Chaffetz: Democrats’ Capitol Riot Montage Violated House Rules on Manipulated Video
Democrat impeachment managers play deceptively edited anti-Trump video as 'evidence'
© press
Former Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz has raised the question of whether Democrat impeachment managers will face disciplinary proceedings after playing a deceptively edited video of the Capitol riot during President Donald Trump's Senate trial.
On Tuesday, House Democrats played a video montage supposedly delineating what happened on January 6 at the breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) played the video to Senators as Democrats attempted to make the case that the impeachment of President Trump was constitutional.
The propaganda video consisted of a cherry-picked, out-of-context fragments from Trump's Jan. 6 speech - at some points only including part sentences.
The clips were edited together in a way that sought to smear the 45th POTUS and blame him for the violence that broke out later that day.
In response, Chaffetz noted that the video violates the Rules of the House of Representatives for the One Hundred Seventeenth Congress that bans videos that have been “distorted or manipulated with the intent to mislead the public.”
© press
Chaffetz tweeted, “Go to page 34 of House Rules.
"Did the manipulated video violate the House Rules?”
Go to page 34 of House Rules. Did the manipulated video violate the House Rules?https://t.co/v7eyPYVUNo
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) February 9, 2021
Those House rules state:
The Committee on Ethics is directed to report to the House, not later than December 31, 2021, any recommended amendments to the Code of Official Conduct, as well as any accompanying regulations, intended to address the circumstances and instances, if any, for which a Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House may be subject to discipline for the dissemination by electronic means, including by social media, of any image, video, or audio file that has been distorted or manipulated with the intent to mislead the public.
© press
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) pointed out that the video intentionally elided remarks by Trump in which he stated that the protesters on January 6 should protest “peacefully and patriotically.”
Zeldin stated:
The part that they did play of the president’s remarks, of course, end up cutting out the message the president sent to his supporters that day, that those who were heading to the Capitol should do so peacefully and patriotically.
Of course, as they’re playing the videos and they’re telling their argument, they aren’t going to give the full story of the FBI warning a day ahead of time that this attack was going to take place or that pipe bombs were being found; they’re being placed and found before the president’s remarks were even concluded, or that the Capitol perimeter was being breached before the president was done with his speech.
There’s a full story here and one of the consequences of rushing to draft this article — and then so many of the House Democrats, they’re for speech with the impeachment — is that they’re basing this primarily on the argument that the president gave a speech that day that incited a riot.
And in so many ways that’s actually been disproven by now, and to your point, Lindsey, if they’re going to start playing the video of what the president said, how do you cut it out at the point where the president’s telling his supporters to do so peacefully and patriotically?
WATCH: @RepLeeZeldin highlights how the House Democrats used a deceptively edited video to make their case during today's impeachment trial.
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) February 9, 2021
"How do you cut it out right at the point where [President Trump] is telling his supporters to do so peacefully and patriotically." pic.twitter.com/DavmmUvPB4
Prior to the showing of the video, one of the senior aides to the nine House Democratic impeachment managers said, “We plan to be succinct and to the point and non-repetitive.
"The attack happened in plain sight.
"There is compelling, overwhelming evidence.
"It’s on video and elsewhere.
"We plan to fully utilize all the evidence available in all the forums, including evidence that nobody has seen before.”
If the video contains "compelling, overwhelming evidence," then why was it edited in such a deceitful way?
