LEGAL
Trump on Jan. 6 insurrection: 'These were great
people'
The former president described the participants as
loving and patriotic, and said Democrats could be blamed for any violence.
By DAVID
COHEN
07/11/2021
01:05 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/11/trump-jan-6-insurrection-these-were-great-people-499165
Former
President Donald Trump on Sunday widely praised those who attended the Jan. 6
rally that preceded the insurrection at the Capitol, repeatedly using the word
“love” to describe the tone of the event.
Echoing his
rhetoric about the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Trump
said, “These were peaceful people, these were great people.”
Speaking on
“Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” on the Fox News Channel, he also
said the rally participants were patriots, that some of them were unjustly
arrested and jailed, and that a woman who was shot and killed by law
enforcement during the insurrection was a great hero.
The remarks
reflected recent efforts by Trump and his supporters to cast themselves as the
aggrieved parties from the Jan. 6 riot, which left five people dead and others
injured — and, for a brief time, halted the wheels of democracy as President-elect
Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the Electoral College was being confirmed by
Congress.
Trump’s
reference to “great people” was similar to his remarks after the fatal
confrontation in Charlottesville. “You had some very bad people in that group,”
he said in August 2017. “But you also had people that were very fine people on
both sides.”
In his
interview with Bartiromo, Trump said those at the events of Jan. 6 were loving
people who wanted to save the nation.
“The crowd
was unbelievable and I mentioned the word ‘love,’ the love in the air, I’ve
never seen anything like it,” he said of his rally on the Ellipse. “That’s why
they went to Washington.”
He added:
“Too much spirit and faith and love, there was such love at that rally, you had
over a million people,” inflating the size of his rally crowd.
After
Trump’s speech, the Capitol was invaded by backers of his seeking to disrupt
the Electoral College count. On the way in, they battled with police officers;
according to the Department of Justice, approximately 140 police officers were
assaulted. Hundreds of those who entered the Capitol have been charged with
various crimes, including more than 50 who have been charged with using a
deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.
Trump and
Bartiromo both expressed outrage over the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt
within the Capitol, implying repeatedly that there was a cover-up at work.
Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was fatally shot as she tried to climb through a
broken window during the insurrection.
“Who is the
person that shot an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman, a military woman,
right in the head?” Trump said. “There is no repercussion — that were on the
other side, it would be the biggest story in this country. Who shot Ashli
Babbitt? People want to know and why.”
Bartiromo
then referred to Babbitt as “a wonderful woman fatally shot on January 6 as she
tried to climb out of a broken window.” Their remarks echoed those of some of
Trump’s backers, including Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who has claimed Babbitt
was “executed.”
Referring
to his remarks to the crowd before they stormed the Capitol as “a very
mild-mannered speech,” Trump also suggested that the blame for any violence
that day could be placed on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats
because they didn’t take the potential for violence seriously.
“They are
the ones that were responsible,” he said.
Josh
Gerstein contributed to this report.
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