Biden Lashes Trump Over Jan. 6, Saying He ‘Lacked the Courage to Act’

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday denounced former President Donald J. Trump’s refusal to decisively intervene to cease the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, declaring that his predecessor “lacked the braveness to behave” and betrayed the cops he claimed to help.

Mr. Biden, who has largely prevented discussing the previous president or the Jan. 6 investigation by a Home choose committee,weighed in throughout a press release to a company representing Black regulation enforcement leaders.

“The police have been heroes that day,” the president mentioned within the videotaped remarks from the White Home residence, the place he’s recovering from Covid-19. “Donald Trump lacked the braveness to behave. The courageous ladies and men in blue all throughout this nation ought to always remember that. You’ll be able to’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You’ll be able to’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You’ll be able to’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.”

The president’s feedback got here simply 4 days after the Home committee wrapped up its string of summer season hearings with a prime-time assembly outlining Mr. Trump’s inaction because the mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to cease the counting of the Electoral Faculty vote sealing his re-election defeat. Mr. Trump didn’t name his vp, his protection secretary, his navy chief, his legal professional normal, his homeland safety secretary or anybody else to dispatch assist to the Capitol that day.

As an alternative, testimony confirmed, Mr. Trump spent the afternoon watching the violence unfold on Fox Information and resisting aides who saved imploring him to take motion. A name from a Pentagon official to coordinate a response initially went unanswered as a result of “the president didn’t need something performed,” in accordance with a White Home lawyer whose account was introduced in the course of the listening to. The tweets and video he finally did concern didn’t condemn the assault and in some instances appeared so as to add gas to the fireplace.

Mr. Trump and his allies haven’t any function within the committee’s proceedings as a result of Consultant Kevin McCarthy of California, the Home Republican chief, opted towards appointing anybody to the panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected a few his preliminary decisions. The president has not in any other case rebutted the account of his refusal to behave that day.

However his political motion committee did submit an article on Monday recalling a Pentagon inspector normal report final November noting that Mr. Trump informed his protection secretary three days earlier than Jan. 6 that there could be many protesters coming and he ought to guarantee there was sufficient safety to make it a protected occasion.

Because the hearings have performed out, Mr. Biden has principally not commented, a lot much less addressed Mr. Trump by title, focusing as an alternative on his personal agenda. However some Democrats have been dissatisfied that he has been so quiet on the matter.

Mr. Biden appeared under no circumstances reticent in Monday’s remarks to the Nationwide Group of Black Legislation Enforcement Executives, delivered from a lectern with the presidential seal and with an American flag behind him.

“On Jan. 6, we relied on regulation enforcement to avoid wasting our democracy,” the president mentioned. “We noticed what occurred. The Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, different regulation enforcement businesses have been attacked and assaulted earlier than our very eyes. Speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized. Lives have been misplaced. And for 3 hours, the defeated former president of america watched all of it occur as he sat within the consolation of the non-public eating room subsequent to the Oval Workplace.”

“Whereas he was doing that,” Mr. Biden added, “courageous regulation enforcement officers have been topic to the medieval hell for 3 hours, dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage, head to head with a crazed mob that believed the lies of the defeated president.”