Predictably, commentary quickly emerged from Trump’s corner after the Justice Department said in a filing in a federal appeals court that the ex-president could be sued for comments and behavior of his while in office alleged to have provided incitement for the Capitol attack.
In a sprawling statement credited to a Trump spokesperson that the ex-president himself reposted on his personal account on his knock-off social media site Truth Social, that spokesperson — and by extension, Trump himself — seemed to get the basic nature of relevant facts wrong. “President Trump’s speech and statements on January 6, 2021, repeatedly called for peace, patriotism, and respect for our men and women of law enforcement,” the statement claimed. “President Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard troops to ensure peace and safety on January 6, 2021, only to have that offer rejected by Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. The D.C. Courts should rule in favor of President Trump in short order and dismiss these frivolous lawsuits.”
The Justice Department wasn’t addressing the substance of his comments, meaning whether they in fact provided actionable incitement for what took place at the Capitol. That’s a matter for further proceedings. Rather, department staff were speaking to the prospect of suing Trump at all.
“THEY’RE NOT COMING FOR ME, THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU — I’M JUST IN THEIR WAY!!!” Trump himself screamed online — but that’s not true, because it’s not everybody who’s accused of the kind of allegations he’s facing.
Meanwhile, the description of Trump supposedly having “authorized” that many troops is not supported by long available evidence — including that it doesn’t seem Democratic leaders such as Pelosi would have even been able to block him from deploying the D.C. National Guard if he so chose.
Christopher Miller, who was head of the entire Defense Department on January 6, also debunked that favored line. “I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature,” he said, discussing the idea of tens of thousands of troops readying to protect the Capitol. “We obviously had plans for activating more folks, but that was not anything more than contingency planning. There was no official message traffic or anything of that nature.”
Miller’s commentary, which was provided in testimony to the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot, undercuts the evident idea in the new comments from a Trump spokesperson of some formal authorization of that many troops. It’s not even clear Pelosi would’ve been directly involved in deciding on these sorts of security questions at all. The Capitol Police board includes a security staff member from the House, which Democrats controlled at the time — and another such member from the Senate, which Republicans led.
