President Donald Trump blasted the House Jan. 6 committee Tuesday — but not for calling him a criminal.
A day after the congressional panel recommended charges against him for his role in the Capitol riot, Trump angrily denounced the lawmakers for asserting he knew all along that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
“This is a total LIE!” Trump wrote on his social media site. “I never thought, for even a moment, that the Presidential Election of 2020 was not Rigged & Stolen, and my conviction became even stronger as time went by.”
Trump has long been hypersensitive about claims he knows he lost the election. He even trashed his daughter Ivanka for telling the committee she believed he lost.
Trump falsely claimed the FBI “illegally changed the results” of the vote he lost and trolled special counsel Jack Smith as a partisan Democrat who only wants to prosecute him.
“Our Government, through the FBI, RIGGED the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump asserted.
Immediately after the committee issued the historic referral to the Department of Justice, Trump said it would backfire on his enemies.
“What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” Trump said Monday.
Reaction to the referral has been mostly muted, especially when compared to the widespread outrage that erupted in GOP circles after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was searched in the classified documents case.
Former Vice President Mike Pence continued to tiptoe around his ex-boss’ actions regarding Jan. 6, saying he believes Trump was “reckless” but should not be prosecuted.
The committee raised some eyebrows by referring only Trump and right-wing lawyer John Eastman for prosecution.
Its report mentioned ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, onetime Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Trump personal attorney. But it did not specifically refer any of the three for prosecution.
Giuliani slammed the panel’s executive summary, saying “90% of it is garbage.”
When it comes to Meadows, some legal observers believe federal prosecutors still hope to obtain his cooperation in a case against Trump.
The congressional committee referred Meadows for prosecution once before after he snubbed their subpoena for testimony, although he did hand over a trove of text messages related to Jan. 6. But prosecutors declined to prosecute him or White House social media director Dan Scavino, suggesting to some that they may aim to flip them.
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