Trump writes letter to Jan. 6 committee after its vote to subpoena him and boasts about crowd size
A day after the House Jan. 6 select committee voted unanimously to subpoena former President Trump, he responded with an angry letter to committee Chairman Bennie Thompson to complain about its work. The select committee has been investigating the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and its root causes, with the aim of determining who was responsible for the mayhem and preventing it from happening again.
Trump did not mention the subpoena, and instead railed at the committee; he said he was writing "to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt." He also attacked the committee for not looking into election fraud and appeared to defend the targets of the committee, who, he claimed were just acting "as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself."
Thompson said in Thursday's hearing that Trump "is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him."
The former president also brought up crowd size in the letter, complete with an appendix of photos of the crowd, and assailed the committee in his first line in all capital letters: "THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!"
The ex-president's attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election have all failed in court, and election security officials nominated or appointed by Trump declared the 2020 election the "most secure in history."
Trump claimed he recommended and authorized "thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety and security at the Capitol and throughout Washington, D.C., on January 6th because I knew, just based on instinct and what I was hearing, that the crowd coming to listen to my speech, and various others, would be a very big one, far bigger than anyone thought possible."
"As it turns out, it was indeed one of the largest crowds I have ever spoken [at] before, a very wide swath stretching all the way back to the Washington Monument," he continued. "The massive size of this crowd, and its meaning, has never been a subject of your Committee, nor has it been discussed by the Fake News Media that absolutely refuses to acknowledge, in any way, shape or form, the magnitude of what was taking place."
Here is Trump's response to the Jan. 6 committee.