“Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at or studying the election results. She was already checked out and I think was just trying to be respectful of Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!)” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
While Trump seeks to downplay his daughter’s role in his administration at the time of the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, Ivanka Trump nonetheless accompanied her father to a rally in the White House Ellipse that preceded the attack on the US Capitol.
In the clip from her testimony, which aired Thursday night, Ivanka Trump was asked about her reaction when Barr said there was no widespread voter fraud.
“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka Trump said. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he said.”
The selection committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, on Friday dismissed Trump’s reaction to his daughter’s testimony, telling CNN’s Erin Burnett on OutFront, “To somehow suggest that his daughter checked out is disingenuous on his part as a father. Daughters usually know what their fathers are doing, especially when there is a close relationship.
Ivanka Trump met with the committee virtually for nearly eight hours in April, and CNN previously reported that she echoed critical testimonies from other witnesses who said the then-president was reluctant to try to withdraw the rioters despite being asked to do so.
“They kind of supported the fact that the President was told he had to do something to stop the January 6 uprising. That he had to deal with it publicly; he had to be direct,” Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told CNN about the committee’s interviews with Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner.
“In that regard … we have been able to systematically fill in many of the gaps in our testimonies and interviews with other witnesses,” Thompson said.
The committee also drew attention to Barr’s behind-closed-door testimony, in which he said Trump’s claims were “bullshit.” Barr, who resigned in December 2020, said part of the reason he left the Trump administration was Trump’s false allegations of fraud (although he did not publicly state that reason at the time).
“I’ve made it clear that I don’t agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and posting this stuff that I told the President was bullshit,” Barr said in the video, which was released was played by the committee on Thursday.
This story was updated with additional developments on Friday.
CNN’s Shawna Mizelle contributed to this report.
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