One after the other, several of Donald Trump’s former top advisers have told a special House committee investigating his role within the Jan. 6 riot that they didn’t consider his lies in regards to the 2020 election, and that the previous president knew he lost to Joe Biden.
But as an alternative of convincing Trump’s most stalwart supporters, testimony from former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s daughter Ivanka in regards to the election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol is prompting lots of them to easily reassert their views that the previous president was correct in his false claim of victory.
Barr’s testimony that Trump was repeatedly told there was no election fraud? He was paid off by a voting machine company, based on one false claim that went viral this week. Ivanka Trump saying she didn’t consider Trump either? It’s all a part of Trump’s grand plan to confuse his enemies and save America.
The claims again exhibit how deeply rooted Trump’s false narrative in regards to the election has turn into.
“It’s cognitive dissonance,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a Syracuse University professor who has studied how Trump used social media and promoting to mobilize his base. “In case you consider what Trump says, and now Bill Barr and Trump’s own daughter are saying these other things, it creates a crack, and folks should fill it.”
A Tweet from former President Donald Trump is displayed on a screen because the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol holds a hearing on the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The lawmakers leading the hearings into the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol said one in all their goals is to indicate how Trump repeatedly lied to his supporters in an effort to carry onto power and subvert American democracy.
“President Trump invested thousands and thousands of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information, running ads he knew were false, and convincing thousands and thousands of Americans that the election was corrupt and he was the true president,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s vice chair. “As you will notice, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January sixth.”
For individuals who accept Trump’s baseless claims, Barr’s testimony was especially jarring. In his interview with investigators, he detailed Trump’s many absurd allegations in regards to the election 2020, calling them “bogus” and “idiotic.”
Barr told the committee when he talked with Trump, “there was never a sign of interest in what the actual facts were.”
“He’s turn into detached from reality if he really believes these things,” Barr said.
Following his testimony, many Trump supporters using sites like Reddit, GETTR and Telegram blasted Barr as a turncoat and noted that he’s disputed Trump’s election claims before.
But many others began grasping for alternative explanations for this testimony.
“I’m still hoping Barr is playing a job,” one poster said on a Telegram channel popular with Trump supporters.
One post that spread widely this week suggested Barr was paid by Dominion Voting Systems, an organization targeted by Trump and his supporters with baseless claims of vote rigging. “From 2009 to 2018, DOMINION PAID BARR $1.2 million in money and granted him one other $1.1 million in stock awards, based on SEC filings. (No wonder Barr can’t find any voter fraud!),” the post read.
Incorrect Dominion. Barr was paid by Dominion Energy, a publicly traded company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, that gives power and warmth to customers in several mid-Atlantic states.
A video clip is displayed of former Attorney General Bill Barr because the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its first public hearing to disclose the findings of a year-long investigation, on the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 9, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Unlike Barr, Ivanka Trump has remained intensely popular with many Trump supporters and is seen by many as her father’s potential successor. Which may be why so many had to search out an an alternate explanation for why she told Congress she didn’t accept her father’s claims.
Jordan Sather, a number one proponent of the QAnon theory, claims each Barr and Ivanka Trump lied during their testimony on Trump’s orders, a part of an elaborate scheme to defeat Trump’s enemies by confusing Congress and the American public.
“I can just imagine Donald Trump telling Ivanka: ’Hey, go to this hearing, say these items. Screw with their heads,’” Sather said last week on his online show.
Some Trump supporters dismissed Ivanka Trump’s testimony entirely by questioning whether any of it was real. That’s one other common refrain seen on far-right message boards. Many posters say they don’t even consider the hearings are happening, but are a Hollywood production starring stand-ins for the previous president’s daughter and others.
“She looks different in an enormous way,” one poster asked on Telegram. “CGI?”
