WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Former President Donald Trump has cancelled a news conference he had scheduled for January 6, which marks the first anniversary of pro-Trump mob's riot at the Capitol Hill.
Trump did not specify the reason for cancelling the event, which was scheduled to be held at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday night, but accused the media and the bipartisan House committee investigating the deadly attack of 'total bias and dishonesty.'
The businessman-turned-politician plans to provide comments at a rally on January 15 in Arizona.
'In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am cancelling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona-It will be a big crowd!' Trump said in a statement released Tuesday by his Save America PAC.
At a joint session of Congress convened to certify the election victory of Joe Biden on January 6, 2021, dozens of Trump-supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted the proceedings. Five people, including one woman shot by police, died and about 140 members of law enforcement were injured in the rampage, apparently instigated by Trump.
The nine-member House select committee, which is dominated by Democrat lawmakers, is probing if Trump had knowledge about the riot in advance.
A federal appeals court last month had rejected the former Republican President's bid not to release his White House records to the committee investigating the Capitol riot.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will speak on Thursday morning at the Capitol Hill marking the first anniversary of the incident
'On Thursday, the President is going to speak to the truth of what happened - not the lies that some have spread since - and the peril it has posed to the rule of law and our system of democratic governance,' White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a news conference Tuesday.
She said that the President will speak to the historical significance of January 6th and what it means for the country one year later.
Psaki recalled that on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, Biden called what was happening at the Capitol then 'an unprecedented assault on our democracy' and an attempt to subvert our Constitution and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.
'He will also mark that day - commemorate the heroes of January 6th, especially the brave men and women of law enforcement who fought to uphold the Constitution and protect the Capitol and the lives of the people who were there. Because of their efforts, our democracy withstood an attack from a mob and the will of the more than 150 million people who voted in the presidential election was ultimately registered by Congress,' Psaki told reporters.
Trump insists that Biden fraudulently won the presidential election, and refuses to acknowledge losing it.
In his statement, Trump vehemently criticized the Congressional investigation of the Capitol attack.
'This is the Democrats' Great Cover-Up Committee and the Media is complicit,' Trump said. 'Why is the primary reason for the people coming to Washington D.C., which is the fraud of the 2020 Presidential Election, not the primary topic of the Unselect Committee's investigation? This was, indeed, the Crime of the Century,' he added.
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