You are going to hate this. Watch the second video, the longer one. Trump “unequivocally condemned” the violence. Please stop spewing ignorance.
x.com
Just related to the violence on January 6th, this neglects the following information:
- Trump's speech prior to sending his supporters to the Capitol: He told them to “fight like hell” because if they didn’t, they were “not going to have a country anymore.” Not everyone who left the Ellipse did as the Commander-in-Chief ordered, but many of them did. The fighting intensified during the hours that followed.
- The 187 minutes between the end of President Trump’s speech and when he finally told the mob to leave the U.S. Capitol was a dereliction of duty. In the U.S. military, a service member is deemed to be “derelict in the performance of duties when that person willfully or negligently fails to perform that person’s duties or when that person performs them in a culpably inefficient manner.” As Commander-in-Chief, President Trump had the power—more than any other American—to muster the U.S. Government’s resources and end the attack on the U.S. Capitol. He willfully remained idle even as others, including his own Vice President, acted.
- The President tweeted at 2:24 p.m., at the height of the violence, that his own Vice President lacked the “courage” to act—a statement that could only further enrage the mob.
- In testimony before the Select Committee, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley explained that President Trump did “[n]othing,” “[z]ero” to marshal the Government’s resources during the assault on the U.S. Capitol.
- President Trump’s closest advisors—both inside and out of the White House—implored him to act sooner. Earlier in the week, two of the President’s most trusted aides, Eric Herschmann and Hope Hicks, both wanted President Trump to emphasize that January 6th would be a peaceful protest. President Trump refused.
- At 2:38 p.m., President Trump sent this tweet: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!” Sarah Matthews, the White House Deputy Press Secretary, told the Select Committee that President Trump resisted using the word “peaceful.” The President added the words “Stay peaceful!” only after Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase.
- There’s no question that President Trump had the power to end the insurrection. He was not only the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military, but also of the rioters. One member of the mob, Stephen Ayres, told the Select Committee that he and others quickly complied as soon as President Trump finally told them to go home. “[W]e literally left right after [President Trump’s 4:17p.m. video] come out. You know, to me if he would have done that earlier in the day, 1:30 [p.m.] . . . maybe we wouldn’t be in this bad of a situation or something,” Ayres said. [additional testimony corroborating this follows.]
All of this bothers a lot of people, but it's not even the worst of it IMO. I find the months long campaign against the election's integrity and the actual subversion attempts via the false electors plot to be worse Presidential actions.
Source: January 6th Committee report. pgs 577-581
