Trump Tries to Rewrite History of Jan. 6 in Campaign’s Final Stretch

Trump Tries to Rewrite History of Jan. 6 in Campaign’s Final Stretch

Donald J. Trump amplified a conspiracy theory that the federal government had staged the Capitol attack and compared jailed rioters to people of Japanese descent in internment camps.

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By Maggie HabermanMichael Gold and Ruth Igielnik

Donald J. Trump on Friday tried to revise the history of the deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, as new details in the federal prosecution against him were made public by the judge in the case.

His attempt to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, came on the same day that he compared his supporters who were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for their actions at the Capitol to the victims of the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. And it followed a recent remark in which Mr. Trump declared Jan. 6 a day of “love.”

The former president made his comments about Jan. 6 and its aftermath at a time when, just weeks before Election Day, uncommitted voters in battleground states tell pollsters that among their top concerns is that they view him as a threat to democracy.

On Friday, on his website Truth Social, Mr. Trump amplified a conspiracy theory that the attack on the Capitol was staged by the federal government, and he promoted his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election.

He reposted a meme that a user had originally posted on Thursday, which read: “January 6 will go down in history as the day the government staged a riot to cover up the fact that they certified a fraudulent election.” Those words appeared over two images of people swarming the outside of the Capitol building that day and waving American flags.

Earlier on Friday, on a podcast hosted by the conservative media figure Dan Bongino, Mr. Trump lamented how those arrested in connection with the attack have been treated.

“Why are they still being held?” Mr. Trump told Mr. Bongino. “Nobody’s ever been treated like this. Maybe the Japanese during the Second World War, frankly. They were held, too.”

During that war, people of Japanese descent were among those held in internment camps under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law Mr. Trump has said he wants to try to use for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants if he returns to the White House.

A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Voters mostly look back on Mr. Trump’s actions after the 2020 election as dangerous. Half of likely voters said his actions went so far as to threaten democracy, compared with 44 percent who said he was just exercising his right to contest the election, according to a New York Times/Siena College survey in July.

And in a recent survey from PRRI, a public opinion research firm, 53 percent of Americans — including 17 percent of Republicans — said Mr. Trump had broken the law to try to stay in power after the 2020 election.

And for undecided and persuadable voters in key battleground states that Mr. Trump is trying to win in the final stretch of the race, seeing him as a threat to democracy was among their top five concerns, with many specifically mentioning the events of Jan 6.

On Friday, Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case against Mr. Trump brought by the special counsel Jack Smith, unsealed a batch of records with extensive redactions. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have opposed the release of the information coming within weeks of Election Day.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to get Judge Chutkan to make prosecutors search for evidence of supposed undercover agents who were involved in the events of Jan. 6. She denied that request and wrote that Mr. Trump’s team had offered nothing more than “speculation” that such people existed.

Mr. Trump repeatedly offered a picture of the Capitol attack this week that downplays the violence that unfolded and maintains that he played no role in its buildup. Federal prosecutors have accused Mr. Trump of coordinating an effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, culminating in the violence that took place on Jan. 6 as Congress was certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win in the electoral college.

The violence was carried out by supporters of Mr. Trump, many of whom had attended a nearby rally where he spoke and told people to “peacefully” and “patriotically” walk to the Capitol. He had urged people to come to Washington for that rally, posting days earlier on social media, “Be there, will be wild!”

Mr. Trump told an undecided voter at a Univision town hall this week that his supporters swarmed Washington that day out of anger at the election.

“They thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came,” Mr. Trump said at the town hall, adding falsely, “There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say ‘we,’ these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands.”

And at an event at the Chicago Economic Club this week, Mr. Trump said: “People were angry. People went there. And I’ll tell you what, they never show that, the primary scene in Washington was hundreds of thousands, the largest group of people I’ve ever spoken before, and I’ve spoken before, and it was love and peace. And some people went to the Capitol, and a lot of strange things happened there.”