Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) told a defender of Donald Trump he was "missing the point" about the former president's role in instigating the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The disagreement came Wednesday during a House Administration Committee hearing where Republicans suggested Democrats were responsible for Jan. 6 because the National Guard was not called in to deal with the rioters.
"The claim that somehow the Select Committee didn't investigate the National Guard response to the security failures at the Capitol on January 6th is inconsistent with the facts," Torres disagreed. "As I mentioned, the Select Committee interviewed 24 individuals and reviewed 37,000 pages of documents related to the National Guard on January 6th."
"But let me just remind everyone, you know, about what the President was putting out on social media during that time," she continued. "At 2.24 p.m., the President tweeted out regarding Vice President Pence not having the courage to do the wrong thing that he wanted him to do."
"He didn't tell them to go home. It took many of his own closest allies to get him to this point."
Torres said, "The truth is he wanted the violence to continue until he could take custody and continue to keep custody of his position."
The lawmaker noted that Republicans "want to continue to blame Democrats for what happened on that day, but Democrats did not tell the mob, the angry mob that was armed to go to the Capitol."
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She observed that Trump issued "no clear directions" to the National Guard on Jan. 6.
Colonel Earl Matthews of the D.C. National Guard spoke up in defense of Trump.
"We all told [the Jan. 6 Committee] that there are issues with the credibility of several witnesses, that people were not responding honestly and accurately as part of the investigation, and that was disregarded," Matthews remarked.
"I think you're missing the point," Torres interrupted. "There would have been no riot had the President of the United States not set up the stage and ordered people and told them that he would join them at the U.S. Capitol."
"There had been no gallows that was erected to hang the Vice President if the President had not wanted them to stop us from certifying the election," she added. "You're missing the point of all of what happened six months prior to January 6th, the chaos that was happening within the branches of the military that are sworn to never get involved in domestic affairs."
Watch the video below from the House Administration Committee.
