Trump is telling the country that the FBI ushered the January 6 rioters into the Capitol. That is a lie, and it needs to be said plainly before it hardens into something people repeat. He said it again on Sunday during an interview on Meet the Press, and when Kristen Welker told him there was no evidence for it, he told her to look at the tapes. The tapes do not help him. They never have.
Here is what the FBI story is actually covering for. Trump wants to use taxpayer money to pay the January 6 rioters, including the ones who attacked police, and he needs a reason that sounds like justice instead of a reward. So he turns the people who broke into the building into victims and turns the agents and officers into the criminals. Welker asked him directly whether anyone who assaulted police that day should get a payout. He said he would not be inclined to say so, but he had to see it. Then he pivoted straight back to the FBI.There is no evidence the FBI walked anyone in. There is a mountain of evidence of the opposite. More than 170 people pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement on January 6. Over a thousand pleaded guilty to crimes connected to the attack. About 140 officers were injured, some dragged into the crowd, some beaten with poles, some crushed against the doors they were trying to hold. None of that is in dispute. It is on video, in court records, and in the sworn admissions of the January 6 rioters themselves.
And yes, we watched it. The whole country watched it live, in real time, the windows breaking and the bodies pushing through while Congress hid. That is why the gaslighting is so brazen. Trump is not spinning a story about something that happened in the dark. He is telling us we did not see the thing we all saw with our own eyes. The tapes he keeps pointing to are the same broadcast we watched five years ago, and they show an assault, not a guided tour.
The lie has a purpose, and the purpose is money. The administration set aside roughly 1.78 billion dollars in what it calls a weaponization fund, meant to compensate people it says were wrongly targeted under Joe Biden. Trump made it clear on air that he wants the January 6 rioters in line for it. He called the fund a great idea. He said many of those people should be compensated. He said he would be disappointed if it did not get approved. The FBI story is the permission slip. If the rioters were really just victims of dirty cops, then paying them looks like fixing an injustice instead of rewarding an attack.
That framing only holds if nobody checks it, so check it. Trump named James Comey and John Bolton as dirty cops in the same breath, the same way he names anyone who ever crossed him. He claimed 97 percent of the people charged were victims. He offered no proof for any of it, and the moderator said so to his face more than once. Repeating a thing louder is not evidence. It is just volume.
The plan is also failing in the places that actually decide these things. A Senate vote last week to permanently block the fund fell short by a single vote, 49 to 50. A federal judge put a temporary stop on it on May 29. Trump’s own acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, told lawmakers on June 2 that the administration was not moving forward, and the Justice Department later put that in writing. Trump talked about the fund on Meet the Press like none of that happened, because the story he is telling does not leave room for it.
Remember that he already pardoned roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants on his first day back in office. The convictions are gone. Now some of those same January 6 rioters want millions on top of the pardon, arguing the prosecution itself was the crime. The pardon said you are forgiven. The payout would say the country owes you. The FBI lie is what carries you from the first to the second.
The interview ended the way it usually does when the questions get specific. Welker pushed him for evidence on his election fraud claims and tried to move him to a question about Blanche. Trump called the press crooked, threw doubt on California’s vote count from earlier in the week, and walked off the set about 50 minutes in.
So let the correction stand, because it is simple and it is true. The FBI did not usher the January 6 rioters into the Capitol. The rioters broke in, hundreds of them admitted it under oath, and officers got hurt holding the line. We watched it happen, and no amount of money or fund or talking point changes what is on the tape. Trump is betting that if he says the lie long enough, the country will trade what it saw for what he needs it to believe. The tape is still there. So is the truth.
It’s not a lie just because you say it is. The FBI has been known throughout history to infiltrate and disrupt almost every major movement. It’s more likely than not that he is telling us something.