WASHINGTON (AP) — As a mob overran the U.S. Capitol last January, some of Donald Trump's highest-profile defenders in the media — and even his own son — sent urgent text messages to the White House chief of staff urging him to get the then-president to do more to stop the violence.
But they did not publicly display that same sense of alarm mere hours after the deadly insurrection. And they have since joined some of the country's top Republicans in downplaying Trump's role in the attack — part of a larger effort to rewrite the history of Jan. 6.
Here are some of the frantic messages that Trump allies sent to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as the insurrection was unfolding and what they’ve said publicly about the events since then:
DONALD TRUMP JR.
“He’s got to condemn this s-— ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Trump's eldest son wrote in a text message to Meadows about his father. That's according to excerpts read Monday by Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of a House committee investigating what happened.
Earlier on Jan. 6, before the violence, the younger Trump tweeted that his father “has the people!!!” over a picture of throngs of pro-Trump demonstrators who gathered in Washington. When word began to surface that the Capitol was breached, Trump Jr. changed his tone, tweeting, “This is wrong and not who we are. Be peaceful," and "Don’t start acting like the other side. We have a country to save and this doesn’t help anyone.”
But,...
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