The Washington Post says it decided against publishing former President Donald Trump’s full response to a three-part investigation into the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol as it contained “unrelated” and “inflammatory claims.”
In an article published on Sunday, the Post said its investigation examined “the consequences of President Donald Trump’s inaction during the Capitol siege and examined how his false claims of election fraud helped incite the attack and, in the ensuing months, fostered a deep distrust of the voting process across the country.”
The investigation also “found that law enforcement officials failed to heed mounting red flags that there would be violence when Congress formalized the electoral college vote on Jan. 6.”
Additionally, the paper reached out to the former president with “a list of 37 findings reported as part of its investigation.”
“His spokesman Taylor Budowich provided a lengthy written response that included series of unrelated, inflammatory claims that The Post is not publishing in full,” it said.
It noted, however, that Budowich said Trump “greatly objected” to the findings and called the paper’s investigation “fake news.” The response also alleged that the rioters who stormed the Capitol were “agitators not associated with President Trump” and “repeated Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.”
The statement continued:
“The media’s obsession with the January 6th protest is a blatant attempt to overshadow a simple fact: there is no greater threat to America than leftist journalists and the Fake News, which has avoided a careful examination of the fraudulent 2020 election. The media, just like the Democrats, do not want to see secure and honest elections. Instead of reporting the facts, outlets like the Washington Post sow division, hate, and lies, like it is doing with this story.”
Finally, the portion of the statement published by the Post insisted that “the media has failed to do its job, including truly exposing Silicon Valley for its role in illegally rigging the election with hundreds of millions of dollars in dark money.”
“America is furious at the results of November 3rd and deserve answers. They deserve to protest and demand the truth from their Representatives. However, since the media isn’t asking the questions, it’s being left up to the people to seek the truth,” it added.
The decision not to publish Trump’s full response comes days after The Wall Street Journal was criticized for publishing a full letter to the editor written by the former president that contained several unfounded claims of widespread fraud in the election.
The Journal’s editorial board responded to the critics writing, “We trust our readers to make up their own minds about his statement. And we think it’s news when an ex-President who may run in 2024 wrote what he did, even if (or perhaps especially if) his claims are bananas.”
