Donald Trump refused to admit in a speech the day after the 6 January assault on the US Capitol that the 2020 election was over and that he had lost, according to new video outtakes shown by the House committee investigating the attack.
"I don't want to say the election is over," Mr Trump said in footage recorded as he rehearsed a 7 January 2021 speech that White House staff wrote in the hope of encouraging calm, after a mob of the then-president's supporters launched the deadly attack intended to overturn his election defeat.
The previously unseen footage was broadcast during the latest hearing of the House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the attack.
"I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election's over, OK?" Mr Trump said.
Unseen off-camera, his oldest daughter Ivanka could be heard helping revise the speech text.
In the version of the address that was aired at the time, Mr Trump simply said, "Now Congress has certified the results. A new administration will be inaugurated on 20 January"
In another video outtake shown earlier in the hearing, Mr Trump recorded another version of the 6 January remarks he made after the breach of the Capitol, in which he asked supporters to go home.
"This was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home," he said.
The hearing focused on what members said was Mr Trump's failure to act for the 187 minutes between the end of his inflammatory speech at a rally urging supporters to march on the Capitol, and the release of a video telling them to go home.
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