Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday the evidence that Trump was responsible for Jan. 6 Capitol riot was “very powerful.”
On ABC’s “This Week,” Schiff claimed a direct connection between former President Donald Trump’s contention that the 2020 election was fraudulent and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capital, The Hill reported.
“The evidence is very powerful that Donald Trump … began telling this big lie even before the elections, that he was saying that any ballots counted after Election Day were going to be inherently suspect,” Schiff said, according to The Hill. (RELATED: Pelosi’s Political Theater Just Lost Its ‘Star Witness’)
“That lie continued after the election and ultimately led to this mob assembling and attacking the Capitol,” he continued, according to the outlet.
Schiff says evidence of Trump being responsible for Jan. 6 attack is “very powerful” https://t.co/7MYZqMS7B0 pic.twitter.com/Qq3Ph7pmAB
— The Hill (@thehill) June 12, 2022
Schiff also claimed that Trump’s actions were intended to “incite” the mob on Jan. 6, the outlet noted.
“But I think what’s important, again, is the broad context of all of this, the knowledge prior to Jan. 6, that there were going to be violent white nationalist groups, assembling along with others on that mall,” Schiff said, according to The Hill. “And the decision by the president nonetheless to incite that mob and do nothing while that attack was taking place.”
Schiff was a chief proponent of the theory that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, a theory disproven by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s own investigation into the alleged collusion. Despite this, Schiff continued to peddle the theory even after the release of Mueller’s report. “Bob Mueller did not find there was no collusion,” Schiff said in January 2020.
Schiff is now a member of the Jan. 6 Committee, which is investigating the events leading up to and during the Capitol riot.