Donald Trump Praises Jan. 6 Insurrectionists As ‘Warriors’ | EUROtoday

Former President Donald Trump heaped reward on Jan. 6 insurrectionists as “warriors” over the weekend and falsely acknowledged that law enforcement officials welcomed them into the U.S. Capitol throughout the 2021 riot.

“They were warriors but they were really more than anything else — they’re victims of what happened,” Trump, who’s now a convicted felon, mentioned at a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday.

“All they were doing is protesting a rigged election. That’s what they were doing,” he continued, repeating his false claims in regards to the 2020 presidential election.

Trump additionally falsely claimed law enforcement officials urged a whole bunch of his supporters to storm the Capitol by telling them, “Go in, go in, go in, go in.”

“What a setup that was,” he added.

The declare that law enforcement officials or undercover federal brokers helped orchestrate the Jan. 6 assault has been one of many extra pernicious conspiracy theories on the fitting, being unfold not simply by the previous president and his allies however a number of sitting Republican members of Congress and one other GOP presidential candidate as properly.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified earlier than Congress that the company was “emphatically not” a part of the violence on the Capitol, and there are hours of footage exhibiting U.S. Capitol Police struggling to defend the constructing regardless of being crushed, tased, and bear-sprayed by violent Trump supporters.

Still, Trump has sought to whitewash the occasions of Jan. 6 practically 4 years after the assault, portraying the rioters as victims and vowing to pardon them if he’s elected president once more. At his rallies, Trump typically performs a track recorded by Jan. 6 convicts and pays tribute to them.

“He can’t claim to support law and order and at the same time support those who tried to upend our democracy,” former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell mentioned earlier this yr. “He can’t claim to support law and order and stand at attention saluting the American flag while they play a modified national anthem written by a convicted felon who attacked my co-workers. That’s not leadership; that’s betrayal.”