The Dangerous Revision Of Jan 6 History On The Official WH Website

As I wrote to you last night, five years on from January 6, Donald Trump is trying to rewrite the history of the insurrection. The White House published a new website today, detailing their version of the timeline of the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. He accuses Democrats, pictured in black and white across the top of the page along with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, of promoting a “gaslighting narrative” of the day’s events.

The new page starts with the claim that, “President Trump took decisive action to pardon January 6 defendants who were unfairly targeted, overcharged, and used as political examples. They were not protected by the leaders who failed them. They were punished to cover incompetence.” It goes on to assert that his pardons ended “years of harsh solitary confinement, denied due process, and family separation for exercising their First Amendment rights.” The website fails to acknowledge that these criminal defendants were charged by grand juries, convicted at trial, or in many cases, convicted after they pled guilty, and had full appeal rights.

Trump concludes: “The Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as ‘insurrectionists’ and framing the event as a violent coup attempt orchestrated by Trump—despite no evidence of armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government. In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection,” which the website says was the certification of the 2020 election that the White House describes as “fraud-ridden” and for allegedly “weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters.” The courts resoundingly rejected Trump’s claims of a stolen election, with even the Supreme Court ruling against him.

Some of Trump’s peacefully protesting tourists

The website turns to the blame game—trying to foist off responsibility for January 6 on Nancy Pelosi and Democrats—and offers a timeline that emphasizes Trump’s call for peaceful protest.

A video taken by Pelosi’s daughter is included for the stunning proposition that she accepted blame for the attack on the Capitol. It’s selectively edited video and a debunked claim, indeed, an insincere one for the man who ignored pleas for help from members of his own party and watched the chaos unfold on television when he could have put a stop to it. As Pelosi’s office put it at the time, "Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed again and again that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination on January 6th.” But there it is, on the White House’s official website.

In a speech this morning at the House GOP retreat, held at the newly renamed “Trump Kennedy Center,” Trump, referring to the speech he gave on the Ellipse five years ago, alleged that “the news never reported the words 'walk or march peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol.’” As far as I recall, those words were widely reported, along with everything else the president said and tweeted at the time, in full context. Trump’s claim that he called for an entirely peaceful protest that day is offset by Jack Smith's recent testimony that the evidence he compiled established Trump’s complicity. “The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.”

Read the full transcript of Trump’s speech to the crowd on January 6, 2021, here and make your own assessment. The full context is important, especially with the president installing a sanitized version on the White House website, a slanted version that includes the word he was doubtless encouraged to insert about peacefulness, for the obvious reason that the speech was one that otherwise exhorted the crowd to take action. “We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved,” the president told the crowd in the first seconds of his address.

Trump also said:

• “Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal. Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election, and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.”

• “By the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? … There’s never been anything like this. We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.”

• [The crowd then breaks in, chanting, “Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!” Trump does not discourage this.]

• “We're going walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women … You have to show strength, and you have to be strong … We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections.”

• “Looking out at all the amazing patriots here today, I have never been more confident in our nation's future. Well, I have to say we have to be a little bit careful. That's a nice statement, but we have to be a little careful with that statement. If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our country, because it's illegal when the votes are illegal, when the way they got there is illegal, when the States that vote are given false and fraudulent information.”

• “So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give ... The Democrats are hopeless. They're never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don't need any of our help, we're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

This morning, Nancy Pelosi tweeted, “We must speak plainly: January 6th was an attempted coup. It was an effort to nullify millions of lawful votes and subvert the will of the American people. But the attack failed because of the courage of public servants who gave proof through the night that our flag was still there by refusing to bend to pressure, threats, or intimidation. On that day, the Constitution held and we kept the Republic.”

Trump is trying to take it away again, this time with a rewrite of history that is worthy of George Orwell’s 1984. Our job as citizens is clear. We have to remain committed and refuse to let that happen. Facts are powerful. If the truth wasn’t so damaging, Trump wouldn’t be going to this much trouble to rewrite it. That he has public resources and a president’s bully pulpit to do it with is shameful and dangerous.

Last night I wrote to you about the Virginia museum curator, Bill Martin, who insisted on exhibits that put on display a shameful history of teaching fourth graders in the state that slavery was a good time with happy slaves, a gross misrepresentation of reality. Mr. Martin stood for the truth and dislodged and exposed that narrative so it could not be reinstated. We have to do that with Trump’s newest effort to rewrite the history of January 6. Trump may temporarily control government websites and museums, but we control the public narrative on the ground—we are everywhere across the country.

If you read Civil Discourse, you’re part of a community that believes facts and truth matter. Increasingly, there’s a new mood in this country, one that says we are not captives to Donald Trump. By reading and sharing the newsletter, you’re a part of spreading that. Your paid subscriptions make this work possible and I’m very grateful.

We’re in this together,

Joyce