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Donald Trump criticized the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack soon after the panel's first televised hearing, during which he was blamed for the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The former president shared his reaction to the televised proceedings on Truth Socialthe social network he created after he was banned from Twitter in the wake of the January 6 riot over fears he would use the platform to incite violence.

"So the Unselect Committee of political HACKS refuses to play any of the many positive witnesses and statements, refuses to talk of the Election Fraud and Irregularities that took place on a massive scale, and decided to use a documentary maker from Fake News ABC to spin only negative footage," Trump said. "Our Country is in such trouble!"

Trump was making reference to former ABC News television executive James Goldston, who was brought in by the panel to help them produce televised hearings that are being broadcast live on all major news networks except Fox News.

Before the hearing began, Trump attacked the House Committee investigating the attack while repeating his long dismissed claims of voter fraud in a series of Truth Social posts, including describing the panel as an "Unselect Committee of political Thugs."

During Thursday's proceedings, the committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, described January 6 as a "culmination of an attempted coup" that was Trump's "last stand" and his "most desperate chance" to halt the transfer of power to Joe Biden following the 2020 Election.

Vice Chair Liz Cheney, one of only two Republicans on the panel, said the crowd of Trump's supporters, which included far-right extremists, stormed the Capitol on January 6 because they were "motivated" by the former president's false election fraud claims and assertion he was the rightful president.

"President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack," Cheney said.

Thursday's hearing was a mixture of speeches from the panel, multimedia presentations and live testimony from Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who was severely injured in the riot, and Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who was filming members of the Proud Boys on January 6.

The panel said that the far-right group, whose members have been charged with sedition in connection to January 6, were partially inspired by Trump's "will be wild"' tweet telling his supporters to attend protests in Washington D.C. that day.

One of the most damning clips played during on Thursday was of the former president's eldest daughter, former White House adviser Ivanka Trump, admitting that she didn't share her father's view that the last election was rigged against him.

The footage showed Ivanka Trump saying she "accepted" former Attorney General William Barr's assessment that claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 Election were "b******t."

Cheney also revealed that Trump reacted to reports of Capitol rioters chanting "hang Mike Pence" by suggesting they "have the right idea" and that his former vice president "deserves it."

In the run up to January 6, Trump repeatedly and falsely suggested that Pence could stop the certification of the 2020 Election results during his purely ceremonial role as presiding officer of the Senate.

Even as the attack was taking place, Trump tweeted that Pence "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done" with regards to stopping the election being certified.

"Donald Trumpthe President of the United Statesspurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy," Thompson said in his opening statement.

"Any legal jargon you hear about 'seditious conspiracy', 'obstruction of an official proceeding', 'conspiracy to defraud the United States' boils down to this: January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup. A brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6th, to overthrow the Government.

"Violence was no accident. It represented Trump's last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power."

Update 06/10/22 at 3:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with background information throughout.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump Reacts to First Jan. 6 Hearing'Such Trouble'