Former President Donald Trump blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser for the events that unfolded during last year's Capitol riot.
"January 6th is her [Bowser] and Nancy's fault. 'No, I'm not kidding' (as Joe Bidden would say!)," Trump said Sunday on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The ex-president's post included his earlier comments that criticized Bowser for asking the National Guard to help deal with migrants being transported to D.C., alleging that she refused to do so during the Capitol riot.
In a July 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's office and in another letter sent to the White House on July 22, Bowser requested help from the National Guard to handle the influx of migrants that were being bused into the city from Texas and Arizona.
Christopher Rodriguez, director of Washington, D.C.'s emergency management agency, said in the letter on behalf of the mayor, that the situation has reached "tipping points" as more buses arrived in the last month.
The mayor asked the National Guard "to help prevent a prolonged humanitarian crisis in the nation's capital" where efforts by nonprofits helping migrants resettle in the country became "unsustainable" as they are "overwhelmed and underfunded."
The issue began after Republican Governors Doug Ducey of Arizona and Greg Abbott of Texas began shipping migrants from their states to D.C. after President Joe Biden pledged in April to lift a Trump-era order restricting border crossings to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Rodriguez wrote in the letter. The nation's capital has since seen more than 4,000 people brought in with nearly 200 buses.
Trump on Friday targeted Bowser in a Truth Social post, saying: "The Mayor of Washington, D.C., wants the National Guard to help with the thousands of Illegal Immigrants, coming from the insane Open Border, that are flooding the City, but refused National Guard help when it came to providing Security at the Capitol Building for a far larger crowd on January 6th. Figure that one out?"
His remarks come after the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot presented evidence last week revealing that Trump took no action for over three hours after his supporters stormed the Capitol just 15 minutes after his "fight like hell" speech in an apparent effort to disrupt the official certification of Biden's electoral college victory.
Some of Trump's top allies have come forward with testimonies to the committee including top White House lawyer Pat Cipollone, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, and former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, among others. Some of his Cabinet's officials also reportedly spoke with the committee recently, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Newsweek reached out to the offices of Pelosi and Bowser for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Fatma Khaled is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics, world ... Read more
