Former President Donald Trump offered no response to the House Jan. 6 committee’s demands that he testify under oath in a 14-page memo that sharply criticized the panel’s investigation as a “witch hunt of the highest level.”
Mr. Trump addressed the memo to the committee’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, following the committee’s unanimous vote to issue a rare subpoena to a former president on Thursday in a final power play capping the panel’s swan-song hearing.
In his memo, the former president doubles down on his claims that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen,” and accuses the panel of “going after American Patriots who questioned it.”
“This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt,” Mr. Trump wrote in the Friday memo.
“Despite strong and powerful requests, you have not spent even a short moment on examining the massive Election Fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election, and have targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself,” he wrote.
After meeting mostly behind closed doors for close to a year, the panel made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans hand-picked by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, held a series of eight public meetings over the summer aiming to showcase what they call a “coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power.”
The hearings featured live testimony from former White House and Justice Department aides, state elections officials, documentary filmmakers and Capitol Police officers caught up in the rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The committee also unveiled clips from closed depositions and snippets from text message chains and emails it had gathered throughout the investigation. They also built digital models of the White House and Capitol to reproduce key scenes from the riot.
The hearings have been a highly produced rollout of evidence in which the committee highlighted the chaos at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and described what members said was Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the presidential election.
Republicans accuse the Democratic-led panel of weaponizing the events of Jan. 6 and using the committee to target them and the former president.
On Thursday, the panel held what is expected to be its final hearing offering the lawmakers’ most direct attempt yet to lay the blame for the planning and execution of the riot on Mr. Trump, in a final pitch before voters head to the polls for next month’s midterm election.
Members unveiled footage of lawmakers, including Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of California, and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, of New York, reacting to the rioters as the Capitol and legislative chambers were being overrun.
The committee laid out a case that Mr. Trump knew ahead of the riot and ignored warnings from the Secret Service about potential violence at the Capitol.
Mr. Trump also wrote in his memo Friday that the panel overlooked his efforts to secure the Capitol and to increase security throughout Washington in advance of the Jan. 6, 2021, congressional votes to certify the election. Mr. Trump said he recommended and authorized “thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety and security” that day.
“I knew, just based on instinct and what I was hearing, that the crowd coming to listen to my speech, and various others, would be a very big one, far bigger than anyone thought possible,” he wrote.
He said his efforts to deploy the National Guard were rebuffed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Capitol Police.
“Why the failure to act or use this ready force?” he wrote. “Had even a small percentage of National Guard or fencing been there, there would have been no problem, January 6th would have been just another date. I did my job long ahead of schedule. Some people call it good instinct, but the troops were ready to go.”
“Nancy Pelosi and Muriel Bowser didn’t do their job, they didn’t like the look of soldiers, and sadly your Committee refuses to say anything about it, because if they did, it would be clear that I did everything correctly, and that is not what the Committee wants to see,” he said.
The panel capped its hearing Thursday with a dramatic vote on a resolution to issue a subpoena demanding that Mr. Trump testify under oath and turn over documents related to the riot.
“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion. Every American is entitled to those answers, so we can act now to protect our republic,” said Ms. Cheney, who lost a Republican primary challenge in Wyoming because of her strong opposition to Mr. Trump.
She also said the committee has sufficient evidence to make multiple criminal referrals to the Justice Department.
Mr. Trump mocked the subpoena vote, questioning why it came at the very end of the process.
“Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly,” he wrote on his Truth Social social media platform.
But he did not indicate how he intends to respond to the demand to testify, pointing to the looming midterm vote where many predict Republicans will reclaim control of the House.
“The people of this Country will not stand for unequal justice under the law or Liberty and Justice for some. Election Day is coming,” Mr. Trump wrote. “We demand answers on the Crime of the Century.”
• Mica Soellner contributed to this story.
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.