by John Solomon
Former President Donald Trump claimed vindication Monday after new evidence released by Congress undercut two sensational claims Democrats made about him during the Jan. 6 investigation, including that he tried to commandeer his Secret Service vehicle that day to go to the Capitol and never offered National Guard troops for extra protection ahead of the fateful event.
“These were made-up, fabricated stories,” Trump told Just the News in an exclusive interview.
Trump spoke hours after the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., released transcripts and other evidence in an interim report that concluded the Democrat-run House Select Committee on Jan. 6 withheld from the public evidence that contradicted its final conclusions.
That evidence included an interview with the Secret Service driver of the presidential SUV, who directly contradicted former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, the Democrats’ star witness during their 2022 nationally televised hearing, and disputed her claim Trump tried to grab the wheel of the presidential car known as “The Beast” and tried to strangle a Secret Service agent in a desperate effort to get his detail to go the Capitol where the riot was happening.
Trump has always denied the account, and Loudermilk’s report released parts of testimony from multiple Secret Service and White House officials that directly undercut the claims of Hutchinson and the conclusions of the Democrat-led investigation released in December 2022.
“Well, the story was false and so ridiculous that I would grab these young, strong guys,” Trump said during an interview Monday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.
Trump said the story could not have been true because there were protective obstructions in the presidential vehicle, an SUV, that would keep him from reaching the front seat.
“I don’t even know if you’d be able to do it, because they have a lot of things in between the drivers in the back, you know, like steel, then various other things. And I would imagine it would be very hard to do. But the whole concept of me doing it, these were made up fabricated stories. And they got tremendous play,” he said.
Trump acknowledged he asked the Secret Service if he could go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after his speech on the Ellipse and was told they had no security to do it safely.
“I said, I think, let’s go down to the Capitol. And the Secret Service was very nice and said, ‘Sir, really better for you to go back to the White House. It really is, you know, we’re not prepared to go down there.’ And I understood that and it was no big argument,” he said.
Trump blamed the leaders of the Democrat-led Congress for creating and sustaining false narratives, citing reports from Loudermilk’s committee that some evidence and transcripts were delated, transferred to other agencies or password protected to keep the American people form the truth.
“Well, they actually did destroy evidence. They deleted evidence,” he said.
“These are really sick people,” he added. “You know, I talk about the enemy from within, and the enemy from without; the enemy on the outside, and the enemy on the inside. And I’ll tell you what, in many ways, the enemy on the inside is far more dangerous than China and Russia. And all of it, these are really bad people. And actually, they are insurrectionists. When you see things like you’ve found out today, and over the last couple of weeks, they really are insurrectionists.”
Trump praised Loudermilk and his committee for persisting to get Americans the facts so they can make up their own minds.
He cited as an example newly released testimony from former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Tony Ornato that Trump had indeed authorized sending as many as 10,000 National Guard troops to help Washington DC and Capitol police days ahead of the Jan. 6 tragedy.
“When you have a president that offers to put in the military or I would do whatever they would have wanted, it would have been fine,” he said. “Whether it be the National Guard or the military, whatever they wanted, would have been fine. And you don’t take him up on the offer. And then you blame the president later on because they had a problem.
“If they would have taken just a small portion of the 10,000 people. I specifically said 10,000. I also used the words I believe, ‘or more’ if you need them. But 10,000 is a lot,” he added. “But if they would have had 500, they would have had no problem. …The whole thing would have never happen. January 6 would never have you would not know the term. But they didn’t do that. They said no, we don’t want them.”
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John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News. Before founding Just the News, Solomon played key reporting and executive roles at some of America’s most important journalism institutions, such as The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast and The Hill.
