Donald Trump Hits Back at Ivanka Trump’s Account That She Accepted His Election Loss
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump, long known for distancing himself from or sidelining staffers who contradicted him while he was in the White House, discovered a new target Friday: his eldest daughter.
The morning after the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol played videotaped testimony from his daughter, Ivanka Trump, during the prime-time public hearing, Mr. Trump used his social media website to to separate herself from what she had said and to say that she had been “checked out” during the last days of his reign.
In the testimony, Ms. Trump said she was influenced by a statement dated December 1, 2020 by William P. Barr, then the Attorney General, that there was no widespread fraud that had altered the outcome of the election. She testified that she respected Mr Barr and “accepted what he said.”
“Ivanka Trump was not involved in viewing or studying the election results,” Mr Trump wrote on his social media website Truth Social in one of eight messages he posted there in response to the hearing. “She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, just trying to be respectful of Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he was worthless!).
Mrs. Trump was a senior adviser in the White House, and she continued to serve in the administration until the end. Her colleagues recall that she was one of those who urged White House officials to “fight” on election night, even when it became clear that her father would most likely lose. Her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also a senior White House adviser, attended several meetings on post-election strategy with a range of political and West Wing advisers, as well as attorneys such as Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Reducing his daughter’s comments was just one way Mr. Trump attacked the hearing, the first in a series of sessions to be held by the House committee this month.
He denied having reacted approvingly to the “Hang Mike Pence!” Chants about the vice president were heard by some of the rioters in the Capitol on Jan. 6, a report shared during the hearing by Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney and the panel’s vice chair.
“I NEVER said, or even thought of saying ‘Hang Mike Pence,'” Trump wrote on the social media site. “This is either a made-up story of someone who wants to be a star, or FAKE NEWS!”
Ms. Cheney didn’t say he used those words, but she cited testimony that Mr. Trump had responded to the chants by saying that “maybe our supporters have the right idea” and that Mr. Pence “deserves it.”
In another post on the site, Mr. Trump described the commission as a “completely partisan, POLITICAL WITCHHUNTING!” And in two other posts, he attacked Mr. Barr, calling him a “coward,” “weak and scared,” “stupid” and “afraid of being impeached.”