(The Hill) – Former President Trump on Friday alleged nobody had been treated worse than those imprisoned for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, other than Japanese Americans who were put in internment camps during World War II.
Trump appeared on “The Dan Bongino Show,” where he questioned why those prosecuted for their actions on Jan. 6 were still being held after a Supreme Court ruling in June found an obstruction law used to charge scores of rioters was improperly applied.
“The other thing is as you know they really won in the Supreme Court. The Fischer case and the various cases,” Trump said. “Why are they still being held? Nobody’s ever been treated like this. Maybe the Japanese during Second World War, frankly. But, you know, they were held, too.”
Trump, who went on to attack the House committee that investigated the events of Jan. 6, called it “a very sad day in the country’s life.”
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Roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans were held in internment camps during World War II after then-President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order. The treatment of Japanese-Americans during that period has been widely condemned in the decades since, with President Biden calling it “one of the most shameful periods in American history.”
On Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob violently clashed with law enforcement at the Capitol to try to halt the certification of President Biden’s 2020 victory. The riot followed weeks of claims from Trump that his defeat was fraudulent.
The Justice Department charged roughly 1,500 defendants in connection to the attack on the Capitol that day. Roughly 550 have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees.
The Justice Department said nearly 900 individuals have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges in relation to the events of Jan. 6.
Trump, who himself was charged over his attempts to remain in power, has in recent days repeatedly downplayed the attack on the Capitol. At a Univision town hall event, he told one voter concerned about the events of Jan. 6 that it was a “day of love.”
The former president during a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait claimed there was a peaceful transfer of power in 2020 because he eventually left office.