President Donald Trump appeared to forget his own role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot in a post to Truth Social early Sunday morning. While Joe Biden had been elected two months earlier, he wasn’t officially president until January 20 — two weeks after the riot.
In a 1 a.m. post, Trump claimed the “BIDEN FBI” was responsible for the Capitol riot, framing the Biden administration as accountable. The claim is obviously flawed: Trump himself was president at the time, meaning any federal law enforcement involved would have been under his administration, not Biden’s.
Legal experts quickly noted the inaccuracy. The Justice Department and FBI operate under long-standing rules designed to maintain independence from political influence, but Trump’s framing misrepresents the timeline and the facts.
The post fits a familiar pattern of Trump shifting responsibility for controversial events and legal scrutiny onto political rivals. While he has long portrayed investigations into his actions as partisan attacks from Democrats and Biden, this post goes further by blaming someone who wasn’t even in charge at the time.
Trump has repeatedly recast public perception of his legal and political challenges, from the 2020 election Georgia disputes to ongoing investigations, including cases involving New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The Truth Social post has sparked social media debate, with critics calling it a sort of revisionist history. While the rhetoric may energize his base, it highlights a growing disconnect between Trump’s narrative and the documented timeline of events.
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