After the final summer hearing of the committee last week, the talk on the sets of CNN and MSNBC was about what might happen. The case for a criminal prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump was justified, according to many pundits, because of the evidence that he failed to act when riots broke out at the Capitol.
The response from the pro-Trump platforms felt new, reflecting the lengths to which his Praetorian Guard of friendly media have gone to rewrite the violent history of that day.
The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, two influential outlets on the right, denounced Mr. Trump over the weekend, even as the committee portrayed him in a vivid way. They accused the Capitol Police of being part of a government plan to criminalize political dissent.
The former president would have taken more direct steps, such as ordering the arrest of Vice President Mike Pence, if he had had the chance.
"You would think with all the talk of criminality, they would show us," Mr. Levin said. He said there wasn't anything. There is absolutely no evidence that Donald Trump was involved in an attempt to overthrow the government. Nothing.
The 14th amendment states that anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" is barred from holding federal office.
The media called January 6 an insurrection because of that.
The author is an MSNBC contributor.
You may have initially recoiled in horror at what happened at the Capitol, but you were deceived by the mainstream media.
According to Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and talk radio host who left the party because of its steadfast support for Mr. Trump, the disgust with the media is stronger now than it was a year ago. Half of the country didn't think it was a hoax when the committee presented its evidence.
It can be difficult to understand the juxtaposition.
The conservative narrative often relies on false statements from law enforcement and incomplete witnesses, which is a typical occurrence in any investigation so long.
Julie Kelly, a writer for the website American Greatness, is one of the most influential journalists on the right. Ms. Kelly has questioned the severity of the attack and downplayed the deaths of the police officers on the scene.
According to an early report from the Capitol Police, Brian Sicknick, an officer, died after collapsing from injuries he sustained while engaging with pro- Trump rioters. He died of natural causes hours after the attack.
Ms. Kelly and others seized on the findings without acknowledging that the officer had been sprayed with a chemicalirritant by rioters, or that the trauma he experienced may have played a role in his condition. In a piece that ran in April under the headline "Defund the Capitol Police," she said thaticknick didn't die as a result of what happened on January 6. The lie that Trump supporters are responsible for his death is still being peddled by Capitol police.
She did not reply to the email.
The idea that people breaching the Capitol by force is a hoax is one of the ways conservatives have turned on the Capitol Police.
There are many videos of rioters breaking in. Dominic Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys, was captured by a police officer and used a police shield to break a window to allow rioters to storm the building.
Tucker Carlson mocked the testimony of an anonymous former White House security official who claimed that the Secret Service called their families to say goodbye if they were killed. Mr. Carlson showed a video in which Capitol Police officers stood by as rioters streamed through barricades.
He called the hearings a show trial and said he was proud of his network for not airing them in prime time.
Capitol Police officers are depicted as less than heroic. One story that went viral on the right in the last week was about a 69-year-old woman who was sentenced to 60 days in prison for being in the Capitol. The sympathetic messages conservatives heard about her were typical of the way she was portrayed. She was described as a victim by the hosts, because she was a cancer patient.
Clay said to think about months of B.L.M. protests. How many rioters are going to prison for what they did? This is completely wrong.
The biggest revelations from the committee have fallen flat in the right wing media. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, described Mr. Trump's angry reaction after the Secret Service agents refused to escort him to the Capitol.
Alex said that many of Trump's supporters loved the idea that he was fighting to join them at the Capitol.
The impeachment proceedings and the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election were seen by many conservatives in the audience. He said that Trump was a victim of a drive-by campaign.
The conservative media has done a good job of defending the former president. As the committee made its case, few people questioned his actions. Some have begun to show interest in other potential Trump rivals. Ms. Ingraham had an interview with the governor of Florida on her show.
The denunciations of Mr. Trump by the Post and Journal suggest that there may be more to come.
Both publications, which are part of Murdoch's conservative media empire, questioned Mr. Trump's character. The latest revelations were described ashorrifying.
His behavior on January 6 was called his "eternal shame" by the Post.
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