After Wyoming GOP Rep. Elizabeth Cheney read texts from three Fox News hosts to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows into the Congressional Record during the latest House January 6 Committee hearing, Laura Ingraham pushed back on claims and insinuations that she was being irresponsible, hypocritical or not publicly professing her true opinion of the rioting that was going on at the time.
Earlier Tuesday, Cheney — previously appointed the vice-chair of the committee by its leader, Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson after most of the party-leadership-assigned Republicans were blocked from participating earlier this year – read aloud text messages between Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Brian Kilmeade to Meadows individually on the day of the riot.
“This sent the left-wing media hacks into ‘Spin & Defame’ mode. Of course the regime media was trying to twist this message to try and tar me as a liar and hypocrite who privately sounded the alarm on January 6 but privately downplayed it,” she said.
Cheney, a vocal opponent of former President Trump, said in Congress Tuesday that Ingraham and others “knew [Donald Trump] needed to act immediately”.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy. (Jim Bourg/Pool via AP, File)
“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol this is hurting all of us – he is destroying his legacy,” she read from Ingraham’s messages. Meadows has since been pursued on contempt charges from the committee after halting cooperation most recently.
Ingraham said late Tuesday that the insinuated idea that she publicly egged on the rioters, ostensibly as a supporter of the purported pro-Trump cause, was a “big lie” being disseminated by Cheney and newspaper reporters like Aaron Blake of the Washington Post.
She pointed to a lengthy tweet from Blake from earlier in the day, saying he “grossly mischaracterized what I said in an attempt to smear me.”
House 1/6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi (screenshot).
“[Blake] was not alone. CNN’s chief propagandist Brian Stelter joined on the smearfest writing that ‘they all knew the truth right away by the night of January 6, Ingraham was spouting conspiracy theories… based on a lie she pushed over and over again’,” she said, reading from Stelter’s comments at one point.
Ingraham said she never supported election “conspiracy theories” about a stolen 2020 election as accused by Stelter.
She added that claims Stelter made about her claiming the Marxist group Antifa had infiltrated the protesters were indeed clarified by Ingraham upon further reportage as “not substantiated.”
“Another inconvenient fact those little men left out: Had they bothered to actually watch what I said the night of January 6 or read any of my public tweets from the afternoon of January 6, they couldn’t have denied the truth.
She then replayed parts of her “Angle” from that evening’s show:
“The Capitol was under siege by people who can only be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement. Now they were likely not all Trump supporters, and there were some reports that Antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.
“The point remains, if you were a Trump supporter trying to display your support for the president, today’s antics at the Capitol did just the opposite.
“Those who breached the Capitol Hill security today, whoever they were, they were criminals. I’ve been to literally dozens of Trump events, and the criminal actions we saw today do not represent this movement.”
“Does that sound like I was downplaying it to you,” she asked. Ingraham then read her public tweets from January 6 as well:
“Security breach at the Capitol is disgraceful and the president needs to tell everyone to leave the building now. 2:44 P.M. Anyone thinks this is gonna the MAGA movement is delusional. It hurts the movement, the Trump legacy and of course the country.”
“The president should order [National Guard] to secure the Capitol immediately.”
“When there’s any big crowd there will invariably be bad actors, but blame will be laid at the feet of the White House if Capitol not cleared quickly.”
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“Now this is all public record, kids,” Ingraham concluded. “The real big lie is the expansive narrative of January 6th that these clowns have made the center of the political existence. So it’s time to face facts, shut down the false narrative and treat Cheney and her clique the way the American people treat them: by tuning them out.”