Trump: January 6 'represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country'

Ahead of the first public House hearings on the protest march, Trump on Thursday defended his "Save America" rally on January 6, 2021, which left five people dead.

"January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

"It was about an Election that was Rigged and Stolen, and a country that was about to go to HELL,” he added.

Trump claimed that he won the 2020 presidential election and that there was "massive" voter fraud. The former president claimed that he ordered 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the Capitol. He increased the number to 20,000 in his statement.

"The Unselect Committee has now learned that I, as President, suggested & offered up to 20,000 National Guard, or troops, be deployed in D.C. because it was felt that the crowd was going to be very large," Trump wrote.

On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters occupied the US Capitol while lawmakers were in the process of reviewing the certification of state electors which indicated Biden's victory. Some Trump supporters had hoped that this process could have resulted in some of the electors being disqualified, thus overturning the outcome of the presidential election.

It is claimed by some that the demonstrators were infiltrated and incited by provocateurs from US intelligence agencies, who orchestrated the “false flag operation” in order to get rid of Trump.

Some among the crowd clashed with police, and some made threats to beat up a number of Democratic lawmakers. Some also inflicted damage on parts of the Capitol building.

“January 6 was the conclusion of the theft of the election, but it was stolen from Trump, not by him,” said Don DeBar, a New-York based journalist.

“The riot and crashing of the Capitol negated the possibility of a series of challenges allowed under the Constitution and the Rules of the Joint Session which would have resulted in interruptions of the session to separate hearings in each house to examine the details of the election challenges in each of the key states,” he said on Friday.

“The breach occurred during the first of what would have been six different trials of fact that could have taken place, in public and on television.
Instead, the breach and its PR management across the US media, coordinated with the leadership of both parties, made the very idea that there was an election theft seem treasonous,  instead of making it possible to be used as a weapon to keep Trump from being re-elected ever again, as we're now seeing,” he noted.

Trump has been casting doubt on the outcome of his loss by insisting it was the result of fraud. He has said that the 2020 presidential election was “the greatest Election Hoax in history.”

Trump’s claims have significantly delegitimatized the democratic process in the United States. A recent poll has found that at least 50 percent of Republican voters surveyed believe their vote will not be counted accurately the next time they cast a ballot.