secretary.
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
